It sucks...................................................Hmmmmmm, not as eloquent as Neil: http://thegledaproject.com/2015/05/19/on-weather/ . Here we are smack dab, chucky jam stuck in the center of a terrible spring weather pattern that covers several states. High winds, trees down, power outages, flash floods, and torrential rains. We have endured this through most of the spring. Ya can't epoxy, ya can't glue, ya can't paint, ya can't uncover the hulls ya don't want ta do nuthin'. Mosquitos the size of pteradactyls sing happily in our ears in a basso profundo. The lake is flooded. We see small floating islands about 8-12 inches across consisting of piles of fire ants flooded out and using their bodies as a raft to float to a new home. I think they take turns being on the bottom of the raft. The only thing on the plus side are the flowers. Cone flowers popping out and we still see new ones. Truly fantastic. Ya gotta stop and smell the flowers, especially if that's all ya got. We had a scraping noise in the right front wheel of the Ford. We went to jack up the car to check it out and the rain hit hard. We ran for cover, forgetting the window was open. The steering column was thoroughly drenched. The GPS was plugged in and the next day everything was dead and dash lights were on when they shouldn't be with no key in the ignition. The truck did not start. We had to recharge the battery and dry out the interior (the humidity was over 90% so no where to go to evaporate the water from the system. We removed a rusty piece of dust cover jammed into the brake rotor, too. On the second day, Ben saved the day by putting a portable electric heater in the cab. It worked! We're going sailing! No wait, all the boat ramps have disappeared under the flooded lake! We went out anyway- launched in the now disappeared parking lot. Tree debris and junk floating around everywhere. So what did we accomplish this week? A few things.:
This morning's wind blew over this 200 lb. beam. Luckily it only fell against the other beams. We had to do small projects around the weather.
Like drill the mounting holes for the ports and coat them with epoxy. I had to order a few hundred dollars worth of stainless steel screws and bolts to do all the things to complete this fantastically futile folly.
We glued in the spacer blocks for the chain plates. I had made these previously and they were an easy project to do betwixt the droplets from heaven. We concentrated on finishing up small detail projects.
Like a couple of repairs to the Mirror Dinghy. I also installed some other parts I started earlier.
Like screw in bungs. This thing will not sink.
The local marina......................................
We went for a sail in extremely light winds and looked at the now much expanded lake. We gave up after Ben saw a spider just standing on top of the lake being pushed along by the wind at a faster rate than we were going!
I just checked the Wharram official website. They have a list of blogs of builders. I noticed that we're not on it, but a site that shut down a couple years ago is on it. I think we're not reverent enough to the process..........................reverence has never been my thing. We specialize in presenting our picayune progress to the paltry populace with a penchant for pain that presumes to peruse this site.
Hey, we had a comment in last week's posting asking about termites. This is what I know. Termites are ground dwellers. They have to go to ground every night. I have not seen any mud trails (maybe they are floating around like the fire ants). We keep our wood off the ground as much as possible. All wood is encapsulated with epoxy: screw holes, edges, surfaces. This is mainly for water incursion, but it helps with the bugs. We have no Buc Bucs and no termites. Our basic ground for this particular site is mostly rock and more rock................fertile soil-Hah!
The Music ♫: Julie Fowlis: "The Wind and the Rain"
This is a Child ballad, meaning it was collected a long time ago. There are variations on both sides of the Atlantic. Many people have recorded it, including Jerry Garcia.
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