Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Scrapyard of History

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Last week I took a load of scrap metal to Anniston Scrap, which is a couple of blocks from Broad Street in downtown Rome. There is one several miles closer to us, but I chose Anniston, as I have in the past, for nostalgia. Anniston Scrap used to be owned by my great uncle, my paternal grandmother’s brother, Charlie Carnes.

I had 580 pounds, which netted us a cool $27.55, for which I got a check. The scrap metal business used to be a pretty informal thing, but these days you have to show identification and sign a statement that you actually own the scrap you’re bringing in.

Anniston Scrap has been right where it is now for probably a century. Here is a Google Earth view of downtown Rome.

downtown rome

My father worked there off and on as a kid. When you come with a load of scrap metal, you drive up onto the same set of scales that were there when I went there with my father, more than 50 years ago. The office is the same. I think the dirt on the floors and walls is the same.

anniston metal

The office is the building at upper left with the shiny roof. Some of the buildings adjacent to the scrapyard are not faring very well.

To dump the scrap, you drive right into the yard and toss everything onto a big pile of metal things surrounded by a retaining wall of old appliances. I added some paint cans, a box of rusty nails, my broken stationary bicycle, my father’s old cast-iron table saw, and a large amount of unidentifiable things.

I have taken scrap metal there three times since my mother died. It had been a very long time since I had been into the office. I asked the woman behind the counter if she had heard of Charlie Carnes. She hadn’t. I told her he used to own the scrap yard a long time ago. She didn’t seem impressed.

There is a scene in the movie Nebraska that reminded me of my visit to the scrap yard. Bruce Dern plays an elderly man who thinks he has won a million dollars in a contest like the Publisher’s Clearing House lottery. On his way to pick up his jackpot his son and he stop in their old hometown, where they visit the garage the old man used to own. He asks the current owners if they recognized his or his partner’s names. They had never heard of them.

But that’s the way things go. Old times get tossed onto a pile of useless scrap and forgotten.

Cat eyes

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I made a lot of weird noises to get Smokey to finally look up at me. He was absorbed in something behind the house. A tree, perhaps? Maybe he was meditating? Daydreaming about food? Stuck on the landing, uncertain about whether to climb or descend?

smokeyonthelanding

You can see the abnormality in Smokey’s right eye in this shot. The pupil looks kind of like a keyhole.

Attic work

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Working in an attic is not my favorite thing to do, but there are things up there that need doing.

The first was to build a walkway so I can blow in insulation. The next was to install our whole-house fan, formerly known as an attic fan. This is it, just to the left of the walkway.

attic_walkway

It’s supposed to be much quieter than the old-fashioned fans like the one we have in our current house. The gray rectangle on top is insulated doors that open to let two smallish fans suck air from the house and blow it into the attic. The weather for the last few weeks has been ideal for using an attic fan. We look forward to having one that’s quiet enough to leave on overnight.

There is about six feet of headroom from the top of the ceiling joists to the ridge beam, but  there is about two feet less on the walkway. That means I have to stoop to make my way deep into the recesses of the attic, which I had to do Tuesday.

In the photo below, far, far in the right hand distance, out near the edge of the roof, there is a metal chimney coming through the ceiling and then continuing through the roof.

attic_stovepipe

I had to put pieces of plywood across the joists to get out there. So I went from stooping in the middle of the attic to hands-and-knees just over the shiny duct you can see, and then to a crawl as I approached the chimney. The chimney is insulated but there is a requirement to keep attic insulation at least two inches from it. There was a pass-through fitting at the ceiling level that provided that space to about six inches in height, but I need to keep 16 inches of blown-in cellulose away. So I fabricated a sheet-metal shield and installed it to bring the protection up to the required level. It sounds easier than it was.

The shiny, round duct is supposed to take warm air from the ceiling over the wood-burning stove and carry it to our bedroom. The vertical sticks are for measuring insulation depth. The lower line at the top is 16 inches. The upper line is 18. When I blow the insulation in, it should all be between those two marks.

The weather has been pretty good lately. The nights have been cool and the days not too warm. That has been good for working in an attic. Tuesday, however, it was in the lower 80’s and sunny. That meant the attic was hot. I don’t know how hot it was, but when I came down the ladder to 80 degrees in the house, it felt comfortably cool.

