Tag Archives: WordPress 4.0

2014/09/29 (M) Full Converted (Not)

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Linda was up at 5:45 AM.  Hey, it’s just a number.  I mean, who needs daylight?  She quietly got dressed and slipped out of the house to drive to the bakery.  This is how it’s going to be on days when she has to be physically present at the facility.  Unless I am away working on the bus.  In that case she probably does not worry about being quiet.

I got up around 7 AM and had a nice breakfast of homemade granola, orange/grapefruit juice, and coffee and then spent some time catching up on blogs that I follow.  Keith showed up around 9:30 AM to cut the grass.  Butch had called last night to ask Linda a question and asked that I call him when I had a chance.  Our company did not leave until after 9 PM last night, which was great, but too late to call Butch back so I called him this morning around 10:30 AM.

Butch had used a stop leak additive product to try to plug a leak in his Aqua-Hot main coolant loop but it did not work.  The Aqua-Hot is a Webasto-based diesel-fired hydronic heating system.  Rather than repair the Aqua-Hot, or replace it with another one, he decided to order an Oasis Combi unit from International Thermal Research.  The Combi has a lower BTU rating than the Aqua-Hot but is smaller, simpler, and uses stainless steel for some of the components.  It should be more than adequate for their bus, which is very well insulated, and give them years of trouble free service.

Butch and Fonda’s Aqua-Hot is a very similar model to ours and I will probably buy it from them as a source of spare parts.  His burner is fully functional, which ours is not at the moment, and the short term fix for our unit may be to just swap the burners.  I can then repair the defective burner at my leisure and have it available to swap back should the replacement ever develop a problem.

As a result of our conversation I decided that I will take our bus to their place tomorrow, leaving around noon and arriving between 4:30 and 5:00 PM.  In preparation for that trip I needed to gather up and organize parts, materials, and documentation for my initial set of projects.  I also needed to do laundry and select clothes for the trip.  I may also need to do some grocery shopping this evening unless Linda already has food in the house that I can take.  Tuesday morning I will have to load clothes and toiletries, hook up the car, check and adjust tire pressures, load computers and other last minute items, and get the bus ready for travel.

My main focus for Wed, Thu, and Fri will be the Aqua-Hot (no burn and leaky exhaust).  If we have time I would also like to finish installing the Zena 24 VDC power generating system and get it operational.  I will return on Friday afternoon/evening in the car as Butch and Fonda have plans for the weekend and I still have lots of things to take care of back at the house.

Keith finished up with the lawn a little before noon.  He will be back at least two more times, once in mid-October and again towards the end of the month.  Whether he cuts the grass in November or calls it quits for the season will depend on the weather between now and then.  His basic grass mowing season is April 1 through October 31 and he has his business insured for that range of dates, but he said he would come back in November if needed.  The grass should be dormant by then, but there may be a few leaves that still need to be mulched.  There could also be a foot of snow on the ground, so it will all depend on the conditions prevailing at the time.  During the mowing season he spends the work week living at their trailer/cabin at Haas Lake RV Park, which maybe 20 miles from our house, but by November 1 he is looking to move himself and his equipment back home to Milan for the winter.  Milan is at least 60 miles from our house, maybe a bit farther.

I spent a little time at my desk and decided to re-install WordPress 4.0 on the SLAARC, FMCA Freethinker, and FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches websites.  I re-installed it a couple of days ago on this (our personal) website, but I have not tried creating or editing image galleries since then so I do not know if the broken drag-n-drop feature has magically been repaired or not.  I suspect not, but Linda says I’m a pessimist.

I had a quick bite of lunch and then read a few more blog entries while I waited upstairs for Brandon from Bratcher Electric to show up and convert the whole house generator from propane to natural gas and do the annual maintenance and multi-point inspection.  He arrived at 2:15 PM and was here for about an hour.  I had him show me how to disable the generator as it has to be turned off anytime I want to shut off the power coming into the main distribution panel in the basement.  He did not have the correct length of flexible gas line and will come back on Friday to do the LP to NG conversion.  Besides disconnecting the propane and connecting the natural gas the conversion involves attaching two wires to a pair of corresponding terminals on the gas valve inside the unit and changing a setting in the controller.

