Fall Leaves and an elegant solution

A part of last year's effort.

I have documented in my annual leaf battle here and elsewhere in this blog. Our property is surrounded by several large maples, an enormous hickory, and various other trees. I love them, and the privacy they provide. Then fall happens. The amount of leaves that these trees produce is staggering, and it takes a mighty effort to gather them. When we first bought our home, Cindy and I would rake the entire yard, at least twice, bag the leaves, then drag them to the curb. Next, I bought a lawn tractor, got my dad's old wagon, and we were at least able to wheel them to the curb. Last year, I purchased a pull behind rake for the tractor, which worked nicely, but the leaves still needed to be bagged. Most years there are more than 40 enormous bags of leaves at the curb. 

In 2019, the City of Binghamton changed the rules. They would no longer accept plastic bags for leaves. Now, I completely agree with concerns over plastic bags and their impact on the environment. However, the bags could be re-used. The truck would come by, empty the bags into the truck, load all the bags into one bag, then leave them on the curb. I would refill the bags the next week. This way you could use the bags over and over again. Now, the city will only accept the leaves in paper bags, the large ones you purchase at Agway or Home Depot. Problems are that they are much smaller, the city has not raised the bag limit, they are not reusable, and they are expensive. Other local municipalities have you rake the leaves to the curb, then they come by with a huge vacuum truck and suck up the leaves. That would be great.

So, my solution this year has been to stay ahead of it, an option now that I have retired. So I have been out with the tractor every few days raking and bagging, trying to fit the leaves in garbage cans (which they still accept) to avoid using the expensive bags. This is what I was doing last Thursday when I was approached by a woman and her young daughter. The mother said they had two questions for me. The daughter, somewhere around 6 or 7 years old I would imagine, went first. She wanted to know if we were going to celebrate Halloween this year because she would like to visit our house again, and she would not be afraid.

Now, a little back story. We have been visited by this mother and her daughter almost every year since she was a toddler. She got a bit spooked in the past by the haunted house sounds I play, and by the motion activated talking/singing/howling werewolf head we have hanging by the porch stairs. Cindy felt so bad about that scare that the tradition has started where we invite her into the house, show she her our cats and otherwise realize we are not scary people. It's our annual Halloween highlight and the main reason we sit on the porch. We would rather not deal with the rude teenagers that grab a handful of candy without even a thank you. Anyway, of course I told her that we expected to be here and we hope she stops by.

Free delivery.

The second question was even easier to answer. The mother wanted the leaves. Uh....yeah. Turns out she runs the community garden at the end of the block and needs the leaves for mulch. She said she would be up with her wheel barrel to get them. Of course I insisted that I would deliver them and did just that. It was a bit awkward driving the garden tractor down the length of the block, but then a few of the neighbors were out and they waved as if I was just out or a walk; nothing unusual here. I do have to be a bit careful here and do not want overwhelm them with leaves. Would like to keep that option open through the fall, and the Norway maples are still green.

So sometimes you struggle to find a answer, sometimes the answer finds you. This answer was particularly nice.

Retirement Update

Most days start like this.

 Literally almost everyone has asked me how it feels to be retired. The short answer is pretty good. The longer answers follows. The thing I notice most is the lack of stress. I never realized how much I thought about work, even on my days off, until I didn't have to. While I was working, I would think about the next shift, what would the weather be like, with whom I was working, and what the potential workload would be. That I am not doing that nearly 24/7 is quite the relief.

I was also checking my work email a lot, along with the schedule spreadsheet and my shared documents. That stuff dominated an entire browser on my phone. All that is gone.

Our lifestyle has already changed significantly. With both of us retired, the urgency for the more mundane tasks of life is gone. We now feel more free to enjoy our morning coffee, rather than jumping up and racing around the house in an effort to complete everything before the next set of shifts arrive. Suddenly, we are not doing anything tomorrow either. 

A cheap door in it's day, but still 
beautiful.

Obviously planning appointments and getaways is so easy now. No need to plan around the work schedule, and really the only thing in the schedule is other appointments. I do need to start blocking potential vacation and get-away weeks so we can take a trip if this virus thing ever goes away.

The culprit

I have been doing some work on the house. Current project continues to be the door from the kitchen into the pantry. With the colder weather approaching, that job has taken on more urgency since the pantry is unheated. I've got most of the layers of paint, stain, and varnish off. Just need now to clean it up and rub it with some mineral oil. 

Adventures in plumbing continues as the sink drain in the half bath has started to leak again. I cannot believe what trouble that has been. Of course, it is the most inaccessible sink drain I have ever seen, and I am not looking forward to wedging myself in there again.

