New House Blog: Episode LXXXIII - Breathing And Swallowing

We breathe oxygen, plants breathe carbon dioxide.  It's a system that works well for both of us.  In this Episode we increase our oxygen generation and our carbon dioxide removal.

Breathing

Our first additional oxygen generator is our new Bountiful Blue blueberry bush, one of the southern varieties of blueberry bush.  You will recall from this Episode that we already have a blueberry bush, a pink lemonade blueberry bush, but it hasn't been doing well this year.  It has negligible noticeable new growth this spring, and it hasn't produced any flowers or berries.  Becky read on the web that a second blueberry bush can help a sickly blueberry bush to improve, so we sought out a second blueberry bush at a local nursery.  They lady there was quite knowledgeable about blueberries, and we learned that in addition to planting them with special acidic soil, blueberries need to be fed with special acidic plant food 4 times a year.  Who knew?  Maybe that's why our pink lemonade was doing so poorly - the little guy was starving.  So we bought some blueberry food along with our new bountiful blue.

The first step in planting our new blueberry bush was to move our pile of decorative rocks.  These rocks are useful around the house for general landscaping and to fill out spaces in various succulent and cactus gardens.  We have a generous stockpile, and we'd be happy to share if you need some decorative rocks.

This is the new bountiful blue. It sits where the rock pile used to be, and as you can see it already has some fruit.

Right to left we have the pink lemonade blueberry, the bountiful blue, and in front of the relocated rock pile we planted catnip seeds that never sprouted, probably because the seeds were too old.  New seeds are on the way.

Swallowing

Our New House developed a swallowing problem in the kitchen.  One evening as I was preparing to prepare some steaks for supper I noticed that the kitchen sink seemed to be draining very slowly - so slowly that it appeared to be not draining at all.  My first instinct, of course, was to run the garbage disposal to break up whatever was blocking the disposal from draining.  Activating the disposal did indeed suck the water down, but deactivating it caused the water to spew forth from the disposal (in a kind of spirally motion) back into the sink.  I tried this a couple of times, with the same result each time.  I tried putting in some disposal cleaner, but it only turned the water orange.  Time to take stuff apart.  Naturally I began by disconnecting the drain pipes below the sink and running water through the disposal to see if that is where the blockage was.

Water flowed right through the disposal, so the obstruction was obviously further downstream. The trap was clear, and none of the easy-to-access drain pipes was clogged.  Time to break out our 15-foot manual snake.  The snake did indeed encounter a blockage: it retrieved a little white blob of greasy material at about the end of its 15-foot reach.  After a few passes with the snake the drain still wasn't opening, so we knew it was time to call our good friends at Benjamin Franklin Plumbing.

Jamar from Benjamin Franklin came out to our New House with the electric snake, and it pulled up copious amounts of the white grease, but it still didn't open up the drain.  The next step would be for Jamar to bring a machine that would run scalding water through the drain's clean-out port to melt the grease and clear out the drain.  This is when we discovered that our kitchen drain had no clean-out port.  Apparently, when the pre-Bishopians added the big room onto the original house, next to the kitchen, they simply removed the original clean-out port instead of relocating it.  With no clean-out port the scalding water jet could not be used, so Jamar went under our New House to see what options we had.  He told us that the drain pipes are all new black PVC, and they're in great shape.  He recommended that we simply have the clogged section of pipe cut out and replaced with a new clean section of pipe, and that we have a clean-out port installed.  That's what we did.  Benjamin Franklin came back a couple of days later and did the work.  The drain is flowing and we're happy customers.

This picture shows where the new clean-out port joins the main kitchen sink drain at a 45-degree angle.

This is where the new clean-out port exits from underneath our New House.

The new clean-out port, as seen from the outside.

And now what you've been waiting for - the clog.  Look at that ridiculous build-up of stuff. This is why you don't pour grease down the kitchen sink! Jamar assured us that our almost three years of occupancy could not have produced this glut of grease.  The channel you see is where the electric snake tried to chew through the clog, which is a few feet thick.

The other end of the clog. You can see where it starts to build up.

This is the whole length of pipe that was replaced.  The clog starts to build just a couple of feet down the pipe.








New Team Member

Reggie, our formerly faithful lawn edger has failed.  Too much metal fatigue.

We have replaced Reggie with Reginald, a brand new manual lawn edger with slightly thicker-gauge metal at the business end.

















More Breathing

In front of our New House we have a cast iron plant (Aspidistra Elatior), and it's thriving.  Boy is it thriving!  We also had an empty spot right next to it that used to have an unknown plant of some type.  Since the first cast iron plant is thriving we decided to get a second to go next to it and fill up the unplanty void.

This is the new cast iron plant. Cast irons are hardy and durable: about the only thing they don't like is direct sunlight.

The old and the new.  Can you tell which is which?












Light Switches

Occasionally we stumble across light switches that need to be replaced.  We recently replaced three such switches and one entire light fixture.

Switches one and two are in the kitchen and control the garbage disposal and the backyard outside light.

Only one switch was faulty, but we decided to replace them both while we were there, and also bring the splicing up to 21st-century standards.  But how do you tell which switch does what?

Becky had a great idea - different colored switches.  The white one on the left controls the disposal, and the black one on the right controls the light.  Because you turn on the light when it's dark outside. Brilliant!

There's no picture of light switch number three because it's just a standard light switch with a purple cover.  It was changed out and modernized, and it controls our upstairs balcony light (which we use maybe twice a year).

When we do use it, however, we want it to work and to look good.  It did neither, so we replaced it.  Here is the old ugly fixture that came with our New House.

This is the old mounting hardware and wiring.

The new mounting hardware, but the same wiring.

The new light fixture, with modern splicing and energy-efficient bulb.


















Breathing Three

Here are some happy cat photos.  The cats are breathing.

Satchmo and Daisy are breathing on some folded laundry.

Miles is breathing in a sunbeam.
















Door Knocker

Our New House finally has a door knocker.  This picture is the before picture.

This is the after picture.

This is the close-up picture.  Depending on your point of view the bear can represent either Alaska, where Becky was raised, or California, where Bish was raised.













Unusual Electric Car Finale

We finish up this Episode with some pictures what appears to be some kind of home-built electric car seen by Bish on the roads near our New House recently.

It's registered, so it must be street-legal.  If you know anything about this electric car please let us know in the comments.

The driver, and possibly builder, enjoying some coffee at a stoplight.











Slowly decreasing our carbon
    bIsh