I had a long weekend, a busy weekend, and a (quasi) productive weekend.
Friday night I got most of the things done I needed to. Before departing to my parent’s place, I managed to have some good times online. There are some things in life that are worth doing, time and again. It is good to know that I am still pretty good at cheering people up. I was really dragging by the time I got to my parents’, having gotten little sleep after the Sin City premiere, a full day of work, and the knowledge that I would have to get up super early the next day, to put in a physically intensive weekend.
I got to my parents place a little later than I wanted. My dad woke up at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, but decided not to depart just then (I think he was a little hung over). I dished up some breakfast, made a thermos of tea for him, and we hit the road. It was raining pretty hard, with promises of more rain in the immediate forecast (as well as flood watches). The farm he bought is just over the PA border about 3.4-4 hours from where they live in Weschester. A bit far for a weekend jaunt location for my tastes, but my tastes are not paying the mortgage on his weekends.
I made some phone posts of travel conditions. The rain and wind were pretty harsh, and the Susquehana was moving hard, fast, and muddy. I kept my dad alert by jawing most of the way up. We made decent time, despite the weather. On the way in, we stopped at a store that is literally straddling the PA/NY border. One half has a NY register, NY lotto, and NY goods (you cannot sell booze in PA unless that is your only business, so only half the store is beer stocked). The other half is PA stocked, and features many local products (cheese, jerky, honey, syrup, jam) to supplement the lack of beer. Somehow, I think NY makes out in this situation.
Gillett, PA is the closest place that can be called a town to where this farm is. The farm is on the lower third of a mountain that forms a valley, with roads crisscrossing all over it. The road off the road the farm is on is called “Monkey Run Road”, something I found absolutely hysterical. The last 20 minutes of the trip is all dirt road.
Some history on this place.
The farmhouse is over 120 years old. I haven’t really done much history poking yet on it, but the first night I get a free window, I will probably ply some of my crazy research tools on the area to get the broad strokes. The barn is probably half that age, since it burned down once, and had to be rebuilt. The farm was in family hands for six generations, and was a working dairy farm until fairly recently. In the late 1970’s the patriarch of the family clan subdivided his holdings (a few thousand acres) amongst his sons and daughters, who built houses on them, or continued to work them as they had in the past (living elsewhere). The central plot of the original farm (which my parents bought) is about 50 acres, and in the middle of all this now subdivided land. The land is mostly fields, with a long scrub hill leading down to a pond. There are tree breaks all over, as well as some forested patches on the east end of the property.
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| The House | The Barn |
The farmhouse foundation is all fieldstone, with olde-time quicklime/gravel mortar. The patriarch died in the 80’s, leaving his wife a widow until she died this past September. Since his death, pretty much all the old lady did was poke around and keep cats. There were 30-odd of them living in and out of the house for all those years. The entire living room smells like cats – it is stiflingly bad. After she died, her daughter continued to feed the cats. The entire front yard is like a litter box – it is way too much. Part of the closing contract was that the cats go – most were adopted by the daughter, but the rest have all gone to the humane society.
When the house went on the market in November, the estate holders (one of the daughters and one of the sons) ran the heater dry (basically burned up all the oil). When they realized there was no heat, they drained the water system. Our goal for the weekend was getting the heat and water working. The assumption was that there was probably some damage to the water system, if they didn’t drain everything before the heater ran dry.
The rain was steady and bad when we got up there around 9. My dad and I unloaded the truck and went down to look at the furnace. I cannot describe the state of affairs of the basement accurately. Basically, it was full of mold, cobwebs, and crap accumulated over the past two decades since anyone had bothered going down there. When the furnace broke in ’88, the decision was to put a wood burning furnace outside, rather than deal with the basement. There were rotted jars of preserves down there that are probably older than I am. We cleared up some area to work in, set up a halogen tripod lamp, and got to work. The basement is all original foundation, and the main beams for the floor above are actually whole cedar trees, some with the bark still on them. At some point, the beams were jacked up using huge metal suspension rods, which were then bolted down into the floor. The clearance in the basement is MAYBE 6 feet, so my father and I spent most of the day half-crouched walking around.
Before I go any further, I want to interject a bit of selfish whining. I really REALLY need to get a new digicam. Ideally, I would have had pictures of EVERYTHING in this narrative. However, camless, I had to content myself to work away without snapshots. My father has a VERY pricey DVR, which you can capture stills out of (using some seriously crap software) which is what I used to take snaps. Because he is so careful about it, I could not wear the cam the whole time, and snap as I went. I had to contend myself with a half hour of running around taking pictures on Sunday. It was frustrating working with his camera, because the controls are all suited for someone taking movies, not stills. Also, it uses tape instead of a HD, so you get good storage, but there is a 6 second write delay between shots. I’d have given a finger for some burst mode action. The Sony Cybershot F828 is definitely in my future, if I can ever scrape the dough together for it (after all the other things I need to save money for).