I've got a full cord of firewood coming later this month. I have about a half cord stacked and ready to go in the garage, but with being home this winter I expect to burn more wood. I really look forward to watching the bad weather from my couch, and not driving through it to work at 11 PM.

P.S. Google has "updated' their blogging app and I don't like it. I'm really struggling to get the blog to look the way I want it to look. Sorry about the weird picture placement and random gaps in the texts. I'm still trying to get it figured out. 

All Alarms Are Off

My workstation in 2020. 

 Wow. What happened? I entered into the National Weather Service in the age of noisy teletypes and huge facsimile machines that smelled vaguely of ozone. I leave in a time multiple flat screens, virtual briefings, and COVID-19. Deadly viruses aside, I could not have imagined where the job would go after I joined in 1986. The job is better, of course. We are smarter, vastly better trained, and much more accurate. We are also more needed in today's high tech and densely populated world. More people live on the coast than ever, more flood plains have been paved over, more wild areas encroached by development. Add climate change to the mix and you have millions and millions living in at risk areas with a strong need to know. 

It's an exciting time to be a meteorologist, but for me, time to hand off the baton. When you consider where I started and the tools I was given, to where we are now, I think I have handled the changes well, kind of like teaching a caveman Calculus. Still, it's time to go. For starters, It's not just the changes but the rate of change that is difficult. About the time I master one thing, there's three other things that are awaiting my attention. My 60 year old brain has had enough.

But it's not just that. Like I posted in an earlier blog, the life I wish to live out, awaits me. I don't see it as being an exotic, thrill a minute adventure, more of a spontaneous, do it when I want to life without alarm clocks and the dull hangover of shift work. Cindy and I can travel on a whim (2021AC - After Corona), relax on a whim, and start a project on a whim. We will not be bored. Our old fixer upper awaits some more spit and polish. 

Alarms turned off for
the last time

I will miss my co-workers the most. Fantastic people, every one of them, and my closest friends. Shift work, working weekends, and working holidays, tears you away from your outside friends, and relationships shrivel from the lack of attention. On the other hand, working all hours of the day, night, and week builds a closer relationship with your co-workers. The office almost becomes a club house. 

So like I wrote, it will become a time for travel, spontaneity, and rebuilding friendships. I hope to become more active in the fire department, more active at the gym, more active in the family, and maybe finish another room in the old barn on Park Street. Perhaps volunteer where I am needed. 

Who knows? Maybe I'll finish that damn novel in the next couple years, revealing what really goes on inside this over sized pumpkin. Other dreams include trying my hand at stand up comedy at an open mike night, rebuilding a car, and finding gold at the beach. 

I could just sit on my porch and watch the world go by. This seems least likely though since just watching means everyone and everything is passing you by. There's still time to make more memories. 

I will continue this blog. It's popularity is hard to gauge but I do enjoy writing it. I may begin to record some Video Blogs as well (Vlogs to us insiders). What could be more entertaining than actually watching me attempt these jobs that I write about? Kind of like a mash up of Fixer Upper and Emergency 911. 

Like Calvin told Hobbes in their final comic strip, "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy. Let's go exploring". Good advice.  

Birds and a refrigerator door handle

Note the missing handle.

So how are these two random items related to each other? The common thread is frustration, and these two seemingly innocuous items have both caused me an inordinate amount of stress. The door handle broke back in March. Cindy pulled on it to open the fridge and it failed spectacularly, throwing razor sharp plastic parts about the kitchen, cutting her in the process. GE helpfully, and somewhat ominously, has the parts website URL inside the door. When I looked up the model refrigerator, and found the part, it was almost $100! They would not sell you just the plastic mounts, you had to purchase the entire handle assembly, including the stainless steel handle! I then noticed that ALL customer of the reviews were 1 star! Not a single person had given the "handle assembly" more than that. The reviews were scathing, not just because of the price, but because people in active households were replacing the handle once or twice a year at $100 a pop! I then noticed that some customer service rep was responding to the reviews and asking people to contact them.

Being the smart guy I am I decided to cut to the chase, not bothering to order the part, just get GE customer service on the line and see what they are willing to do for me. HAHAHAHA. That was 4 months ago. I have emailed three times and heard nothing in response, until Friday. Low and behold, they want me to call them and speak to a representative. While a good sign, I am still wary since Cindy recently spent hours on the phone with them, listening to elevator music with no result. We shall see. 

