Miscellany

1) One reason my latest posts took so long and are pictureless is the USB connection for downloading pictures from our camera to my 10 year old Mac died. Not sure if its the socket in the camera or the cable.

2) The weather here continues to be very fine. Yesterday I took a long walk which passed by a cemetery that has not been used for 130 years (but had been used for 100 or so years before that), and went over a stone bridge that carried the local highway until about 1870, and through lots of pretty forest. Best of all I got to shuffle through 10 billion leaves ( I counted them).

3) Things here are going along as usual. Had a very nice visit from Megan Banta. On Saturday we got to Hartford to see the Wadsworth Antheneum, and then attended a showing of Disney's Fantasia with live music provided by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. It was a great show visually and aurally.

The Wadsworth has a good collection of fine art and an overabundance of really silly contemporary paintings.

A half wasted day

I wasted half a day today. I wasted it walking in the woods, looking at the shapes and shadows of hills and valleys, seeing the gold and orange of a sugar maple's leaves, looking at the perfect blue of the sky through the branches of century old pine, watching the sun turn clouds pink and purple.  I hope you all get to waste half a day this way very soon.

An important lesson

Acting with too little data and not even taking advantage of all the data you have can lead to serious errors. Bear with this long post. There are a few neat "punchlines".

 This weekend our guest noted water dripping from the first floor bathroom ceiling. He said it was luke warm. I immediately went to the basement and closed the hot water shutoff valve to the upstairs bathroom. The drip continued. I rushed and shut off the cold water valve. The drip stopped shortly afterward.  I opened the hot shutoff and no further dripping occurred. I surveyed the plumbing arrangement for the upstairs bathroom.   The cold water feed came up through a first floor closet. At the first floor ceiling it had a horizontal branch which went toward the sink while the line continued vertically to the shower. I went to the upstairs bathroom and noted that the feed to the toilet tank was at floor level. None of the lines I could touch felt wet. The piping ( tubing) was of chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC). My conclusions were: the line to the toilet branched from the horizontal line in the floor; the leak was most likely at the "tee" fitting where this line branched off; the best way to reach it was through the ceiling where removal of a small piece of metal ceiling would give me good access.

Results ( why my conclusions were faulty):

1) After spending well over an hour ( not counting the time searching for tools) carefully removing the cove molding and the many nails holding the ceiling sheet in place and bending it back, it was obvious that the original plaster ceiling was intact even including some stenciling, and had never been entered by a plumber.   Reaching the the pipe through here would require destroying the original fabric of the house and a lot of work and mess. So access through ceiling was a bad conclusion.

2) Went to the upstairs bathroom and looked at the floor. The cuts the plumber made were so obvious and obtrusive anyone with any sense would have known immediately that this was the way to gain access to the pipes.  So I pulled out the vanity floor and pulled up the three floor boards the plumber had used for access and exposed the horizontal line I mentioned earlier.  There was no tee in the line to feed the toilet. So the conclusion about how the line to the toilet ran was wrong as well as the conclusion about where the leak was. I revisited the vertical line and reaching up into the space above the closet ( remember the closet where the vertical line ran?) I found where that line branched off with one line feeding the bath/shower, and the other  running in the wall and then down to the floor to connect to the toilet.

3) Now having the horizontal line fully exposed I was ready to find the leak. I asked my wife go to the basement and open the cold water feed valve. She did. Nothing happened. In short, there was no leak!!!

What had happened was she had taken in a shower in the upstairs bathroom without tucking the curtain in properly and some of the water had seeped through the floor to the first floor  bathroom ceiling. The fact that the dripping stopped when I closed the cold water feed was just coincidence.

I just hope I remember this lesson and  that maybe some of you will learn to be less hasty in drawing conclusions before gathering and analyzing all the available data.

Second October Weekend

Had company over the weekend. We hit the Ashfield Fall Festival, along with about ten million other folks. I picked up some useful tools at the giant tag sale Mike Skulski runs every year. Our friends bought some art glass from local artist Ed Bransom. My grandson, Walter made a killing with a game I helped him build. ... and of course I forgot to take pictures of all this. The best part of Fall Festival was the blueberry cobbler our friend Jane made for the local Episcopalian Church's fund raiser. Later Saturday, we saw a very entertaining play at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox. "Accomplice" is full of the usual plot twists of a stage mystery and then some.

On Sunday, we went to an antiques show in Historic Deerfield and the to Shelburne Falls to see, amongst other things, the Bridge of Flowers. The Bridge of Flowers is an old trolley bridge that has been converted to a pedestrian bridge flanked by flower beds maintained by local volunteers. Here are a few photos from Sunday:

Our friends and Jean, 

Our distinguished neighbor across the road. The sheep are there to eat the grass. The llama, Fern, is there to protect the sheep from coyotes. She is very protective and bossy. She is also a snob. I have never managed to meet with her approval and she always glares at me with disdain or even out right contempt.

and some photos from Shelburne Falls and the Bridge of Flowers. The first is the Deerfield River, which flows through the village.

 My photos aren't bad, just not up to the standard set by Julia V.

News from the previous week

These are from the week prior to going to Vermont.

It's been a busy few days for us. I've cut and installed some more boards and done a bit of painting. On Friday  9/ 27 Jean went to a Massachusetts LWV board meeting in Boston. Then we met in Historic Deerfield to attend a reception for the opening of a new exhibit on 400 years of furniture making in Mass. From the reception we went a seafood restaurant in Greenfield where quantity and low prices were the hallmark. From there we went wonderful concert, the real reason we were in Greenfield. The program included pieces by Jay Ungar and Stephen Foster and the truly beautiful American Quartet by Dvorak. I urge to get to hear this when you can. Much of the music was performed by a recently formed Wistaria Quartet and they did a fine job, especially with the Dvorak. The other performers were also quite good. The only down side was the small audience. I urge you all to go out and see the local performing artists in your area. Leave the TV off and turn off the other devices, including the one you are reading this on.

Saturday 9/28 was another busy day, with Jean helping out at the local LWV book sale and getting signatures for an expanded bottle bill and me going for a 78 mile bike ride contributing to a Southern Vermont food charity. The ride was very scenic, following the Deerfield River for about 30 miles. The worst thing about the day was that I could swear I ate very little and did all that riding and still gained 2 pounds.

Sunday we spent some time cleaning up destruction... I mean construction debris and visiting with our son and his family. Then we went to Keene NH to meet our former Glen Rock neighbors and very good friends. We had a fine meal at a place near the town center called Luca's. Not cheap but well worth the cost. Keene is a charming town with several old homes and other buildings showing outstanding architecture.

Vermont Trip

Just got back from a long weekend in Vermont. We stayed in Dorset, near Manchester. It's a beautiful area with lots of forested mountains and hills all trying to outdo each other in color and graceful shapes. Thursday was great weather and we got some walking and tandem cycling in. Friday was a day for more indoor pursuits: crafts and antique shows.

Saturday I did a charity ride for a small foundation that provides equipment and other support for cancer patients and survivors pursuing things like skiing, cycling, running, etc. It was founded by a young man who lost his entire left leg to cancer about ten years ago. He took up cycling and within two years did his first 100 mile ride. He rode in this event, a mere 100 km.

The ride went through some of the prettiest valleys and up some of the steeper roads in the area.  I plan to do it again next year and may be soliciting contributions.