August 21, 2008
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Woodstove Update and More
It gives me a warm feeling, even with no fire going, to know that the new stove is in here, the flue pipe is installed, and everything is ready for when we need the heat.
The little rollers on Charley’s roller bar were frozen with corrosion when we brought it home a few days ago. Yesterday afternoon, Doug and I were outside with 2 cans of WD40, working them loose, when Charley arrived with a borrowed hand truck. We had brought over some cement blocks from Elvenhurst, our old place across the highway, and a motley collection of 2×6 and 2×10 planks, plywood and chipboard of varying thicknesses in various stages of decomposition.
Giving up on making the rollers roll freely in this decade, after getting both old stoves out of the way, we used the bar and the boards to make a ramp for the hand truck. Doug pulled while Charley pushed, and I stood in the doorway ready to grab the stove at the top and turn it toward me. It did not go smoothly or according to plan, but it went.
As always when the 3 of us are working together, there was a lot of discussion and conversation. Charley believes in Murphy’s Law. I don’t. I prefer to expect the best while preparing for whatever might happen. His philosophy appears to be something like, “Everything’s going to shit anyway, so why prepare for anything?” Doug spotted a couple of weak spots in the plan before we started, and I saw a problem developing early on and stopped things to fix it. Charley hurt himself slightly, while Doug and I got through the job unscathed.
All this was accomplished without having to repair the rotten porch, but it is going to be fixed anyway, probably. A friend of Charley’s said she would come over tomorrow and take me up to Sunshine to buy plywood, and Charley said he will help me nail it down.
Now, with the new stove out of the driveway, Doug having moved a pile of last year’s remaining firewood out of the way, I can order a few cords of wood for the coming winter.
Today, people in Turkey, France, Bulgaria, Poland, Brazil, Vietnam, Malaysia, Venezuela, Algeria, India, Peru, Australia, and the Russian Federation, as well as in various parts of the United States, have been reading my memoirs here. Someone in the U.S. is going through the memoir links in chronological order, while someone else is going backwards through all six years of my past posts. Is that interesting? It is to me. This is why I appreciate Xanga Footprints. I feel more connected to my readers, even though they are anonymous, when I know where they are, what they are reading, and when.
Comments (9)
I like the Footprints too — it’s amazing to see how widely read one really is. Glad you have your woodstove in and installed. Yea!
No matter how many times I try, the “footprint” option for some reason no longer works for me. I see how many people have read something, but when I click on it, it just shows me “Comments!”
Have you put any thought into the wiring issues?
Footprints are very interesting
I like them too. I’m glad you have your new stove in, and that you’ll be able to fix your steps! 
I like foot prints as well as it lets me know when people have visited
Glad you got the stove in… I can appreciate the huffing & puffing it took to get it where it needed to be.
I peep at the footprints once in a while. I have a lot of foreign readers as well… not sure what is so interesting to read about on my blog, but apparently they find something.
I like to follow footprints and leave comments when I don’t run the other way. ha ha. I do find it amusing when the person who approaches a tasks with “go to —-” attitude gets just what they put into it. I too like to stay flexible in “gotta get it done, but not sure how” situations. Then when something does call for a change in plan, I can get right into it with out all the stress of my nervous system responding to the resistance. Glad you’ll have warmth when you need it!
Glad to hear the new stove is in. It is practicing to be fall here. Made me think of you.
And New Zealand now
Yay for new stove!