Talking to Myself Again

I Love Spring

Our redbud tree is in full bloom. One of many reasons why spring is my favorite season.

Front Yard Winter Wonderland

Snow + hill + preschooler = sledding + snowman building = winter fun!

New camcorder + new video editing software + me = video.

We've had lots of snow this winter, but most of it has not been good for playing in. It's either been bitterly cold or deposited on top of sleet. However, on Valentine's Day the temperatures were near freezing, the earlier snow packed well, and the falling snow made everything even more magical. The music, "Walking in the Air" by George Winston, seemed appropriate.

(Note to myself: Ten years from now, when my surly teenage son barely even grunts at me, remember to watch this video.)

Snow Tennis

On Sunday evening, Lando declared that he wanted us to take him to the tennis courts next to Funshop (in Lincoln Park) so that we could play tennis. The high that day was 48°F. Strangely enough, we weren't especially eager to do this.

However, we would be going to Funshop on Monday to pick up the materials for the new session (which will begin on Feb 4), so I told him that we could play a bit of tennis then. True, it would be cold, but I knew that he would only want to play for about 5 minutes anyway.

I was wrong.

Worse than that, not only was it much colder (well below freezing) and dark, but we also had ice, snow, and wind to go with it. Perfect tennis weather!

I'm not sure how long we were out there, but it was at least 30 minutes, perhaps more. Long enough for Dawn to go inside the Funshop building, complete all of the necessary activities, then come back out and join us for a bit more tennis.

Lando plays tennis on our Nintendo Wii regularly. One of the activities involves hitting a tennis ball at a wall, so Lando wanted to be sure to do that. Incidentally, he's actually using a badminton racket, because he prefers it over (heavier) tennis rackets. Perhaps this will be a new trend in tennis!

One advantage to playing tennis at night in the middle of a snow/ice storm is that you don't have to wait for an open court. You have your choice of any of them. Or, if you prefer, all of them!

Lando originally was playing behind the backcourt, just like he's seen tennis players do on TV (and on the Wii). Luckily I was able to convince him that he was better off playing a little closer to the net.

"Lando, Mommy's frozen solid, so we should probably go home now."

We've Moved to Minnesota

We've moved to Minnesota. That's the only possible explanation for the cold, snowy weather we've been having recently. (Ironically, despite the cool weather we had locally in 2009 and the cold weather we're having now, globally last year was the 5th hottest year on record. So many people overlook the "global" in "global climate change".)

Remember the problem we were having with our furnace? The temperature at the air vents was only 74 degrees. After the furnace guy replaced the part that wasn't working right, the temperature at the air vents is now about 115 degrees. As you might expect, that makes a BIG difference! For one thing, the furnace now shuts off occasionally!

On another house-related topic, our basement sump pump discharges onto our front yard. And you may be asking yourself, "How well does that work during the winter?" I'm glad you asked!

Here's where the basement sump pump discharges onto our front yard. Do you like that nice little flare of ice forming around the end of the pipe? It's a be-iced pipe!

The frequent discharges from our basement sump pump kept a wide swath of our front yard mostly snow-free earlier this month. But what's that odd patch at the bottom of the slope? Hmm...

At the bottom of our front yard, you'll find solid ice! The basement sump pump discharges at the top of the yard, but by the time it gets down here, it's frozen!

Well, isn't this festive! Christmas decorations! Snow! Treacherous sheet of ice!

The ice doesn't just coat our front yard. It also flows over the sidewalk and onto the bottom of our driveway.

Here's what our front yard looked like a couple of days ago, after we got 6 inches of snow a few days earlier. The ice is still underneath there, fiendishly hidden underneath a beautiful blanket of snow.

This is what the backyard looks like after the installation of our new septic tank. What? You mean you can't see anything? Me neither. We've had snow on the ground continuously since Christmas. With any luck we'll get some melting soon so that I can FINALLY see what my backyard looks like!

Temperature This Morning

Outside temperature: 0.1°Fahrenheit.

This was the sight greeting me when I woke up this morning.

We had a guy out to look at our furnace on Thursday. As we suspected, it isn't firing on all cylinders, which is why it can't heat the house to more than 68 degrees and almost never shuts off. Unfortunately, he won't have the piece he needs to fix it until sometime this week.

Currently, weather.com is forecasting our low tonight to be 3°; Monday night it will be 6°; and Tuesday night it will be 8°. Wednesday night's low will be a balmy 18°, but by Friday night the low will be back down to -1°. They aren't forecasting a day with a high temperature above freezing until January 12!

In short, I hope our furnace will be working better soon!

Septic System Saga

Back in October, it rained. A lot. How much? Over 11 inches. On average, Springfield gets about 36 inches of rain in a year. "Yes," you say. "That's a lot of rain. So?"

Well, with the ground saturated, we discovered on October 15 that we could no longer flush our toilets. As we eventually learned, our septic system had gone to the Great Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Sky.

We lived without a septic system for weeks. It rained. It rained some more. Then it rained some more.

Finally, on December 7, I came home to this beautiful sight!

That's the new septic tank sitting in our backyard! We had to wait a few more days, but then on Friday, December 11, I came home to another beautiful sight!

The main septic tank was finally installed! There was still an overflow tank and leach field to install, as well as plumbing hookups to be made, but things were finally underway!

Dawn looks a bit shocked (and cold!) at the transformation of the back yard. It will get better, Dawn! Well, not until Spring at the earliest, but it will get better eventually!

The new septic tank was installed near the back right corner of the house. You can see the top of the main tank, as well as the inlet pipe leading toward the house.

Of course, things remained like that for Saturday and Sunday, but they were back the next week to install the secondary tank and the leach field.

