Daisy Gave Us A Scare

I'm out in the front yard with Daisy near the centre of the house 

and Ruth said something to me thru the sliding doors.

I went into the house thru the sliding doors to ask what she had just said. 

We talked for about 15 seconds when she said. "What was that. 

Did someone just walk past the kitchen window to the front door. I saw a shadow."

I went out the sliding door and looked down the house to the front door. 

No one was there. But there was also NO DAISY.

She had been there only 20 seconds ago.

I started to panic. 

I have the place pretty much coyote proof but 

our neighbour lost his small dog to an eagle a while back.

 That's all I'm thinking about as I ran around the house calling for Daisy.

She's no where to be seen. By now Ruth is out with me calling for her.

We're both feeling sick to our stomach and all I can say is No, No, No. 

Finally , on my second time around the house she climbed out from under the deck.

Damn Dog.

 I know she will be gone some day but I hope never like that.

She's happy and back sleeping on the couch wondering what all the yelling was about.

I can't believe I like this little mutt as much as I do.

SEPTEMBER 26, ANOTHER BUSY WEEK ON THE FARM

The little kids are visiting family in Vancouver for the next week or so.

They've been gone since last wednesday and I'm missing them.

Every day at 5:00 they come into my bedroom's sitting area and watch the news with me.

Carrie is gone for 10 days to a retreat but before she left last week we built a cover 

for her boat and a few other items. 

I hand drilled 3 of the tie downs into the ground but had her do the 4th.

It was harder than she had expected.

So she's all up and ready for winter.

Ruth's friend Josie is changing the kitchen in the house she just bought 

and had to get rid of the old cabinets.

It is a large kitchen and the cabinets are all solid oak from the 80's.

Needless to say we jumped to her offer that we could have them if we removed them.

Our only problem was storage. 

Solved.

The garage if filled to the rafters with cabinets and now we're working on the storage tent.

Only one more load to go.

I liked Carrie's storage shed so much I decided to get one for my power tools.

First I needed to move the old dog run that came with the log home.

I used the tractor to bring it out of the back forty and park it closer to the house.

I love this tractor.

Ruth thought this was funny.

I actually read the instructions before assembly.

It was a much faster build this time. Those instructions did make a difference.

So many parts. It still took me about 4 hours to get it up.

I got it built and put my chop saw and table saw under cover.

NICE.

No more covering them with a tarp at night 

or having to drag them to the garage everytime we leave the property.

I can lock this cage when we're gone.

It's nice and close to the house for my home projects 

and will be close to the carriage house when we start that build.

So this is the north pasture where Ruth is building her main garden.

It's hard to see but she has 6 dwarf ambrosia apple trees in the centre.

She picked all the buds off in the spring to give them a year to get established.

I asked her to leave some buds so I could have at least a few apples in the fall.

She left 3 buds and she got 3 beautiful apples.

Bugs ate 2 of them but I was still planning on having one nice apple to eat.

She went to pick it for me yesterday and only found the core .

We're beside a walking trail that the high school kids take twice a day.

One of those little buggers must have seen my nice red apple 

and thought it would make a special treat.

I hope he/she enjoyed it.

I did manage to have a treat this week though.

My childhood friend Len Dombrowski had a mother who was a fantastic cook.

She made the best Polish holubsti  (Cabbage Rolls) and I have never tasted any 

since hers that even came close.

Well , this week I found a recipe on the net that bragged 

about it being this gal's Baba's secret recipe and she was willing to share it.

They were fantastic. Likely not as good as Mrs's D's but close.

They were so good I made a batch for the freezer.

She opened up my eyes to some fantastic foods.

Sept. 18. Another Busy Week

I'me getting tired of this project and need a break.

I am back working on my piano and removed a screw from the solenoid rail

 to replace one of the solenoids.

It came out with my magnetic driver with more metal shavings stuck to it.

I decided to disassemble the whole solenoid rail and clean it AGAIN.

A good decision.

There were metal filings hiding in all the cracks.

After I took it apart again I brought my compressor into the house and reblew the insides.

Another good idea. I thought I had gotten everything with the vacuum but hadn't.

It's clean now. I'll reassemble it next week. 

I have too many projects on the go.

Ellie was watching me do this cleaning on the piano and decided that I needed some food.

She went out to Ruth's garden and picked some tomatos as well as some lettuce to make me a salad.

So sweet. She is too young to use our sharp knives 

so she cut the tomato with one of those plastic picnic knives.

Those are chopsticks that she had me eat it with.

It was actually quite good. 

Ruth's raised beds are doing remarkably well.

We've gotten lots of food from them this year.

Carrie and I finished installing all of the new windows into the log home this week.

Now I just have to do the trim. 

Next weeks job.

My friend Dana managed to talk me into coming over to hang some hooks 

in his garage for his bikes.

He forgot to tell me how big job it was going to be.

The damn ceiling is concrete and loaded with rebar.

luckily I had the right tools.

Sept 12. Another busy week

So my little mutt is getting lazy as she ages.

Now I carry her everywhere and she can't stop smiling.

 I am loving the kids living here with us,

It's pretty cool living on Canada's premier bike trail.

We need to take full advantage of being here.

On Sunday I met up with an artist who works with metal.

We invited him over to look  at the space we want to hang a wrought iron gate.

He's very talented and a really nice guy but

I'm not sure if I wouldn't rather build something here with Carrie.

She's busy with her life but it might be cool to have the Moir Touch on this gate.

I'm busy talking with this artist watching Ellie have a bounce behind us.

This kid loves life. We should all take lessons from her.