After remapping and diagramming the circuit breaker, we figured out which circuit the heater was on, and made sure the components were getting juice. Allegedly, 150 gallons of oil had been delivered the previous day, so with juice, mechanics, and fuel, theoretically we had all we needed to get heat. One surprising thing about the furnace itself is that it is a dual-burn furnace. It can burn either wood or oil, there are two “sides” to it, each suited for their particular purpose, but the entire unit has only one chimney.
Like So (ours is about 30 years old though).
We got things working, found the shutoff switch, turned it over, and the fan started running, but there was no ignition. I suggested that perhaps we needed to bleed the oil line, but we could see no easy way to do that from either end (by the tank, or at the furnace). After some debate, my dad called the oil company to be sure that the oil he had ordered had, in fact, been delivered. The company man assured him it had. My dad decided to have a service guy come out to take a look, since we had done all we could, and essentially gotten nowhere. Cell phone coverage is roam only, and spotty then on the property. If you drive about a mile to the top of the hill, you can pick up enough signal to make a normal call, usually. I hiked up there in the dark and rain around 11pm later Saturday night to check my messages and make a phone call.
Since we were in a holding pattern on the heat, we decided to look at the water situation. The initial site of the farmhouse was chosen due to a natural spring which bubbles up behind the house. The spring is protected by a spring house, which is essentially a wooden shack covering a 20 foot hole lined with rock, that is kept full by the spring. The spring cistern probably holds 500 gallons or so, and has a line running underground from the cistern to the pump in the basement of the farmhouse.
The Springhouse
The pump in the basement was a monstrosity of jury rigging. The rusted shell of it’s predecessor (some 40 years old, by the looks of it) was mouldering a scant 5 feet away in a rubbish heap. The pump was affixed to a chunk of plywood the size of a half-folded Monopoly board. This was balanced on top of a rusted axe-handle which was sitting on top of a log that was nailed into the ground. The line from the springhouse into the basement was replaced at some point with a PVC-plastic joint hybrid, which ran into the pump intake. The pump outputted to a 42 gallon pressure tank, which then ran back across the basement to the hot water heater, and the copper feed pipe to the kitchen and bathroom fixtures upstairs. There is no plumbing on the second floor of the house – all the water runs into either the kitchen or the bathroom.
We had barely hauled down all the plumbing tools when Ollie, the oil repairman, showed up. He quickly ascertained that the safety unit on the furnace was fried (the furnace fan/starter was supposed to shut off in 40 seconds if no flame is detected). Since the sensor was blown, it made sense that the starter was probably also gone, having sat there clicking away endlessly without reprieve because it’s electric eye was unable to detect the presence or lack of fire. He replaced both of these elements within an hour, and lo, there was heat. Before noon Saturday, and already at 50% success on goals.
After Ollie left, we decided to have a go at the water system. After figuring out what was what, we primed the pump and set to get it working. It did not. We tried every permutation of priming, tinkering with valves, applying direct suction, trying to blowback the line – NOTHING worked. After three hours, and exhausting our entire five gallon potable water supply trying to get the water pump going, we went off to talk to a neighbor about the problem.
My dad bought this place in this area because he went deer hunting there for many years. One of the farmers he befriended is a guy named Bill Earl. Bill runs a successful dairy farm of about 130 head, and has been a farmer since he was 17. He is now in his sixties. His wife, Dolores, was clearly once a fetching beauty (as the pictures tell the tale) but late life obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure have rendered her a silly-sweet blob of a woman. Almost like a plate of Jello with a pleasant smile and a cheery outlook. Bill had no immediate solutions to our water woes, but suggested that we call “Stubby”, who would certainly know how to fix our problems.
The Kitchen
Now, I was a bit concerned about making the future of our running water for the remainder of the weekend dependent on someone who was clearly named after a childhood accident of some sort, but the plot thickened immensely from this point.
Apparently, Stubby, or “Stubs” to his friends, was a farmhand under the former patriarch of the farm. He worked and lived on the farmhouse my father just purchased for the last 57 years. This man was WORKING the farm that my father just bought four years before my father was born. The thought of it was kind of stunning. I was apprehensive that Stubby might be bitter about our recent purchase of somewhere he lived for that long. At the same time, I was hopeful that he would be able to help with our problem. My father was just enthusiastic about getting things functional, I don’t think he gave real pause to the ethical and emotional issues
According to Bill, he lived with the mother of one of Bill’s farmhands, not far from where our farm was. Bill’s house is about 15 minutes from my father’s farm. By the time we got back, Stubby was waiting in his jeep in our driveway. Seeing him nearly broke my heart. He could have been any of the old homeless people you see shuffling on the 7 or A at three in the morning. His boots looked older than me, and he wore patched jeans, and layers of flannel and thermal. He had a John Deere had that was probably given to him by a salesman when mesh hats first hit the market (by the looks of it). His hands were crooked with arthritis, and his leather face was supported, it seemed, by the foundation of his overlarge, and very hairy nose. He spoke with a drawl I was familiar with in my past dealings with farmers, and though he is clearly not educated, his eyes bespoke of a wisdom of years, tinged with a great deal of sadness.
