Winter is coming.

The days are drawing shorter, and more and more frequently we have frost in the nights here. Fall is flying by and winter is coming. Maren and I are preparing ourselves in our own little way. Yesterday, for example, we jumped on a great offer on woolen baselayers. Today, we put the cardis on her winterwheels. Bring it on, winter!

The lightpost-problem

It has started to be really quite dark around here now. Even after changing the clock, Maren drives to work in the darkness. Therefore it would be nice if our outside-lights worked. They used to work fine, untill a few weeks ago when switching them on caused the earth-switch to blow and left the whole house without power. Not ideal, so our solution untill now has been to simply not use the lightpost. Today I hoped I could perhaps fix the thing.

To be honest, I had never inspected this post up close ever since we moved in. It is apparent that the poor thing hasn`t had much love since it was planted, which I guess was in the '80s when the house was built. The light-fixtures themselves are in bad shape and could be taking in water. This is a nightmare to have to fix, so I hoped it would be something simpler, like a corroded connector block or something. Checkin this would involve opening the top of the post.

Unscrewing the two screws and having a quick peek would be simple, I thought. It was not. Both screws were rusted and stripped, and no screwdriver would take them out. I tried all the tricks, including grinding a new slot for a large flathead. After one screw head broke off from the torsion, I gave in and drilled out the screws. 

I am a bit afraid of this thing. The cheap cutting-discs I have explode way too often. Good to have eye-protection.

Succes! It took way longer than it should have to confirm that the inside of the post is fine and that I should not have bothered opening it up in the first place.... Unfortunately this might mean the post is not very fixable. If it needs replacing, I guess it can wait till next winter while we get by guessing where to back up the car in the morning.

What happens when Maren gets bored.

While I was lying under the car working on the exhaust, Maren got bored by standing around. She decided to get started on something that has been on her list for a while: cutting down shrubbery we want to get rid of to make space for nicer plants in the spring. Once she got started, she became unstoppable! She cleared a whole stretch  of shrubbery that needed to go, all while I was grinding under the car, wearing hearing protection. Imagine my surprise when I resurfaced to see how productive she had been! :-D  

A tin of condensed milk.

Maren and I love our little blue car, which we jokingly call our "Cardis", since the blue box on wheels sincerely feels bigger on the inside. (People not following the DW reference can click here.) We like to think it is a very comfy, but above all a very reliable car. You can imagine that we were horrified when our check-engine light came on the other week. Not wanting to destroy the poor thing we took her to the garage to have the code read. Of course, on the way to the garage the light went out by itself, but we read the code anyway. "PO420", the efficiency of the catalytic converter is too low. This would not harm the engine, and since the light was on we decided to keep driving until the light would come back on. From there we would see what there was to repair. Unfortunately the light came back on again quite soon after it had gone off. There was definitely a problem.

We went into research-mode, and googled around for possible courses of action. We were willing to bet the catalytic converter itself was fine, since the car had none of the symptoms that go with the failing of the converter. No loss in power, no rattles, nor a noticable increase in fuel consumption. Then we found a post on a forum saying that the code can be caused by an exhaust-leak that messes up the lamba-sonde readings. This made quite a bit of sense to us, because we knew there was an ugly fix on the exhaust that we inherited from the previous owner of the car. It was here I suspected this repair had now failed, causing our problems.

To confirm some random post I found on the internet I contacted my uncle. He is a good mechanic, and his professional opinion was  very welcome on the matter. H thought that while it could be a hole in the exhaust, we had to keep in mind that this code very often is caused by a defect lamba-sensor, or a broken catalytic converter.  Without looking at the car he said he hoped we could get away with patching a hole, instead of having to go for pricier repairs. The next morning we drove to "Biltema". This is a wonderful store selling parts for cars, boats and house-repairs as well as tools and all kinds of other things. I always like going there.

The score at biltema consisted of two jack stands, two hose clamps, a tube of exhaust mounting paste and a pipe-connector we ended up not using.

We lifted the Cardis of her feet, and got started with dismantling the old repair.

Under the aluminium tape we found a layer of exhaust-bandaging. This bandaging was blackened with soot from a hole somewhere. We were on the right track.