While Brandon was working on the generator I started gathering things from the garage that I needed for tomorrow and loading them in the car and the bus.  We already have quite a few things staged to take to the Surplus and Salvage Rally next week, but I will take those things with me when I return to Butch and Fonda’s early next week.

Linda called at 4:35 PM to let me know she was on the way home.  I drained the water out of the fresh water tank on the bus as it had been sitting in there since June.  (Yuck.)  The fresh water hoses needed to be cleaned before I used them so I filled their storage tub half full of softened water and added some bleach.  I coiled them up, hooked the ends together, let them soak for a while, and then wiped them off with clean paper shop towels.  Much better looking, and probably and lot more sanitary.

Linda got home at 5:30 PM, a very quick trip for that time of day.  Butch had called just as she was getting home to let me know that he had spoken to someone who has two RV spots in Quartzite we can rent for a very reasonable price this winter.  Linda and I need to discuss it, and would like a few more details, but that probably makes more sense than trying to boondock our first time out there, especially as we do not yet have solar panel on the roof of our coach.

Linda made a nice green salad and heated up some of the lasagna from yesterday.  Italian bread with garlic “butter” and a glass of the 2009 Egri Merlot completed the meal.  We talked about our respective days, reminiscent of when we both worked outside the home.

After dinner I finished cleaning the fresh water hoses, filled the fresh water tank, and then drained and stored the hoses.  While I did that Linda gathered food items, bedding, and towels and put them aboard the bus.  It will still take me a few hours to get ready to leave tomorrow, but I should not be rushed getting everything done.

Linda heated up some of the apple/pear crisp for dessert after which we sat on the sofa and looked at highway maps on her iPad.  The map app on the iPad said the trip from our house to Quartzite, Arizona was about 2,100 miles and would take “1 day, 9 hours.”  That’s non-stop, of course; i.e., 24 + 9 = 33 driving hours.  That time works out to just under 64 MPH.  I typically drive the bus at 60 to 63 MPH on Interstate highways, but we do all of our trip planning based on 50 MPH.  That usually works out well at taking into account for fuel stops, rest stops, and non-Interstate roads.  This means our travel time will be more like 42 hours.  Our preference is to only travel 200 to 300 miles per day, or 4 to 6 hours a day, so the actual number of travel days will be between 10 and 7.  We like to spend more than one night at each stop, depending on what there is to see and do in the area, so the number of days it will take us to get to Quartzite will 2 to 3 times the number of driving days.  A lot of the details of our trip will be last minute decisions based on weather, but our “plan” is to leave December 1st and arrive in Quartzite by December 21st, more or less.

 

2014/09/26 (F) Hope Is Not A Strategy

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Linda was up at 7:00 AM, I was up at 7:15 AM, and Madeline was up at 7:45 AM.  Marilyn got up later.  Given a choice she’s not a morning/breakfast person.  Linda got up first to prepare the batter for her fabulous vegan blueberry pancakes which she planned to serve with fresh fruit and real maple syrup.

I powered up my iPad2 and discovered that Apple had released iOS 8.0.2.  Apparently I was not the only person having some issues with the release, like sluggish response and a Bluetooth keyboard that quit working properly and then quit working altogether.  I tested the keyboard with my laptop computer last night and it worked fine, so I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with it.  I downloaded the iOS update and everything was back to normal (once I figured out how to re-pair the keyboard).  With any luck perhaps WordPress will also issue a maintenance release today and fix the completely broken drag-n-drop feature of the media gallery.  As Deb Wahlstrom said once in a workshop, “hope is not a strategy,” but when things are completely beyond your control hope is sometimes all you have.