Stubby went down to the basement with us and went to work on the pump. He tried many of the same things we had. The rain had not let up at all, and at this point, between the 5 gallons we had primed and drained out of the pump, and the slow trickle of rainwater through the foundation, there was probably an inch of standing water in the corner of the basement we were working on. Stubby eventually gave up on his methods, claiming we could prime the pipes with the water from the barn, which would create sufficient vacuum to pull the water up from the springhouse.
New revelations. Water from the barn? Neither of us had really contemplated how the barn got it’s water. When the farm was a working dairy, there were over 80 cows lodging in the barn – they would have drained the spring’s cistern to rapidly for it to have supplied the water. The barn has a 160 foot well, with a separate pump and pressure tank. Stubby suggested that he go get some hose, so we could run a line the 400-odd feet between the house and the barn to prime the pipes. He sped off in his jeep to get the hose, while my father and I started digging trenches around the barn’s main entrance. In the moving process, the former estate holders had used several large trucks which had left prominent gouges in both the front lawn, as well as the drive leading down to the barn. With the two inches of torrential rain, and more on the way, these ruts had become rivulets, and there was probably twelve inches of standing water at the low spot in front of the barn’s entrance. After digging the trenches down to the drainage line, but before Stubby had come back, I decided to try and venture across the ten acre expanse down to the pond, to see what I could see. I barely made it halfway before giving up. Because of the rain, the saturated ground was nearly impassable – I spent every third step hauling my legs out of a mud-suction.
Tracks in the Mud
By the time I schlurped back to the farmhouse, Stubby had just shown up with the hoses. We set everything up to prime the pipes. While we were doing so, Stubby told be a bit of his tale of woe. Allegedly, when the widow had died, the son and daughter who sold us the land approached Stubby, and offered him the opportunity to live out his days there, so long as he paid the taxes and maintenece. He heartily agreed. He had social security, and even cashed out one of his retirement accounts to get everything in working order and put in some minor improvements. About a month after this agreement was made on a handshake, the brother and sister had him forcibly evicted, because my father inquired about buying the property.
Stubby is not bitter at my family. My father didn’t know that inquiring about the land was going to put an old man out of what he saw as his home. Stubby was enthused to be back on the farm he had spent so much time at. He made many offers to my dad of improvements and ideas he had over the years, and made sure to impress upon my father that he should call “if’n ya need just about anythin ‘tall”. I hope my dad hires him on as a part-time caretaker before he retires up there full-time.
When I started up the water out of the barn while they were up in the farmhouse basement, I was shocked to learn the the pressure tank in the barn had a pencil-sized hole in it. This resulted in a high-pressure stream of water shooting almost halfway across the barn! My father told me to plug it with a stick. I told him that would probably not work, since the hole looked like it was from corrosion, not being pierced by something. However, with few other options, I throughly drenched myself attempting to plug the hole with the cap cut from a tube of caulk. Ultimately, I did little to stem the tide, I just dispersed if differently.
Priming the pipes did not work. The only thing they did was prove the idiocy of the estate holders, who clearly killed the heat before the water. All the pipes going upstairs are leaking to one degree or another. We have no idea why the pump doesn’t work.
It could be any of the below:
- the pump was damaged by freezing without being drained
- the pump has a bad seal on the vacuum end, which would explain the pressure fluctuations and the lack of draw
- the line to the springhosue was damaged by ice/tree roots/bad luck
- the line to the springhouse has ice in it
- any/all of the above
We unhooked the pump, to be disassembled and examined by my dad at home, and set out to look for some grub. We ended up at a country store, which provided us with basic staples. We then drove over the border to another town (Southport) to find a liquor store that was open (since most of the PA “State Stores” close by 6PM). While on the way to Southport, we realized we had no chairs to sit on. We stopped at a big hardware store that was still open (it was about 7PM at this point) and bought some reclining foldable canvas/aluminum camping chairs. We also bought a new pressure tank for the house, and 400 feet of hose of our own. When working on the pipes/joins disassembling the pump for replacement and examinations, some of the pipes had, literally, filled with rust and corrosion. It was pretty fucking disgusting, so it was a safe bet to replace the tank in the house as well.
