End of the drying season

It seems that -- although they got dry -- the frozen stiff wash blowing in the "high wind warning" quality winds, were too much for the "clothes tree". This is the second of the single pole units with 4 metal arms and lines running around in a square pattern that has died under my use.

The bad part is that the ground is frozen and though it is supposed to get above freezing for a couple of days, and stay above over one night, I do not think it will thaw the ground sufficiently to plant the other poles, even if I had the concrete to put them in with. I will likely buy a bag of the stuff on my shopping trip tomorrow in hopes, but knowing that I have to fit the hole digging and cement mixing/pouring in around work, I am not holding my breath. At least I have the inside drying rack and can get another if I must (I learned this past spring that those things blow over in the least breeze, so putting them out is not an option) but I am determined to use the electric dryer only for emergencies and for clothes that must be de-haired. The best way I have found to remove the vast quantities of cat (mostly) and dog hair is a trip through the dryer with a dryer sheet included. I hate dryer sheets, as a rule, but it does help to get rid of more hair.

I have an odd list for the shopping this week. The cupboards are getting thin, as it's been a longer month, I think, and I want to get started on the holiday baking Thanksgiving day, since we are eating with friends and I do not need to do the major part of the meal, so I will make sure that I have the stuff needed for the rolls and pies that I will take for Thanksgiving and enough honey and molasses and spices for the Lebkuchen cookies (they get included in the holiday shipping boxes) and do the rest of the major shopping after the first of the month, as usual.

But we discovered the tree stand's bolts are missing, so I need "tree screws" and I am determined to fix the bedroom closet door so that the cats cannot breech the door and climb on/tear down/SHED all over my work clothes, so I have added a "door hook" and then there is the cement of course, in addition to peanut butter, Splenda, shortening and K's meds.

As it has gotten to winter and the garage is neither insulated nor heated (yet) he has brought inside the sawhorses, boards and stain, and I found a dropcloth, so I will be applying the stain to the boards today and likely tomorrow we will be framing in the office window. Then I can finish the wood and once it dries, we can afix the heat-shrink plastic.

We do need to figure how to keep the water pipe to one of the sinks the the master/cat bathroom running though. That sink only had hot water, as the cold had frozen previously and been shut off on account of a leak. Night before last I noted when I got a drink in the middle of the night, and in the early morning, that it was giving warning signals, but it never occurred to me that it would freeze after sunup, but it did. Being plastic pipe, heating it with the hair dryer did nothing. I am not sure where the thing froze, but I am seriously considering trying to add on a foot or so to that end of the trailer next year. It would eliminate the bay window that surrounds the non-working spa tub, but as the added foot would be "dead space" used only to help insulate, we could still have a window on that end, and hopefully it would help stop the freezing. The winds are constant here, it seems and out of the west of course, and it does suck the heat from that end.

Eventually there will be windbreak trees, but the will take a few years to get started. If I put in freestanding greenhouses, I am thinking of putting them to the west, too, hoping that they can temporarly help break the incessant wind, though I am not sure how practical that option will be.