There’s a job.
Our Shinmaywa pump (a monster) drives a 2″ hose 30′, the last 4′ of which climbs 4′, which is a pretty potent pump. A simple hose clamp to be undone every year has the potential to a) blow off or b) be a bear. So they gave us this magical connector called a “Gator Lock” ™ connector, with cams that flip a clamp on either side of the pipe to grab on and hold it. You cannot release the cams without pushing 2 buttons simultaneously, one on each cam, on opposite sides of the pipe. There is only room for one person. Yes, you add it up. You need one more hand, and you are working in nearly-freezing water in a pit the size of your typical bucket, while standing on your head.
Jane refuses to let me tackle that, so I gathered up the semi-frozen water hose, about 300 feet of it, that wends all over the garden. It won’t coil except to the left hand, and I’m right handed, and the whole garden has now (after last night’s rain) achieved that degree of muck and leaf mold last seen in 330 AD in a Gallic village. A poor Gallic village. I now look like a poor Gallic villager, since carrying a hundred feet of hose is a full-body experience. Three times.
Thank goodness for rain suits. But even so—glug.
I got both pond heaters installed, the bottom heater and the gas-exchange/floating heater.
The waterfall is shut down.
The netting is thus far holding at a stretch about 10″ off the water surface. It was rather pretty when it frosted this morning.
My fingernails are probably shot.
The fish are terrified after all the splashing about and have gone under their 6′ diameter winter shield, and probably will begin to stay there now that the heaters are under it and going. They’re not stupid.
It’s forecasted to snow next week. The average start for snow in Spokane is November 11. It’s supposed to snow Monday through Wednesday of next week. How close can you be, weatherwise, eh?
If you’re in Roman-era Gaul, too bad you don’t have Obelix handy to help coil and carry the pipe! 😀
Hurray for the Gallic villager! I started to make some bright remark, and then realized that even in our current sour economy, those hardy, hearty Gallic villagers would likely gladly *sell* you a Gallic villager servant, for even one day’s wages today. Not recommended, but it does give one pause to reconsider the current economy, as well as the value of Gallic villagers. The thing being, said Gallic villager would be no doubt infinitely better off, and abjectly thankful, in today’s middle class neighborhoods. Hmmm…. Ye gads and little fishes, it also explains a great deal of why people from third world countries (and second- and first-) are so eager to get even a min. wage job here. …And no, I am not in any way advocating….
I do believe I have brainstormed my way into a neatly painted little corner, here.
Methinks I’d better quit while I’m… in no way ahead. Eek. What a lesson in the cold, hard facts of life, modern world or medieval or antiquity. And again, ye gads and little fishes.
I think I should have a talk with my brain, for meandering down that particular thorny path. Yikes.
Uh, however, vive la France, viva Gallia. — And just because, hurray for that Gallic villager, despite the need for a good bath.
BlueCatShip, you sound as if you were channeling the late John W. Campbell. Of course, he was comparing 18th and 20th century America…
Somewhere in his History of the English-Speaking People Churchill says that the standard of living in Roman Britain was greater than it would be again until the 20th Century.
Love the Gallic villager image! We reference early Middle Ages as a survival technique. Life is *soooo* much better now. We could be living in the garden shed and still be better off than almost anyone from 300 AD.
Woke up to snow this morning! (Why do the trees look so white? Uhhh, snow?) It is rain now, but unpredicted snow/sleet always surprises me. All the plants are in, but I was doing the rest of the yard at a ‘leisurely’ pace. Guess it’s time to step up the pace!
Speaking of ponds how do you keep your netting above water level? It isn’t a problem this year as there is nothing in it but water and a few frogs. The resident frogs have no problem with the net. They go under and out at will. I am thinking ahead. Do I need some sort of frame to keep it above water, or can I just pull it tight?
The flamingos have their usual strange look in the snow. It’s time to get out their little hats and scarves.
😆
The netting: we happen to have our rim of jagged basalt, so I just stretch the netting to snag it, for the most part, and when I have a smooth area, I use landscape fabric pins to hold it taut, or liberate one rock from the margin and set it atop. On the other hand, getting it *off* next spring may require cutting bits of it, and I am extremely keen to keep it out of the water: it’s a very dangerous type of net for fishes: snaggy and stretchy.
This is, btw, anti-bird netting for an orchard, which is all I could find at our hardware: should have gotten it at the pond place before it closed. For proper pond netting, they also make stakes that enable it to stand up above the pond rim. Keeping it about 5-10 inches above the surface is good. Ours is at least light, very light, and folding it away may or may not be possible. Stay tuned next spring on that matter.
We are pulling in all the little decor bits. Snow is coming for us. We need to get the front water fea-chah shut down and the faucets drained. [Thank goodness for the neat little shut-off levers and line-screw-taps in the basement. Other people pay 50.00 up to have their lines blown out. I just throw two levers and unscrew two tiny brass taps and carefully save them in the tool drawer.]
There are days when I am jealous of you and Jane, who obviously have the house maintenance thing under control. I just banged into the laundry room door, heard a unhealthy ripping sound, and discovered that the top hinge had given out and the door was now dangling from the bottom hinge only. The termites had apparently discovered the door at some point. Off to find a replacement door, and oh, happy! the local contractor’s supply warehouse (NOT HD) had a door the right size for a good price; all I had to do was trim half an inch off the bottom. Easy peasy. Installation will wait until I have a full day on Thursday, which I have off work for Veteran’s Day, but at least I have a door.
I laugh gently because we are the ones with a 4’x 5′ hole in our bathroom tub enclosure, down to bare studs and covered in plastic and duct tape. That one awaits winter and hours when we aren’t keeping up with other things.
Jane just got a 3-hot-spot switch for the fan—but the diagram in the packing has all the wires in different places from the actual switch.
She’s now on the phone trying to get Lowe’s to say what wire goes where.
Is it possible there was a mixup, and the box either had the wrong switch or the wrong instructions? Or was it one of those things where it had been translated from Chinese to Korean to French to English, and the translator’s head was now going round like Jase’s? I believe a Fluke multimeter will be your friend. It would be very nice if things didn’t break before you had the leisure and wherewithal to deal with them, but that requires divine intervention, I think.
We think the thing was returned, and somebody put the screws in the wrong holes, or decided to be a prankster and deliberately did it. Jane put them where the diagram showed, as per what the Lowe’s guy said on the phone, and it worked. Nothing’s caught fire yet. 😉
I’d be willing to bet that you or Jane could figure out how to use a common VOM multitester to sort out those connections. Then you wouldn’t have to trust that the guy on the other end of the phone is looking at the same thing you are looking at…
They aren’t too expensive. Heck, I have a spare I keep for when I can’t find the good one 🙂