The view from the outhouse.
Tuesday January 12, 2021
On Saturday we were planning to come in Monday morning with Roger. Sunday our neighbors at Wolf Lake went over to turn the heat up so that it would be toasty warm in the house when we arrive on Monday. They found the boiler not working, 41 degrees inside 32 outside. They tried a couple things but no luck getting it going. Kari and I decided to head on in so that I could doctor on the boiler. We loaded up the two freight sleds with empty fuel barrels, Clyde the 100 gallon propane bottle, the boys in their kennel, and about 6 totes of trash. Kari was pulling one freight sled with a tub sled on behind with a couple big bags of trash in it. I was pulling our wide freight sled “Bigfoot”. He has wider skis, sometimes good with a heavy load, sometimes not so good in deep or heavy wet snow. Kari is the lead dog today so I can watch the tub sled behind her. We got underway about 4:30. The trail is good, weather is good, and we are riding with helmets open. About eight or nine miles down the trail by Imm’s Inn I saw Kari disappear between two stakes marking a steep drop in the trail. Normal operation where you go off a sandbar onto the river ice. Roger had told us the river had dropped another 2 feet or so. I could see Karis lights on up the trail so everything is good. I came up between the stakes and looked down. It is really steep almost straight down about 8 feet. The little man in my head said “Don, this is going to hurt.” I could see the skis sticking straight down into the bottom of the trail and me going over the windshield. It wasn’t as bad as I first thought. Pretty firm at the bottom but it rounded out. Wonder what the boys thought of that one. It is dark now, we made a brief rest stop at Scary Tree and another to help a couple guys with an oil pump problem. Overall a pretty nice and easy trip. Clyde wasn’t cooperative at the landing, I tried to stand him up on my sled so I could load him into the pickup bed. He had other ideas and jumped off the sled. Kari helped me put him back on the sled, stood him up, and then we backed the pickup square to the sled and lifted him on up into the bed. In the meantime we wanted to leave the truck run to warm up. The boys have a habit of locking us out. I left the truck run and left the drivers side window down a bit so I could get to the lock, just in case. The boys decided to roll the window on down and jump out. I need to look for my spare key. We planned to take the two big bags of garbage with us but forgot in all the commotion. We will get the propane bottles filled tomorrow and bring them back. Then we can get the totes of trash and make a dump run.
We headed home. The back seat and the bed are completely full. The boys are riding on the center console and in Kari’s lap. This worked fine until we stopped at Wendy’s drive through. The boys hadn’t seen fast food in 3 months and expected us to share. It was quite a tussle.
As soon as we got home I checked that the gas range worked, just to be sure we had gas. Kari started a fire in the fireplace while I started troubleshooting the boiler. Changed the igniter and flame sensors. No workey. I’ll need to troubleshoot further tomorrow to see if I need a control board or a gas valve. My Cpap machine quit working Friday night so I was using my backup. We brought both in with us. The backup takes a different hose so I laid it out at the cabin. For some reason it didn’t want to come along.
The living room and kitchen warmed up to 65 degrees pretty quick. The bedrooms and baths not so much. I got in bed looking like I was dressed to run the Iditarod. 8 layers of blankets and 2 dogs made it pretty comfortable. I didn’t sleep much without my C-pappy. Kari bailed for the living room because of my snoring.
Monday I woke up and went right to work on the boiler. Lochinvar tech support helped me determine that the control board was bad. I called my distributor in Indiana and a control board, and a bunch of other spare parts (just in case) were on the way from Nashville, UPS overnight. I ran by Northwest Medical to pick up a hose for C-pappy and by the grocery store because the cupboards are bare at the house. Roger showed up at the house about 4 with the good news that the ravens had gotten into the bag of garbage I forgot at the landing. Kari and I took a trip back up there 40 miles one way, to get the rest of the totes and smooth things over. Oh, I almost forgot the truck started running bad about 4 miles from home. When we got parked in the driveway I could smell diesel fuel. Too dark and cold to mess with tonight. Kari had left Italian Bear cooking and it was ready when we got there. I thought it was beef, can’t tell the difference. We stayed up and visited with Roger for a while. I may have had a couple Tiger Woods. The living room warmed up to 70. Bedrooms and hangar are still cold. BTW the hot water comes off the boiler so cold water only. I was planning on sleeping better with the cpap hose. No workey. The machine would come on ok, then start pumping high pressure so that I couldn’t exhale. It worked fine at the cabin Friday and Saturday night. Tonight it would pump my belly full of air so I burped a lot. I thought the unit might just be cold. I put it under the cover but that didn’t help. I tried long enough that I was so full of air I farted. That was ok cause I put the end of the hose on Kari’s side with the machine under the cover. She had earplugs in so she didn’t even notice. I finally gave up. I figured out the machine heated the air a little bit so I set it on the nightstand and moved the end of the hose back to my side. I didn’t get very much sleep again.
Tuesday when I crawled out of bed Roger was already gone. I went outside to check the truck. Fuel pouring out underneath the engine.
I looked closer. A return line from one of the injectors came off. I called my buddy Jack Jones and he told me how to fix it.
Then I called Northwest Medical and figured out that the cpap takes a special hose like the one that stayed at the cabin. No they don’t sell that brand anymore but I can order online. That doesn’t help my sleep tonight. I took an old hose, my knife, some duct tape, and MacGyvered one. Sleep tonight.
My neighbor flys for UPS so I figured he would just bring my boiler parts, since we are neighbors and all. Instead a guy I don’t know in a little brown truck brought them about 4:30. Trying to spoil me. They don’t do this at the cabin.
I changed the board and we are heating water. I need to connect my laptop and adjust some parameters to make it more efficient. Hot showers and a warm bedroom tonight.
A lot of things have gone wrong in the last few days. So far I’ve been able to fix most of them. Just normal events up here in the frozen North.
Stay safe and healthy my friends. If things are going wrong for you just think of me and you will feel better.
Thank you Lord for the heat.
I’ll be in touch.
Blue skies!!!
The rest of my stories are at siltyslough.wordpress.com
The View from the Outhouse 