End of the World. Beginning of a new one. The Life of Amberwolf.

It's hard to understand why desert SW homes don't have cisterns. Many places have banned them for various nanny reasons. Yet other countries have made the LACK of a cistern, in desert regions, illegal. 'Merkins are dumb.

That said you have SO many good resources for irrigation. My best gardens were in the SW where I controlled water 99% of the time.
 
i had all my trees along the front at my place in colorada on drip irrigation. my well only had about 1.5 gallons/minute recovery and i used every bit of it on my trees. i had 4 timer intervals and kept all of the different hoses to all of the drip lines turned on all of the time so the pump would cycle on and run for several hours and then turn off. i had about 450 spruce and pine trees on the drippers. the total length of 1/2 " tubing was about 1500' and i had three rows of trees so i had the little 1/4" lines running from the mainline about 6' to each side for about 2/3 of those 450 trees. the dripper mainline would run past the middle tree row.

i worked on my well and flushed out all of the mud and sand later by running a 75' length of pvc tubing down to the bottom of the well and used a T type spray nozzle as a tip that i made by flattering a copper T on the end and side so it made a gouging spray to loosen the mud at the bottom and used it to break up the crud around all the cracks and get the mud suspended so i could pump it all out with my submersible pump and another 2hp pump in series so it would pump about 18 gallons/minute while sucking up all of the sand and small gravel in the bottom of the well. made a big pile of sand and gravel in the yard where it ran out of the end of the 2" tubing.

i ran the pvc gouging spray from the pressure off of my two water district water taps so i had good pressure to blast the mud free and then i could pump the mud up with the submersible down in the bottom of the well at the same time i was flushing it.

after cleaning it like that i got up to 2.5 gallons/minute recovery so i could increase the dripper times a lot.
 
Sunday I spent a fair bit of trying to deal with a clogged drain for my sister's bathroom (far enough down the path that it's before the kitchen/etc and main drain to sewer, but after all the stuff on the east end of the house, which is the washer drain (which I don't use, as that goes out to the yard), and the sink, shower, and toilet from the bathroom in the guest bedroom).

It's not a total clog--just a slow drain, so that a toilet flush has enough water to flow back up into the shower drain, and more than a minute or two of shower or sink use will fill up the pipes, depending on flow rate (much less at full flow rate).



First up was the spring-snake (25', maybe half of which I could work down into the pipes from the shower drain). I doubt that I reached the clog, but if I did I couldn't do anything to it. I expect it's more likely the snake coiled up around the ID of the drainpipe as I turned it, with the end having caught somewhere in a bend. (as I don't have any wya of knowing where exactly the pipes go or how they connect).

Next up was lots of plunging, in hopes of dislodging the clog enough to allow flow to clear it. Sometimes this works...sometimes it doesn't.

In order for plunging to do anything, I had to block off the drains for washer (unused, but open), sink, and toilet. Sink was easy, just tape over safety drain holes, and pulling the drain plug down tight. Washer drain was harder, having to use a rubber glove, vaseline, and a can that happens to be just a hair smaller than the pipe. Toilet....no real way to plug that with stuff I have here, except to have my sister hold the second plunger down in it, with some gloves stuffed around it's edge to help "seal" the non-round shape of the toilet bowl to the plunger.

This did clear a little bit of the clog, momentarily...but it was only moving the clog around; allowing the drain to drain much faster for a moment (or else it was causing the water to slosh over the top of the clog, I don't know which). Water is still always visible at the bottom of the shower drain, where it elbows to go off and join the rest of the system, about a foot down or so.


I though I would try water pressure, but having no way to seal the drains against high pressure, I thought I'd try to just let gravity and volume do the work, and fill the shallow shower basin (about 3" deep). I only got about an inch and a half deep before the back pressure began flowing out the bottom of the toilet, where it joins the floor. Obviously teh wax seal there is not actually sealing. :(


So...off to teh store for liquid plumr, two types, one "urgent" and one normal. Urgent was first, but being input to the drain so far from the clog I ddn't expect it to work well, if at all. Tried adding water after some time with no effect, in small amounts several times, hoping it would cause the agent to flwo to the clog and act on it, but no luck. So far same with the regular kind.


