Friday, May 07, 2010

Gone With The Wind...another story

So here's the picture, you have the following LARGE and HEAVY and USED appliances and objects of the kind. What to do with them when you live in a small town (pop. 28,000 overall but Olde Town maybe 1000) and they are not so obvious that the local thieves can get to them on your back porch in the last 3 1/2 months. What EXACTLY are they you might ask...well there's a Hotpoint Electric Range, 4 years old or so in good condition and yes, it works. Also there's a portable KitchenAid Dishwasher that is about 20 years old that also works, a pellet stove about 15 years old in ok condition too, a range hood that works, a mirrored vanity/er ah medicine cabinet that is in good shape. All free for the taking. I thought this through and realized all I REALLY HAD to do was move them into prominence in the side yard, front porch or sidewalk and see what happened. I did so yesterday afternoon, a lot of grunting and dragging and groaning later all were in place, wiped clean as I would wipe them and I closed the gate behind me and low and behold. In 10 minutes flat a nice lady came by and relieved us the vanity. The rest remained through the night. This morning about 10 a man suddenly showed up, stoned maybe...certainly, wordy, intelligent and a bit over-the-top loaded but wanting the Hotpoint Range/Oven.
So it disappeared down the street on a red trolley affair. Kelly and I went to the South 40 to look over the garden plot, went then to the Swamphouse and got the Armoire from her bedroom. We soon had it strapped down in the bed of the trusty Ford pickup and returned slowly to Morgan Street. What do you know...the PELLET Stove has gone now too! Whoopee! Sight unseen these things are being recycled into willing and wanton hands.

Also, note that the photo at the top of the page now changes like it used to do in France, I FINALLY hooked up the Logitech webcam and downloaded YAWCAM to enable FTPing it's images to our server for your perusal dear readers. It is pointed due East towards the rising sun over the not so distant church spire and downtown Suisun.

UPDATE 5/8/2010:
Only the Range hood and the Dishwasher remain as of 4pm Saturday. Oh well, have to haul them off to Goodwill Industries I guess.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Cut You Deep and Wide...

Huh? So a letter, Dear sir or madam, we have summarily, without further warning CANCELLED your home insurance. Huh? What? Why? How? When? Shit. Reading on, this house! Our "new" abode! What?! Good gawd, what gives? Then the not-so-trivial details reveal themselves:
1. Paint is peeling, er ah, check!
2. The roof tiles are curled, uh...check!
3. The gutter leaks, hmmm, check!
They don't love us anymore. Shit! Merde!
My list is far longer than theirs but they cancelled the damned insurance over these THREE (3) infractions unknown by us before hand! Really! So Kelly called the nice Framer's Insurance Group folks whom we have been insured in this house for the last 16 years...yes...16 years to determine how we get it back. (Hint: Get to work Lute!)
So we have about a month, less today than when we got the letter last Thursday. So up to the roof with the extension ladder lifted from the weeds at the Swamphouse, now empty. Back and up I go to determine the cause of the gutter leak. Why did I choose that place to start? Well it's up there and so is the north facing roof that needs it's tiles Un-mossed and thusly...UN-Curled. Shit and Merde! Time to empty it of the accumulation of years of leaves and dirt and pull the weeds growing in the thick of it like a long skinny pasture-in-the-sky. Dirt flies! Weeds fly! Moss has embedded itself in the myriad of spaces between the roofing tabs...removed that too as that is the cause of the curling as I have determined. I don't want to crawl every inch of this section of the roof to remove it but I may! Damn! 4 hours of digging along and I'm about 1/2 way. Caulk the joint where two sections meet and clean out the drain to the ground and I'm done for the day.

Kelly started on the scrapping of the loose paint on the east (sunny) side. She says she still has about a gallon of the paint from when it was last painted. Good. I'll get to do the high part and she'll do the low. Great fun this house fixin' stuff.

So the South 40 plantings are coming along, some have sprouted and I've planted others to fill in the blank areas. It's good. So far it's been smooth going as no dogs, raccoons, birds have dug anything up, no moles, voles or gophers in evidence either. I water every other day unless it rains. It's fun to garden like this, not too much work or money for great reward.