Helping with Laundry

Personal Epics

Some people have learning experiences. I have learning sagas.

Having seen the photos of Krissy becoming a sawyer at the Tyler household, my father-in-law David decided that on his most recent visit to our pioneering estate he would like to do some milling on our borrowed portable lumber mill. So we went up the hill and started ripping timber.

In the course of 2x4 production, the belt that links the motor to the saw blade snapped, and our fruitful entertainment came to an abrupt halt. We pulled off the cover and discovered the ragged length of v-belt dangling over the wheels. Until I replaced this part, there would be no more milling. I shook the bits of torn rubber out of the casing and observed with David that the likely culprit in breaking the belt was a guide post that had been maladjusted. So I made a mental note to take the broken belt to the local hardware store and replace it.

Finding a replacement for a broken v-belt of precisely the right length presents a greater problem then one might imagine. The rubber was stiff and the belt was broken--that is, it no longer kept a neat, oval, measurable shape. Thus I spent about fifteen minutes on the floor of the hardware store trying to hold the broken specimen next to new belts in order to ascertain whether the new belt was the right length. At long last, having identified a 65" belt as the right length, I purchased it and went home.

The belt didn't fit.

And I don't mean that it didn't operate smoothly once I placed it on the wheels. I mean that with a team of Indian elephants I couldn't have pulled that belt over the wheels. (I thought about calling up my mahout friends, but the instructions on the belt clearly direct, "Do not pry onto wheels.")

In a moment of clarity and reason, I looked down to where I had dumped out the contents of the belt cover the day before. There, in the pile of shredded rubber, I discovered my error. Some of the belt had broken off the length I had. I had measured with an incomplete remnant.

Lesson #1: Pay attention. That--whatever it is--may be important later.

Armed with this new clarity--and feeling more confident for it--I took a length of rope and wound it around the wheels, marking the length required for the full circuit. 68 inches. I thought I remembered that the hardware store had a 68-inch v-belt. Surely I was on the right path now; but as I stood there with a broken belt in my hand, a little voice reminded me that I had never changed a belt in a motor in my life. How did I presume to know what I was doing?

First of all, do they measure the length of a belt on the outer diameter or the inner diameter? With a thickness of 5/8 of an inch, the difference would be significant. I had no idea how they measured v-belt length. As I stood there thinking of all the reasons I might have to make a third trip to the hardware store, it dawned on me that I had the phone number of the lumber mill manufacturer in my pocket, and a cell phone on my hip.

"Turner Mills."

"Hi. What length is the v-belt from the motor to the saw wheel on your portable mills?"

"71 inches is the standard."

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome."

Lesson #2: Call and ask. You'll feel more stupid if you don't.

The hardware store didn't have a 71-inch v-belt, but the local Napa auto parts store did--or at least would have it by 8:00 the next morning. So at 8:20am I plodded out to the mill and armed it with the new bright green v-belt. It hung loose on the wheels, even with the clutch engaged. Hmmm. But I didn't have to pry it onto the wheels, so I figured I was all right. Hallelujah! Problem solved.

I started up the motor, engaged the blade, and resumed the cut we were making when the belt snapped. Although the blade turned well enough, against the resistance of the wood during the cut the belt began to slip until the blade stuck in the wood.

Lesson #3: Although it's never too early to say Hallelujah, sometimes the problem is more complicated than it at first appears.

Moving the saw blade very slowly, I finished the current cut and moved the boards off the mill. With four logs to go, cutting at this pace would be torturous. So I pulled the belt guard off again and examined the machine. Maybe I could get away with a slightly shorter belt?

Back to Napa for a 70-inch v-belt. It fit comfortably on the wheels; the clutch pulled a little tighter now, but the blade had the full power of the engine. I fired that puppy up and prepared the next log. As I engaged the saw blade, a column of smoke began to emerge from the belt casing.

After some choice words, I pulled the belt guard off and noticed something that in retrospect had been there all along but I just now engaged: a belt-shaped black streak on the inside of the guard. After further inspection, I found that the belt, even when seated properly on the fly wheels, rubbed against the belt guard. This phenomenon explained why the owner of the mill had told me that he'd gone through three belts per year since he bought it.

Lesson #4: Where there's smoke, there's a problem.

Fixing the belt guard required welding experience, which is out of my league. So I milled the last three logs in defiance of manufacturer's advice: without the belt guard in place. (This means that in theory the belt could have slipped off at any time and smacked me in the head. Lesson #5: Kids, don't do this at home.)