 We found a really thick lumpy weld under all the aluminium tape and bandaging, and the edges of this weld had rusted away into a new and large hole in the pipe. To fix this in an acceptable way, we would have to grind the weld down a bit so that our tin can could lie on the pipe neatly.

Maren inspecting the damage.

Grinding down the weld.

With the weld ground down and rounded off a bit, and most of the rust and dirt removed with a steelbrush on a drill, we applied a thick layer of exhaust mounting paste. Over this paste we folded sheet of steel plate we made by cutting open an empty condensed milk can. This can was tightly put in place with two hose-clamps, and the whole mess was left to dry for a while with a running engine.

The repair. Now one day we have to do something about the exhaust-support that has rusted away...

That evening we reset the check-engine light by disconnecting the battery for a while, and we took a long testdrive. The light stayed off! Now we hope that the light will indeed stay off longer than just one ride, but we are inclined to think we fixed the problem. And the total cost of the repair was less than the cost of having the code read by a mechanic. Now we have our fingers crossed that the jack-stands can stay stored in the garage for a while.

Pumpkin!

The other week we were on the receiving end of the charity of a friendly neighbour again. We were given one of the large pumkins he grew in his garden. Yellow and big and beautiful, this vegetable gave us a nice feeling of autumnal harvest season.

We scooped the pulp out of the middle, and cleaned the seeds. These we tried to roast but Ì`m afraid I ended up burning them. The quarters of pumpkin we baked in the over for a while so that the flesh was soft enough to scoop out and put in a bowl to process with a stick-blender into usable pumpkin puree. We got about 10 american cups that we froze. This far we have had soup and pie made with pumpkin, and both were surprisingly nice. I always thought I did not like pumpkin, but now I know that with the right spices it can be a nice vegetable indeed.

Switching shelves

Today is Sunday, and the last day off before I start working. I finally got a job after three months of nothing, and since Daniel started seriously applying a bit later than me, we're guessing his job will come in a few weeks from now ;-)

For quite a while now, we have entered the living room, dumped whatever we were carrying on the white chest of drawers, and so that surface has been very cluttered and full of strange items that doesn't normally go together, like nailpolish, screwdrivers and newspapers.
We remembered that there are a few old homemade shelves lying around in the garage, and I went to see if that would work out over that white dresser.
While I was deciding that it didn't, Daniel suggested trying to see if the white floating shelf in the bedroom wouldn't work better. It did.

But it did not want to move without a fight. A broken off screw made the operation quite long and very dusty, but after an hour of pulling, twitching and grinding, it came lose, and we're one step closer to actually having to paint that bedroom and make it really ours.

And now it's late, we have spent the day making a meal plan for next week, baking and freezing naan bread, looking for a lost pheasant and making some ginger and caramel fudge. The white shelf makes the dining area much nicer, and it can only be called a successful end of a nice weekend.

The floating shelf as it were in our bedroom

Screw absolutely not giving up without a fight 

Daniel won. 

Naked wall before the shelf

All done - watered and everything

And now lifting some of the things that looked cluttered on the chest of drawers.

Crab-dinner

This weekend we were invited over to have a crab-dinner with the grandparents. This is something that is very popular in Norway, and everyone was excited about it. Grandpa had caught crab, and was in charge of boiling and cleaning them. This is elegantly done with a hammer. On the table, there is a variety of nutcrackers, and narrow forks that are used to peel the meat out of the shells. 

Grandpa taking care of boiled crab, while Gudmundur and I calibrated and practiced with an air-rifle. A nice stereotypical picture, I though.

Personally, I do not like crab for various reasons. Two minor reasons are that I think they have to many legs for a food, and I do not like the unelegant slaughterfest it gives at the table. The most important reason is that I do not like the flaky texture nor the flavour of the meat very much. But: When in Rome, at least try to do as the Romans. Then you can always decide you like being a Gaul (galliër) afterwards. I ate some crab, and I found out I was very happy we brought some salmon for me to eat instead.

Maren thinks my aversion for crustaceans is rather funny, and spend some time harrassing me with bits and pieces.