Spring Snow

We had quite the snowstorm come through on Friday (that would be the last Friday of March). We had been hearing all the blizzard warnings and watch alerts and we knew something was coming. We were pretty worried about the remodeling addition, since we just had shingles ripped off and they were predicting more 50+mph winds with this storm. Brian worked really hard to repair all the sections and board up the windowless windows. He was pretty worn out by the time the rain started and the winds picked up on Thursday night.

The rain turned to snow overnight and the sound of the wind woke us up more than once. Brian got up several times to check for leaks and discovered that while the roof seemed okay, there were a few small cracks (where the rafters meet the wall, for instance, since there is no insulation yet) that were just pulling snow in so he worked for a while about 4:00am to plug up what he could.

Friday morning we learned school was canceled. I had pretty much decided to keep the kids home even if it wasn't canceled, because I didn't see how I could send them out onto a school bus with the blizzard and road conditions like they were. We were watching our friend's daughter overnight while they were out of town, so the girls were glad to have an extra playmate for the day.

It's had to say how much snow we got, since the wind was blowing so much and there were so many drifts everywhere. Brian thinks about 6 inches, but we heard reports of more. And we were very glad that we didn't lose any shingles from the roof - yay!

Here's McKay sticking his arm in one of the larger snow drifts:

And here's a view from our front door:

One of the bigger challenges we had was staying warm. Because of our remodeling project, the heater is not working in half of the house, plus we had a lot of cold drafts coming down from the empty, uninsulated addition. So we spent a lot of the day huddled up in front of the fireplace!

I'm glad to see the sun shining today and the snow melting. Maybe now I can finally pack away the winter hats and gloves (but I've thought that before...)

The Windmill Project

Wouldn't you know it, after the crazy wind yesterday, today is about as calm as can be outside. Hopefully it will stay that way so we can get some roof repairs made.

Most of the time (when we're not building a new roof) we don't mind the wind so much. And it is definitely windy here in the Texas panhandle! We especially notice the wind because our house is located up on a ridge.

I've mentioned this before, but one of the things Brian has always wanted to do is put up a windmill. Even before we moved here, Brian started researching windmills and generating power with them. We were able to get a pretty good deal on a wind turbine. However, Brian didn't like the pole/tower that came with it (it would have required guy-wires, among other things). Being the engineer that he is, he got to designing his own tower. He consulted his dad and the two of them came up with a pretty awesome design. (And I apologize up front for my lack of understanding and my crude explanations of this whole process!)

They wanted to windmill to be as high as possible, yet that raised the issue of reaching it for maintenance, etc. Our tower will be over 70 feet tall! So they designed a tower that could be lowered if needed. (I told you, pretty awesome!)

Brian's dad even built a scale model of their design, which involves hydraulic rams. He brought the model with him this last trip down (1 inch = 1 foot). This shows the tower standing upright (without the wind turbine on top).

When you need to lower the tower, there are four hydraulic rams that tip it down.

While his dad has been here these last couple of weeks, they have started working on the windmill project (in-between working on the house addition!). His dad has been busy out in the shop welding and cutting the steel pipes they found at a salvage yard.

The first step was to dig the foundation. This thing is going to be heavy so they wanted to make sure they had enough support for it. We rented a backhoe for a day to finish digging the hole.

The hole is about 7 ft by 7 ft square and 8 ft deep. (The actual footings will be 6 ft by 6 ft.)

This picture shows the hole in relation to our house:

And as a little side note here, I had to include a picture of my dear husband. I guess he decided that he was so busy working on the house these last 2-3 weeks that he didn't have time to shave. This is the longest he's ever gone without shaving! (I can't say the beard is my favorite -- I have never really wanted him to grow one. And he did finally shave it all off this morning.)

Here's Brian working on flattening out a section of cut pipe (sitting on top of another pipe for support) that will be used somewhere (?) and that something else will slide on (?) -- you can tell I'm a little fuzzy about this part (sorry!):

Once the hole was ready, the next step is to put in the four support poles. These will be anchored in the ground to support the main tower and attach to the hydraulic rams. Here are the support poles that Brian's dad worked on welding together.

This is one of the hydraulic rams (the smaller black thing against the wall):

Some of the welding cross pieces will be removed once the towers are in place.

On the lower section, you can see the darker pipes at the base.

This smaller piece is set in the ground first and then the larger support structure will slide down into it. So into the hole it went!

Brian added lots of rebar to add strength to the concrete.

This is how you get in and out of a hole 8 feet deep!

Then the concrete truck came yesterday to pour the first part of the foundation. I think it's about a foot deep and is a pretty strong mix of concrete.

Once it cures, they will somehow set the larger support beams inside and the fill the rest of the hole with concrete. (That's going to be interesting watching them move that huge heavy thing out of the shop and set it upright in this base!) The actual windmill tower will be bolted to the concrete foundation and then attached with the hydraulic rams to the support poles (at least, I think that's how it will work).

