Robin, OH MY! A lee valley thread...

The problem with Atlanta is that there are only about six dozen southerners left in the whole damn town.

Reply to
Silvan
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I know a few that remain, but most have fled. Some to the rural areas of GA, some as far as Hawaii. We are looking around for a place to go ourselves. SWMBO want to go north, likes the snow and winter - I want to go south, I like shirt sleeve weather in December and the beaches. We both hate to leave the nice yard full of trees and the garden, and my little WW shop in the garage. I'll have to say, in my travels through the country, Western Pennsylvania and Virginia have some awfully nice scenery.

Oh yea, I saw your shop on your web site, it isn't as bad as you implied. I was expecting an old generator crate with a roof. ;-)

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

Yeah we do. They do too. Just about anywhere along the mountain range will do in a pinch, really. I don't like flat land much. It makes me uneasy when there are no big green humps on the horizon.

I like to run down there though. Easy on the bad throttle foot.

It's bad. The floor is about shot, termites in the walls and underneath. Built half on the ground, so it just screams "eat me, eat me!" to the little bastards. Not much I can come up with to save it either. It needs to sit up off the ground, but putting a foundation under it while it sits there would be difficult. Even if I bought a bunch of beer and got a few guys to help me pick it up, it would probably fall apart from the strain.

Probably take it apart stick by stick, build a foundation, then put it back together, but by the time I replace all the rotten/eaten wood, I might as well just build a new building. The roof and the interior studs are good. the sheathing is sawdust, and the supports on the ground are swiss cheese.

Well, they built it to hold a lawn mower. It was never supposed to be anybody's wood shop. Besides, what did they care? They were moving in a few years. And they did.

Reply to
Silvan

Good, working system. I wish more people understood that - It would make my life a bit simpler.

Tim Douglass

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Reply to
Tim Douglass

Silvan, I've got some bad news for you, the record low temp around here is at least 10 below zero. I know because I lived here when it got that cold. Burned a lot of firewood that Winter. Must have been about 1984, give or take a year.

We have a pond too. The fish survive it being frozen over pretty well. Actually, we bought this house that had a pond and my wife took some of the plants out of the pond for the Winter (we moved in October so no time to really do much) and set them in buckets of water in the garage. Next Spring we found fish swimming around in the buckets. Goldfish will survive a lot! We did learn a few years ago that if the pond stays frozen over long enough it will kill off some of the fish. Keeping your pump going is probably a good plan. We don't have a pump in our pond, though I keep talking about adding one so we can have a waterfall.

Hey, you know those "ValPak" coupons we get in the mail around here? The pet store in Blacksburg used to put a free fish coupon in every month. That's how we got more for our pond. Fish keep the mosquitos out of the pond, but my wife tends to leave buckets and stuff sitting around where they collect rain water. Haven't been able to break her of that habit . . . sigh.

According to the National Weather Service web site it is currently 37F with a high of 43 expected today. Low is supposed to be 22 tonight, and highs in the mid

50s by the end of the week.

Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va.

Reply to
ranck

Bill Ranck responds:

1985, IIRC. I was just about the only one in Bedford County that didn't have frozen pipes. Learned long ago that opening the cabinets under sink and lav and leaving a slight drip flowing tends to reduce such problems. I wouldn't want to do it on a city water system...you'd go broke. I think it hit 5 below that night and wasn't far off a couple other nights. I was using wood heat that winter, two stoves in an old farmhouse. Flat used up some firewood.

Oh well. Mine leaves rakes with the teeth up. I'd rather have your buckets.

Charlie Self

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Reply to
Charlie Self

My $0.02CAD is that running a pump during the winter is harder on the fish. This is because the fish are using more energy to swim in the current created by the pump while their metabolism is slowed due to the cold. It was suggested to use by a local breeder of pond fish to use a floating stock pond heater. We hooked this to a timer because of the smaller size of the pond - about 4x8x2deep - so that the temperature wouldn't rise too much. My dad said that his father would bring the fish to the basement in a galvanized tub for the winter. Staying in a cold section of the basement would keep them in hibernation, with no need for food or a pump for the water. I'm thinking the water would need to be topped up on occasion.

HTH, Jeffo

Reply to
Jeffo

Common practice for ponds is this: Run the pumps till the temperature drops. The fish go fairly dormant during cold weather. Shut the pumps off when the temp drops below 50. This keeps a warmer layer of water at the bottom of the pond. When it freezes over, knock a hole in the ice, this allow oxygen exchange to occur. When the weather warms up, turn the pumps back on. It is advisable to remove the pumps, clean them up, and store in a warm environ for the winter. Replace the pump in the spring after cleaning the gunk out of the bottom of the pond.

Ha, Ha. Same problem here. I'm always collecting buckets and wheelbarrows of stagnant water full of mosquito larva from the yard... We are in Zone 7a.

FWIW,

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

Hrm... You're probably right. The coldest night in recent memory was about

5, and I found it distressing to hear the weather radio drone "The temperature is 5 degrees. The record low today is 5 degrees, which was set in 2003." Or maybe it was 7 degrees. Anyway, I wasn't here. I was in Asheville, NC. Stuck halfway up a frozen hill. Couldn't go up, couldn't go down. I had to spend the night sleeping with my truck at a 50-degree angle. Bleah.

Anyway, it was a trifle warmer here that night, and I have no idea whether or not we set a record that day. I suppose not.

They're distressingly expensive, but moving water is a pleasant thing. That's where we do all our gardening now. I have all sorts of stuff planted around the thing, plus the water plants.

Yeah, the Hobby Shop. I miss the Hobby Shop. I used to walk down there when I was a kid. Loved the place. We bought a lot of fish for our indoor aquaria there too. Models, model rocket stuff, train stuff. It was getting pretty boring there at the end though. Probably a change in management or something.

I could use some free fish about now. All of mine are dead. Oops. All of my plants might be dead soon too. I screwed up. Water blows out of the pond on a continual basis because of the fountain spray thingie. The level was getting low, and my hose was frozen. I had this electrolysis bucket that had been sitting out through numerous rains and snows. Looked at it, and it seemed to be just plain water. I dumped it in there.

Went out this morning, and everything was covered in foam. There must have been some Oxy-Clean residue in the bucket, and it was enough to kill all the fish. At least, I didn't see any fish today. Not even after letting the hose flush the pond out for two hours.

Stupid.

Me neither.

The weather has been glorious this week. I haven't needed to worry about heat, and all it took was my spending $160 on a heater for the shop. ($90 heater, plus tank, plus plumbing...) Fine with me if I never have to use it.

Heck, I had to turn the FAN on a couple days ago, because it was up to 90 in the shop from all this glorious, glorious sun.

Which reminds me. If I can pay to heat this leaking mess, and if I can see an interior temperature of 90 in the middle of winter out there, I probably want to be thinking about running a new circuit and buying an air conditioner this year. Waste money like there's no tomorrow... Comfort is an addictive thing.

Reply to
Silvan

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