I finished off the last three logs (2x4s, a few 2x6s, and one sweet mama of a 2x10), and shut the mill down so the owner could come get it. When I called him, I told him the belt guard problem, for which he was thankful. I also told him that I had to put on a 70-inch belt, even though the 71-inch was supposed to be standard.

"Oh, no," he said. "The 71-inch belt is right. You can adjust the tension after the belt is on."

Lesson #6: Remember Lesson #2. Going it alone is foolish, time-consuming, and expensive.

~emrys

Remembering Grandpa

Memories are a mystery. They stay hidden in your mind under the mountains of information and then one small trigger will bring them to the forefront of your brain, rushing you back to another time and place with little or not explanation.

This morning as I was putting GBaby down for a nap, she was fussy and I was cuddling her close, my face against the top of her head. All the sudden my mind was washed with a fragrance that I immediately associated with my Grandpa. I can’t tell you what the fragrance was exactly or even in part, or how it came to rest among my daughter’s fine baby hair. What I can tell you is that I was immediately taken back to Fort Cobb, Oklahoma and memories of my Grandpa flooded my mind.

Memories of him rolling the cat up in an area rug only to watch the cat take off afterwards. Memories of chili on the stove and instant oatmeal made in the microwave. Memories of him in his easy chair just watching the activity of his children and grandchildren around him, and snoring in the same chair. Memories of playing cards as his partner and beating the pants off of everyone else. Memories of watching a good, Midwest thunderstorm, complete with penny sized hail from his front porch late one summer night.

All these memories flooded me as my daughter drifted into her nap. As I watched her I wished he and my Grandma could have met her and been here for this part of my life. But I also know that they are in a much better place. It was 15 years ago this month that my Grandpa went to heaven. But I think that maybe this morning he was keeping an eye on things in the nursery.

~sjt

Always Something

Before we left for Colorado, we cleaned the house well enough that when we returned we wouldn't feel like we were walking back into a sty. That is to say, we wanted to be able to step back into our daily routine here in New York with a minimum of fuss and angst.

Why are you laughing?

Maybe we should have been, too.

We arrived home to discover that the boiler wasn't working. All right, so it wasn't working when we left, but it's been tempermental. So we figured there was a good chance if we just wiggled some wires upon our return, we'd have hot water again.

Why are you laughing?

Fat chance, right? First thing on Wednesday morning I called a heating specialist to fix our boiler so we didn't have to take cold showers. Then I got in the Mazda to go to work.

Or at least that's what I intended to do. If you recall, our little old dependable Mazda has put us through some hoops recently. It turned out that its failure to start came from moisture making its way into the ignition system. Once our even-more-dependable mechanic solved that problem, the Mazda began starting reliably again. So when I got into her on Wednesday, she started up like clockwork.

But she wouldn't go anywhere. There I was, engine humming, foot on the accelerator, parking brake disengaged, and no movement. Not an inch. My first thought was that some practical joker had put blocks under the wheels while we were on vacation. So I checked under the wheels. Nothing.

Even with some serious pressure on the gas pedal, the car only creeped forward, and I could hear the distinct grind of tire tread on the driveway. For fear of damaging something, I let off the gas and called our trusty mechanic. He told me that with the wet weather we've been having (which we missed, being in Colorado), brakes have been rusting right to the drums.

Excuse me? Brakes rusting to the wheels?

Why are you laughing?

That's right. "Rock it back and forth with the accelerator," he said, "and it usually breaks free." Hah, no pun intended, right? So I did what he said--in fact, more than he said. I drove the Mazda out onto our road, dragging that right rear brake like an angry donkey the whole way. It never broke free.

On the next call to the mechanic, he asked what kind of wheels I had. "Are they aluminum?" That sounded expensive. No, I was pretty sure I saw rust on the wheels. "Then knock it with a hammer outside the lug nuts."

Whack my car with a hammer to break the brakes loose?

Stop laughing. It worked.

Thus the Mazda works fine, and after an expensive but worthwhile visit from the heating guy, we can have hot showers again. Now if we can just keep the water pressure from dying halfway through those hot showers. Sigh.

There's always something. Stay tuned.

~emrys

Dead End

In July of 1979, the renowned physician William A. Altemeier sent a note to my dad. In that note, Altemeier thanked my dad for the photos and slides of a case of hemolytic streptococcal gangrene; he indicated that he intended to use those photos in his upcoming book on surgical infections.

I was interested in finding these photos if I could. So I went on Amazon and found this book, selling now for a whopping 38 cents (used). I guess the surgical trade has changed since 1979.

To my disappointment, I could not find any discussion of hemolytic streptococcal gangrene, or photos of such. I then found that the copyright date for the volume was 1976--perhaps I should have checked that before I bought it!