Linda tried to use the griddle that fits over the oblong center burner of the new G. E. kitchen range to cook the pancakes but forgot to turn it down from the preheat setting, which produces a LOT of heat.  It burned the first pancakes firmly to the griddle.  Madeline was already in her high chair waiting for her breakfast, so Linda grabbed a non-stick frying pan and cooked the pancakes in that.  The fact that the griddle and the preheat feature are both new and that there was a certain pressure to get Madeline her breakfast was not an ideal combination for a first attempt at using the griddle.  I doubt that she will make that mistake again, and the frying-pan-cakes were still very good.  The fresh fruit turned out to be bananas, but that was OK; we all like bananas.

After breakfast I played with Madeline while Linda cleaned up from breakfast.  Karen called from Bratcher Electric to let us know that Brandon had called in sick and she needed to reschedule our generator conversion and service for Monday between 1 and 3 PM if that would work for us.  It was not ideal from my perspective as I was thinking about taking the bus to Butch and Fonda’s on Monday, but that could obviously wait until Tuesday or later.  If necessary I could delay taking it until after the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally.

I waited until Marilyn got up at 9:15 AM to make the coffee; we all like our morning coffee.  Linda was busy with Madeline by that point so Marilyn cooked her own breakfast.  There was enough batter left for two pancakes.  She’s always very helpful that way when she comes to visit.  We often have to insist that she just sit, relax, be our guest, and let us take care of things.  It’s really not a bother; we like having company and we do not expect them to work while they are here.  Of course, if they insist on helping with the dishes, who are we to deny them the joy of being of service?

Marilyn started packing at 10:45 AM while Linda gathered up Madeline’s things.  When it was time to load the car for the trip to Ann Arbor my job was to hold Madeline’s hand (actually, she held my finger) and get her out the front door, down the new steps/sidewalk, and over to the car.  (Hey, grandpa-ing is serious work.)  Although she understood that she was returning to her house where daddy and mommy would feed and play with her, she wasn’t quite ready to leave.  She and I “marched” up and down the driveway several times before she was ready/willing to let Grandma Linda put her in her car seat.  She is now big enough that the seat gets installed facing forward, which is a very big deal as she can now see where she’s going in life instead of where she has been.  Marilyn rode in the back to keep her entertained on the drive down.

The weather this week has been spectacular; a classic late September in Michigan with lows around 50, highs around 75, clear blue skies and light breezes.  I shut off the various thermostats and opened up the house.  I spent the early afternoon editing blog posts from the last couple of weeks and then off-loaded photos from our Sony alpha 100 SLR, organized them, and backed them up.  I stopped for a bite of lunch and then decided to have another go at the lawnmower.  If I cannot get it started I will have to take it somewhere and have it repaired.  🙁

I had already installed the new spark plug last night and that did not fix the problem.  I dumped the gas tank out into an open tub and put some of the fresh gas I bought last night into the tank.  I took the tub to some of our woods a good distance from our drinking water well and spread it around on some leaves.  Most of it will evaporate rather than soak in.  Not the most environmentally sound thing to do, but a lot safer than an open tub of gasoline.

Before I tried to start the engine I checked the back discharge chute, out of habit, to make sure the mulching insert was in place.  It was but there was a lot of dried grass as well and it had obviously not been cleaned out the last time it was used.  There was also a lot of fuzzy material mixed in with the grass, a sure sign that a mouse had taken up residence there at one time.  I removed the insert and shook it off into the tub and discovered that it still had a mouse in it.  The mouse was quite dead and very stiff but did not have any obvious injuries and did not emit any odor.  It was in surprisingly good conditions, so perhaps being encased in the dried grass and fuzz helped preserve it.  It was not trapped so it is a mystery why it stayed in there and died.  The mower was in our garage all winter, and although it got very cold (-20 F) the mouse would not have been trapped in the garage either; there are gaps around the doors that would easily allow a field mouse to come and go.  (Now that we have the garage furnace, sealing the doors is on my project list.)

