New Designs, Infrastructure Woes, and the Cold, Cold, Air
I tinkered around with some antiqued brass wire this morning and made a few new earring designs.
They're all made with recycled glass.
I've been using Picasa to do my photo editing lately. While the application is not perfect, and my photography and photo editing skills are a work in process, I find it much easier to create better photos, with special attention to lighter backgrounds, using it than using iPhoto.
Here's that last picture, in iPhoto, before I doctored it in Picasa:
I was just starting to get really excited about wire wrapping recycled beads when I ran out of brass wire. I ordered more but I'll have to find something else to be obsessed about until the new batch arrives in the mail. I've also got some new beads coming in the mail soon, and a few books.
In other news.....
I'm especially excited about two books I ordered on New Mexico geology and rock hounding. New Mexico is prime rock hunting territory and I know that there are some awesome sites throughout the state--I'd really like to travel to some of them, and in the process also get to see some other parts of the state (not to mention, to take some photos of the landscape).
We've had some difficulties with infrastructure in the house over the last several weeks, leading to some serious discomfort. In the process of addressing the problems, though, we're learning more about how an off-the-grid house works. When we first moved in, the toilet was constantly running. That problem was relatively easy to solve. Then I noticed that the adobe wall next to the toilet was darker colored close to the floor and it seemed to have some kind of residue that was accumulating from the moisture. It turned out that the seal between the toilet and the floor was broken and needed to be replaced.
Then the sink started leaking down underneath in the cabinet, which we only discovered after everything stored under there was completely soaked and gross. Part of that problem was a leaky seal around the sink drain. M. fixed that. But then we realized that the faucet was also leaking and running down back under the sink. That problem is more substantial and it seems like a fix involves replacing the entire faucet unit. For now, we have a bucket under the sink and we have to remember to empty it every few days.
Periodically throughout the summer our water pressure would diminish down to about nothing, and we wouldn't have any hot water. M. solved that one by resetting the breaker. Our water went out again last night and because it was so cold, we worried that the lines had frozen. It turned out to be a burned out fuse in the pump, so M. replaced it. The fuse burned out again today. It may be that M. put it in incorrectly, or there may be a more serious problem with the system.
The most major problem so far has been the wood stove. We had some fires in November and early December with no problem. Then things got smoky. And smokier. Under the advice of our landlady, we had several times burned special logs that break up creosote. That didn't seem to help the smoke problem. Every day it got harder and harder to light the fire. We experimented with all kinds of things: various combinations of dampers opened and closed, opening the upstairs windows, opening the downstairs door, lighting newspaper and holding it up the chimney inside the stove, keeping the fire super hot once it was started, etc.
Every time we had to light a fire, the house filled up with smoke, and the fire would just smolder. Our asthmatic cat was coughing constantly, and we slept with the bedroom window open, despite the cold. The advice we received was all about inversion problems and how to solve them. None of the advice worked. One day we lit one of those special creosote dissolving logs, and the smoke from it went into the house instead of up the chimney. That was the worst, the fumes were terrible. Finally, we stopped lighting fires altogether because the smoke was just too intense. There was soot all over everything.
Then M. got up the gumption to take apart the stove pipe. He spent the day disassembling the pipe, cleaning it, and putting it back together. Soot and creosote were spread throughout the downstairs and we were freezing cold because we couldn't light a fire, but there were no evident blockages. It took hours of washing up to get things clean. After he finally was able to fit the pieces back together, we lit the fire, and the house filled with smoke.
There were cracks and large gaps between the sections of pipe, and the smoke had been pouring out of them, in addition to the stove door and vents, and we thought maybe the leaking pipes were preventing the chimney from drawing. We tried to patch them with tinfoil temporarily, and that did prevent smoke from getting out of the cracks-but it just poured more thickly out of the door and any unsealed holes. The next day we went into town and bought some special goo for filling the holes. The fire had to be out and the pipes cool before it could be applied. And then it had to dry before we could start a fire. It was a long cold day, after several already cold days.