This is me just after I finished installing the insulation shield.

me_at_work

Fortunately for you, you can’t tell how sweaty I was.

Everything went well Tuesday. That means mainly that I didn’t step through the sheetrock and fall to the floor below. It wouldn’t have been too big a surprise if I had. I seem to have a little problem with falling lately. First I kicked the ladder out from under me and had to drop from the ceiling joists to the garage floor, hurting my shoulder in the process. Then, after my shoulder had recovered to the point that I could work, I fell again. That time I was unloading a sheet of 3/4-inch plywood from my truck. I managed to unload it onto my foot which told me that it was pretty heavy. In the process of getting it off my foot, I stumbled and fell against the garage door frame. I hurt my shoulder again, but not enough to keep me from working. And then on Sunday while I was unloading garbage at the county transfer station, I tripped over a parking lot tire bumper and went down on both hands and my right knee. Now I feel a little more of a twinge in my shoulder, but my knee took the brunt of the fall. It’s stiff and sore.

I’m beginning to wonder about myself.

I mentioned the garage. I think we’re going to be really happy with the garage. I picked up our hardwood flooring on Monday and parked it there.

garage

That’s about 3000 pounds of hardwood, which is as heavy a load as the trailer can handle. Even with the trailer backed in, I could pull the truck in far enough to shade the cab. Our Subaru is going to feel lost in there.

The tile is stacked outside the garage and the mortar and underlayment are just out of sight to the lower right of the photo. The tile installer is supposed to start next Monday or Tuesday. The hardwood installer is supposed to start a week later. In the meantime I hope to get electrical power to the house and the air conditioner working so that I can move the hardwood in and let it start to acclimatize.

Sunsets and sopapillas

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As I mentioned in a previous post, Wednesday was my birthday. We had huevos rancheros and, as usual, when Leah told them it was my birthday, they brought out a birthday sopapilla.

sopapilla

It was rather large, although that’s hard to tell from the photo. Leah had just a little taste, so I had to eat the rest of it. Poor me.

Later on Wednesday evening as we drove home down Huffaker Road, nature gave us another sunset. As usual, we could see it only in little patches. This was the best shot I could get.

sunset19may16

The colored clouds stretched halfway around the horizon, but we couldn’t see all of it at once at any one place.

If we look off to the east from our new house, we can see Mount Alto, from which, if you look to the west, you can see Lavender Mountain and our house. And also the sunset. I told Leah we should finish our new house, sell it and then build on Mount Alto. She thought that was pretty funny.

We celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary tonight. It was not much of a celebration. We exchanged cards in the morning, and for at least the second time, we got each other the exact, same card. I had to (or got to) do a few hours of work for the company I used to work for, which, thank goodness, I could do right here at home. Then we went out to eat for dinner. Sunset on the way home was hidden behind thick, gray clouds, so no photos of that.

I’m not sure how many people read this poor, little blog, but I wanted to thank anyone who does. When I read the blogs that I read every day (I hope if any of their authors are reading this, they know that I do read them), even though I don’t really know any of you all, I feel like it’s a conversation between good neighbors leaning on our common fence. I appreciate comments, since otherwise it can feel like shouting into an empty stadium, and I try to reply to every one. Sometimes I miss a comment, but rest assured, I read them all.

Bullies and bullied, and an anniversary

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It’s the same old story. The cats never get tired of it, but we sure do.

Here are the two cat bullies, Sylvester and Smokey, hanging out in front of the garage, probably planning their attack.

twobullies

And here are their targets, Dusty and Chloe.

twotargers

Chloe is almost hidden behind some of the liriope.

I’m a little embarrassed by the first shot. It shows a lot of trashy junk, including a load of scrap metal I plan to take to the scrap yard, a cooler and a bucket with some vinca that I plan to take up to the new house. The two propane tanks are headed for the scrap yard, too. I filled them with water and cut them open to make them safe. There’s also a trap we use to relocate possums and the occasional raccoon.

We really aren’t that trashy, although we sometimes look like it.

Today, May 20, is our 11th anniversary, both of being married and of living in our current house. It’s hard for me to remember not being married.