Some Progress

We made some progress today. Our washing machine has been repaired. The machine had "broken down" just before we went to WI, and this was completely independent of the water disaster. But, we really need it now to start washing some soaked and dirtied items, so it was good to get it back online.

Because we now know that a valve "blew up" rather than a pipe bursting, we decided to have the companion valve on the cold water side replaced as well, just to be prudent. The plumber brought the failed valve to us so that we could give it to the insurance company. Here is what it looks like. The part you see on the bottom of the picture somehow broke free of the main valve (top). The insurance company will send it to a lab, and if they determine it was defective, they will go after the manufacturer for damages, including recovery of our deductible amount.


The ServiceMaster folks were here again this morning. They added another dehumidifier, and that has helped quite a bit. The bitter cold outside and the 80% humidity in the house were combining to make all of our windows and exterior walls sweat. We were worried about paint and wallpaper damage, so this seems to be helping. The humidity is down to 75% as I write this. ServiceMaster also decided that the north wall also needed to be demoed, so here is that result.



This was a little hard to watch, but it was incredibly wet behind the plaster walls, and the insulation was soaked, so this was the right thing to do. The exterior sheeting was also soaked, and everything is drying much better now. I had the folks who installed that new front bay window come out and inspect it. They believe it will be fine, as long as we take care to thoroughly dry everything.

The insurance adjuster was here this afternoon as well, and he did a thorough walkthrough. We feel good about what he has had to say so far, and so now we can begin to work on cleanup and making lists of lost or damaged items. I asked my cousin from Clarence to come out tomorrow to bid doing repairs for us. We'll see what he has to say. There is still some question on ServiceMaster's part as to whether or not the ceiling can be saved. It may yet need to be demoed as well.

I think that's it for now.

Quick Update

No more pictures just yet, but I thought I'd provide a brief update.

It turns out that the water break was not due to a frozen pipe. Instead, one of the two, one-and-one-half year old shutoff valves for the hot and cold lavatory water faucets in the half bath just "blew apart" (the plumber's technical description, not mine). He said it wasn't a very high quality one, and so we have brought that to the attention of the firm that handled our bath and kitchen updates something like a year and a half ago! What this also means is that we no longer have any idea when the break actually occurred, as we are now unable to relate it to weather conditions. Nevertheless, it is likely, given the amount of water and damage, that it was pouring out for two or more days.

ServiceMaster was back this morning to check on things. They will return each day to take moisture readings and adjust the drying process. There is still some possibility that they may have to rip the sheetrock off the north wall of the living room in order to fully dry the area on that outside wall where the leak was concentrated. We noted this morning that you can see an arc perfectly below our half bath and imprinted on the outside brick. That part of the brick facia is completely soaked.

Our bathroom is beginning to dry out. The living room is going most slowly. The basement is showing quite a bit of improvement in terms of drying out. However, we have been asked to keep the temperature at about 73 degrees (really hot and uncomfortable for us). Even with all the fans and the heavy duty dehumidifiers, the humidity in the house seems stuck at about 80%. We are getting lots of condensation everywhere, especially now that it has dropped to near zero outside. I guess this is just something to have to live through for a short while. ServiceMaster says it will take from 3 to 5 days to dry, maybe more.

I spend several hours this morning polishing the beds and tables of my power tools with steel wool this morning. The rust was almost exclusively surface rust--tightly stuck to the beds and tables, but no pitting, thank goodness. I was able to get them quite smooth again (most important), even if quite discolored, and I put a heavy coat of paste wax on them right away. This is something I had just done last week before we went to WI, but it wasn't enough for the amoung of water we got on them. Anyway, I'm feeling mostly better about my tools, though several table extensions, made of particle board, are swelling up and deforming and will need to be replaced. Most of my individual small tools, router bits, and similar items seem to be OK so far. I'll be able to tell more in a day or so.

We have lost an older (not critically important) laptop computer, a number of books, and probably at least one overstuffed chair. We aren't sure yet about what else may be damaged.

One problem is that the insurance adjuster hasn't gotten back to us yet or stopped over. I'll be complaining to the company in the morning. That has kept us from moving ahead on very much, since we have questions about what we can/can't do and also want her/him to see the damage first hand before we change anything.

Living with all of this noise (it really does sound like being inside a jet), the very high humidity, and the high temperatures is making the place somewhat unpleasant. However, we have to be here to handle calls and certain repair calls. So, we have found a couple of places in which to retreat, including a bedroom where we can just close the heat registers for comfortable nighttime sleeping conditions. And this afternoon, we just took off and escaped to a movie for awhile. We saw Atonement, which we recommend.