We made it back to the farmhouse by around eight. I unpacked the car while my dad cleaned out the refrigerator. We got everything put away, sat and had a drink or two, then ate and talked until around 10, when my father decided he should set all the mouse/rat traps he had brought along while I hiked to check my messages.
Something I forgot to mention – the roof on the house has not been replaced since the 60’s There are numerous spots where leaks have created huge water/mold stains upstairs. In one case, the water ate through the ceiling altogether, leaving a 2×2 hole. My dad hired a roofer to replace the roof, a project half-finished by the time we got there. There was an empty coffee pot set up in the room with a hole in it to catch the steady flow of water. I emptied it about six times throughout the day on Saturday. By the time we closed up shop (jut after midnight) the rain had subsided to a light mist, and a heavy fog had rolled in. I was reminded of “Eaters of the Dead” in a rather eerie situation where a car with one headlight came blazing out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere in the heavy fog. My only goal for the next day was to capture some of the minute oddities I saw floating around the farmhouse, which would likely disappear soon after my dad put some elbow grease into it.
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| Water Stains | Magnet on the Fridge |
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| Dressmaking Stand | Sticker on the Mirror |
Sleeping arrangements were sparse. The upstairs was deemed “out” due to leaks and mold. My father had an air mattress and a sleeping bag, but all I had was my sleeping bag. I opted to sleep in the front room (which was carpeted, but smelled like dead cat), my dad slept in the back room on the air mattress. Despite my exhaustion, I could not drop right off to sleep, because it was too quiet After 15 minutes of tossing and turning, my dad started snoring, which more or less killed immidiate sleep possibilities, until I remembered I had my mp3 player. I remembered to set the clock an hour ahead on it, and fell asleep listening to Porno for Pyros.
My dad woke up at 4, then went back to sleep. He was awakened at 5:30 by something setting off one of his rat traps, then flipping around the mud room. By the time he made it in, the mystery beast had disappeared. He then decided to wake me up, to get a start on the day. I did not do well with this, but didn’t have a whole lot of choice on the matter. At this point, my sleep to non-sleep ratio over the previous 72 hours was not great, and with me just starting to work out last week (I didn’t miss a day) and then a pretty intense physical day Saturday, I felt like a steamrolled dog turd when I had to get up and go.
My agenda, as I said, was to take some pictures. I was hoping the rain would have burned off, since it seemed to have stopped before I went to bed. Instead, it started snowing. That is right! I got one more torrid roll with winter before it disappeared due to the machinations of that trollop, spring.
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| The Pond | Thistles in Fresh Snow |
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| The Snowblown Hill | The White Field |
My father’s agenda was a bit different. We reset the traps, then he decided that we should replace the leaky pressure pump in the barn with the one from the basement. This took us nearly two hours to do. It was another jury-rigged jigsaw, and we didn’t have all the right tools, so we had to improvise on tools as well as surroundings. Eventually, we did get everything together, but didn’t test-run it, for fear that the pipes would freeze and crack if there were more cold nights this week. After that rigmarole, we cleaned/packed/organized, and I made my stand with the camera.
After that, we drove back to NY. Along the way, I saw some of the most unbelievable firsthand water damage I have ever seen in my life. Almost an hour of the trip is alongside the Susquehana, and I saw water up to the first story of some people’s houses! It wasn’t until we got almost halfway home that we flipped on the radio and heard about the damage/states of emergency we just drove through. Absolutely crazy. The snow we started in eventually gave way to spotty rain, and we made poor time going home between traffic and weather.
We got in, I ate some dinner, and watched the first six innings of the game with my family. I then, literally, was falling asleep on my feet, so I decided I needed to beat feet. I made it home and collapsed, after I posted the pics to my website so I could write this up today.
Overall, my dad is like a kid with a new toy, and I am very wary of the conditions up there. The barn is in ok shape, but the foundation is crap,and it is a TOTAL disaster area. The house is workable with a LOT of cleaning, stripping, paint, and effort, but it is small, and, ultimately, I think my parents will find themselves cramped there. It is also a far run off, and I am not crazy about having to kill a whole weekend just to have dinner with them, when they eventually retire full time.
I guess I’ll burn that bridge when I cross it.
Today has been totally hectic. We did a big upgrade, I had to juggle a whole bunch of issues that came up over the weekend, and, literally, half my staff called out sick today.
For every time I get sick from their germs, I will kill them.
I need to fall into a coma, but i need to get my laundry, eat, work out, pay my rent, and do my taxes first.
Being a grownup kinda sucks sometimes.
My two favorite of the pics I took this weekend:
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| Scifi Lightning Rod |
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| Wrought Iron Screaming Cock |
Here for more by me
Here for more by my dad
Here for attempted micro shots with my dad’s frustrating cam