Of course, using it wasnt' quite that simple, becuase both my sister and her cat are sensitive to the outgassing the chemicals make. There is no door in the bathroom there, as for whatever reason, after having mounted one there, the house-rebuild crew took it back out. Thankfully it's the same width as the bedroom doors, so I took the one off the computer/music room, and moved it in there temporarily, so my sister can close off the bathroom and any fumes from her bedroom. This also required removing the room-A/C unit and it's window hoses, rearranging stuff in the room to get it out and movng litterbox, etc.

With teh door shut, and the A/C vent in the bathroom closed, but the bathroom window open, and return under the bedroom door blocked, pressure from the bedroom A/C vent prevents fumes from getting back into the bedroom, by pushing them outside. A fan in the bathroom window was also required by my sister, though it will not actually cause air to move outside any faster, and simply causes turbulence and airflow around the room that makes it take longer for fumes to exhaust (and makes some of them mix with air at the bottom of the door in that turbulent zone, causing some molecules to probably actually get back into the bedroom by eddy currents).



Anyway, so presently it is still clogged. Today sometime I'll have to take the toilet itself off the floor, check the wax seal (and probably replace it), and try to get the snake thru the larger toilet drain pipe to the clog, see if I can clear it that way.


If none of this works, then I guess it'll be time to call the landlord to see what he recommends...but I'd rather not do that if I can avoid it.
 
you may wanna rent a powered auger. find the sewer clean out where the drain pipes from the house meet the line to the street. take the cap off the cleanout so you can feed the auger into the sewer line and then auger back towards your toilet and shower drains
 
dnmun said:
find the sewer clean out where the drain pipes from the house meet the line to the street.
AFAIK, there isn't one, unless it's buried underground somewhere with no marking or access.

Before I rent anything, though, I'd check with the landlord and see what he says (cuz he might just do the work without cost to me, and I have already spent more on it than I should).

First, gotta get the toilet off and see what happens from there.
 
Toilet came up easy enough; bolts were not actaully holding it down, though, just the silicone caulk that had been finger-spread around it's base. Heads of bolts were not under the lips of the capping plate. (fixed that when reinstalling it).

Wax seal appeared intact, could see a little wax around base exit of toilet, but didn't appera to be fully sealing. I think the reason is that the tile the floor now has on it is several times thicker than the original tile used on the floor (no longer present), but the mount for the toilet is still in the original depth, so the seal is not tall enough to fully reach and set, in addition to the bolts not pulling the seat and the mount together.

I fixed the height issue (I hope) by re-molding the wax by hand to be taller, so that when the toilet was reseated on it it would definitely seat on it, and push down enough to spread the wax to reseal it.


Before reinstalling the toilet, I ran the 25' hand-auger down the toilet drainpipe, which has a bend and then what felt like a stragiht shot, plus is much wider, down to the rest of the drain system. I could not feel it punching thru anything, but it must have done something, dislodging, whatever, while I moved it back and forth in and out of the pipe, because when I restarted flowing hot water thru the drains, using a hose, it began flowing a little better. Then the remaining liquid plumr in the pipes must've reached the clog, as ghostly smoky fumes began fogging up inside the pipes. At that point I stopped the water input and closed the room off except for it's window, so the fumes could leave, and the chemicals could do their work on the clog.

After an hour or so, came back and restarted teh hot water flow into the drains, which now began flowing normally.


Ran quite a bit of hot water thru at the highest rate I could get, and it never backed up, so reinstalled toilet, resetup bathroom for normal use, and called it done.

Just as precaution, we'll only use the main bathroom for solid waste for a few days, to ensure any further clog material has more of a chance to flow away, but I think it's cleared up.
 
No problems with the drains yet.

Laryngitis is a lot better; was able to actually talk (hoarsely) all day long yesterday at work, and much of Friday. Today it's rough but mostly normal.

Since its' been hot and dry and no rain for so long, I finally had to do the soak-watering of much of the plants/trees in the yard today, after doing the long-delayed trimmings and mowing.

Of course, now it's raining (has been for the last hour or so, starting with sprinkles and misting for a couple of hours, and finally pouring pretty hard now, for at least 45 minutes). So I could've saved some money if I'd been able to be sure the rain would happen...but it has been "20% chance of rain" for weeks, with at best a teensy sprinkle, and usually nothing at all, here at the house (though the valley surrounding the city area itself has certainly gotten rain somewhere in it nearly every day, and some outlying parts of the valley too).