So, I think that's all there is to report for now. I'll surely have more news and, I hope, progress and pictures to report in the days to come.

Learning the Hard Way

(Warning: This is something of a "feel sorry for myself posting.)

I wish I could look back at that prior posting and still feel playful. Today has not been a good day. At about 10:00 this morning, while still in WI, we received a call from our valiant house cleaner to say that when she had arrive at our IA house to do her usual cleaning, there was water pouring into the living room. I immediately launched into helping her get to the basement to find the water shutoff valve, which she did and which she turned to the "OFF" position. Throughout our phone conversation, I was getting unsettling comments about the condition of our living room and basement and whether or not she would be able to clean. (I encouraged her to just leave things as they were and leave.) It turns out that a pipe had burst in the half bath in Kathie's and my bedroom. This is a pipe with which we had had previous trouble over the 18 years we have lived here, but it always recovered after we nursed it through any seriously cold spells while we were here. The problem is that we weren't here for the nursing, and it burst, evidently. This pipe is probably not installed to code, since it is very close to the overhang of our second story. (Indeed, it may be in the overhang of the second story. Anyway, it burst, I'm guessing on January 24th, when I understand the Iowa City temperatures dropped to something like 12 below. Today is the 28th, so water may have been spewing into our home here in IA for four days!

Kathie and I, in spite of a serious wish to veg out in WI at our lake home, knew that we should head for IA. First, we called ServiceMaster and asked them to go to our home to begin cleanup processes. (Later we learned from Rob that he would have chosen Steamatic, but by this time, it was too late. By the way, so far, ServiceMaster is doing OK.) We also called our favorite plumber, Muller Plumbing and Heating (note: Amber), to come out and repair whatever was wrong or to isolate the upstairs bathroom. Then we packed up and headed south for a quick (8 hour) trip home. To add to complications, Kathie has a bad cold, or possibly a flu, and the ride home was agonizing for her. She was a real trouper, though, and we got back at about 7PM, after several phone consults with ServiceMaster.

We are now back in IC, and we are endeavoring to get life back in order. As I write this, I must admit that I am under the influence of a stiff drink before bed, and so please ignore any typos or incomplete sentences or whatever.

When we arrived, we opened the back door and were greeted by a sound something like that of a ride in a commercial jetliner. The house is full of something like 15 dehumidifiers and fans that are attempting to dry the house out. Here is the "scene of the crime" where the pipe burst under the sink in our half bath. The linoleum in our bath had to be removed, and about 1/4 of the carpet in our bedroom is soaked. It could be worse.



Once the flooding began, the water flowed into our living room. Evidently, the entire north wall of the living room was saturated and spilling water into the living room. In addition, water spilled into the center of the living room from our shower area, probably destroying a favorite living room chair in the process. Now there are numerous fans and dehumidifers in there endeavoring to set things right, and there are lots of new holes in the walls and ceilings, which were introduced to allow water to exit.


From my biased point of view, the worst problem is my beloved woodworking shop. Once the water seeped into the basement from the living room, it spread out and effectively "rained" all over the basement. My shop seemed to take the worst hit. Power tools are rusting and wet. I'm going to have to spend all day tomorrow with steel wool and wax to try to maintain their integrity. Here is what things look like now. I'd be down there right now working, except that it is so incredibly humid that I can't make progress. Do you see the rusted table saw table and the rusted jointer/planer table? Yikes!!!


The things we had stored in the basement have gotten soaked, including Christmas decorations, my electric trains, and who know what else. Here is some of the damage.


All the way home from WI, we imagined the worst and kicked ourselves repeatedly (at least, I did) for not having taken precautionary steps. For example, we are extremely careful with the WI property to shut off the water when we aren't there and to take other steps to make sure that the home is safe. Why do we think we can leave the IA property and not do the same? Duh!!!!!!! Also, since this pipe had given us some minor problems in the past, why didn't we get it fixed much earlier??? Hindsight!!!!

Right now, the house is so humid, that you could start an Environmental Rainforest Project here. And I feel like I'm sitting in my window seat in a 737--the fans are something else.

I guess I'll just go to bed and hope that tomorrow is a better day. At least this isn't a health problem, and I still have a terrific set of kids and grandkids to make me smile! (By the way, thanks to Rob for stopping out when he was very busy at work to check on things for us while we were driving back!! You're the best, Rob!)

