About those plans....

Remember those plans I wrote about yesterday? They got scrambled a little today.

I drove up to the Bolt Hole this morning (220 miles). The snow at the Aerie disappeared when I reached Watkins Glen. There was absolutely nothing on the ground until I got above Utica. There, I found the high land north of the Mohawk contained more and more snow. By the time I got to the Bolt Hole (elevation 1800 feet) there were huge amounts of snow still on the ground. The lawn was covered by 18 inches of snow with a nice hard crust on top. Luckily there's a group of rabbit hunters who use my yard as a staging area AND the DEC Ranger who works our area of the state also uses my yard as a place to park his vehicle with its trailer. Combined, they see to it that access to the yard and house is kept pretty clear even when neither Mark nor I are around. As a result, I could drive right up to the door.

I also found that Mark was there. His car was parked at his gate and there was smoke from his chimney.

But first, I noticed my chimney was missing its cap but there was a metal paint bucket turned upside down over the top of the chimney. Inside, all the furniture had been shoved to one end of the living room, a tarp was draped along the eastern wall, the ceiling light fixture behind the wood stove had been cut out, a blanket hung across the door to the kitchen and there was no electricity to the kitchen lights. Oh, and Mark's kerosene heater and tools lay all over the floor of the living room.

I went over to see if, perhaps, Mark could shed some light upon what the heck was going on. He could, and I was disappointed to learn that there had been another electrical mishap. Something caused a short in the section of old canvas covered wire I did not replace last fall. That happened to be on a 25 amp circuit breaker, which 1-fried a connection in a junction box in the basement, 2-caused the fluorescent bulb in the kitchen to explode, 3-resulted in Mark shutting down of the over large circuit. Mark had an electrician in to help diagnose the problem. Only cost a short cord of wood from the shed. As for the rewiring job, we can do that.

Mark also said that, in February, there were two weeks during which the temperature did not get above 0 degrees. Meltwater seeped into the living area and icicles 2 feet long hung from the log roof purlins when they dripped lots of stuff got wet. When the chimney cap blew off (he's not sure when that happened) snow and water accumulated in the stove. (He cleaned that up and dried everything out.) Frost heaving/settling has caused the old and new sections of the house to separate slightly and that helped the snow meltwater to gain access.

We concluded that we need to rewire the old section of the Bolt Hole. We walked through and made a short list of the materials needed fro the rewiring, recapping of the chimney and more. Then I decided to head home to the Aerie since I had no light and couldn't build a fire to keep warm.

So it was another 220 miles to reach home. That made 440 miles round trip. Approximately 9 hours behind the wheel and another 3 or so inspecting the Bolt Hole with Mark.

As I told Mark, I'll be back in about two weeks with tools and supplies and with a desire to 1-get the chimney capped so I can heat the place and 2-run some wire to create at least two new circuits--breaking the demand upon the one large circuit that now exists while, at the same time, restoring power to the old portion of the cabin. Hopefully, there will also be less snow and warmer temperatures come April 10th.