May/June 2024 Island Trip – Day 7

I started the day by working on cleaning more of the lower barn walls in order to continue priming. Having just washed my hair, I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and was immediately stung by a wasp. The wasp was instantly dispatched from this world, and I removed my sweatshirt to make sure there were no more hitchhikers. I don’t know whether the wasp was in residence when I put the sweatshirt on, or was dislodged from the wall as I cleaned. An ice pack helped with the sting, and I wasn’t slowed down by the incident.

There was some sheetrock damage to repair today from when the roof was leaking. I found a V shaped groove that must have been caused by water running down the wall from the skylight leaks. I am still trying to understand why the building was essentially left to rot when there was ample money in the bank to keep that from happening. I don’t get to know.

The equivalent of 2.5 sides/walls of the main area of the lower barn are now primed. If I get the other 1.5 sides done this trip, I’ll be very happy. The ceiling is a hot mess of spider webs, and is a lot more challenging to clean being directly overhead. As I clean up the walls, I work on the adjacent edges of the ceiling, and hit those areas with primer. I need to keep my expectation in check as there are other things that need doing, like:

Getting the washer/dryer combo going today, I have named her Princess, because that’s what she is. She was more work that I could have imagined. This is a unit is designed for RVs. It’s small and runs its drier on 110v. Very convenient. After fighting to release four stabilizers that hold the washer/drier’s guts still while being shipped, one of the stabilizers fell into the housing of the unit. This had me removing its top and back trying to find the errant thing, and to remove the widgets used to hold the guts still, which I finally was able to do. There is some sketchy engineering and technical writing surrounding this product. Oh, I need to mention that this little miracle cube weighs 150#. I am encouraged to keep my lifting to 30ish pounds… Good thing I know how to use leverage 🙄.

After reading the 17-pages of instructions, where they caution you repeatedly not to place washables with flammable fluids on them into the machine, I found a ‘standpipe’ instructions and then a standpipe in the complicated plumbing that is my father’s film developing sink. I extended this pipe by two feet, anchored the washer’s water evacuation hose to the standpipe, connected the machine to cold water from the well’s pressure tank (cold water only until we resurrect hot water in the barn), did 149 additional steps, and got the thing running. 😳. Do you see why it’s name is Princess? The first ‘load’ was a recommended cleaning the washer load. The next load was actually clothes! I looked at the weather reports, trotted those clothes out the the line, and then brought them back in 40 minutes later after realizing the weather prognosticators are lying shit weasels. So now both LJG and Stella are decked out in drying clothes. “Why,” you are are asking, did I not use the washer/drier to dry! Because we don’t have the barn set up so it can accept the drier’s exhaust vent hose yet. Junuary won’t last forever, and as God is my witness, we will have that vent installed no later than October 15, 2024!!!! 🤣

I also figured out that a replacement fan for the dark room area isn’t going to work. At least I know now exactly what I need rather than depending on model numbers and Amazon.

While frustration in moments, it’s been a good day.