This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Oct
31
2019
Remember the reason for the season: one Mediator between God and man, which is Christ Jesus.
So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.” ‘
Luke 5:9
Oct
26
2019
Somewhere in my schooling, I learned that the process that uses the most energy is phase change. So to take a lot of heat out of something, put water on it and the boiling will take up the heat from the object, leaving the object cooler.
Fast forward some years and I was about to get a pan out of the oven and a hot pad was not readily available. But a towel was right nearby.
My brain recalled the bit of trivia about how to consume a large amount of heat and it came up with the plan of using a dish towel that was wet.
The pan in the oven should have been about 350 degrees, which is about the 212 for boiling water, so all the water in the dish towel should boil off and drop the temperature of the dish to something that can be handled with a dish towel instead of a hot pad.
I was glad I grabbed it cautiously because I was able to set it right back on the oven rack instead of dropping it on the floor when my hands felt the sensation of searing heat.
I think two things happened:
1. My hands were grabbing the wet dish towel, surrounding the part that touched the hot pan. So all the steam that was produced had to go past my skin. And:
2. Thin wet dish towels are a good conductor of heat. So even if my plan had reduced the temperature of the pan to 211, that meant I was essentially grabbing a 211-degree pan with my bare hands.
Not quite the best plan, but I didn’t know that at the time. Now I do, and now you do too.
And it was so. When he arose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece,now drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of water.
Judges 6:38
Oct
16
2019
Our dryer stopped working last week. It would heat things up but it didn’t spin anymore, so the clothes just turned from a cold wet lump to a warm wet lump. As head of the household, it was my duty to repair it.
I haven’t fixed a dryer before, but no time like the present to learn. At best it saves us $100+ for a service call, at worst it delays the service call and annoys the technician who would have to undo my mistakes in addition to fixing the original problem.
I got the top off the dryer fairly easily – two screws. The side was a little trickier, but once I got that out of the way it was obvious what the problem was because the broken drive belt was right there. I pulled it out and went to the hardware store. Five dollars later, I was home with a new belt. I took the old one into the store and compared it to the new one to make sure it was the right length before I bought it.
Getting the belt on was an adventure. I couldn’t just wrap it around the drum from the side, so I had to take off the front of the dryer. With 3 sides out of 6 off the dryer, it gets rather wobbly. I slipped the belt over the drum and then put the front back on. The belt was around the drum and I found the motor easily, with its pulley open so the belt just slid on there too.
Side note: if you ever have to take a dryer apart for anything, take your Shop-vac with you and clean out all the lint that has found its way inside the dryer.
Side side note: I don’t know that I would have messed with a gas dryer, as tinkering doesn’t always go well with flammable gasses. Our dryer is electric, which is easy to work around because you just unplug it.
Back to the story…
It took me a few minutes to figure out how to get the belt around the tensioner pulley too. Tip: the tensioner is going to make the belt really really tight, so you’ll have to push the tensioner down more than you expect in order to get the belt on it.
I couldn’t test it before putting the dryer back together, as the drum won’t stay in place without the front panel secured, which needs the side panel fastened back on. At least I was able to leave the top off. When that was accomplished, I plugged in the dryer and turned it on. It worked! First time, too. The drum was spinning smoothly and it was blowing hot air. So I put the top back on, buttoned everything down, and put the wet laundry that had been patiently waiting in the washer into the dryer. I turned the dryer back on and it didn’t spin.
I took the top back off and spun the dryer. I was heavy but it moved. I took the laundry out and turned it on and it spun. The belt was looser than I remembered, so I took the side panel off and saw the tensioner pulley was caught and wasn’t able to pull the belt all the way tight. I freed the pulley and the belt was tight again, so I put the side back on the dryer and tried it. It worked fine, so I put the top back on and started it, only to stop it because it was making a horrible scraping sound.
Ugh.
I did not want to take the dryer apart again, so I took the top off and tried to hear where the sound was coming from. Looking down at the front of the tub while it was spinning, I noticed the dryer wasn’t square. So I pushed on the diagonals to square it up, relative to the drum. That made the scraping sound stop, so I put the top back on, which made the scraping sound start up again. I took the top back off and maneuvered the dryer until the scraping stopped.
So now if you stop by our house and see our dryer, you’ll notice the top is resting on the dryer but not fastened down, with a large-ish gap between the front of the top and the rest of the dryer. Please don’t try to help fix it by pushing down on it, as then I’ll just have to fix it again.
God did so that night; for it was dry only on the fleece, and dew was on all the ground.
Judges 6:40
Oct
9
2019
Continued from last week
This was a travel day. A few hours through the UP and then the upper LP. A lot of 2-lane highways and not much of the freeways, which made for some scenery. I was doing most of the driving, so I didn’t get to take many photos of the scenery.
Except for this one: our rest stop before the Mackinac Bridge:
Followed closely by this one:
Oct
2
2019
Continued from last week
We had a typical breakfast that we would have at home – cereal and bagels and stuff like that. And then we were off on our day of adventure in the greater Marquette area. First up: Presque Isle.
Fun fact: Presque Isle was designed by the same guy who designed New York City’s Central Park. Maybe “designed” is the wrong word for it – more like “conserved”.
Our first stop was to the mini lighthouse. I think officially it is a beacon, not a lighthouse. But either way, the walk out there was something that the boys liked. It was somewhat harrowing, but the lake was rather calm so it could have been worse.
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