Daily Stuff

I spend yesterday in the basement.  It needed some work...

I had too many things sitting out that needed to be put away.  I had leftover pansies that needed to be under lights until I get them outside.  I had garden supplies all over the place that needed to be put away in some orderly fashion.

I had an outside plastic watering can that was ruined because I kept unscrewing the top off to get toads out.  Why they loved being in the top is beyond my comprehension, but eventually the screw top broke.

My in-line vent humidifier had failed, so I had ordered a few new parts.

I had 4' fluorescent bulbs in the light stand that had died.

There was ice under the basement fridge freezer.

So I got to work at it all...

I replaced the dead bulbs in the light stand.  I'm fussy about the bulbs.  The best for seedlings are 5000-6000 lumens.  I don't have garden seedlings growing, but I'm growing celery, basil and 4 kinds of lettuce.

I have 2 shelves under a part of the stairs, so I organized them all by type on the shelves, and got my table saw top cleaned of them.  I have a sliding cover system for the shelves, but that is for another day.

I looked at the watering can and decided it might be repairable.  If I cut the spout to allow te spray head to just fit in, rubber contact cement might work.  So I tried cutting it with my hack saw and made no progress.  But I had a 2nd hacksaw (small and designed for narrow cuts) it cut right through.  Apparntly, I need a new blade on the larger hacksaw.

I shook up the rubber cement contact cement as directed.  Applied it to the water can and the sprayer part separately.  Now, understand that when you use contact cement, it wants to adhere immediately.  No twisting or anything.  "CONTACT", right?

And I wanted to move it a bit.  Well, I decided that it could be fast but not "intsantaneous".  So, I set the watering can into a vice, held the spout in position, and then smacked the spout with a rubber mallet!  And then brushed more contact cement around the joint.  I'll find out if that worked tommorrow.

Then I went at the humidifier.  My original one was a turning sponge in a tray of water.  That worked well.  But it eventually died and I tried one that had water dripping over a ceramic honeycomb.  That was wasteful.  It was like a badly dripping faucet.

So I bought a new one like the first.  It was good for several years.  But you had to remove all the water mineral deposits from the rotating sponge and tray water once a month.  I'm not great at routine maintenance...

But it is better than wasting water like the drip system.  So I bought a new rotating sponge and some other parts.  And set about installing them.  What a frustrating experience.  Every connection leaked.

I finally surrounded all the threads with pipe tape and tightened them as hard as i dared.  The floater (that controls the level of water in the tray) was counterintuitive.  A screw adjust the level where the float shuts off new water inflow.  But loosening the screw REDUCES the inflow.  That threw me off for a while.  Because when you put pressuse on the adjustment screw, it actually increases the waterflow while you are adjusting the screw to reduce the waterflow.  The pressure of the screwdriver fools you.

I finally figured that out.  It's working perfectly now.

The basement refrigerator is 25 years old.  It probably costs me more money than the stuff I keep in it.  Last month, I noticed a lump of ice in the refrigeration area and chipped it off.  It's growing again.  My currebt refrigerator is 15 years old and it doesn't recoup the cool temp very well.  I'm thinking of buying a pure refrigerator for the kitchen and a separate dedicated freezer for the basement.

Anyone who has done the like it?

Lots more things to do in the next few days.  I looked at the trees and they have no more leaves, so I can mow the leaves into the lawn when it gets dry in a few days.