A Different Life II

[Hittenstiehl]

That's quite the image but glad you are headed further south.

[Lily&Me]

Yep, and tho it is cold here they got no snow.

I saw vehicles on the highway this morning with a good 3” on their roofs, so it really varied depending on where one was.

We’re going to stay put tomorrow, and then Wednesday when it will be in the 50’s will go find a car wash and hose this baby down.

The road grime is pretty nasty.

Maggie

[Lily&Me]

And, as my Ms. FixIt skills continue to improve…

This morning when I turned the furnace on…it was 26 degrees outside and 56 degrees in here, using just the space heater …it would not start, register temp, nothing.

I had just replaced batteries in it the other day, so took it apart and noticed one of the contact points had some corrosion on it.

Pulled out my steel wool, cleaned the connection, put the batteries back in, and VOILA!

Thank you to Gary and anyone else who suggested this clean-the-connection tip when I was wrestling with my water heater a year or two back.

Maggie

[Lily&Me]

I replaced my hand vac this trip, because the cord on the other had to be taped for it to charge , the brush piece had broken, etc.

I have replaced these every couple of years, always for cord issues, and since I upgraded to a more expensive Shark…very good for pet hair, I have a Shark upright at home…I decided this one needed a safe place to live when traveling, as them falling onto the floor in transit has likely caused the cord issues.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Shark-Ult...E&gclsrc=aw.ds

And, no, there is not spare cabinet space for anything this large.

I had this peel and stick hook, larger than I need but all I had, and I do know they stick with force.

So, stuck it up and cut a length of Velcro strip, and that should work.

[Lily&Me]

I’ve been watching the weather, and another storm system due in to deposit an as yet undetermined quantity of snow and freezing rain, while temps drop to the teens, and decided this morning…listening to those niggling warnings in my head…that it was time “to get the **** out of Dodge”, as Doug would say.

So, we left a day early, hit the road and made our way on winding, sometimes steep, but clear and dry roads down into Georgia, where NO snow or freezing rain is predicted, and temps are much warmer.

Gavin de Becker says that our intuition is always telling us something important, and that something is always in our best interest…and, he is right.

Now, if I could just find a car wash with a bay tall enough for the Interstate, I could scrub off 10 days of road grime and would feel much better.

Maggie

[Por Sonia]

Good move Maggie . . . thanks for the trip updates . . . lends hope here.

Peter

[Lily&Me]

Hi Peter, and so good to be seeing your active participation again here.

It is cold here, the furnace set to 60 and keeping us comfortable.

I haven’t been in cold enough temps to run the furnace consistently in quite awhile, and for this project it will be running without hookups.

So, will be a new learning experience, and a test to see how long a 4 1/2 gallon or so of propane will last.

I haven’t yet located a propane fill place near where we will be, but will do so and have it marked on my map.

It’s going to be interesting, doing a project in cold temps.


I am picking up a fellow volunteer flying in from California, who is getting an Amtrak out of Atlanta.

Haven’t heard yet that his plane is canceled, so he should soon be on his way.

Covid has made traveling extremely unpredictable, but having a tiny home on wheels has thus far been a very safe experience.

Maggie

[Lily&Me]

Did some chores in town, picked up our fellow volunteer, went to Waffle House and got settled into our HC campground mid day yesterday.

They offered me the one site that has water and electricity, which I gratefully accepted.

Signal is weak, I am using my booster for the phone at this time but the iPad is essentially useless so won’t be on here much if at all until I go into town next Saturday to do laundry.

So, don’t anyone worry about me.

Maggie

[Lily&Me]

It has been an interesting week.

We were a group of 5 volunteers and two staff, and our primary job at the fire tower for this two-week project is removing, scraping, sanding down, repairing, priming and repainting all of the windows.

Always interesting people from varied backgrounds at these projects, and one this week is an epidemiologist with USAID. She travels all over the world, and her focus is HIV and Malaria. Fascinating.

The Crew Leader is one I worked with last summer, and we are a good team in a couple of intense hours each end of our work day. I made bread in a big skillet one evening, which we had with a stew, and every piece and crumb was eaten.

A good hike up a steep slope takes us to the fire tower, then 49 enclosed but also steep steps to the top. My commitment was to climb that tower once each day.

