Heat's Back On

Ever since the wood stove's fire bricks wore away, the oil stove has been our only source of home heat. That's especially bad because it requires both oil to burn and electricity to run the blower -- if we are without either, we're out of heat. We really need to do something about that.

So far, we've been pretty lucky, but today the oil stopped flowing. Sounding of the oil tank confirmed that it wasn't empty, but when Kathe disconnected the supply pipe only a little oil dribbled out, so we knew it was the culprit.

But what was blocking the pipe? Sediment? Ice? And how could we clear it?

I only had one idea, and it seemed pretty dubious to me. Still, it was all I had. I went out and bought a little bit of diesel fuel and requisitioned the big veterinary syringe that I'd used for years to wash out my ear canals. I loaded the syringe with fuel oil, jammed it into the supply pipe and flushed the pipe with oil, then drew back, just like washing out a nasogastric line.

I got a syringe full of dirty oil, plus a big glob of nasty black crud. I repeated the process with a couple of cups' worth of diesel, and the line began to run freely.

I lit the stove and Kathe congratulated me on a successful experiment. I remembered the time that she had finished a difficult repair and celebrated with a Tarzan yell, and said,

"Right now I am made of win like Charlie McCarthy is made of wood and Joan is Maid of Orleans!"

You don't get very many chances to say something like that.

Oh, one more thing: when Kathe gave that yell, she also called out, "Everything in this house that works, works because I made it work!"

You've got to share that title now, sweetie.

//The Magic Eight Ball says, "Memento mori."\\

New Keys

My Uncle Wesley is too sick to drive his Isuzu pickup, so waste not-want not, my aunt Anne is allowing me to borrow it indefinitely.

It did have one problem: the key was bent, and over months it got worse. I took it to a drug store and the clerk clamped the crooked key into their grinder, but the copy looked like the original the way that the FBI Unabomber sketch looks like Ted Kaczynski.
Finally the other day, I was riding around with Kathe while she delivered notices, and noticed that her current stop was a locksmith's shop, a real one and not just a grinder setup at a drug store.

So, I got a pair of keys made and took them home to try them out on the pickup. Only aftyer I got home did I notice that both the old key and the new ones were from Albany Lock & Key. Huh.

Not only did the new keys work, but they work better than the bent key at unlocking the doors and starting the motor.

Dang, I should have done that months ago. Among other things....

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "At least that's one thiong taken care of. Don't stop now. And don't forget to thank Anne and Wes again."\\

Giving Stuff Away

Kathe and I live in a big old house with lots of space (although the lookout tower where I write these words remains imaginary), and we have filled entirely too much of that space with things for which we have no current use but which are just too nice to throw away.

Or could we throw some of this stuff away? Or find good homes for it with people who would appreciate how nifty it is? But how would we find such people....

And that was how things stood for us, even after we got hooked up to the Internet, until just recently. Then we discovere Free-Cycle, specifically the Albany-Corvallis chapter, located on Yahoo.

Yesterday we gave away big stacks of National Geographic. Today it was a classic Victorian-style baby carriage (which did in fact carry several known babies, most recently Waldy). The NGs are going to be circulated among home-schooling families (a very suitable fate for them), and the carriage will serve as a display space for a doll collection.

We are sitting around feeling virtuous, or at least like not such complete and utter fools as all that, for hanging onto those things for so long, and wonderfully relieved not to be responsible for them anymore.