With the discharge chute cleaned up the mower started on the first pull !!!  (This is something Honda has bragged about in the advertising in the past.)  I let it run for a while on high throttle to warm it up and make sure it had fresh gas all the way through the fuel system.  I then brought the throttle back to idle to let it cool off and stabilize and then shut it off.  I did not think it was going to start so I was not wearing my safety goggles or gloves.  I usually wear hearing protectors as well, but I could not find them.  (I realized later they were probably in the construction equipment tub we took with us last summer.  I will look there tomorrow.)  I topped off the tank with fresh fuel and it started on the first pull again.  The new spark plug is a more aggressive design that is supposed to spark more easily and that may have helped.  Whatever the reason, I like how easily it now starts.

I spent an hour cutting the grass in the immediate vicinity of the house.  I focused in particular on the areas that Keith does not get with his riding mower and areas that were disturbed (destroyed) and re-seeded as part of the landscaping work and re-seeded again by me (twice).  The new grass is coming in fairly well at this point although there are still a few thin spots.  And even though Keith mowed most of this new grass on his last visit it was getting tall again.  I was surprised how moist much of the grass was, especially in areas that are now mostly shaded throughout the day, as we have not had any rain in the last week.  Keith had mentioned the last time he was here that the grass was very moist; “…more like April/spring grass than September/fall grass.”  I did not get everything mowed.  I still have to do the two slopes by the retaining walls in the back, which are steep and physically demanding even with a self-propelled mower, and most of the west end of the house.  It will take me at least another hour to finish but I had done enough for today and wanted to relax for a little while before Linda got home.  Besides, it will be there tomorrow, and it should be a nice day to work outside.

Linda called around 4:35 PM and left messages letting me know that she had dropped Marilyn at the airport and was starting for home.  That drive would take close to an hour in light traffic, so I figured I would not see her before 6 PM.  She pulled in the driveway at 6:10 PM.

We had three left over salads for dinner: chickpea; Farro with cranberries, and; wild rice with apples and raisins.  Easy and delightful.  Marilyn texted Linda several times to let us know her travel status.  Her flight was delayed almost an hour but eventually took off and got her safely back to St. Louis, Missouri.  We were both tired and turned in early, but I got my second wind after I located a service manual online for a model of Aqua-Hot that is very similar to the one in our bus and started reading about how to diagnose what might be wrong with our unit.  Based on the symptoms my current best guess is a stuck fuel valve or defective fuel valve solenoid.

 

2014/09/19 (F) Renewed Acquaintance

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After I installed iOS8 on my iPad2 yesterday morning my Logitech Bluetooth keyboard seemed to change its behavior, giving me double letters in some cases and feeling a little sluggish in its response.  The keyboard itself has not changed, so I presume this has something to do with iOS8.  I also presume the keyboard batteries have not run down already, but I suppose that is a possibility.  If so, I will be replacing them once a week.  While creating an image gallery for the SLAARC WordPress website last night I noticed that the drag and drop feature of the gallery editor did not work.  I upgraded to WP Version 4.0 about a week ago but this was the first time I had tried to use the gallery feature.  If there is a problem with this feature there is no way that I am the first person to discover it and I presume WordPress is aware of it.  I find it strange, however, that they have not released a maintenance update fixing it since an improved and more visual editor was a major feature of the 4.0 release.

A few weeks back I re-established contact through Linked-In with a colleague from 10 years ago.  Jim was Director of General Education Services at Livingston Educational Service Agency at the time and we went through NCA Ambassador training together.  It turns out that he lives and works in the Brighton area, so we are now neighbors of sorts.  He suggested we meet up for coffee and I finally called him this morning to arrange that.  We both had time at 1:30 PM today and agreed to meet at the Panera on Grand River Avenue by I-96 at that time.

Linda got the new Global Bake bakery software installed on her laptop yesterday so this morning she was able to start working on the software conversion process in earnest.  Her work requires a lot of concentration, and she gets very focused when doing it, so I went to my office to continue working on editing blog posts and photos.

