Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Frigidity!

'winterlight'

It's been the coldest, snowiest winter of my tenure here in East Boothbay, and I have been dealing with broken furnaces and frozen pipes and insurance adjusters ad nauseam. At the moment, all systems are functioning though neither the furnace in the barn nor the one in my house are in optimum condition. They are at least keeping me warmish.

The instigation of this drama involved my travelling around the holidays, first to Tennessee to visit Sloane and her parents, then to Vermont for Christmas, and Cambridge for New Year's. While in Cambridge with two young Finnish couples, the children of my old friends in Helsinki, a huge storm came in with bitter cold to follow and I was stuck there for two days. Apparently, at some point, the power went out and my house furnace refused to come back on. When Duane Pinkham arrived that Saturday morning, the house was down to 32 degrees, the pipes to the upstairs bath were burst; ice was coming out of the kitchen faucet. He reset the furnace and it came on, but was not reliable after that. There was never any guarantee that it would come back on when it was needed. After 4 different visits by men from Dead River, who all told me one way or another that I needed a new furnace, one of them put on a new igniter and the furnace has been humming along ever since - although the initial problem of the burnt out baffles remains to be fixed, or a new furnace installed.

Then, I approached the barn  fully expecting to walk into a cozy studio. It was not, and when I went to try the water, the faucet handle just popped right off in my hand! The water in the WC was frozen, and the radiant floor was not circulating.That issue remains, but there is water  for the sink and the john, and whatever is happening in the floor, at least it is now keeping the studio warm.

So I have been busy learning more about furnaces than I ever wanted to, but also learning what good help is around here. John Jicka has been a huge help, making things work again, and then replacing busted faucets and light fixtures. Steve Monroe has been huge in opening up walls so John can fix things, and then closing them up again - as if nothing had happened. Now we'll see how long it takes for the insurance money to come through!

The toll in the house: 4 poinsettias gone, 1 cactus, 1/2 Christmas cactus, a peace lily, and part of a kaffir lily, and one orchid. The rosemary and the cyclamen seem to have made it through. It was kind of a shock to check the water in the base of the peace lily and discover it was frozen! But like all green things, there will be more where these once were...and I shall turn my attention from travel this year to the house, sort out the issues that need to be addressed and those that don't, and get on with life. In the meantime, I have a logo for the church to develop, and paintings to produce. Here's an old, but hopeful one:

Sorry about the quality, but I'm still having issues with more than one image per blog...