Category: Maintinance

The Season’s Change

Nothing marks the end of summer for the children quite like the start of the school year. The school year starts in the morning though, and we have got to get things going for the home education program. Our oldest is going to be taught via teachers online, and our youngest will have a school provided curriculum with e as her lead. Despite these, we have no idea what to do tomorrow, or who to log in with or whatever. If the year starts a little slow, so be it; it has happened before. We’ll get it figured out.

Summer does not end till the third week of September. Even as an adult I still have a time getting my head around the difference between when the school year starts and closes a hard curtain on summer, and when the actual season changes according to the Earth’s orbit around the sun and its reflection on the calendar.

The firewood collection is coming along well enough. I have almost half of it split and stacked, though there we need more to fill the bunk, and more to stack away for use in the fireplace and in the shop. I do intend to go get more wood still, and there is time to do it. We need to get the last of it gathered and split by Thanksgiving at the latest. We are limited to Friday’s now, though, because of school.

The new log splitter seems to be working out pretty good so far. It does not allow the carburetor to fill with water the way the Champion did. That makes it easy to start after wet weather. Not that we have had much wet weather!

The drought is still on here in Southeast Idaho. With the change in the climate, it is probably time to stop calling it a drought and accept it as the new way of things here, unless of course we are still in the course of change. Probably so. I think we will need to change how we do our thing here. Let’s see what comes this winter with the winds of change.

The weather station is working pretty good so far. I bought that new computer about a month ago, and it seems to be doing what it needs to in order to track the weather station and keep the database, and publish the weather online. I added a second monitor to it as it is powerful enough to run a lot more than just a weather station.

That’s what’s new here on the Peasant’s Manor Farm.

Weather Reporting Fault

The Weather Station is working just fine, but the computer that transfers the data from the station to the Internet reported a fault. There were clusters going bad on the drive, and it wanted me to replace the drive when I could. I ordered an SSD drive, and now I have to work out how to mirror the original drive onto the SSD. I have tried a couple of methods that were supposed to be straightforward, but have turned out not to be because of drive lettering, and trying not to conflict with the C: drive of the computer I am attaching to. There were no SATA ports available in the Weather Computer as it is an all in one form factor, which I chose because it runs on low wattage, and takes up little space and only a single wall outlet. It was a good idea three years ago!

I am now trying a device that mirrors the drives inserted in it automatically, but seems to take days to do so. I remember using it once when I got it new some time ago, and it was the same schtick. It’s been running for 12 hours and does not even show 25% progress on the indicator lights.

I’ll update again if this works or not.

Serviced The Rain Guage

The sky has opened up, beginning yesterday and into today, so far. I realized that the rain guage was not operating, probably because it has been so long since it has had a drop of water enter it that it forgot how to operate. The water tension did not seem to break to allow the water down into the tipping spoon. I opened it up, tipped the spoon twice, then blew on it and closed it back again. We’ll see if that works, but for now, I think I either stop at that, or oil the sirface of the rain catch with a bit of Pam or something. I’d rather not!

The Original Weather App

I am looking at the screen on my tablet and seeing that the weather information being provided by my weather station seems inaccurate when compared to the original weather app, the sky. I checked the computer, and it has got the same rain data as what has been uploaded to the internet. It shows nothing for rainfall accumulation over the past 24 hours. Now, I know that cannot be right. It has been raining! The weather station I follow that is down in the south end of the valley, a little over 20 miles as the crow flies, is showing rainfall accumulations of just under a tenth of an inch in the same time period. They get lake effect precipitation down there, but still, I would think that with the amount of noise I have heard on our tin roof, we would have registered some rainfall. I’ll have to get a ladder and go see what is blocking the collector, or if the little tipping spoon is stuck. All of the other data is coming in, so that rules out a dead battery.

Last night when I went to bed, there was a decent lightning storm overhead. I’d like to say I watched it for a while, but I tend to fall asleep when my head hits the pillow. Luckily, I am up at six in the morning this morning, and there is another one hovering above. Rain seems to have woke me up this morning.

According to the forecast, I have till Monday at the latest to finish cleaning the chimney. But I have already cleaned the top portion from the roof, including the spark arrestor, and everything down to the 90 in the masonry. I just need to vacuum the 90, and brush the black pipe from it to the stove. I also replaced the gasket on the door, a lot easier job than I thought it might be before I had ever done it. The worst of it was cleaning up the old silicon from the shallow channel the gasket sets into. So apart from about eight or nine feet of pipe, we are ready to go with the stove, and next week’s lows are meant to reach down to the mid 20’s. The mornings at least will want for a fire to warm the house. The midday sun never overheats the downstairs on this house, except in the hottest of summer days. Old Man Winter, on the other hand, holds a mighty grip down here without the aid of a fire to keep us warm.

Finally, I am awaiting the arrival of my new lathe for the workshop. It made it to Chicago, and has apparently stopped in transit there. Today is the third day the transport company’s horse has rested. I called them yesterday, but the agent could only attach a memo. She said then she expects it will be delivered on Tuesday. Sooner the better! I am eager to get to work! There is a lot to learn. There is a lot to make! I have pieces lined up in the shop that I want to replicate. Those will help prepare me to start making my own, and then replicate entire furnishings from days gone by.

Finally, weather being what it is, suddenly, I guess it is best time for me to get the firewood pile finished. Maybe we will have a more normal winter? ’17 was rough. That one gave us a lot of snowfall. Cache Valley wise, it is due for another.

Today I Moved The Weather Station

I moved the weather station at about noon today from the back gate between the llama pasture and the garden to the gate at the service yard. It is about nine feet up still, and it is facing north with the solar panel faced south. I have not verified the direction other than to sight it off Sedgwick Peak. This puts it closer to the house, and all I can do is hope that that does nto obstruct the anenometer or the vein for speed and direction of the wind.

I had to make this change because of the new pivot irrigation line that went in on the neighbor’s farm last year. I had moved it then and thougth it was far enough that his last head would not fill the rain guage, but, I was wrong about that. Being one who is not going to say no to free water on the yard, I let it go, and let him keep spraying the place. I am sure I can give a reasonable estimafrom last year’s records of what the rain equivelant is of his sprinkler head, but having been out there and sprayed by it myself, I can tell you it is like being hit in the face with three or four gallons of water from eighty feet or more.

I won’t be collecting water in the rain guage from his irrigation line this year. It would take a pretty good wind to carry it in now, and if it does, it probably deserves to be there. I am almost out of good places to put the weather station without putting it across the street.

The weather station appears in good working order, and operating correctly. I think it would be a good idea to order a replacement battery now so is here at the ready when the one in the station fails and needs replacing. I expect to be able to tell when it has based on weather not reporting in the nights from the station to the reciever inside the house. I don’t want to miss records, so that is the rationale behind this.

I have set up categories on the blog in order to be able to find weather station maintenance records herein.