October Island Visit – Day Two

It’s been a weird day. Other than my phone’s battery, uncharacteristically, running out overnight, and causing me to oversleep, it doesn’t feel like I’ve wasted time, yet so little actually got done. Could be the theme of the trip!

After breakfast, I found my courage and lit the oil stove. Washing down the big wall in my old bedroom took an amazing amount of time. The property manager arrived at one for a meeting that lasted an hour and 15 minutes. During a trip to town I picked up the permit for the propane insert, hit the hardware store, and lumber company. Neither of them, this being a small island, have any lighting solutions. The light fixture I brought with me for the now working electrical box won’t fit in the space allowed, and no one here carries track lighting cans, which I very much want to add more of to the existing tracks. I allowed myself 20 minutes to wander the well stocked craft store, and even resisted buying cute vintage trailer fabric that’s not in my stash! The grocery provided a few necessities, and I returned to the house.

Next up was to have a fist fight with the water heater. It took me six minutes to win, and my only injury is a tired thumb. A shower had to come next, cause you never know how long this fucker is going to work. As usual, the minute the shower was turned off (this time slowly turning the temp from warm to cold, and then off) the heater crapped out. Only five minutes to relight!

I put my work duds back on and:

• Wiped down the big wall again, to get the TSP solution off the wall before painting.
• Used oven cleaner on the remaining hearth tiles to remove years of soot, grease a, well, smoke damage. The improvement is stellar.
• Found four leaks in the house, and let the property manager know where they are. None of these are a surprise, nor is water gushing in anywhere. The impending hot mop of the roof has become a huge priority however..
• Wrote a dozen emails and made the same number of phone calls trying to move the boat that this project is along.

Currently it’s raining horizontally, and there are power flickers. Thankfully the power is underground and not subject to flying tree limbs (the sort that I had to remove from the drive as I headed to town this afternoon.).