In checking my e-mail I noticed that I was still getting failed login attempts from foreign countries on this site and on the FMCA GLCC website, which is sub-domain of this site, in spite having installed the premium (paid) version of the Wordfence Security plug-in.  I looked at the installed plug-ins for the GLCC website and discovered that I had one named “Limit Login Attempts” that I did not have installed on our personal website or the other two sites I manage.  I surmised that this plug-in might be doing just what the name implied and in the process preempting Wordfence from ever doing its job.  I deactivated it and saw a reduction in failed attempts, with none from outside North America, suggesting that the country blocking feature of Wordfence was now working properly.  I saw a similar drop in failed login attempts on our personal website when I activated the country blocking feature for all countries except the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.  Only time will tell, however, if Wordfence is indeed blocking login attempts from outside North America.

We had hummus and apples for lunch after which I hung up one load of laundry and put another load in the washer.  I left at 1 PM to have time to stop at Best Buy to get something to clean our various touch screens and monitors.  Traffic was very heavy in the I-96 and Grand River Avenue shopping area, but Best Buy is in the same shopping complex as the Panera, so I made it there on time.  Jim and I talked for almost two hours and which covered the highlights of the last eight years.

Back home I kept my focus on getting the blog caught up.  Linda wrapped up her work for the day and we finished the bottle of Alpha Rose from Red Trail Vineyards while she fixed a simple but tasty dinner of vegan burgers and corn.  I got a call from Butch letting me know that the company in Nevada had arranged for a semi and taken all of the parts they plan to take.  Everything that is left is Butch and Fonda’s to do with as they please.  The important thing for us is that I can now take our bus down there at my convenience.  I would like to get all of the natural gas related work taken care of and put the finishing touches on the garage project before I move the bus, but I may go ahead and move it next week if the scheduling of contractors works out.

During the evening I had an exchange of TXT messages with Chuck.  He had ordered some miniature 24VDC light bulbs (1829s) that are used in our bus dashboards and the order had arrived.  Rather than go to his shop after breakfast tomorrow we arranged to meet him for dinner tomorrow night.  I also got a call from Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint.  She had a new customer who just bought a mid-1990’s Prevost XL converted coach and she gave him my name and phone numbers in case he had any questions about the rig.  We agreed that we would try to find time during the GLCC Surplus and Salvage a Rally to work on the article I started last year about the process she used to repair the body and roof of our coach, seal and coat the roof, and paint the body.  We capped off the evening with the second to last episode of Season 5 of Doc Martin. We need to return the DVDs to the Howell Library on Sunday, so we want to make sure we get through all of the episodes for Season 5.

 

2014/09/05 (F) WordPress 4.0

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We awoke to temperatures in the low 70’s this morning and by noon it was forecast to be 85 degrees F with rapidly rising humidity.  We turned our A-C on yesterday and left in on overnight and through the day today.

WordPress 4.0 was released yesterday and just before midnight I updated the four websites I manage, including this one.  I was looking forward to working with the new version today, but first things first.  Darryll called at 8:15 AM to make sure it was OK to come over.  We finished breakfast and then opened the garage and moved a few things that might be in his way. Although we would have liked to continue working in the garage during the morning, before it got really hot and humid, we were glad to have Darryll here working on the HVAC installation.

Instead of working on organizing the garage Linda worked at her desk and baked a loaf of bread while I assisted Darryll.  He wired up the library thermostat and showed me how the wires were connected.  He installed the return air grill, which required some minor drywall trimming, and installed a 6″ combustion air duct in the ceiling of the utility closet.  The duct had a screen on one end with a hood, like a dryer vent, and was open on the other end.  He installed it from the attic side with the hood in the attic and the open end sticking down through the ceiling into the closet.  I may decide to caulk or apply drywall compound to fill that gap between the duct and the hole Darryll made in the ceiling.

