The washing machine is down again

Against all odds, a tech came by this morning to service the washing machine that has been stuck, locked shut, nonworking for over a week. Today's visit from Whirlpool was free but they can't get it running again until they get new parts, which they will have to order. $576.65 is the total for parts to keep our washing machine working because we need a new board and pressure switch. The board keeps going out on it - the one in it now was installed free last year when the original board was recalled. The most recent service call we had when it stopped working was last July. This is a machine I purchased when we got married in 2016. Makes me wonder about buying a new washer. Looking it up, it's a lot more expensive now for a new washer. Now, just the washer alone is $938. I can get a one with less features in steel that won't match for $698. However, most of them can be delivered by October 18 at the earliest, which is might be sooner than we can expect the new parts to come in. The next time it stops working, I believe the answer is to replace it entirely, possibly from a completely different manufacturer.

the very bad memorial day weekend

The electricity fluttered and the went out for a while Friday. Since then, we've had no internet service. That meant no TV or music either. Lumos ISP could not make a service call until Tuesday. Looks like our modem died.  

Half of the duct work has been taken down in our basement on Sunday so we were hoping for cool weather until we can have a functioning AC again. We had arranged for a friend of the exterminator, who is also a neighbor, to install new ducts on Tuesday. 

Tuesday, we got an new modem and we are finally back online after a holiday weekend with no communications. The modem death was probably a blessing because it forced MonsterMustDie to work on cleaning out the massive hoard he has in the basement so that someone could work down there.

Meanwhile, the person who was supposed to replace the ductwork ended up ghosting us on the project. I spent Wednesday making calls to set up appointments for estimates from the few companies that said they might consider a project as small as replacing ductwork. That's $69 or more a pop just to have have someone show up and look around and 1. decide if it was worth their time to it and 2. give us an estimate for work to be done at an undisclosed date.

Last night, we were saved by our friend Bob who, after owning and modifying multiple homes over the years, had a good bit of experience in that installing ductwork. He came over to the house with tools, went with John Stephens to the nearest building supply store, and the two of them replaced the ducts last night. 

yard thoughts

Modern. Native. Edible. Functional. Social.


We live in an older, traditional neighborhood so I know the front yard needs to have to traditional green turf and neat landscape. We are trying to keep a clear view outside the windows with low-growing shrubs and plants like heather and dwarf conifers. We'd like to add a few more large rocks to those arrangements.

I cut out and pulled up a ton of English ivy off the trees, fence and house, where it once festooned every tall tree. We removed the tacky plastic non-functional shutters from all of the windows. A few of the windows need to be replaced due to cracked glass. We plan to build or install as large a shed as we can in back to become a mini-workshop and tool storage building. John wants to have a compact woodshop with a small outside deck that he can work at. We also need the space to store large things like ladders. We still desperately need house numbers either mounted on brick or posted in the front yard and on the mailbox.

We would like to use mostly native plants and edible landscaping for the back yard, which has a wood fence that we plan to replace. We also have a laid stone retaining wall on one side at the back of our lot that needs to be repaired, preferrably using all the original stones so that we don't have to purchase too many more. I think 2/3 of the wall could be original stone - maybe more. We had crepe myrtle trees that had been attacked by ambrosia beetles that have been cut down along the rock wall side of the house that now have stumps that need to finally be removed/ground down. My guess is that some sort of new plants and shrubs need to go along the rock wall to help with erosion control.

NO English Ivy! I am still removing it everywhere I can, mostly concentrating on taking it off the trees. My neighbor shares my hatred of overgrown English ivy. She's working at ridding her yard of it as well. I am also taking it upon myself to pull out poison ivy where I see it. Slowly, the old roots of the poison ivy are going away and I cut down any flowers/seeds from the poison ivy when I spot it trying to reproduce, whittling way at it as best I can. I am a one-woman ivy-killing warrior. I'm not agains all vines - just those troublesome invasive or poisonous plants. Grapes are cool. Muscadines are cool. Grapes would be great. I even turn an occasional blind eye to Virginia creeper if it's not in my way.

The inside of the back yard is mostly mud, mulch and shade. We have new plantings of edible and/or native plants like elderberry, chokeberry, blueberry, trillium, ferns, golden seal, jack-in-the-pulpit and I'd like to add more variety so that I could have year-round blooms for bees and birds (and humans). I have a dinky herb garden that I am still figuring out.  We are also planning to place a small fire pit/grill and seating area to the side of the future shed.

And the drive way needs to be repaved - preferably with some sort of simple roof added at the top for the cars. The car shelter is not a priority but it is something that would make life a lot nicer.