Normally, with an aerated system, the water that comes out could just be discharged into a ditch or down a hillside. In our case, there wasn't any appropriate place to discharge it, so a "small" (two-thirds size) leach field was needed.

This is one of the three 90-foot laterals that were installed for the leach field.

The tank on the right is the main septic tank. The tank on the left is the overflow tank.

The green pipe is the inlet from the house to the septic tank. Unfortunately, there was no way they could avoid the curtain drain that rain along the back of the house, so they had to cut through it, then install the black pipe to repair it when they were done.

At long last, on Wednesday, December 16, the plumber connected the house to the new septic system, and we were once again able to flush toilets with abandon! When I came home, I flushed a toilet twice for no reason whatsoever! I never thought that I would look forward to doing the dishes, but having dirty dishes piled on every available surface for two months will do strange things to one's attitude. We can also do laundry at home, rather than hauling everything to the laundromat. And I can take a nice long shower whenever I want to!

Its work was done, but with the ground still muddy, the backhoe sat in our backyard waiting for things to dry out, so it wouldn't do more damage to our yard while driving out. Instead, we got two inches of snow. They finally got it out today, so our 2+ month septic saga is finally over!

Now we just have to pay the bill.

It's "Cold" in Texas. Uh-huh.

I just got off the phone with Dad, who lives down near Brownsville, Texas.

DAD: Man, it is really cold down here!

ME: Define "cold".

DAD: 40 degrees! Maybe 39!

ME: Uh-huh. It's 21 degrees here.

Folks down south who say that it's cold get no sympathy from me. :-)

Of course, I'm in the rare position of being happy about the cold weather! The faster the ground freezes, the sooner we can get a new septic system without utterly destroying the lawn. (Well, other than the lawn where the new septic system will go. That will be utterly destroyed!)

Septic Update

Today: Rain.

Tonight: Snow.

I talked to the septic guy this evening to find out when he thought they could start. He said that he could start pretty much any time, but because of all of the rain, he's waiting for the ground to freeze. That would minimize how much damage is done to our lawn by the machinery. It's supposed to turn colder starting tomorrow, so we'll see how long it takes for the ground to freeze.

Everyone hope for dry, cold weather!

Life Without a Septic System

Okay, let's get this blog going again!

Here's a quick update on the status of things in our household: Lando's been getting over having 2 ear infections and a sinus infection; Dawn's been getting over having bronchitis; our Chrysler Concorde (aka "Conrad") has been getting over having a dead battery and a squeaky wheel; and our house has been getting over having a dead septic system.

Actually, all of those things have been fixed except the last one -- our house still has a dead septic system. It started on October 15, when we discovered that our very new ultra-low-flush toilet (just a few months old) would no longer flush. I went out into the backyard, removed the lid off of the septic tank, and found myself staring at brown sludge just inches below ground-level.

We called a septic guy to come pump out the tank and give us the bad news -- we need a new septic system. Well, crap! (Look! I made a septic-related joke! Add your own in the comments!)

Because we live in the city limits, it was possible that we would be required to tie into the city sewer system. That would require a minimum of $10,000 just to bring the sewer to our property line, plus another $2,000-$3,000 to actually connect our house to the sewer. Worse yet, because the asphalt companies shut down during the cold months, it could well be spring before they would have our sewer connection, since bringing the sewer line to our property would require cutting through the street.

Luckily, we got permission to go with the "cheaper" option -- getting an aerated septic system. Our old septic system was installed way too deep (the water table is only 16 inches below ground), which is why the recent heavy rains (over 11 inches in October alone!) were causing us problems. Because we don't have a suitable place to discharge the water from the new aerated system, we'll still need to have a leach field, although smaller than the old one.

Believe me, when you can't do the laundry, can't wash dishes, can't flush the toilets, and can't take a shower, your entire world suddenly revolves around getting your septic system fixed!

• Laundry: We've done a few loads of laundry at the laundromat, as well as a few at Val's house. (Thanks, Val!) Other than that, we just have piles of clothes lying around in heaps.
• Dishes: Actually, doing laundry is easy compared to doing the dishes. There is no dish-equivalent of a laundromat! (And who wants to cart all of their dirty dishes to a friend's house to wash them?) We have dirty dishes covering every square inch of our kitchen.
• Cooking: Try cooking without using water. See? The whole locavore thing has pretty much gone right out the window. We're eating out a lot!
• Toilet: "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." I first heard that phrase about 30 years ago, during a drought in southern Illinois. Our problem now isn't a lack of water; it's too much water! The phrase still applies, however. We also take advantages of opportunities to use the restroom when we're in stores and restaurants. (Of course, this sort of complicates Lando's toilet training, but so far it hasn't been much of a problem.)
• Showers: We shower every other day, turning on the water just long enough to get wet, turning it off while we shampoo and soap up, then turning it back on again to quickly rinse. I miss having long, relaxing showers every morning!

After all of the investigating of different options, soil test, getting permits, etc, they were hoping to start last week. They just needed to finish another job first. Which requires that it stop raining, for crying out loud!

Hopefully we'll get our new septic system either this week or next week. After they're done, I'll spend about 45 minutes in the shower, every day. Heck, I might even take a bath!

(Tomorrow's forecast? Rain and snow.)

Sunset Storm Clouds

Sunset Storm Clouds, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

After the storm had passed, I noticed that the sky outside had a weird, orangish cast. I stepped outside to take a look and saw that the odd color was caused by the sunset fighting its way through the remnants of the storm clouds.

I grabbed my camera and took several shots. Although none of them really got the color right, this one is my favorite.

You can see more weather photos on my Flickr pages.