The Charger in happier times

Birds and I have a troubled relationship. I enjoyed watching my grandmother feed them during the cold winters in the Catskills. They were a sign of life in the dead of winter. As I got older, and detailing my cars became important to me, bird spotting became to mean the "presents" they left on an otherwise clean car. Then, twice in my 20s, I actually had birds poop on my head. Granted, my enormous skull is an easy target, but come on, really? 

Well this past winter I decided to let bygones be bygones and to feed the birds. I also figured our cats would enjoy the show. I got birdseed, a feeder and ended up ruining my Charger, The birds got me again. Well, not exactly the birds, it was the mice. They found the birdseed in the garage, gorged on it, and decided to pay me back by chewing the wiring harness on the engine. This in turn shorted the Engine Control Module, which is a rare and expensive part that Chrysler no longer manufactures for 2006 Hemi Chargers. There are aftermarket parts that have a bad reputation, so I hesitate to purchase one. The car runs, but only in manual shift mode, which is mainly a sport or track mode and is fun for a few minutes, but kind of a pain in the ass when you are going for groceries. It will not pass inspection this way so a decision is forthcoming. 

It's a Wonderful Life

First world problems right? Yes but it is frustrating. It makes me think of one of my favorite movies, It's a Wonderful Life. George Bailey has big dreams but is stuck running the family building and loan bank. His daily frustrations keep him from seeing how good he has it, until the friendly angel Clarence allows him to see life without him. A key plot point is the old house his wife insists on buying, but is a daily source of frustration and work, right down to the knob on the banister that comes off in his hand every time he heads up the stairs.  When Clarence returns George to his life, he races home to see his family and sure enough, the knob comes off the banister. But this time he kisses it, happy to embrace the frustrations in his life because it means he's alive, and home. 

The Bar is Open!

In this corner...the bar.

Our multipurpose bar/breakfast/sun room is finally completed,other than a few minor details. The wainscoting came out really nice. The bright paint helps set off the darker stained wood. We got a light colored weaved indoor/outdoor rug which should handle any spills. We purchased a bar at Olum's that included the stools and a nice mirror that help bright the room. I have rigged the mirror with electricity so we add LED lighting and have lit Department 56 pieces on the top. The bar itself has a rustic outdoor look and fits well in the casual atmosphere.
 

Broken

In the other corner sits my "mistake" electric fireplace. Kind of chintzy but it fits in the overall theme of the room and will take the chill off in the winter helping make it a four season room. We are still looking for a high top table we like to increase the occupancy of the room and make it more breakfast friendly. Finally, we are struggling with window treatments. We had a nice set of valences picked out but when we contacted the seller heard nothing back. Finally, I fixed all the window weights and now the old windows properly open and close, and do not need a piece of scrap wood to prop them open. I plan to buy a small TV and mount it in the corner. It will be nice to sit there in the winter and watch NFL games while the snow blows by the windows. 

We already have found ourselves enjoying the room. I like sitting at the bar for telework sessions, and it turns out to be a nice place to just sit and talk with a nice view of the backyard.

Fixed.

I have started to work in the kitchen once again. I completed a rather more permanent fix of the tub leaking problem in the upstairs bathroom, which allowed me to complete repairs in the kitchen ceiling. This in turn led to painting the ceiling in the kitchen (again) and some discussion of doing some work in the kitchen. After many samples (again) we have decided to go with a two tone paint scheme with a light gray over white below the chair rail. I will be removing the cabinet next to the stove, moving the stove a foot to the right and installing two 12 inch cabinets on either side of the stove. This will allow us to use the two left side burners in the stove top without heating the side of the refrigerator.

The broken door from the kitchen to the pantry is another ongoing project. The frat boys somehow broke the door near the handle, so the first order of business was removing he door and the hardware. Then, I injected glue in the cracks and clamped the broken sections. That came out well. I had planed to sand and repaint the door but Cindy mentioned she would prefer a natural wood. I am now in the lovely and tedious work of stripping years of paint and stain from the door. That project will be in an upcoming blog.

The list is still long

Decorated for Memorial Day weekend. Almost more
 proud of lawn than anything else. Almost. 

***I finished this blog back in June. I was hoping it would improve with age***

Once again we had someone stop in front of our house, compliment our work and tell us how nice the house looks. It's very gratifying to hear and to reflect on the work that's been done. Problem is it feels like the list of things to do just does not seem any shorter. One thing slowing me down is regular maintenance. For example, I've now painted the porch stairs for the third time. They get full sun all year, snow, ice and the winter chemicals. Being stairs, they get scuffed with nearly every footstep. Still, I had hoped the paint would last longer. Another on going maintenance battle/headache is the leaky bathroom tub which maddeningly insists on dropping water into the kitchen from time to time, damaging the ceiling. I fear the only true fix will be a complete to the studs rip out of the tub and enclosure and re-installation. Something I *might* be able to do but with only one shower in the house, certainly not quickly enough.