Darryll’s main focus, however, was hooking up the four pieces of duct, two rigid and two flexible, that will carry conditioned air into the library and installing the two ceiling registers.  That involved working in the attic which was very hot.  The flexible duct for the two ceiling registers was the same kind of product that was used in the main house; a pre-insulated flexible accordion tubing with an 8″ inside diameter that comes in 25′ lengths compressed to about 3′ for shipping.  To feed the two registers on the lower part of the west wall of the library he cut lengths of 8″ diameter (circular cross section) metal duct and assembled them.  He attached them to the supply air duct (plenum) with flange connectors.  He then slide insulation blankets (tubes) around them and connected the bottom ends of the duct into the back of the register ducts using several elbows to bring the duct around and close to the wall.  Finally, he slid the insulation down and secured it.

While Darryll was doing all of that I finished connecting the AC power to the condenser/compressor. That involved the following:

  • removing the terminal cover panel from the inside of the fused disconnect box
  • knocking out access holes on the right side and bottom
  • mounting the fused disconnect box to the side if the house
  • cutting a piece of 3/4″ plastic conduit for the cable from the soffit to the box
  • running the NM cable through the conduit
  • installing a watertight 90 degree elbow into the conduit
  • attaching the elbow to the side of the box
  • cutting, stripping, and connecting the line wires
  • cutting the plastic armor on the hookup cable to the right length
  • installing a straight screw-in watertight connector on the box end of the armor
  • installing a screw-in 90 degree elbow watertight connector on the condenser end
  • cutting, stripping, and connecting the load wires in the box
  • cutting, stripping, and connecting the load wires in the compressor.

I had Darryll check my work and then installed the fuses in the pull-out disconnect but was not able to get it to plug all the way in.  Darryll bent the blades slightly and got it to seat fully.  (I need to get two different fuses.  All he had were 30A fuses but 20A would be sufficient.  Also, the fuses he had in his truck were notched on one end.  I think fuses with full barrels on both ends would be better as they would have more contact surface than the notched ones.)  I reinstalled the terminal cover panel and closed the box.  I then re-installed the cover panel on the A-C compressor that Darryll had removed earlier.

With the power connected and most of the ducts run, we turned on the 120VAC/15A circuit breaker (for the unit in the utility closet) and the 240VAC/20A circuit breaker (for the compressor/condenser).  Darryll turned the thermostat mode switch to “cool” and the fan switch to auto and the A-C came to life.  Hooray!  I love it when that happens.

While Darryll finished installing the ducts and the registers I connected and mounted the thermostat for the garage furnace and then connected the wires on the other end of the cable to the terminals on the back of the unit according to Darryll’s instructions.  I removed the end panel from the Reznor ceiling-mounted garage furnace, removed the documentation packet from the inside, checked that the gas valve was in the “on” position, and put the end panel back on.  I also removed the protective plastic film from the bottom of the unit.

Darryll gathered up his tools, extra parts, and unused materials and loaded them in his truck. He then pressurized his portable air compressor and used it to pressurize the black iron gas pipe.  It has not been holding pressure, so he pumped it up to 15 PSI and we went in search of leaks with a spray bottle of soapy water.  We used my inspection mirror to see behind and under connections and found three leaks.  One was in a 2″ pipe fitting behind the garage, one was in a 2″ pipe fitting near the end of the run by the generator, and one was at an elbow in the 1/2″ pipe where it exits the utility closet on its way to the garage furnace.

Darryll was checking air temperature readings at the registers and in the main plenum of the library HVAC unit.  The library was 89 degrees F when he first turned the A-C on, and the attic was a lot hotter than that.  He connected his gauges to the compressor/condenser and said the readings were close enough to correct that he did not want to add or remove any refrigerant until the room had cooled down and stabilized at the requested temperature.

I was hoping he would get the job finished today but he needed some equipment, which he did not have with him, to work on the iron pipe and he was obviously tired from a long day working in the high heat and humidity.  He may be back tomorrow; if not, Monday or Tuesday. Whenever he returns, I have complete confidence that he will get it done before the gas meter is hung and that it will all work correctly for many years with very little attention other than changing a filter once or twice a year.