So I decided to drop in to one to my buddy's reno for coffee and unfortunately he was building a retaining wall and needed help. DAMN. I'm the help. That's the last time I bring him coffee.

I was there for hours.

We built the wall and when said and done  he didn't like the angle.

I went back the next day , we disassembled it and redid it on a new angle.

A 30 minute coffee visit turned into a 2 day job. 

Like I have nothing better to do.

Actually , Ken is a great guy and he has been and is a great help to my log home project.

He is going to do the foundation for the shop/carriage house we are going to build so I am always happy to spend time assisting him on whatever he needs help with.

Back home the kids are just hanging out.

Ellie got big teeth tonight and was running around as a vampire.

she's so cute.

So I'm working on the house installing new windows when I wanted to have a rest and sit down.

This damn frog was in my seat.

I saw this done on a TV show.

Nope. He's too cute.

So , Sue , I actually carried him down thru the back 40 to where I think there may be some water if we ever get thru this drought and he hopefully can survive.

Otherwise I will send him in a living cage to your place in florida.

I'VE GOT MY NEW PIANO HOME. WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!!

So I crossed the boarder a week ago Friday with no problems.

I had the movers come over to the house on Saturday and set up the piano .

I expected this to be a plug and play
because I had paid my pianodisc installation instructor in Sacramento
 to install the player system as well as a silent play system .

There were no Ritmuller pianos expected to arrive in Canada 

until September and I wanted this piano in August. 

(I HAD a customer who wanted a Ritmuller late August)  

There were a couple of them arriving into Los Angles early June
 so I put in my order.

The piano landed in from the factory and I had it delivered to Sacramento to have the work done.

My instructor had the piano for about a month to complete.

I arrived Wednesday morning after driving about 1400 miles to see that it wasn't finished.

Yikes. 

The movers were coming to load it into my truck at 12:00.

Luckily they came at 1:00 and we rushed thru the final stages.

As he calibrated the piano I noticed that the dampers didn't work properly.

They rang on quite a bit.

I also noticed that it didn't  play properly and there were a couple of notes sticking.

I also noticed that my instructor nonchalantly hit the keys to make them drop.

 I made a mental note that it didn't seem right.

I also noticed that the rubber bumper that was supposed to be attached

 to the stop rail for the silent play was falling off.

 My instructor noticed that I was looking at this 

and said I may have to reglue it when I got back to Canada.

The keys were also uneven. I couldn't figure that one out.

I've never seen a new Ritmuller come with uneven keys.

 I got home and set the piano up with the movers help.

Good to go. 

WRONG.

Nothing works properly.

A bunch of notes won't play.

I phoned my instructor in Sacramento but he doesn't pick up.

I sent him a text and he sent one back saying he couldn't talk 

because he's busy teaching an installation class at the pianodisc factory.

I got frustrated and phoned my friend in Ontario who does a lot of pianodisc installs.

I told my friend that there are about 12-14 solenoids jammed in the high position.

I've never seen this problem in all the years I've been doing my own installs and I can't figure it out.

The first thing my friend said was "Did Micheal happen to install a silent play system in your piano".

I said "Yes".

 He said "He drilled out the HORN (cast iron frame) that holds the stop rail and never covered the solenoids to protect them from the iron filings he produced as he did that part of the job".

Unbelievable. All of the jammed solenoids were under the horn he drilled out.

So I had to get the moving company back to put the piano back on its side.

I don't have a shop anymore. We just moved so we'll have the piano
laying on its side in our living room for a few weeks.

Not the best scenario but it has to be done.

I've had to remove the cover from the key bed.
Notice the nice strapping job I did .
It's holding the piano to one of the overhead logs.
Now there is no way it could possibly fall over on any of the grand kids.

I laid the solenoid tray on a table in the living room.
 LOOK AT THE FILINGS.

I sent my instructor a text saying that I knew what the problem was.

You drilled out the horn and never covered the tops of the solenoids.

His answer was that he had covered the solenoids 

but there must have been a little metal dust get thru.

I don't think so. This is a mess.

This is what was in the tray when I took it off the piano.

I can only imagine how much fell into the solenoids.

So I took the solenoid rail outside and cleaned it with my air compressor.

Daisy was very keen to make sure I did a good job.

Oh Wait, She could be my next instructor.

So I'm putting the solenoid rails back into the rail cover the same way they came out when I noticed that there were only 4 screws holding them in place but there are 12 predrilled holes in the rail cover.

I called another friend who sells pianodisc player systems and asked him how many screws are in his rail cover.  He climbs under a piano and says 12.

These solenoid rails are very active when the piano is playing .

There is no way my piano would stand up and play properly over time the way it was assembled.

I'm so disappointed with this install.

Luckily I can make it right.

Its all back together and ready to be reinstalled but even after cleaning the solenoids 

very carefully there are still a few that jam up.

I imagine there are some cast iron filings in the cylinder walls of the solenoids 

that didn't come out .

Tech service says they will send replacement solenoids on Tuesday. 

I didn't plan on having to do all this repair.

I definately wouldn't have bothered doing what I did 

if I had known it was going to turn out like this.

As for the uneven keys .

One of the problems was where the bracket  holds the silent play stop rail.
It was not installed properly.

The bracket wasn't centred and seemed loose.

Upon closed inspection I noticed that he ran a screw just above the bulkhead and 

just below the soundboard where it attaches without pre drilling the screw hole.

This has broken the soundboard and not made a strong attachment.

Once again , I can fix this but I am very disappointed.

I hope I don't find any more problems with this install.

I should have done it myself.