Amazon didn't have any more surgical books by Altemeier. And he died in 1983. Perhaps he did not get a chance to publish the book in which my dad's photos were to appear.

Oh, well. If anyone needs a manual on control of surgical infections, I know where to get them cheap.

~emrys

On Top of the World

Another glimpse of life at Sonlight Camp:

(Also taken on our Tuesday hike to Alberta Peak. Note the subtle advertising for Habitat for Humanity.)

~emrys

Sonlight Camp

Youth; depth; rest:

Sonlight Camp.

(Photo from a hike to Alberta Peak on the Continental Divide, 23 June.)

~emrys

In From the Wild

I tell visitors that although she barks up a storm upon their arrival, Sadie is really a harmless dog. Then I find her in the living room one day:

I think that's a yak femur, but I could be wrong. It's been a long time since my biology degree. Where she got one in Harpursville, I don't know. She's tougher and smarter than I thought.

~emrys

Harvesting Honeydos

Misuse of the word "we" has a long history in the English language. Within popular discourse, it is most frequently identified in "the royal We," as in the Elizabethan "We are not amused." However the abuse of this communal pronoun has trickled down from the aristocracy to the conversation of the commoner. Here's one recent example of this grammar-gone-wrong from our life together. Sara said to me one day, while we stood in our oversized bathroom-slash-laundry room, "We should put up clotheslines in here, so that we can hang our cloth diapers to dry in the winter, and not use so much propane in the dryer."

And by "we should put up clotheslines," she meant "you should put up clotheslines." Where's my seventh-grade English teacher when I need backup?

So I set about the honey-do--for I thought in spite of the pronoun abuse it was a grand idea--to invent a clothesline system that would maximize our use of space in the bathroom.

I reclaimed some hardwood plywood for wall mounts:

I measured the area over our washer and dryer and in front of the boiler. . .

. . . and, because babies go through a lot of diapers, over the sink, too:

I put in the wall mounts, with pegs that will allow us to remove the lines easily:

I measured and drilled the braces that will anchor the lines:

Then I hung the lies on the braces:

And now we're ready to hang dry at any time of year!

Here's less than half a load of baby laundry. These lines will be getting their workout:

Now we're one step more energy efficient; and we don't have to buy drapes for the bathroom.

After finishing "our" project, I have observed that Sara's second use of the first person plural pronoun--"so that we can hang diapers to dry"--was no grammatical error.

Strange that.

~emrys

The Sawyers

A few weeks ago, Krissy (my sister-in-law) came out to visit. Really, she came out to see Gwendolyn, as Sara and I are simply necessary accoutrements to the center-ring attraction of our daughter. But I recruited her to help with some milling; I thought it would increase the value of her time with Gwendolyn, if she had to work for it a little bit.

Recall that we had ten hemlocks and a white pine cut down two months ago; the gentleman who did that work left us with his portable saw mill. Here's how it works:

The beast itself. Notice the engine and saw blade (plus a new sharp one, hanging on the muffler) all mounted on a rolling unit that slides down parallel tracks:

Here's Krissy, the new intrepid sawyer, ready to get to work (even in the 65-degree weather that chilled her Phoenix bones):

Here we are, setting the runners to roll a log onto the mill:

Here Krissy shows her Truberg side, letting the Estonian lumberjack come out as she handles the log roller. I feel like we should have been singing some Baltic lumberjack songs while we worked:

Up and over, being careful not to catch any feet under the massive totem:

And down the runners:

Et voila! One eight-foot log delivered onto the mill:

Mill blades are designed to cut wood, not silicates or rocks. So to keep the blade from dulling, we brushed the dirt out from the grooves in the bark. (The log had been dragged along the ground to get it up to the mill.)

Next we make sure that the dogs holding the log in place are ready for the first run. (Note well, however, that we didn't use all the dogs. The ASPCA will be happy to know that Sadie did not even break a sweat.)

With a glance down the log, we make sure the first cut will fall where we want it to, and won't hit any of the dogs:

We make a final adjustment to the mill (Krissy had to endure the exhaust for this one):

Ready, set, mill!

The new blade slices through the first course like butter:

With one side cut, we roll the log ninety degrees for the second cut:

One last push to get it flush on the dogs:

Oops! In the process of squaring it up, we slid the log too far down the mill. Here we are trying to press it back into place (though ultimately we needed to employ a lever to get enough mechanical advantage):

Ratcheting up the unit for the next course:

And the final product: eight-foot 1x10s perfect for treehouse flooring:

Thanks, Krissy! Next time, 2x4s for our garden shed!

~emrys