C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 120

So far so good…the pump’s doing fine, the old one probably can be fixed…

The kittehs have their annual shots, and tags, and are none the worse for wear—we had a little set-to with Shu, who is perhaps just a wee bit spoiled and believes he runs the household…but he has his shots now.

The faithful Forester, 120,000 miles, is in the shop being serviced: we thought we were going to have to do the timing chain this round, but turns out we got that at 90,000 miles, so now it’s all the belts and fluids: it’s running really well, and we just want to be sure while the car is old, the oldness does not extend to its wear-out-able parts. The engine runs great. This is going to be spendy, but it beats paying for a whole car, or fixing it AFTER things have gone wrong. Seems the tires are going to be ok for a bit, but I’m going to talk with them about it—tires are cheaper than fenders if they’re getting iffy about skids. I tend to spring for 100,000 mile  all-weathers that really will affect handling: an extra margin of safety and agility if some ditz ahead of me decides he’s missed his exit at 70 mph or if a badly-loaded table leaves a truck and bounces my way (had both happen.) And we have serious snow and ice up here. Sooooooo we’ll think about the tires.

 

 

Just when we thought the water was safe…

…the pump ate something it really didn’t like—or the motor began to die. We don’t know. Norus Shinmaywa pumps are nearly indestructible…but it was more and more unhappy.

BUT your friendly writer-folk are not the sort to sit and wait for St. Murphy to strike. WE got a second pond pump two years ago, just because pumps have been known to croak…

There it sat in its box, waiting the call to duty—and this evening, under a light spit of rain, we pulled the ailing pump and put in the new one——-glitch—-

Seems the plumbing part that fits the Shinmaywa to American plumbing—by some micro degree only known to the metric system didn’t fit the new pump’s little adapter collar.

BUT your friendly writer-folk are not stupid, either: there is another nearly identical blue collar bolted to the old pump that DOES fit the American pipe. We get the bolts undone and, yes, the OLD Shinmaywa collar fits smoothly onto the new pump and accepts the old American plumbing-cobbled-together-adapter for the Gator Bite connector: a nifty little clip-down attachment that mates hose to pump and saves you having to draw off 2000 gallons of your pond and work upside down with a screw driver and hose clamp in an 18″ wide pit trying to attach a 3″ hose to the bottom of an 8″ wide pump body.

We plug it in. Gunk pours from the waterfall—apparently the other pump has been kind of tired. This one is not. We are now going to have to find somebody who repairs Shinmaywa pumps, or we could—a brilliant notion has just hit me—use this tired pump for the occasional job of drawing off 1000 gallons for a little water change…water changes keep minerals from building up in the pond. THis is worth some thought—the water pressure would be extreme, but we could water plants with it.

Jane, BTW, was the one having to kneel on rock and work upside down up to the elbows in cold gunky water to attach the Gator Bite by feel, being rained upon, and in twilight. But we got it done.

 

We are officially over onto South Beach…stirfry tonight…

…and back at walking. THe fact both of us were short of breath on a 4 block walk says something, eh?

 

Yesterday was a disaster…but we survived.

The problem with the marine tank: first of all, Jane hasn’t been sleeping well—I heard her up and about at 4 am and got up to find out if she was ok; we got to talking editing, and I was half awake and feeling like crap…when we noticed the fish tank: most of the topmost corals were tucked in.

I ran downstairs to do more tests. The salinity read a proper 1.024. But I was suspicious. Real suspicious. My refractometer is from 2004, has a rusted pin that means I have to hold the top plate on by hand while I read it…

We had breakfast, and I tried to get a nap, no luck. The minute the local pet store would be open I was on its doorstep to get a hydrometer, a floating weighted wand that measures specific gravity and tells you salinity; and a swing-arm to do the same in its own way. Both instruments are notorious for bad readings, but I figure one can check the other. And I can make a swing-arm read. I was scut-help in a genetics experiment, a bigtime one, where we had to make a swing-arm perform…

Now, mind, .001 is a ‘safe’ rise or fall in salinity, for tank purposes. Sure, torrential rain dumps the top layer of the real ocean full of fresh water, but, y’know, the fish MOVE to get out of that.

I check the water that my refractometer says is 1.024. The hydrometer reads 1.020. The swingarm reads 1.030.

Crap. After several tests and the recall how much salt I’ve dumped in there over the last 2 days, I’m going to trust the notoriously inaccurate swingarm. Jane’s alarmed to see me banging the thing on the counter—but I’m being sure I’ve gotten all the bubbles off the arm I can locate. That’s how we did it in the bigtime lab. And I’m now willing to bet that we had a minor problem two days ago and corrected it in the wrong direction. It’s safer to rush a correction downward than upward. WE draw off four gallons of tank water and toss them, replacing them with hyper-filtered (ro/di) water.

