11.22.2018

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We have so much to be thankful for every day - including being grateful for all of you following along with us on this journey!

It was a frigid day - the temps were around 0 overnight but there was a brisk wind so the windchill was well below zero all day.  Needless to say, it was definitely an inside day!

Now that Jim had the wiring run to the switch box, it was time to turn his attention to the actual light fixtures.  This is the before - he had two of the empty fixtures in place on the ceiling.

This is kind of a long story, but if you remember, the first lights Jim bought for the wood shop were so wonderful that he bought more.  Only when they came, they were not quite the same.  It turned out that he had to buy a conversion kit to make the ones he had be like the ones he bought originally.  That means gutting the insides.  On the left of the picture below is the old ballast removed from the light along with the mounting clips; on the left is the new version.

Jim even has to modify the actual fixture a bit to make the mounting clips fit (the new ones are in the back).  It had been awhile since he did this so he had to remember the procedure!  

Here's the new ballast installed in the fixture...

Working on the wiring...

But...let there be light!  He has both of the lights working on one side of the auto bay!  Plus he got the other two fixtures mounted on the ceiling and rebuilt one more ballast section at the end of the day.

These have amazing light - plus this area has been pitch dark for so long that it's amazing to see it all lit up!

High 16/Low -1...another frigid day

11.21.2018

It was a snowy morning - we probably got another 1" or 2" but there were some pretty crazy snow squalls.  The rest of the day was just really cold and windy - Jim debated about doing some outside work but thankfully decided to just work inside.

He continued working on the electric in the auto bay - he used his hot knife to cut the horizontal path.  This path also required him to get his vibrating tool and cut through the plastic flanges in the insulated concrete forms.

Then he cut and attached these steel screw guards - they keep the wire in place but because they are placed over the flange area that Jim will use to attach drywall, they will keep him from accidentally putting a screw in and damaging the wire.

He has two switches wired up that will operate the two banks of lights in the auto bay.  He also wired in a pigtail power cord that he will temporarily use as his power source.

Once all that work was done, he had to clear out space in the auto bay to get ready to mount the rest of the lights and do the wiring.  This is one of those jobs that is a bit frustrating because the hope was to have most of this stuff in the pole barn instead of moving it around.  It will come!

High 33/Low 4 - snow and bitter cold!

11.20.2018

We woke up to another 4" or so of wet heavy snow this morning, which meant that Jim had to spend some time plowing/snowblowing the driveway.  Even so, our mail delivery and UPS didn't make it up the driveway, so we have to come up with Plan B during the winter for deliveries.

It was afternoon before Jim was able to do some other work.  His next big project is to get electric and power going in the metal shop and auto bay.  When Jim put up some of the lights in the auto bay last year, he ran the wiring down to where he wanted the light switch to go.  Today was starting to make all that come together.  He first had to use his hot knife to cut a path in the insulated concrete forms for the wiring.

A close up of the space for the electric switch box - it's very cool to see how the "fingers" of the concrete forms extend into the concrete to bond the two substances together.

The box is in place...

You can see where the wiring comes down from the lights on the back of the auto bay - Jim then started the path for these wires...

Jim knocked off a little early - he had to go get an X-ray for a follow up on his kidney stone procedure.  After that, we picked up a few things at Lowe's and Home Depot and then had dinner at Applebee's before heading home.
 

High 36/Low 21 - 4" of snow

11.19.2018

What a day - it just seemed like there were issues at every turn.  Thankfully, every day isn't like this so you definitely have to be able to roll with the punches when they are.

This morning, Jim had planned to get my envelope printer working because I have lots of mailings coming up next month.  After lots of investigating and emailing the company, we discovered it's not compatible with Macs.  I had some other computer issues and Jim was very patient with me, even though I'm sure he was ready to scream!

Things didn't improve though because his next job was back to working on the car.  He switched sensors and put everything back together.  Once he started it up, still no 4WD.  However, we discovered our carbon monoxide sensors work because suddenly they started beeping throughout the building even though Jim only ran the car for a minute or so.