Glad for the rain...just wish it had started yesterday, or much much earlier today.


Neither Tiny nor especially Yogi are very happy about it, cuz it was accompanied by lots of lightning and a fair bit of thunder. :(
 
Rain kept up until at least 4am-ish, which was the last time I got up with the dogs to go see before I finally fell asleep for realz until they got me up for breakfast. By then it was sunny and mostly clear, clouds around the edge of the valley and a few streaks overhead.

Only puddlesa re in the streets; the soil soaked it all up so it's damp but not wet as it's been so long since any rain. By the time I leave for work I figure some fo the top fo the bare dirt areas will be dry already, and unless it gets cloudy again or rains more, most or all of any exposed dirt will probably be dried out on top by the time I get home.

Should be cooler today, though, and supposedly for the next few days it will be staying under three digits for the first time in a while.
 
Was cooler today, and rained in the evening thru night till nearly closing time off and on, but was cleared up by the time I got to leave and ride home. Still wet on teh roads, though.
 
Keep meaning to get pics, finally did today. I pump the street puddles into the yard since there's usually at least a hundred gallons, sometimes several hundred, at my streetcorner in a puddle after good rains.
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I use the same pump (different hose) to move the shower/bath water out to the big tree in back.


Also, i forgot to post it, but I almost destroyed the lawnmower on Sunday. There are some small stumps still in teh ground in the frontyard and one of them stuck up just enough that I could get the mower over it without noticing, but then the ground dips just past it, and the blade hit it's top, was deflected up into the plastic mower housing, and you can imagine the rest.

I used my largest soldering iron to melt thru the cracks and broken pieces to get it back together solidly enough to at least finish the yard, but I expect to have to do some sort of more permanent repair later on when there is time to take the mower apart and install some sort of reinforcement plate bolted thru the plastic.


[strike]MMmm...problems reading the camera card, will add the pics later this afternoon when I sort that out. :/[/strike]
 

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Yogi found a new spot to sleep:

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One of the puddles had a prize:
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Some pics of the front yard, recently trimmed (sunday):
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Unfortuantely it was the last of the rain this week. Might get some Monday, but probalbynto before then (expected to be over 100F again next couple of days).

In other news, I broke my cane in half, thoguh I'm not exactly sure what happened. I myself, the next day, hurt kinda all over as if I'd crashed and rolled across the ground from a middlin'-fast pedal bicycle speed (though I know that couldn't've happened).

After coming home last night, greeting Tiny and Yogi, watching them play a bit, and then seeing them go back inside to wait for me to come make dinner. So they didnt' know I'd fallen, apparently (usually when I trip or slip and fall Yogi is there shortly after, and waits staring at me to get up, or comes over to nuzzle me if I wave him over; Tiny just trots around and wonders what I'm doing, or runs off as if to tease me into getting up to come after her).


I found myself half-reclined / sprawled on the ground in the backyard, handle end of the cane in my hand, and the other end nearby on the ground, feeling stunned and confused. I don't remember the moments (minutes?) before that, so I don't know if I was walking and leaning on it, and it gave way, or if I was getting up from the ground or getting down onto the ground to pick something up.

It snapped right above the end of the bottom tube (foot end) that slides up into the top tube (handle end), rigth across the center of one of the holes for the adjustment button/lock, so it was a natural shear point, and I found stress fracturing along that area, so it had been failing for a little while, at least (it's only 1/16" aluminum, if that, and I put much of my weight on it when getting up or down, and other circumstances as needed, many many times a day, been using it for almost two years now).


The only other cane I have at present has a different kind of head on it and hurts my hand if I use it the way I use this one (well, more than this cane does, by a lot, as they all hurt to some degree). So I had to fix this one so I could do what i need to at work the next day.

After feedign Tiny and Yogi, I found a piece of bike top tube that fit pretty closely (gap only thickness of sticker paper) over the cane's tubing, and cut it, drilled matching holes for some screws with the existign adjustment holes, slotted it to fit over the "adjustmetn button", and cleaned and filed it inside and on outside of cane, smeared gorilla glue over teh whole to-be-mated surfaces (otuside of cane, inside of toptube) and slid them into each other. Added screws in holes, then dunked it all under water to get water into the glue cuz it cures faster and better that way, then poured out all the excess water and left it out back on the trike's rack to cure and dry out.