By now the fish store is open, some 30 miles away, in Idaho. They say they have a refractometer. We head out—with a sample of our ‘corrected’ water…which tests, now, with THEIR refractometer, at 1.025, exactly where I like to keep it. (The safe range is 1.024-1.026) We get same, and we head home. And of course as we get there—the corals are beginning to open out and the tank is already much happier. We hit the perfect mark, blind. And now with a refractometer that isn’t falling apart, we can confirm it.

Meanwhile we’re just chugging along, each editing the other’s book.

I was still shaking come supper, but we’d ordered some chips back when we were not dieting: they arrived. Terra Krinkle-cut Sweet Potato chips. I decided we were too carb short, and we agreed to open one bag and measure what we took. One ounce is under 30 carbs. And that would be a good thing. It worked. We had supper, worked on Jane’s cover, and went to bed.

This morning started with a spoon falling and breaking one of our bowls from our main dish set as Jane was loading the dishwasher, but hey, it wasn’t our newest bowls. We’re both feeling better this morning. And we think we are now to a stage in this diet we could either switch over to South Beach or just incorporate a few of those chips. Or both.

 

 

Feeling better today…

I think among other problems I’d gotten us too carb-short. We’ve been eating very little carb (I’ve dropped 5 pounds in a few days, but heck, I’ve got summer pants I want to fit into!) and I think I just over did it. Last night I added brussel sprouts, cauliflower and carrots and broccoli instead of the usual spinach salad, and felt better an hour later. You really have to watch it on Atkins: you have to drink 8 glasses of water a day and you have to take vitamin/mineral to make up for what you’re not getting, and if you’re getting all your permitted carbs (20 a day, during this phase: your typical frozen dinner has 40-50 a meal) from nuts and vegetables, you have to be careful which veggies, and green leafy ones can be treacherously short on carb. My fault.

I am still adding hyper-salted water. slowly.

You just can’t push salinity up and down fast or you can screw up coral tissues and fishy kidneys, not to mention osmotic shock for shelled creatures like crabs, who can’t ‘sweat’.

 

Too stupid to function

I’m tired. I’m really tired. When you have to boot up a total book to edit, and simultaneously remember so, so, so much detail, you run out of juice. I’ve been slogging away at the pond and almost have it perfect. And then—

I notice the marine tank is p’o'ed. I can tell when the corals aren’t happy, and they’ve been iffy for days. I can’t put it off any longer. Gotta go down to the basement and investigate the sump and find out why.

Well, you run four basic tests. Number one—salinity. Just in case. It never gets off, but if you’re smart you run it anyway.

Bingo. Salinity should be 1.025. It’s 1.020. Which is Not Good. 1.023 is Too Low. So what do I do? I’m out of hyper-filtered water, which you use in mixing salt water. Gotta run the very slow filter. Jane offers a brilliant idea. Dip out 5 gallons, which a 54 gallon system with a 30 gallon sump will not notice much, and hyper-salt it. So I do that. Add a couple of cups. Salinity now 1.021. And…I go upstairs to attend the editing.

An hour later I come down to add another couple of cups. But you always test first. So—

Salinity is 1.019. Wak. Why?

Doh. I drew off 5 gallons of water and didn’t unplug the autotopoff pump, which, ‘thinking’ it’s evaporated, just shot 5 gallons of freshwater into the system. Banging head against wall. I then unplug the topoff pump, which I MUST remember to restore tomorrow—and draw 5 gallons of water out of the system, throwing the first one—

 

—into my new hyper-salt mix, diluting it.

Re-banging head against wall, I finish the job correctly, toss 4 cups of hyper-saltwater into the system (more would harm things) and go back upstairs.

 

I have to cook tonight. I do not think I shall cook anything needing me to handle knives.

 

The water is now clear enough to see the bottom clearly…not perfect, but…

I think we’ve found the formula. I’ve ordered more of one and am going to go after the other.

Meanwhile I’m proofing for Jane, and the pond is requiring less and less care. It went all night with the filter in place and didn’t clog.

What I’m using, for those of you who have ponds: Interpet Pond Balance, at recommended strength (binds a nutrient that hair algae needs, but other plants don’t, plus helps condition water) and Microbelift Sludge Remover, which makes the pond look like peatwater for a couple of days, but sets bacteria to noshing down on the bottom crud. I have no UV filter any more; and nothing but regular circulation, the filter pads which take out debris and particulates, and these 2 things. The fish are ever so much happier. If we can maintain it with this alone, life will be good.

