weekends go fast, even when they are long
Feb. 6th, 2022 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eorThis weekend we got restarted on the siding project. Derien help me do blopentine on Friday and priming on Saturday. Having two of us doing it goes through twice as many roller covers, but it is a much less overwhelming prospect than 3-4hours of the same motions. With luck I'll be able to finish up the priming on that batch tomorrow night. Today I hauled all the short pieces from the garage up to the work room. Slowly, inch by inch, we make it to the goal.
Thursday night/Friday we had a sleet storm which ended as snow. We had 3 or 4 inches of sleet on the ground Friday morning instead of the 8 inches of snow which was predicted. The snowblower skated over the top of it and didn't want to bite in. Then about 9am it turned into big fluffy flakes and gave us some proper snow.
The snow has made it more challenging to get the wood down from the garden shed, where this year's wood sits. I use the wheelbarrow because you can carry more wood with the wheelbarrow and once you hit the downhill things tend to go quite swiftly. Sometimes it's like skijoring. After a few snowstorms the unpacked snow does tend to be a challenge on the up part of the journey and the flats. The down slope is still generally a mix between smooth sailing and uncontrolled terror because most of the time momentum wins.
After shovelling an obvious spot, I put out a mouse for the bluejay. It's a bummer when I drop a mouse and it is immediately buried in the snow, so I try to make a solid surface. Within minutes it was gone. I suspect a larger and darker corvid got it, because I saw one about. In the past our crows and ravens have been shy, never near the driveway and only in the lower yard if there were no humans out. But this year I've seen them near the suet feeders and in the trees around the driveway. I don't know whether they are getting more comfortable with us or just more desperate.
I managed to order more parts for the van over the last few days. The supply chain for obscure van parts is pretty sketchy at the best of times, lately it's been downright grim. I've been waiting for some things to come into stock for a year or more. Looking for parts is like playing where's Waldo. Order something which shows as "In Stock", get an email and a refund two days later, wash, rinse, repeat. At some point I hope to hear from the guys about the engine. It was going to be Fall, then "a few months", and the last I heard was "finish up the current project, do one engine swap, then you're next." They are having the same supply chain challenges as everyone else and it's not going to kill me to wait a little longer. It's not like I need to drive it for work, even when I am driving to work.
I'm vaguely lining up the van work I plan to do once the weather gets better, but a lot of that depends on the aforementioned parts. I would like to get the brakes finished up and the fuel system rebuilt. I've got the heavy duty sway bar for the front which I just need to get put on, that would go well with the front brakes because both will require an alignment (changing brakes, spindles, hubs, a big job).
We have been forced into new phones by carriers refusing to support our old ones. The planned obsolescence of the whole thing really pisses me off. It's such a waste to trash a perfectly good phone because the carriers and the manufacturers refused to support anything more than two years old. It's really unnecessary and absurdly bad for the planet.
Thursday night/Friday we had a sleet storm which ended as snow. We had 3 or 4 inches of sleet on the ground Friday morning instead of the 8 inches of snow which was predicted. The snowblower skated over the top of it and didn't want to bite in. Then about 9am it turned into big fluffy flakes and gave us some proper snow.
The snow has made it more challenging to get the wood down from the garden shed, where this year's wood sits. I use the wheelbarrow because you can carry more wood with the wheelbarrow and once you hit the downhill things tend to go quite swiftly. Sometimes it's like skijoring. After a few snowstorms the unpacked snow does tend to be a challenge on the up part of the journey and the flats. The down slope is still generally a mix between smooth sailing and uncontrolled terror because most of the time momentum wins.
After shovelling an obvious spot, I put out a mouse for the bluejay. It's a bummer when I drop a mouse and it is immediately buried in the snow, so I try to make a solid surface. Within minutes it was gone. I suspect a larger and darker corvid got it, because I saw one about. In the past our crows and ravens have been shy, never near the driveway and only in the lower yard if there were no humans out. But this year I've seen them near the suet feeders and in the trees around the driveway. I don't know whether they are getting more comfortable with us or just more desperate.
I managed to order more parts for the van over the last few days. The supply chain for obscure van parts is pretty sketchy at the best of times, lately it's been downright grim. I've been waiting for some things to come into stock for a year or more. Looking for parts is like playing where's Waldo. Order something which shows as "In Stock", get an email and a refund two days later, wash, rinse, repeat. At some point I hope to hear from the guys about the engine. It was going to be Fall, then "a few months", and the last I heard was "finish up the current project, do one engine swap, then you're next." They are having the same supply chain challenges as everyone else and it's not going to kill me to wait a little longer. It's not like I need to drive it for work, even when I am driving to work.
I'm vaguely lining up the van work I plan to do once the weather gets better, but a lot of that depends on the aforementioned parts. I would like to get the brakes finished up and the fuel system rebuilt. I've got the heavy duty sway bar for the front which I just need to get put on, that would go well with the front brakes because both will require an alignment (changing brakes, spindles, hubs, a big job).
We have been forced into new phones by carriers refusing to support our old ones. The planned obsolescence of the whole thing really pisses me off. It's such a waste to trash a perfectly good phone because the carriers and the manufacturers refused to support anything more than two years old. It's really unnecessary and absurdly bad for the planet.