Snow Angel

Many would say that I'm not the playful type. Well, I'm here to prove you wrong.




Quite a nice end result, don't you think? Good wings. My blue jeans are still damp, however. Kathie thought Henry would like this. The other two grandkids are too young to care, though.

In case you can't tell, we are in the great north woods. We stopped to see Will and Sandy on the way up, and they treated us to -17 degree temperatures. It was +4 here when we arrived but dropped to -14 the next morning. Since then, we are having a heat wave, with temperatures in the 20s. Yah sure and you betcha, eh? There is quite a bit of snow, and so everything is very pretty (for those of us who like this kind of weather). Josey and I have walked on the lake, and I think cross-country skiing will soon be taking place. For those of you who wonder what it looks like now, here is a glimpse.




P.S. If you are on a PC and have access to Internet Explorer (won't work with any other browser), you can click here to get a view out the back of our cabin on the webcam I have installed. When you get to that web page, click on "View Video." It works all the time, even when we aren't here. This allows me to get a little dose of pleasure, even when I can't be here. And, when we are here, you might even catch an occasional glimpse of us roaming around on the deck or down in the yard. I could wave at you if I knew when you were looking. By the way, if you are on a Macintosh, like I am, and still want to look at the webcam, I can help you get some special software installed that will do the trick in place of Internet Explorer.

Babysitting Eleanor

Last night, we babysat Eleanor in her new home. The parents were attending a belated holiday party. Eleanor has one of the coolest toys I've ever seen for an infant. She sits/stands in the middle of a circular array of gadgets designed to stimulate and entertain. Her dad said it is a kind of self-contained babysitting machine.


Standing with a goofy grandfather in front of a mirror is just not as entertaining.


Grandma is more interesting.

Granddaughter Report and Other News

I know you have all been waiting for a report on our trip to the Chicago area to meet the new granddaughter and to catch up with the rest of the family. So, let's get to the important part first. Here she is, Miss Clara.



As you might be able to tell, she is a great sleeper at this point. We got a glimpse of her eyes only a few times. As Henry says, she sleeps and she nurses. Actually, she also has a cute way of trying out all kinds of little sounds and practicing various movements with her lips--pursing, pouting, smiling, etc. She is a delight to hold and is giving her folks a relatively easy time so far. Her pediatrician says she is already growing. Her weight was up 4 ounces the last we knew.

Next are the requisite photos of her grandparents getting some cuddling time. Gosh but it is easy to forget how tiny these newborns are and how much time you can spend marveling at their existence.



Henry is going to be a wonderful big brother, I'm sure. He seems to have adapted well to Clara's entry into his world. Of course, I think he and Clara are lucky to have two excellent parents who will always have the best interests of each of their children first in mind. The fact that they made sure that Henry was the first person (after them) to meet and to hold Clara told me a lot about the importance of everyone in that little family of four. Grandpa loves them all, of course. Here is my first chance to hold these two grandchildren at the same time.


We had waited for Clara's birth to make our trip, including celebrating the holidays together. I had thought she would come much earlier and that a December trip might be possible. Alas, she decided to wait until January 8th to show up, and so we pretty much missed out on any holiday festivities. Nevertheless, we finally had a chance to exchange gifts. I previously posted photos of the other gifts I made for family members. Here is the wine rack I made for Betsy and Pete.


And here is Henry with the toy boat I made for him. He tried it out in his bath that evening and gave his orca a ride in the cargo hold. I have had the plan for this boat for a very long time. In fact, it was in a book called The Boy Mechanic that my mother gave to me in 1957. Years later, I made my first one for Will, when he was quite small. He, Rob, and Betsy all played with it so much that all the paint was worn off and several parts lost by the time they were grown. I think Will may still have whatever is left of that original one.


Henry had received a fun toy for Christmas that allows you to build various kinds of marble tracks. I thought it was great. He and I built a couple of different versions. Here he is with one that we started giving various names, the last of which was Henry's Giagantic Globular Gooble Gobbler. Try saying that fast several times in a row! Your tongue will get tangled in your eye teeth, and you won't be able to see what you're saying!


We ordered pizza one night and watched Disney's animated version of Tarzan. Some parts were a little intense for Henry, and so he appreciated the safety of Grandma's lap.


It was a great visit. We look forward to the next one, of course.

And so, we come to the end of the story.

It's A New Granddaughter!!