 

 

 

 

down a pound and the pond’s clearing a bit…

Yesterday it was clearing but looked like peatwater. There’s this stuff romantically called Sludge Remover that apparently has a lot of bacteria noshing down on the accumulated bottom gunk, and this shows some promise. I also discovered, through internet research, that we were considerably shorted on filter medium for the waterfall, which could have something to do with the problem. I ordered what will double its capacity for bacteria.

The local weather is warming, the snow is melting off the mountains and the whole NW corner of Washington is now under flood watch. Won’t be bad—except in a few areas where people have built too close to the water. But otherwise ok.

I’m down a pound. We’re not suffering to do it. Jane’s nearing a finish on her book, and the sky is clear, in that deep northern blue.

Starting to clear up…

I have some hope for this new British stuff…after 2 days the water is clear for about a foot on the surface, and we only have 3 more feet to go to have it in great shape….the turnover is slower on the bottom, but it’ll get there.

I was fascinated by Jane’s foam photos: that neat little hole, that permanent slow-motion hurricane of water-flow, is due to the relative position of the waterfall (in Kent) and the little out-dent that is the lily-well, in Wales. [I believe I've mentioned that the shape of our pond is not-too-roughly like that of Britain.] Scotland (the deep end) is where we have to get down to 3 feet. Wales is only 2.

Meanwhile, while getting our pond in shape, Jane and I have decided that our shape is not the best, either. Both of us have gained back 10 pounds and are not happy, since for both of us those pounds reside right around the waist and are not comfy at all. So…back to Atkins for a couple of months. We figure we’ve been so carb-heavy this is going to be a shock to the system.

The kittehs have now met bacon. They approve. Neither Ysabel nor Efanor liked it. Jane has decided to avoid eggs, which don’t sit well with us. This leaves me scrambling [horrid pun] to try to find something carb-free for breakfast. This morning it was 2 pieces of pepper bacon, 2 slices of deli ham and a bit of extra-sharp Cheddar. That gave us at least something hot for breakfast.  Induction on Atkins is brutally low-carb: we can’t even have yoghurt. But that’s only a couple of weeks. Last night’s supper was (pity us) ribeye steak, salad with Caesar dressing, and 1 oz of mixed nuts. Which did not have us frantic for a late snack, either, so that’s good. Better behavior already. A glass of wine is allowable. My coffee is allowable. I’m not so sure about Jane’s diet soda—I hope it’s made with Splenda. (The Atkins-friendly sugar subsitute.) One real nasty trick is the way diet sodas trick the insulin system into believing it’s had sugar, so you get some of the blood sugar business and possibly a physical signal that goes with sugar. Something happened to the American populace about the time diet sodas became available. Used to be, it was full-strength Coke, or nothing. Now people pack away a half a liter, and I’m not sure it’s ‘free’ in the physiological sense, since they’ve discovered the body reacts to the fake sugars as if it were real sugar. Maybe a ‘store’ signal goes out. Dunno. But as cook, I’m in charge, and I’m going to be suspicious of everything. I’m in label-reading mode. And I’m going to be ‘sperimenting with recipes, seeing what I can convert. And I’ll be real glad when we can go back to strict South Beach. Part of our theory is to use Atkins to get some of the weight off (about 5 lbs would be nice) and by then we’ll be longing to eat a lot of veggies: at that point, about 8 weeks from now, we switch to strict South Beach, which is 2 cups veggies at every meal, and very little carb besides the veggies: for South Beach purposes starches like potatoes and peas don’t count as veggies. So we’ll get our portions and carb balance back under control, because you’re not tempted to eat huge on Atkins: a little goes a long way. This is the plan, at least. All along, of course, we take vitamin supplement and drink 8 glasses of water a day. Jane says I can’t count coffee—so I have to drink (ugh!) water.

 

 

 

Fire!

Yep.

Our pond caught fire.

Jane came running into the house yelling. “Fire! Get out here!”

Remember how I said we were finally making progress on the spring algae bloom and I’ve tried so hard not to use chemicals this year, but to rely on the UV filters.

Cancel that. The redesigned (because they were catching fire) Savio UV caught fire. We have been so lucky on that. We’ve had 2 prior fires. Both times they started someone was in the garden working and caught it, and both times we were lucky enough to have the skimmer lid off. This one shot fire half a foot high and melted itself onto the skimmer, and tried to burn a hole in the 3″ hose that leads out of our skimmer to the waterfall—THAT would have been a pain. So would melting the skimmer itself, which is half of our pond kit and a big expense. No more UV filters. I’m going to have to engage in chemical warfare against the algae.

Chemicals can be beautiful. Catch Jane’s slide show. http://janefancher.com/HarmoniesOfTheNet

This also necessitated a trip to the pond store…and Jane found this very nice little baby koi, to replace one of her favorites that the eagle ran off with last year.

Do catch the slide show. It’s quite surreal.