Jim has decided that he's not willing to invest any more time or money into the car.  He could tear it all apart and try to find the issue, but there's no time and at the end of the day the car is still old and has a lot of issues and is totally rusted.  That decision is made now so we'll just move on to figuring out the next steps.

When Jim was finally able to think about working on the barn, he first had to spend time shoveling off the scaffolding - nothing like taking the fun out of building!  He also had to set up another section of scaffolding so he could reach the peak.  But in the end, he was able to get the rest of the fascia on the side as well as all the J-channel, so he'll be ready to install siding pieces if the weather ever permits.  This was when he was putting on the J-channel...

At the end of the day, he moved the 4Runner out of the garage, cleaned up a bit, and actually put my car inside!  He also put the bucket on the Bobcat and did a little smoothing of the driveway before getting it all tucked inside again.

High 39/Low 28 - updated...3-6" of snow forecast tonight into tomorrow!

11.18.2018

We had a wonderful, although short, visit with Kyle.  He had an afternoon meeting so had to head back to NYC after pancakes.

Unfortunately, for the rest of the short day before stopping to get ready for church, Jim spent tearing apart the car to just see how feasible fixing it will be.  Right now, the 4WD won't work so if that doesn't work, keeping it for a winter car is out of the question no matter what.  Jim did some research and there is a sensor that switches into 4WD.  So the first step was to see if he could get the sensor out.  Easier said than done.

He first had to put the car up on jack stands, unbolt the crossover member, and then drop the back of the transmission.

Jim can glimpse the sensor now but there is no way to get any tools or his hand up inside there.

So he next tried to access it from the top.  That meant taking apart the console and removing the shifter boots, even having to take one of the shifters off.  It still was almost impossible to access but he finally did.  He tested the sensor and it seems to work although he took off another similar sensor and it had a lower resistance.  He's going to try and switch them tomorrow and see what happens.  The jury is still out...

High 31/Low 26 - 1-2" snow in forecast for tonight

11.17.2018

Kyle was able to come up today so we celebrated an early Thanksgiving.  It's extra special being our first one on Angel - we have so much to be grateful for!

Jim spent time this morning doing more investigation work on the 4Runner and after dinner, he and Kyle continued scoping it out.  Jim also worked on doing more furnace tweaking this morning and now that he has proven that the connections to the underground work fine, he switched back to the smaller tanks to drain those.

High 40/Low 19

11.16.2018

As predicted, we woke up to a snowy world.  It was beautiful - however, it looked more like Christmas than the week before Thanksgiving!  We ended up getting a good 6" and it was a very wet, heavy snow.

Jim wanted to wait to clear the snow until it was done falling, so he did some inside work this morning - hanging more pictures for me, this time in the bathroom.  Making sure it's perfectly level...

All done - they look perfect!

Poor Jim has to have his office in a corner of the living room, but he hung up his PhD diploma today to make it feel more like his space.  So proud of him for all the hard work and dedication it took to achieve this!

Once we were outside, the trees and property were just gorgeous.

The first use of the snowblower!

 Coming up the upper driveway...

It was still a lot of work to get everything cleared - especially at the end of the driveway.  Jim said in some areas, the bucket might do a better job.  But everything looks great now.  Let's hope that's the end of the big snowfalls for awhile.

Jim continues to monitor our propane usage.  We're doing well - he estimates that we have about 40+ gallons left in the small tanks.  However, he wanted to make sure the big tank connection works when we need it so today he switched the valves and started drawing from the large tank.  It had some air in the line that had to get out before the furnace would ignite, but it did and all is working well.  He's probably going to leave it in this mode overnight and switch back to the small tanks tomorrow.  It's a huge relief that it all works - certainly don't want to drain the small tanks only to find out there's an issue!

High 35/Low 31 - 6" of snow