It survived today with no sign of issues, so we'll just have to wait and see how well it holds up over time.

I tried taking pics of the broken edges, but couldn't get any focus at all on them, and apparently didn't take any general pics of the break, so all I have is these after-fix pics:
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I don't nromally use the cane at home much because it spooks Tiny, and Yogi is a bit shy of it too (sometimes a lot shy), but I was pretty wiped out after work, and was using it after getting off the trike once that was parked by the back door.
 
Lazybones yesterday:
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Working on uploading vid of today's post-bath playtime.


Some pics of the still-going squash patch (the other one is still there but it pretty much stopped growing, and all of them are still "baby" plants no more than a few small leaves and stems), and of the mulberry tree in the middle of it, and the other two fast-growing mulberries back there:
 

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Last night in a coincidental Twilight Zone moment I busted my favorite walking stick made from a graphite golf driver shaft. The lower 1/3 was flopping around like a horse's broken leg. I wrapped some clear packing tape around it and went over it with a black permanent marker so it's not real noticeable. Time will tell how long it holds up, but I suppose I'll have to make another one pretty soon.
 
Hopefully you weren't leaning on it like I was mine, at the time!


Gravity-checks are not much fun. :(

To cheer you up, here's a pic of Tiny waiting on the feeding couch for me to get done with adding the trailer hitch to the trike. :)
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And a broader shot showing Yogi off to the side, on the cooler kitchen tile floor.
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.
 
Didn't get on yesterday to post anything, cuz the laptop from Bigmoose finally died, BSODs on any copy of the OS even the backup drive; it's a motherboard problem.

Due to previous issues (bad memory slot, fan controller issues, random wierdness, etc) it had been consigned to be my "internet router" to use the ASUS USB wifi stick with to share my neighbor's internet access, because that USB stick will not work on any other computer I have had to try it on. (well, it "works" in that it installs, talks to teh cmputer, etc., but every single time, shortly after it is installed, Windows disables it in the network connections and it can't be re-enabled, no matter what you do, so ti can't be used for internet access on anything other than the now-dead laptop, and in two years I have never found a way around that).

I have a wifi PCI card that I tried in this desktop from Grin that I'm using now, but while it "works" it does not detect any networks, even my sister's (which even my crappy phone can pickup from the same spot in my bedroom at the other end of the house from hers). I'd prefer to just run a cable to her router, but her cat tends to chew on wires and things, especially if they are "new" to her, and I'd have to make one after finding my crimpers and connectors and cable (if I still have them).

So instead I dug out another old laptop with built-in wifi (that won't work with the USB stick, either), and set it up to access her wifi, and then hardwire it to the desktop's wired port the same way I previously had the old now-dead X31, and am now using it as the router/gateway to her wifi from teh desktop (the laptop itself has too little memory and is way way too slow to use directly, just oopening a browser takes enough time to make lunch, and opening a new tab minutes, etc).


So now I have internet access again. :)


I spent the internet-less day yesterday finishing up the details of the trailer setup on teh trike, and fixing a bunch of little things on it, talking to my sister about random things, and taking the dogs for a trip to work in the new trike+trailer setup. Pics in the SB Cruiser thread.
 
Computers. :(


Having quite a problem getting a "new" one up and running; built from various donated hardware that all tests good, just trying to get WindowsXP up and running on it.

Started to post it here, instead made a new thread here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73567
since I figure many of the people that might know what I am talking about wouldn't look at this thread. :oops:


In ohter news, have gotten a lot of stuff planted now that it's getting cooler (high-80s-90's instead of 100's F), and been actually raining a little off and on.

Probably not gonna get any Honeydew melons though, cuz Tiny (probably) or Yogi dug up the ones under the small central mulberry tree, which had been just beginning to develop a few fingertip-sized melons. The other patch at the side of the house doesn't get as much sun so it's not as far along, though it's protected from being dug up by the fencing.

The ones still left under the big tree all withered away despite the same care/etc I give the others. :/ I suspect something in the bathtub greywater used to water the tree itself, as that's the only difference other than it's much sandier soil there.

The spaghetti squash is doing well, probably a couple dozen of them nearing full size now.

None of the zuchini or yellow squash has survived, AFAICT; nor did the pumpkins ever sprout.