Working on the frame for the screen from the pantry window.

One major project is the original windows. Every single one of them needs to be removed, cleaned, scraped, glazed and painted. Many of them need new ropes to their window weights. I actually did start this project a couple years ago when I fixed the attic windows. I figured they would be a good place to start being that they were essentially on the third floor and more difficult to see my amateur job. Then recently I decided to start what I through would be a quick job, scrapping and repainting the old screen window for the pantry. Well, as often happens, there turned out to be more to it as I accidentally poked a hole in the screen, then upon removal of the screen, noticed rotting of frame itself. I considered just building an entire new window frame, but in the end decided that there was enough there worth saving. So after a complete tear down and rebuild including replacement of some of the wood and all of the trim, the afternoon project turned into work spread over several days. The completed job came out nice.

Finished job

Since I was repairing the screen, I decided to strip out and replace the glazing in the window. Removing the window would have been difficult since it is a "pocket" window so I decided to repair it in place. That was difficult and I'm a bit out of practice so not my neatest job ever. Good news is that the window is finished, functional, and better than when I started. Did prove that in the future I need to take all windows completely down and out of the frame before I repair them.

On the next blog: The bar is open! (I meant the one in our house).

Been busy...but still kind of bored

Weeds gone. Mulch in place. Note the silly faucet
 sticking out of the near basement window. Far
window has the dryer vent.  You can see the wall
wash light between the window and chimney

Job allowed me to get the tractor and
 trailer out for the first time.

We did finish the sun room (furniture and window treatments still pending) but have remained quite busy over the past few weeks working on projects, doing upgrades and maintenance. One of the bigger projects was tackling the abysmal excuse for a garden we have on the north side of the house and around the corner to the driveway. The other three sides have been improved, but this was such a tangled mess I was dragging my feet on it. First Assistant Cindy did the hard part, weeding while I did the raking and lugging of mulch. I very optimistically bought 4 bags of mulch, It turned out we needed 12 more. I could say that I grossly miscalculated, but I didn't calculate at all and just guessed so my wild optimism and pitiful lack of gardening experience resulted in miserable failure. Overall though it was a good job and it went well. The flowers that were already poking through will continue to grow while we have hopefully suppressed the weeds. It greatly improved the appearance of the house.

I also added 4 more landscape lights. 2 wall wash lights and 2 path lights. You have to be careful when adding lighting. Once you install the system, adding additional lighting is easy, so unless you limit yourself the house will look like an airport.

Another job that has been in the cue is to fix the faucet at the basement window. I mentioned last month that I replaced the pipe and faucet but failed to figure out a good way to attach it to the house, then left extra pipe until I did. Well I found a bracket that actually would work and finally cut the pipe to fit and we now have a rather nice looking outdoor faucet that works.

The next window over has the dryer vent and it has been nothing but a pain in my ass since the day we hooked up the dryer. Without rehashing the entire story, I'll just say that I switched to the old school solid, non-flexible dryer vent pipe (which is safer yet harder to find and install) and replaced the vent cap. I was very proud of my work until I found that after a few days of running the dryer the cap would fall off leaving a convenient entrance into our basement for many types of bugs and other critters. I finally figured out that the seam of the pipe was slowly expanding with use allowing the vent cap to fall off. Some crimping and professional grade aluminum tape finally fixed the problem.

The old beast 4 years ago. Lawn was
nasty back then.

As I mentioned above I fired up the tractor for the first time and that went well, but it was a different story for the old push mower. Apparently storing them at an angle is a bad idea. When I went to get it from it's spot, I saw that oil had been leaking out of the muffler for some time, making quite a mess. After some online research, I found that this can indeed happen and the solution could be easy, or maybe not. I was pretty sure I was going to need a new mower but after cleaning up the mess, then pulling the fouled spark plug and cleaning it, the old beast fired on the third pull belching blue smoke and spitting oil out the exhaust. I went ahead and started mowing and the exhaust cleared itself. All is well. Can't seem to kill that thing.

So obviously I did cut the lawn for the first time, but not before putting down fertilizer and crab grass killer. The directions said to apply and then water the equivalent of a half inch of rain and Binghamton said "hold my beer". No need to get the sprinkler out around here this spring. I double checked the forecast and just managed to find a dry day between deluges. Perfect.

The lawn is looking far better than when we moved in and we are happy about that. It will stay greener in the summer, even if it stops raining (HA HA).