The goo dried, and we started a fire. We were all, including the dogs and cats, freezing and wearing hats and gloves and sweaters and long underwear in the house. I had on two pairs of heavy socks. I had to take off socks to go outside because my feet wouldn't fit in my boots. But now those cracks were truly well sealed--and we lit the fire. Warmth? No, the smoke now poured out the vents and the stove door.
At this point, our landlady said the Mike should get up on the roof and clean out the top of the pipe, and talk to one of our neighbors to see if he could help. M. invited the neighbor over and he gave us a reality check: that much smoke was unlikely to be from inversion problems caused by the weather. Likely it was clogged up above. He agreed to come back the next morning to help M. take apart the top part of the pipe (which would require getting on the roof and the use of an extension ladder).
However, it seems he got back to his house and called the landlady and complained vociferously, something we had been reluctant to do. He said she should pay for someone to come out and clean the chimney. She finally agreed, and the next day we called a chimney sweep; he wasn't to come out until right before sundown, so we spent another day in the cold (but I was grateful for the same day service...). He found that the screen at the very top of the chimney was clogged. He replaced it, we started a fire, and voila, no smoke.
Most of the wood available here is some form of Pine, which generates a lot of creosote. Growing up in New Hampshire, we never used Pine in the stove precisely for that reason, and because of its tendency to produce chimney fires. We've been advised to use a mix of Cottonwood and Pine/Cedar, to help reduce creosote production. One of our neighbors, who lives here on weekends, has generously offered us to let us use some of the Cottonwood he has down at his place.
Training wheels for our own off-the-grid house eventually. While I love to feel the heat from the woodstove and watch the flames dancing through the glass front, an external wood-burning furnace is becoming more and more attractive. Efficient, you don't have to feed it as often as a stove in the house, and none of the crap that clings to firewood gets dragged through the house every time you bring in an armload. Plus, no smoke or soot in the house. But those critters are expensive.
This pair below is made with recycled glass, and beads (the pink faceted glass ones) that I got from a thrift store necklace.
I've been using Picasa to do my photo editing lately. While the application is not perfect, and my photography and photo editing skills are a work in process, I find it much easier to create better photos, with special attention to lighter backgrounds, using it than using iPhoto.
Here's that last picture, in iPhoto, before I doctored it in Picasa:
I was just starting to get really excited about wire wrapping recycled beads when I ran out of brass wire. I ordered more but I'll have to find something else to be obsessed about until the new batch arrives in the mail. I've also got some new beads coming in the mail soon, and a few books.
In other news.....
I'm especially excited about two books I ordered on New Mexico geology and rock hounding. New Mexico is prime rock hunting territory and I know that there are some awesome sites throughout the state--I'd really like to travel to some of them, and in the process also get to see some other parts of the state (not to mention, to take some photos of the landscape).
We've had some difficulties with infrastructure in the house over the last several weeks, leading to some serious discomfort. In the process of addressing the problems, though, we're learning more about how an off-the-grid house works. When we first moved in, the toilet was constantly running. That problem was relatively easy to solve. Then I noticed that the adobe wall next to the toilet was darker colored close to the floor and it seemed to have some kind of residue that was accumulating from the moisture. It turned out that the seal between the toilet and the floor was broken and needed to be replaced.
Then the sink started leaking down underneath in the cabinet, which we only discovered after everything stored under there was completely soaked and gross. Part of that problem was a leaky seal around the sink drain. M. fixed that. But then we realized that the faucet was also leaking and running down back under the sink. That problem is more substantial and it seems like a fix involves replacing the entire faucet unit. For now, we have a bucket under the sink and we have to remember to empty it every few days.
Periodically throughout the summer our water pressure would diminish down to about nothing, and we wouldn't have any hot water. M. solved that one by resetting the breaker. Our water went out again last night and because it was so cold, we worried that the lines had frozen. It turned out to be a burned out fuse in the pump, so M. replaced it. The fuse burned out again today. It may be that M. put it in incorrectly, or there may be a more serious problem with the system.