Figures the one thing I didnt' really care much for is the one that worked out. :/


Tiny and Yogi are both doing great, though, loving the cooler weather except for the actual thunderstorms, like yesterday. I was taking a shower when one storm hit, and I'd had the bathroom window open to listen/watch while showering; was looking right at Metrocenter area sky when a lighting bolt as thcik as my pinky at arm's length struck somewhere there, crawling down out of the sky and then pulsing several times, with the thunder hitting before the last of the pulses faded, less than a second after it started.

Tiny had already been sandwiched between the toilet and the bathtub, and Yogi had been running around whining and panting, but when this hit he ran in the bathroom and tried to climb in the shower with me, until the water doused him, then he backed out some and stood half-in half-out just out of range of the main splattering.

He REALLY doesn't like the thunder, AT ALL. Tiny doesn't like the booms when they happen but she gets over it reasonably quickly--he's upset about it for hours after it stops.
 
Yes, they are.

And neither one of them liked the thunderstorm today--Tiny hid in the bathtub and Yogi followed me everywhere.

There was a lot of rain in the first 30-40 minutes of the storm, completely flooding the street (not even a bump of asphalt in the middle could be seen until after the rain had died down some), and it kept drizzling for hours.

So at the tail end of the really heavy rain, I setup the pump and started moving that water into the yard...taht was around 1130am or earlier, about 12 hours ago.

I'm *still* pumping water from the puddle, though the rain finally stopped around 6pm or so, I guess, and cleared up a bit later (though intermittent lightning from the storm many miles north of the valley is still lighting up the clear starry sky in flashes bright enough to light up the indoors).

I looked at the pump's manual, and it says at 0 feet of head height (whcih it is at), it can do 485 gallons per hour. Let's assume it's only 400 gallons per hour with intake and outlet restrictions and hose length...running for 12 hours that means there was at least 4800 gallons of water out in the street puddle--way more than I previously estimated. :shock:


And there's still at least several hundred gallons out there; so the pump will need to run more than another hour to move the rest of it to the yard.

Speaking of which, I gotta go move the hose to the last spot.


Oh, and there are no puddles in the yard itself...that's how thirsty the ground was (even in the places I've been watering every day).
 
When the same system came through here it dumped 4"+ in the mountains causing mudslides which closed down a couple of major highways with 5-6 feet of mud. All we got where I live was a brief drizzle, but we watched the lightning flashes over the mountains that night. Posting news article in the El Nino thread.
 
I forgot to post the pics (haven't been able to upload the videos), but we got hail in the last rainstorm. PIcs at the end of post.

Also, I found hte largest CFL bulb I've ever seen, for a couple bucks at goodwill on their half-price day. It's almsot as big as Yogi's head (which is big!), and is quite bright, so attached are some pics of it lit up and next to a "regular" CFL ("15w, 75w-equivalent). It doesn't say what it's output should be, but it takes 85W to run it...so my guess from it's brightness is it's like a 300W lightbulb, at least. :lol: Still has a regular screw-in base, which looks corny on such a huge bulb.
 

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beast775 said:
Holy CFL! :)
Yeah, it's big and bright. The pics of it "on" look really dark because the camera stepped the shutter way down--compare them to the pic before I turned it on, you can see the difference in the light because that's a sunlit window to the left/back of the lamp.... ;)


1JohnFoster said:
Nice hailstorm! Hope that didn't dent your stuff!

Thankfully, nothing was harmed that I could tell at the time, though I havent' investigated everything. I don't even think the glass aquarium I use for suntea/solar cooking on top of one of the tin sheds was damaged. Only thing hurt was Yogi's pride as he was really super unhappy about the icecubes being thrown down from the sky so hard, making all that noise. :( Tiny didn't like it either....

This hailstorm was nothing near as bad as the one a few years ago, which was valley-wide and destroyed quite a lot of stuff. I'd had a box of 4-foot fluorescent lamp tubes outside, some of which were broken by that hail, IIRC. Hachi and I think Bonnie were outside when part of that storm hit and were really unhappy about it, though IIRC Hachi went out to go rescue some of her toys and stuff from the storm; I think there's video/pics of that in one of my threads around here (probably CrazyBike2 thread).

I would like to get the vids of the storm/aftereffects/Tiny-Yogi uploaded and linked here, too, but no luck so far.
 
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