September 24, 2004

• Hurricane Warning

  Apparently Gaea, Tlaloc, Jehova, or whatever vengeful god controls the
  weather, doesn’t like Republicans.  I can understand that
  sentiment, given some of the party leaders’ attitudes toward the planet
  and some of their recent activities.  Anyhow, the gist of the map
  below is that only the Florida counties that voted Democratic in the
  last presidential election were spared a pass by one or more of the
  recent hurricanes.  I’ve reduced it to a size that fits [my
  screen, at 1024x768] better alongside my sidebar.  Please click
  for a bigger image with details, copyright notice, etc., and be careful
  who you vote for in November.  There’s more at stake here than
  just a well-run government.

  

  ---

  Chimneysweeps

  
  Doug and I cleaned the creosote out of our stovepipe yesterday. 
  Other than the chilly wind, it was a beautiful time to be up on the
  roof.  One thing I noticed was how much easier it was to climb the
  ladder than it had been three years ago when we did our Mickey Mouse
  roof repair with the plastic tarps.  The ladder seemed more at
  ease, too — none of that scary sagging or creaking. 
  Understandable:  I’m about a hundred pounds lighter now.

  
  While I was making preparations at ground level — finding leather
  gloves for both of us, getting the extension cord plugged in and
  dragging the
  female end of it back from its usual place on the tailgate of Old Blue
  (disabled pickup truck in the driveway) where it’s handy for plugging
  in engine heaters on cold nights, and using my nebulizer repeatedly to
  quell the gasping and wheezing — Doug was taking our tools to the
  roof.  They included the Mutt® (indispensible all-purpose garden
  tool, designed as an in-line hoe, but useful as an ice chipper,
  creosote scraper, etc.), the Shop-Vac® to suck up the creosote the
  Mutt® scrapes loose, the long flexible jointed pole that came with the
  too-big flue brush that fits the larger stovepipe at Elvenhurst (for
  reaching bits the Mutt® won’t), and a flashlight for checking my
  progress.

  Standing on the ground trying to heave the female end of the extension
  cord to Doug on the roof, I missed several times then changed my angle
  of approach so as to avoid breaking a window if I missed again. 
  He said we should have someone filming it in case I hit him in the face
  and he fell off the roof.  My next heave went right into his
  waiting hand.

  After I got onto the roof, and before we got any actual work done, Doug had to deal with a persistent itch.

  
  
  

  Then he looked
  up and caught me snapping pics.  He asked if I’d taken a picture
  of him scratching.  When I said I’d taken three, and intended to
  blog them as, “persistent itch,” he started laughing, and kept
  scratching.  It is our laughter and the conversations / repartee that make working together so enjoyable.

  Finally I put away the camera, Doug defeated the itch, and we got to
  work.  The job consisted of scraping loose the creosote, then
  using the vacuum cleaner to suck it up, dangling the vaccum hose and
  jiggling the end of the tube around at the bottom of the pipe. 
  Each time it sucked up a chunk big enough to clog the hose (every
  twenty seconds or so of sucking), I pulled it up and Doug took the hose
  out of the vac’s intake port and moved it to the outflow port, and we
  shot creosote off into the woods.  That’s another thing that makes
  this job such fun.

  A
  few dozen repititions of that routine and we were done.  Then Doug
  went down the ladder and I handed the tools down to him.  While he
  put them away and strung the extension cord back out the driveway
  (we’re gonna need those engine heaters soon enough), I took a few more
  pics including the scenic ones up top and the one of the pitiful
  remains of last year’s wood pile below.

  Later yesterday afternoon, George the wood guy came.  He had a
  little problem finding the place.  I heard a truck’s engine idling
  at the end of the block, then I got a message on the internet answering
  machine from George’s cell number, so I went out to the end of the
  driveway and waved him in.  His little truck won’t even haul half
  a cord, so he’ll be back today or tomorrow with more firewood, and we
  hope he’ll make six or seven more trips with such loads in the next few
  weeks.  Then we’ll be (relatively) warm this winter.

  

  

  • 5:57 pm
  • 11 Comments