Sunday, February 14, 2010

When I called Raymond at eleven thirty, he told me that the service man would meet me at the gate at one. Jerry was there a little early and in a few minutes we were loaded and on our way up to the house. The worst spot on the road right now is a deeply rutted section that you literally drop into. Once we passed that, we had little trouble and the work I had done earlier with the tractor helped, though I could see that I needed to clear the area near my gate some more.
Jerry was able to use the regulator and some copper tubing from the hundred gallon tank to set the new tank right next to the house instead of by the main underground tank. That would make swapping the new tank out with a fresh one much easier. It was when we went inside to relight the vent free heater that I realized I had a big problem. I recalled with horror how hard it had been to restart the propane refrigerator the last time it was defrosted, and I was instantly alarmed. While Jerry was working on the vent free, I pulled out the refrigerator manual and got down to try to restart the pilot. Fortunately, I had written some good directions and after setting the controls at the right spots and pressing the pilot down, I saw the red line move into the green in a few seconds. I had spent several hours last time so this amazed me, and I even had Jerry help me move the refrigerator out so I could make sure the pilot was on, which it was. In all likelihood, I would have to do this several more times since I can’t imagine that the regular propane truck would be able to get up to the house until mid March.
I drove Jerry back to his truck and when I got back to the house, I decided to get back on the tractor and do some more work by the gate. The snow there, even with my earlier efforts, was still fairly deep and it took me over an hour of working with the bucket to clear the road to my satisfaction.

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