Life with Jane

[ronspradley]

Good morning Harvey and Glenda. Glad to hear y'all are not popsicles there on the ranch. Historic cold for all of Texas. Last freezing night is Friday at my homestead, then we will know what pipes broke. A few years back I had some plumbing replaced on my hundred year old house and asked for a shut-off valve for house with a spigot above the valve so I could turn off water to house and then drain water from house. Did not get the spigot so not able to drain water. I will work on that this summer.

Hope you are able to get back to the barndominium soon. Looking forward to seeing some metal going up.


Y'all stay safe. And warm.


rsp

[tommar]

WOW Harv! Doesn't sound good at all! I don't have much to tell re: the storm here in Waco. Got down to -2F. Coldest I've ever experienced in Texas but not the coldest I've ever seen which was -25F in northern Michigan way, way, back in the day. My power stayed on--nary a flicker for the entire week. But nearly ALL of my friends and acquaintances had no power for 3-4 days. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why my power stayed on. Dialed my thermostat down to 55 to conserve power (electric heat) and relied on a space heater to keep warm in the den. Dunno about frozen pipes. So far everything seems to be working but dunno about the outside faucets. Probly find out tomorrow or Saturday if they survived. Since we rent, I don't even know where the water meter or the cutoff valve is! My coach is hibernating in the storage facility; it's plugged in to keep batteries charged. Dunno if there was a power outage or not. I'll probably try to drive over there on Sunday to check it out. I had the coach winterized back in October.... anyways so glad you and Glenda are not popsicles!

[Wroughtnharv]

It’s already 18º at 8:30 this morning. The guess was 9º overnight with a high of 33º this afternoon. That should put us at 260 hrs below freezing, but it’s over, well, except for the black ice that will find its special places on the highway in the mornings for the next couple of days.

Yesterday the lines in the coach broken loose and we got our first shower in too long a while. I haven’t found any broken pipes but still keeping my fingers crossed until everything is defrosted before I get too excited about not having to tear into the belly of the coach looking for that broken pipe if there is one. Murphy’s Law says it will be in the worst possible place, never didn’t like Murphy, ambulance chaser.

This storm hasn’t been the nightmare for us that it has been for so many others. I was having reservations about having co-op power and not having a choice in provider like most of Texas. Some people can buy power for a third of what I pay but they get that rate for using their power off peak and based upon spot prices for natural gas. Those spot prices surged to the point where those customers have the potential for $450.00 per day. That would be a heckuva wake up power bill for sure. The upside on that is the owner of the Cowboys natural gas company is getting up to $1,000.00 for unit that would be $7.50 on the spot market off peak. Also the general manager of our co-op kept us up to date with emails.

The neighbors have all done okay during the storm. One has a block and beam house, think pier and beam sitting on the ground with a two foot crawl space. He has had frozen lines since night one. But the bulk of us have weathered it well and keeping up with each other.

Walmart had a delivery scheduled yesterday via FedEx so when it got up to 30º I plowed the snow on our driveway just in case they tried to deliver.

Had a photo but couldn’t get it to load, life in the city this close to the country.

[ptp]

Hi Harvey, Your thread reads like a very enjoyable book. I noticed you were not using your stove due to lack of power, an easy fix is to get a car battery and an inexpensive power inverter to plug the stove into. You could probably use the type that plug into a car lighter/power port. Your stove control uses very little power.
Keep warm and keep smiling.


Peter

[ronjhall]

We all need it to warm up so we can get back to thinks more normal. You, Glenda, cats and Dozer stay warm.

[Wroughtnharv]

Peter the hiccup on the stove was the oven. The burners worked just fine after we used a propane fire lighter.

Thanks for the tip. I have a couple of those lighter socket inverters that would have worked perfect.

Right now we are in a reflective state of mind feeling so appreciative of our storm of the century experience. So many in Texas weren’t near as fortunate.

With the weather the last month running between wet and cold to cold and wet I haven’t been able to do much work on the framing etc. But we have been designing the kitchen.

Who boy!!!!!! We’ve drawn out the walls with orange paint and today we hope to lay out the cabinet spacing. Glenda is like a little kid first trip to Disney Land.

[okmunky]

Greetings from sunny southern Arizona! Just wanted to let y’all know that the storms avoided us, but I am sympathetic to all of you who had to suffer the recent weather events. Spring is less than 4 weeks away! Take care and stay warm.

[tommar]

Hi Harv! Today it was 82F!! One week ago, it was snowing and about 8F. Go figure! So I visited our slumbering coach today. All seems well, the power was on and the batteries charged. Didn't try to start 'er up because that's not a good thing to do unless I was actually going to drive it. So it continues to slumber. Glad to hear that you and Glenda are not popsicles! I'm hopeful that this summer will bring a return to normalcy and that we can travel. I would like to go to Minnesota and Michigan this summer... we'll see. I still need to have my coach's cooling system flushed and all H2O hoses replaced... then will be good to go. Any ideas on that task anyone? Trying to keep costs down.

[tommar]

Down here in central TX, we've been having good weather since the great blackout! Haven't heard from Harv lately, guess he's been busy taking advantage of it so the barndominium can get the roofing done? Anyways hello!

[tommar]

Calling Harv! Hello Harv! You're MIA!

[Wroughtnharv]

Originally Posted by tommar

Calling Harv! Hello Harv! You're MIA!

Tom we’re staying very busy with spring stuff and work on the barndominium. Most of this stuff you would need to drive a stake to see progress so I haven’t posted much.

Plus this is an RV site and our projects aren’t exactly the kind of stuff RV’rs are interested in following.

[okmunky]

Just good to know you are alive and well, Harvey. Hugs to you and Glenda!

[tommar]

Glad to remove you from my MIA list Harv! Your adventures and trevails about your barndominium is of intense interest to me anyway. After all, it's gonna be Jane's new home, right?

[GypsyR]

Originally Posted by Wroughtnharv

....our projects aren’t exactly the kind of stuff RV’rs are interested in following.

Oh I beg to differ. Thumbs up all who are all over any and all updates Harv posts about just any old darn thing.

I'll start.