We deferred lunch until Darryll left.  We had chickpea salad on a slice of the bread Linda had baked earlier, corn-on-the-cob, and the last of some fresh pineapple.  Nothing says “summer” like organic, non-GMO corn-on-the-cob.

After lunch I called Bratcher Electric to check on the status of the estimate/quote that Mike was putting together to service our generator, convert it to natural gas, and run a 100A Service Entrance Cable from the transfer switch to the garage panel, converting it from a sub-panel to a main panel.  Karen said they have been really busy but he would work on it over the weekend.

I also called 1-800-Pack-Rat to arrange pickup of the storage container on Friday September 12th.  Steven was not able to schedule the pick-up during the call and said he would contact the local office and get back to me.  I made it clear that we did not want to roll over into another billing cycle and I was calling one week ahead of time as we had been instructed.  He assured me that it would not be a problem.  About an hour later we got a return call and follow up e-mail confirming pickup for Friday, September 12.

Late afternoon I checked on the library A-C to make sure it was not freezing up.  Everything looked OK.  The thermostat was set to 76 degrees F and the temperature was down to 77, so I bumped the setting up to 78 to let it cycle off and on.  Although Darryll did all of the heavy lifting on this project (literally) I spent my fair share of time in the attic on warm days installing the pull-down folding ladder and working on electrical wiring and attic lights.  It was very gratifying to see that all of this work—his, mine, and Linda’s—finally result in something that operated correctly.

We were relaxing and reading when severe weather watches and warnings for our area started arriving on our iPads.  Naturally we went outside to see what was going on.  We were both born and raised in the Midwest, the St. Louis, Missouri area, to be exact, and as kids in the 1950’s, threatening weather was a form of summertime entertainment.  Not that we were stupid; we learned from the adults around us when the show was over and it was time to head to the basement.  When I was about 5 years old we lost a plum tree in our backyard to a close encounter with a tornado.

The gathering storm. The clouds were very dramatic in all directions.

The gathering storm. The clouds were very dramatic in all directions.

The clouds were very dramatic but eventually gave way to a formless mass of gray with swirling winds and a few raindrops.  We checked the Weather Channel app and the Weather Underground Wundermap app on our iPads.  The radar returns showed that we were likely in for some rain, and we got some, but as often happens the worst of it passed north and south of us.  The rain we did get was very welcomed.  We had heavy rain on Monday (Labor Day), Keith mowed the grass on Tuesday, I spread grass seed around on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a flock of six wild turkeys feasted on the grass seed on Wednesday and Thursday. We needed a nice light rain to help the seeds germinate and take root rather than be eaten or washed away in a thunderstorm.

Storm clouds looking east.

Storm clouds looking east.

Around 7:30 PM our power flickered several times and we received e-mail messages from our generator letting us know that utility power had been lost and then quickly regained.  We decided to check the Kohler OnCue software to see what the generator was doing.  We thought sure we had installed the software on Linda’s computer, so we could monitor it from her desk in the kitchen/dining area, but it wasn’t there.  After much searching and head scratching we checked my old laptop and there it was!  When we thought about it we realized that the generator had been installed about a week before Linda started configuring her new Samsung laptop, so there was no way we had put the software on her machine.  We’ve been very, very busy the last 20 months, so it was not surprising to us that we had forgotten the exact sequence of events.

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Approaching from the southwest the clouds got more ominous.

The severe warnings expired at 8 PM and the severe watches at 9 PM, but that did not mean the rain was done.  A big fetch of moisture was located south of Chicago, Illinois and moving through southwest Michigan in our general direction.  The rain was forecast to continue into the early hours of tomorrow but be done before sunrise.  When the rains finally came it rained hard for a while.  Tomorrow is forecast to be a perfect Michigan day and I plan to buy another bag of grass seed to spot seed the areas that got washed away, again.