For those of you who may be wondering about the arrival of Betsy and Pete's new child, please wander over to their blog site by clicking here. Mother, father, new daughter, and big brother Henry are all doing well.

As soon as Grandma and I have made our visit, there will undoubtedly be more pictures to post here.

Christmas Gifts

This year, I made almost all the Christmas presents I gave to family members. Although I've been as yet unable to deliver the gifts to certain family members in Northbrook, Illinois due to a so-far uncooperative future grandchild, I thought I'd go ahead and post pictures of everything except those gifts. They can be posted later.

I failed to get a picture of the coffee grinder that I made for Mike (Jessica's friend), but here is one like the one I made.


Will and Sandy were able to be with us for a couple of days the weekend before Christmas. Quite a long time ago, Sandy had asked about the feasibility of lining an old chest of hers with cedar. So, I agreed to do that, and because I didn't get it done very soon, it turned into her Christmas present.


In Will's case, I had to repeatedly ask what I could make for him. Finally, he suggested a set of stands for his stereo speakers. I didn't get them stained and varnished in time, but here they are. Will said he would do the finishing, but maybe I'll get that done before we deliver them and Sandy's chest to Minneapolis.


In the case of Kathie's mother, I decided to turn something on my lathe. I made her a shoe horn, using metal parts that I obtained from a woodworking supplier. My contribution was the handle, which I turned from a piece of ebony. The gold-plated hardware made it quite attractive, if I do say so myself. The best part is that she likes it and is using it daily.


For Kathie I made a game called "Shut-the-Box." It is an old "pub game" that involves dice and the goal of turning down the nine digits from 1 to 9 to enable closing the box. Gambling can be involved! I made the box from a wood called bocote, and I made the flippers for the nine digits from nine different woods: oak, blood wood, purple heart, maple, walnut, rosewood, leopard wood, zebra wood, and cocobolo.


Jessica and Travis were able to be with us for the actual Christmas holiday. For Jessica, I made a jewelry box out of walnut. I had a chance to try a couple of new techniques, including using a table saw to make coved pieces for the sides. It has a little tray too that lifts up when you open it. All the hardware is brass, so that dressed it up nicely, along with velvet linings for the "floors" of the box and tray.


Since Travis doesn't yet own have many furnishings for his apartment, I made a floor lamp for him from cherry. It is built with a sliding center post so that it can be made taller or shorter depending on where it is used.


Rob, Carrie and Eleanor were in Chicago for the holiday, but they were able to come out after they got back and before New Years. I had made a "bath pantry" for Rob and Carrie. This was a modification of a plan Rob had spotted some time ago in a Lowe's publication and wanted for a spot in one of their bathrooms in their new home on Ronalds Street.


For Eleanor, I had found a plan for a xylophone fashioned as a cricket pull toy. The mallets can be stored in two holes in the head, so that they look like the cricket's antenna, and the legs hop up and down when you pull the toy across the floor.


When I gave this to Eleanor, her parents threatened to make it their own toy, as you will see in the little video clip below.



Watch this space for a future posting of Betsy's, Pete's, and Henry's gifts, which will be given whenever we receive our summons to Northbrook to meet the new grandbaby, for whom, alas at this point, there is as yet no grandpa-constructed gift.

Ice Storms

We have had two different ice storms already this winter. The following photo illustrates what essentially every branch and twig on every tree and bush (and every power line) currently looks like.


Naturally, this adds quite a bit of weight to everything, but it can also add some beauty to the overall scene.



In addition to power outages and slippery conditions, some of our trees have taken quite a hit. Our big white pine suffered some damage in last February's storm, but it recovered fairly well. This time, however, the damage is pretty severe. Most of the upper branches have broken, and there are broken stubs all the way down. Lots of the broken pieces are still hung up on branches that survived (for now), and there is a huge mass of bent and broken limbs at the ground. These are currently frozen down, so until it warms enough to melt the ice, I can't really clean up the mess.


On the other hand, the bush that I decorated with four strings of lights is now completely encased in ice and drooping to the ground, but when the lights come on each evening, it is quite the sparkling show.

You Won't See This at Your Bird Feeder Every Day

We have been paying lots of attention to our bird feeders the last few weeks. With the snow and ice, birds have been around in large numbers, and numerous species have graced us with their presence. For example, we have seen dozens of juncos, chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches, bluejays, cardinals (lots and lots of cardinals), mourning doves, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, common flickers, and many others. The heater and bird bath that Will and Sandy gave us a couple of years ago seem to be a big attraction along with the food we put out. Sunflower seeds and suet blocks are the main feeding attraction, though the finches still prefer the thistle seeds.