I love watching engineering minds at work! It's so cool to see them go from drawings to scale models to the real thing. And someday in the not too distant future, we'll be wishing the wind was blowing hard every day!

Oh, the wind

What a crazy day. I still think I might cry.

Last night as we were getting ready for bed, we heard the wind start to pick up outside. Wind is nothing new around here. It seems like it is ALWAYS windy, but some days the wind is definitely stronger. Brian even went up into the new section last night to see if things were moving around from the wind (he's been working on adding extra roof supports but they're not quite all in place yet). I woke up a lot during the night to the sound of the wind howling outside.

This morning the wind seemed even worse. I seriously felt like I was going to get knocked over the minute I would step outside. Brian figured we had gusts around 50-60mph today. I was inside keeping busy this morning with cleaning and such when Brian came in and asked if I had seen what was happening to the roof. I looked out the window and saw shingles strewn all over the yard. Uh-oh. Not good. Bad wind.

Brian said the shingles hadn't been down long enough (and it hadn't been hot enough yet) for them to bond to the roof. He said if he had known the wind would be so strong, he would have tried to add extra caulk or roof tar or something. But as it was, we lost a good chunk of shingles, especially off the back section of the house.

He even climbed up on the roof for a bit to try to add some extra nails to keep more from ripping off (and it made me SO nervous to have him up there in the wind).

I don't know how hard it will be to put the roof back together, but put it back together we will. And hopefully before the next storm comes through. It could be worse, I suppose. The wind could have taken the whole thing off. (But I still might cry.)

And the wind isn't all bad. I have some pictures to share from the other project Brian and his dad have been working on the last few days to get some good out of all this wind here. I'll try to write about that tomorrow.

Story Time, Part 2

To continue with story time from the girls, today's story comes from Hannah. This is actually a story she wrote/illustrated several months ago, but I stuck it in a file and pulled it out when I was scanning the others they recently did. If you've ever seen the movie The Last Unicorn from the 80's, you might notice some similarities with her story.

This story also had an unforunate encounter with a water spill and an upset little sister who ripped a section off, requiring some tape to piece it back together. But all's well that ends well!

Windwillow, the Last Unicorn

by Hannah Humpherys (age 7)

Once upon a mountaintop there lived a family of unicorns. They had a beloved child named Windwillow. But one day...

A mean and nasty bull took Windwillow!

So the nasty bull took Windwillow to his icy castle.

Poor Windwillow was thrown into a cage in the dungeon!

When Windwillow was trapped the bull turned all of his family into ice!

Then the bull came back to Windwillow to turn her into ice when Windwillow noticed a chunk of ice and bounced the magic back!

And they all lived happily ever after.

Spring Break

We're at the end of Spring Break -- how did it pass so quickly? I have greatly enjoyed turning the alarm clock off all week -- Monday morning is going to be a tough adjustment for all of us!

Since the remodeling project meant we had to cancel our trip to Disneyland, we tried to find a few fun things around town for the kids to do. We saw two movies at the discount theater -- "Bolt" and "Bedtime Stories." We went to the Discovery Center one morning.

On St. Patrick's Day (Tuesday), we decided to go to the Amarillo Zoo. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea -- it was plenty crowded! Fortunately, the Amarillo Zoo is quite small so it doesn't take long to walk through it. And we can't complain too much, since it's also free.

We didn't make a big deal out of St. Patrick's Day this year, so nobody was even wearing green! (In our family at least -- we saw plenty of green elsewhere with all the people.)

A few of the favorite animals -- monkeys and the roaming peacock.

Hannah and Courtney decided they needed to pack their own "stuff" for this little excursion. Hannah even brought her own backpack to carry it all in.

On our way home from the zoo, we stopped at Sonic for ice cream cones and parked right next to a tree just loaded with blossoms. Forget that it snowed a few days ago -- it must be spring after all!

The kids have also had fun this week just being able to play outside. McKay has been helping and tagging along with Dad and Grandpa on the various projects going on (here he is pulling out nails from old roof plywood).

We've had games of "horse-and-cart"

Lots of playing with Molly:

And the discovery of a great place for digging (and getting dirty)!

Hooray for Spring!

A Roof!

I know it's been several days since I've had any updates, but we've been busy and working hard. (Again, I use the term "we" loosely -- I've been working at keeping kids entertained while Brian and his dad and brother are working hard on the house.) And now we have a roof!

We had the shingles delivered and all the kids were greatly impressed by the conveyer belt truck that loaded them right up onto the roof.

And who would have thought that we had snow two days earlier?

The shingles start to go up...

Brian took the camera up on top of the roof one morning and got a few shots.

Here's a "whole house" view from way back:

And it's finally done - hooray!

Now let the rain come! (well, okay, maybe wait until we get the windows in first...)

Brian's brother had to leave to go back on Tuesday. His dad is sticking around until next week to try to help with our windmill tower project. Here he is cutting some of the steel pipes:

We are very grateful for their help!