All enclosed and windows, of course, so a beautiful view.

On Wednesday we learned that two of the Forest Service staff working with us had been exposed to Covid the prior weekend, so they were quarantining and off we all went for rapid Covid tests. All of us were negative.

Both staff, my passenger Todd and myself, doing both weeks of the project, also have to do a PCR test, which we will do this morning, tho none of us have any symptoms and I expect will receive an all-clear.

It has been quite cold at night and in the mornings, and this morning we also had wind to contend with on the mountain that tower sits on.

Too cold for the products for priming, painting and glazing the windows, so the Forest Service found us a big garage about 8 miles away to move those tasks to, and we loaded everything up and moved.

And, we continued on.

Two more volunteers come next week.

And, to add to the excitement, there is an ice and snow storm due to begin tonight and continue thru all of Sunday. Regardless how much snow and ice comes down, it is expected to immobilize the area for an indeterminate period of time.

Not only are we in a rather remote campground with hills, narrow and winding roads to/from, this is the south, of course, and they don’t have the equipment or do the snow abatement that occurs in areas where snow and ice is a common occurrence.

So, we are evacuating the campground as of today, and the local Historical Society which threw us a lovely, incredibly welcoming reception Tuesday night offered us their building in town for me to park the Interstate and where Todd can sleep inside. And, it even has a full kitchen we can use.

I won’t have hookups, but wisely just before leaving had the generator serviced, and yesterday topped off the propane, emptied tanks, and have a full tank of fresh water.

Staff have funds for their hotel rooms, and have offered to feed us Monday and Tuesday if we are able to move around town.

It was stay in the campground, hope there would be no emergency but know we would not be able to drive out until however much snow we get has melted, or move into town where at least if power went out, a tree fell on us, etc., help would not be far away.

The prudent thing to do was to leave.

And, work for next week is pushed back to at least Tuesday, possibly Wednesday.

So, today is a day of laundry and other choring, then we will hunker down for 2-3 days and reassess.

We have been up early…me at 4:30 each morning…and worked hard, so a few days of sleeping in a bit and resting is something we are all looking forward to.

It’s an adventure!

Just wanted to check in, and give a little update.

Lily is well, the only dog here and has been getting lots of love and affection from our group.

Maggie

[Hittenstiehl]

Thx for the update. Your project sounds fun and arduous. Work that makes you sleep good and gives you a sense of accomplishment.

I was waiting for laundry day [emoji3526].

A sibling of mine is new to western North Carolina. They are also expecting snow on Sunday which they don't usually receive. They said their small town is also prepared to shutter down including school being closed.

[Lily&Me]

This is what we have woken up to, and heavy snow is expected for the next 10 hours.

The wind is blowing and the snow is so wet and heavy I can hear it hitting the sides of the Interstate.

I would estimate there is at least 3-4” already on the ground. Yikes.

I have my little fairy lights on, and they provide very adequate lighting.

I have never relied on my furnace for such a long time, tho it is only set at 60 degrees I don’t know how long 4.5 gallons will last.

So, if I need to run the generator I probably need to first clear the area beneath, where it exhausts, right?

I do have a full tank of diesel fuel.

[Lily&Me]

Lily…taking care of business and coming right back in.

[Hittenstiehl]

Looks beautiful!

Lily thinking, I thought we left this at home.

Good thing is it won't last long.

[Lily&Me]

It is beautiful, as long as I don’t run out of propane , but I’ve turned the furnace down to 55 and bundled up, so hopefully we are good until tomorrow or Tuesday, whenever I can get out.

People are outside playing in the snow, laughing and squealing and throwing it in the air.

I’ve also seen a few vehicles out on the road, and two Public Works trucks from the city just came thru my parking lot, maybe to check on me.

We have had a unbelievably warm welcome from this city and the people in it, which has just been like I have ever seen before.

They are so glad to have us here, to restore and preserve this landmark, and it has been amazingly warm and friendly.

Maggie

[Lotus54]

I ran out of battery power before running out of propane…
(Disclaimer, the battery was not that great- one in better condition may have done quite well).
The furnace draws a fair amount of power. I’ve measured it, but forgotten how much current.

[Lily&Me]

Thanks.

