Short supply

September 17, 2007 (6:00am)

36º F, Clear, No Wind.

Good morning,

Gee it is late this morning for some reason. Not as cool as the past couple of days, but expecting some rain today and tomorrow. Another freeze yesterday morning and set another low temperature record for the day in history. Talking of near 80º F later in the week for highs! We had planned to head to FISKLAND today for another load and to look in on Bible study but have a couple of important things to do here instead - before the rains come.

Saturday I got the chimney opening ready to accept the new chimney. After a bit more trimming and pushing, the support sleeve I made went into the hole and fastened in place. Then came the support box and it too was duly installed and fastened in place. The hard part came next, cutting the opening in the metal roof and installing the flashing and storm collar around the flue. Finally did get it ready to fasten in place, only to find we had left the seal tape at FISKLAND somehow. I didn’t know it came out of the truck and into the house, so it still is there. Of course it is late Saturday afternoon with all of the lumber yards closed for the weekend. We went into Iron River, hoping the hardware store there would carry it, but to no avail. I did pick up some seal tape fore attaching a camper top to a pick up, to use as a stop-gap for the rest of the weekend, knowing there was a possibility of rain coming. Also discovered I had forgotten to purchase any screws with sealing washers to fasten things together. I ended up scrounging some of the screws I had taken out of this place and reusing them, but there are not enough of them and probably are not up to sealing as I would like. This morning I will be heading to the lumber yard and get the proper seal tape and screws to finish the task correctly.

We also discovered the stove we ordered nearly a month ago, is still not in and the distributor is out of stock and on back order. I emailed the distributor and they confirmed they were out. We cancelled the order, as we had found one in a store on display, the last time to FISKLAND. Intended to pick it up today, but probably will tomorrow now. I have dealt with the distributor when I had the store, finding it difficult to deal with and finally ending my business with them. I know how the dealer here feels (not good) when an order is cancelled, but I am getting hungry and skinny. Maybe we can finally get the eating kitchen together and easier to use.

Yesterday, church day, normally is a pretty slow day around here. Not much work getting done and pretty much unwinding. What unwinding there is to do. I did manage to get out and up on the roof of the Hobbit Hus to cut back some branches of a maple tree. I want to take as much weight and leverage from the tree as I can before cutting it down. Should make it easier to “steer” the tree away from the house. Really would like that to happen - not drop the tree on the house. Gave Margriet a start when one of the bigger branches fell onto the roof when I missed catching it. She thought it was this dead head hitting falling. I didn’t get all down I intended to, as the wind came up and I didn’t feel like playing with the branches on a roof top in a wind. The branches tend to act much like a sail!

After church, we like to eat brunch at a restaurant. Intended to stop at Florence, but they were too busy so went on to Alpha. They had a line waiting out the door! Since we intended to go to a quilt show at the Iron County Museum in Iron River in the afternoon, we headed there. Finally, Mr. T’s had a place to eat. They too were very busy, but found a booth and enjoyed a very good breakfast. We had not been there in some time, in fact I think since staying in the motel just up the road.

The quilt show was something else. Their main building was filled with hundreds of quilts made by folks in the area. Most were too pretty to use on a bed. Some were for sale, but too rich for our blood (one at $1,500.00!). I think I would need to sleep in a safe with some of them on the bed. The craftsmanship was exquisite to say the least. We can understand the high price tags for the amount of work going into making them, but way too rich for our blood. I think we will stay under our dekbed! We did have a good time looking at all of them and chatting with the folks there.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><