However, in the last week, we have witnessed a real first. About a week ago, we spotted a bird of prey in our linden tree, which is very close to the feeders. Naturally, while this guy was around, everyone else was gone. I managed to get the following two shots with my 400mm lens. At first, we thought this might be a peregrine falcon. The bird is relatively small as local hawks and such go. It might be 14-16 inches from head to tip of tail. We have used whatbird.com to try to identify it, as well as our own bird books. Now we think it might be a broad-winged hawk. However, your suggestions as to other possibilities are welcomed.



The big surprise, though, occurred this morning, when my local nature photographer, Kathie, came to tell me what she had just seen. I was working in the shop and missed the action first hand. The usual array of birds were feeding, when Kathie saw a large bird, probably the same one above, swoop in and catch a male cardinal. It held it down until it died and then flew away with its prize. Kathie managed to get the following picture before it took off. She had to use digital zoom to get close, so the picture is pretty blurry, but you can clearly make out the hunter and its prey.



When we started feeding birds, we had no idea we would begin to create a natural food chain. In prior years, we have had wild turkeys and even deer at the feeders. So this has been a pretty interesting source of entertainment. On the other hand, I hope we don't continue to progress to other kinds of predators. We don't need wildcats or other such critters here, even though they might be fun to see.

Eleanor Time

Kathie volunteered to entertain Eleanor on Sunday in order to give her parents a chance to get various things done. What a treat for us! Naturally, I had to take a few pictures. Here she is looking all serious while keeping her teething octopus away from me.


One of her new tricks is sitting up.


We played together quite awhile before Kathie pointed out that she was the one who had actually done the volunteering! I can take a hint! So, Kathie took over the entertaining. Obviously, she gets more smiles and laughs than I do.


Great Grandma Novy also spent some quality time with Eleanor.

Lunch with Bob and Lola

I recently received a phone call from Bob and Lola Severin. Bob is my first cousin once removed. For those of you not up on genealogical terms, "once removed" means "in different generations." So, in this case, for example, Bob and my mother were first cousins, making him my first cousin once removed. Bob's children and I would be second cousins.

Anyway, you may recall my dinner recently with Maryann and Barbara. If not, you can click here to read about that. Bob is Maryann and Barbara's uncle, and we had discussed getting together with him sometime. He and his wife, Lola, had to come to Iowa City for an appointment at the VA, so they invited me to meet them for lunch before the appointment.

We had a great time catching up with each other. I doubt that we had seen each other for 25 years or more. Bob used to operate a farm that his father first owned that was just north of the one we lived on near Lowden. So, when I was growing up there, we saw each other from time to time.

Here is a picture of the three of us.

Thanksgiving and Snow Therapy

Many of you readers out there will know that Kathie's mother has relocated here to Iowa. During the months of September and October, she had some health setbacks from which she is recovering nicely. However, everyone agreed that all of us being nearer each other would be a good idea. Florida is nice, but the distance was making regular togetherness difficult.

Anyway, November and December have been months of transition. It had been quite a long time since Mother and her two girls and their families could be together around a Thanksgiving table. This year was different. Gail and Greg, Vicki and David, and Kris and her friend Tom were all able to be here with us. Also, Jessica flew in from Nashville. Only Travis was unable to be there. Although I failed to take a picture of all ten of us around the table for the dinner, I did get a number of other shots. Here are Jessica and Kris:


Kris and her grandmother spent a little time catching up with each other.


Tom, Kris, and Vicki posed for me.


Here are Gail and her mother.


We guys, meaning Greg, David, Tom, and I, were done in by the turkey and several football games and found it easy to nap. As a result, I had too few opportunities for pictures of everyone. However, I did find David catching some Z's on our couch (he claimed he had been up late the night before finishing a computer programming assignment at the university--I wouldn't know anything about that).


Of course, there was lots of game playing to be done too.



Since Thanksgiving, we have also treated Mother to weather with which she has been unacquainted in the 23 years since leaving the Chicago area for the warmer climes of Florida. We have had an ice storm and two or three good snowfalls. Among other things, she has enjoyed watching all the action at our bird feeders, though we usually let her do this from the confines of a cozy chair in our warm living room.


As part of her recovery, Mom has been doing lots of therapies--physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, for example. We thought she needed some additional work, so we have put her on a snow therapy program, as you will see below.