I haven’t checked my battery status, but ran my engine twice today for about 1/2 hour each because it was so frickin’ cold, so should be good after just 24 hours and will do that tomorrow.

It has been a wild day, weather-wise, here, but seems to have calmed down now and the hope is that we will be able to get back into the campground on Tuesday.

Quite an event for this part of the country.

We are enjoying some down time, resting up for week two.

Maggie

[Lily&Me]

Lotus54, you were absolutely right…my battery failed in the night, temp in here dropping to 50 degrees before I woke about 4am and realized the furnace was not running.

Generator ran 1 1/2 hours, and charge shows 12.75, so I will plan to run it again later today and maybe see if I can get out to top off propane.

So, my niggling thought yesterday…which I should have acted on rather than pushing aside…that I should probably run the generator every 24 hours when running the furnace full time was accurate.


We had a visit yesterday from the amazing Ms. Audrey Davenport, who is Executive Director of the Habersham County Historical Society here.

She gave us a key to their building and permission to use it, which is where I am parked and Todd is inside on a cot they provided for him.

She walked over from her home not far away, to experience the snow and check on us.

A lovely woman, who is going to come back for tea today.


Todd, my passenger who flew in from California for this project, asked for a hat as I was crocheting yesterday, so I made him this one and gave him a scarf that matched from my stash.

Going to drop the rest of the stash at the soup kitchen here before we leave.

Todd is a very nice man, and we have spent hours talking about everything under the sun.

We cooked Spinach Lasagna Soup here together last night, and he loved it.

[Lily&Me]

Well, it’s been kinda exciting here.

Our crew leader and project supervisor tried to drive out to the campground we’d set up at yesterday on a recon mission to determine accessibility, and reported “a mess”.

Lots of snow on that higher elevation, and trees down across the road preventing access.

Another volunteer, who drove from Oak Park, Il, arrived at the Historical Society to join us last night, as he could not access the campground…so we celebrated MLK Day with the three of us and Audrey…and hot whiskey.

It was still bitter cold yesterday, with the furnace having to run nonstop, and as I worried about running out due to using the generator was able to find an open distributor on a cleared main road, who actually still had propane …and I put 4 gallons of propane into what I believe is a 4 1/2 gallon tank.

Staff tried to drive out to the campground again after lunch today, the road is still being worked on and still impassable.

So, two more volunteers who live nearby arrive in the morning, and we are going to cook breakfast here for everyone, then split into two teams to finish up the windows, repair the sills and get them installed on Thursday.

This has been an uncharacteristically chaotic HistoriCorps project, all weather-driven.

Still, nice people to meet and visit with, important and necessary tasks needing completed.

Today the sun is shining and snow is rapidly melting, but temps are going to be down into the 20’s again tonight, so what has not melted will again freeze and be treacherous.

I may not get back to that campground at all, but we are welcome to partially inhabit the city-owned Historical Society building, and use their full kitchen, for the duration of this project.

This is the fire tower whose windows we are working on…

[Hittenstiehl]

Glad you got propane and that you all are adapting and overcoming. I had looked up the tower on their website earlier and it's gorgeous!

[Lily&Me]

I added three more gallons of propane to my tank this morning, and I’m sure it is running the generator to charge the battery that is the biggest fuel hog.

Tho the furnace blower sucks the battery dry, and I may well have depleted that to the point that it will need to be replaced.

This project has been a test of the Interstates’ systems, and I have learned some things I did not before know.


We finished painting the windows this morning, sill repair on the tower has been completed, tomorrow the windows will go back in and we will end this project a day early because of another storm system due in later in the week.

Staff and the two volunteers besides me will be disassembling camp this afternoon, which is still apparently a real mess.

The tents all collapsed under the weight of the snow, and are soaking wet, so me and the guys will stay here again tonight and vacate this spot after breakfast tomorrow.


The Historical Society is hosting another reception for us this evening, where they will feed us homemade food and thank us for being here and working on their beloved tower.

I tell ya, the warmth and generosity of Habersham County, Georgia, has left us all a bit speechless, and in spite of the weather-related disruption, this has been another great experience.

Looking forward to getting a bit farther south, tho, where temps at night are not in the 20’s.

Maggie