The most major problem so far has been the wood stove. We had some fires in November and early December with no problem. Then things got smoky. And smokier. Under the advice of our landlady, we had several times burned special logs that break up creosote. That didn't seem to help the smoke problem. Every day it got harder and harder to light the fire. We experimented with all kinds of things: various combinations of dampers opened and closed, opening the upstairs windows, opening the downstairs door, lighting newspaper and holding it up the chimney inside the stove, keeping the fire super hot once it was started, etc.
Every time we had to light a fire, the house filled up with smoke, and the fire would just smolder. Our asthmatic cat was coughing constantly, and we slept with the bedroom window open, despite the cold. The advice we received was all about inversion problems and how to solve them. None of the advice worked. One day we lit one of those special creosote dissolving logs, and the smoke from it went into the house instead of up the chimney. That was the worst, the fumes were terrible. Finally, we stopped lighting fires altogether because the smoke was just too intense. There was soot all over everything.
Then M. got up the gumption to take apart the stove pipe. He spent the day disassembling the pipe, cleaning it, and putting it back together. Soot and creosote were spread throughout the downstairs and we were freezing cold because we couldn't light a fire, but there were no evident blockages. It took hours of washing up to get things clean. After he finally was able to fit the pieces back together, we lit the fire, and the house filled with smoke.
There were cracks and large gaps between the sections of pipe, and the smoke had been pouring out of them, in addition to the stove door and vents, and we thought maybe the leaking pipes were preventing the chimney from drawing. We tried to patch them with tinfoil temporarily, and that did prevent smoke from getting out of the cracks-but it just poured more thickly out of the door and any unsealed holes. The next day we went into town and bought some special goo for filling the holes. The fire had to be out and the pipes cool before it could be applied. And then it had to dry before we could start a fire. It was a long cold day, after several already cold days.
The goo dried, and we started a fire. We were all, including the dogs and cats, freezing and wearing hats and gloves and sweaters and long underwear in the house. I had on two pairs of heavy socks. I had to take off socks to go outside because my feet wouldn't fit in my boots. But now those cracks were truly well sealed--and we lit the fire. Warmth? No, the smoke now poured out the vents and the stove door.
At this point, our landlady said the Mike should get up on the roof and clean out the top of the pipe, and talk to one of our neighbors to see if he could help. M. invited the neighbor over and he gave us a reality check: that much smoke was unlikely to be from inversion problems caused by the weather. Likely it was clogged up above. He agreed to come back the next morning to help M. take apart the top part of the pipe (which would require getting on the roof and the use of an extension ladder).
However, it seems he got back to his house and called the landlady and complained vociferously, something we had been reluctant to do. He said she should pay for someone to come out and clean the chimney. She finally agreed, and the next day we called a chimney sweep; he wasn't to come out until right before sundown, so we spent another day in the cold (but I was grateful for the same day service...). He found that the screen at the very top of the chimney was clogged. He replaced it, we started a fire, and voila, no smoke.
Most of the wood available here is some form of Pine, which generates a lot of creosote. Growing up in New Hampshire, we never used Pine in the stove precisely for that reason, and because of its tendency to produce chimney fires. We've been advised to use a mix of Cottonwood and Pine/Cedar, to help reduce creosote production. One of our neighbors, who lives here on weekends, has generously offered us to let us use some of the Cottonwood he has down at his place.
Training wheels for our own off-the-grid house eventually. While I love to feel the heat from the woodstove and watch the flames dancing through the glass front, an external wood-burning furnace is becoming more and more attractive. Efficient, you don't have to feed it as often as a stove in the house, and none of the crap that clings to firewood gets dragged through the house every time you bring in an armload. Plus, no smoke or soot in the house. But those critters are expensive.
It's cold outside--did I mention--down below zero the last several mornings. But as long as the wood stove is working, I love it, especially hiking around in the snow. I love the sound of snow squeaking under my boots and the burn of the cold air on my cheeks. I love to breathe in and feel the air burn in my lungs, and breathe out to feel the warm moisture of my breath gather around my mouth. The cold demands my full attention, and makes me feel very alive.
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