I don't know if it was from yesterday's work or from my third day of illness, but today was rough. I did get a few parts of things done though. It all started off with a nature walk with Sawyer while the older two got started on their school work. He loves being outside and was bugging me to go do fun stuff like go to the park or go on a walk around the neighborhood. I had a better idea and we explored the yard instead.
After a little while, I figured I'd have to get something done despite feeling bad, so first off was the truck. I'll need it for getting materials for the house job. It still needs the tie rods replaced and an alignment. I've got the parts, but today I only had it in me to get one side loosened up. I'll probably finish it and get it to the alignment shop tomorrow if I'm feeling alright. The doctor has me on the books for a covid test in the morning, so I'll get to the truck when that comes back negative. I think it's more likely I have salmonella, but since every goddamn thing in the world is a covid symptom, we have to make sure whether they'll get even more government money to help me out. Bless their hearts, I bet if you're having a stroke they'll test you for covid first. I'm over this shit.
We have a breaker that keeps flipping. My electrician friend in the men's group said to make sure all my outlets are getting good connection, so between long breaks I started that job. Didn't finish because one of the breaks was long enough to forget what I was doing and go clean out the new milk fridge. The pastured egg supplier in the men's group brought over his extra fridge for us to use on milk days. It'll also get used for meat and other refrigerated products moving along our newly started trade route. We're trying to set up a route about 175 miles from or northernmost member to our southernmost member. The fridge is clean and set up, but the outlet is on that same damned breaker. Guess I'll try and fix that tomorrow.
After that I sat and watched the clouds a while. It was a nice cool day, and I found out that we missed some potatoes when we harvested this summer. They're popping up now, and I'm really excited for that. After this harvest, I'll plant some potato buckets to grow over the winter. Year round potatoes if I can get the numbers right. Now that's some significant calories grown at home. No word yet if the other patch near the amaranth is gonna come up.
After some slow restful walking in the garden pulling weeds from the potatoes, we had supper and talked about the kids' schooling for the day. They talked about giraffes and Alexander the great.
A little later, Melissa and I were working up a list of things that we needed and needed to do for the floor and foundation. We had more questions than answers, so I found out definitively that the diagonal nastiness can and usually is replaced with ply wood. Good news. Time to break shit. And break shit I did...
I wanted to look at the joists. It's as bad as I thought in some places, and worse in at least one place so far. I got a couple feet of four or five joists exposed, as well as one of the concrete pillars and some of one of the main beams. The main beam is in a bad way for sure, which is a problem I hadn't considered. A big problem. Oh well, add it to the list. It's actually a relief to lay eyes on the problem and get some definite answers.
I told her "smile, you're going on my blog!" She wasn't impressed, and probably didn't smile. The world will never know.
One big answer, which was the answer I suspected, was that water had poured under the concrete frame of the house into the crawlspace. The spot it flooded in through was right there under our bedroom. You can see in the pic where it all flowed in and went to the lower spots in the space. I'll find out later where those spots are, but for now I know this bit. The retaining wall and French drain should absolutely take care of that issue. And I think it helps make up my mind about the tyvek and insulation under there. We'll see.
Oh. And I shaved for my mask. Despite my smile, I'm dead inside.
Love from Texas
Nate 💚