Never Ending House Maintenance

Here's the branch that has me worried.....

So after one of the windy storms came through, the Mulberry tree in the back yard had a broken branch in the middle. I called around to find someone who could come cut it out and hopefully save the tree.  

The Tree Guys came and trimmed a few branches and got the big limb off the center. 

They brought in a good sized cherry picker, so the guy in the basket could get up in the tree. 

This is where the swings that the kids all love so much and it makes a really good shady place for Dilly's sandbox. 

They ended up putting in two cable braces, that will hopefully keep any other limbs from swaying too far and breaking off. 

Here's the finished job. Now they'll trim a few branches from the maple tree out front to get away from the house a little bit better. And it was only, $1950.00 it's a lot, but it was a pretty big job too. 

And we had the folks from Affordable Heating and Cooling come out and give the furnace a once over before winter hits. 

We had a capacitor that tested bad, so had it replaced, then the tech took a look at the heat exchanger...uh boy....

see all that crud?  It's not supposed to be there....

That got all cleaned up and the furnace is ready for the cold weather, and for only another $470. Worth every penny. I won't have to worry about no heat on the coldest day of the year!

 

Cooling and Cozy Quilt Finish

So the first day of May is here! And so is the new air conditioner! Ringo is checking it out! We had Affordable Heating and Cooling Affordable Heating and Cooling out to do their annual check up on our current system, and like in the past few years, the tech told us to be ready because when our current unit fails, it can't be repaired easily, due to the bad kind of coolant. So we made the decision to just replace it now before the weather gets unbearbale.
 

Here it is all hooked up, ready for the hot weather. Another nice Lennox unit. Affordable replaced our furnace in 2018-here's that post What Next?, and we are so pleased with that unit and the good work they did. We're confident that this unit will be just as great! Today's only around 50 degrees, so we won't be needing this today!

About $3500 and we're set for the summer!

So, remember when I started working on this quilt?

Well here it is all done. I sent it to the longarmer over in Mt Vernon. Her name is Debbie here's her link Happiness Longarm

Look at those paw prints!

I'm just in love with this quilt!

See on the back, you can see the quilting stitches a little bit better.

I took it outside-it's windy though......

I'm so happy with this quilt. 

Mostly because of the fabulous quilting! 

Look, here's the back, I pieced it and my longarmer lined it up so perfectly! I am so happy with this quilt!

In the bright sun it looks so good!

Right before it blew off the fence! It's been crazy windy this whole week! 

Busy, Busy, Busy

 

So it's all about the air conditioner again!  Look at that iceberg formed around the a/c line. I used the hair dryer to melt it away and then left the fan on the unit running all night to thaw the entire line. 

Then it happened again! So I called our usual repair folks at Affordable Heating and Cooling. They said there may be a leak or a clog. Great. They can't get to us until Monday (this was Thursday).

SO I thawed it all out again and then I place the stand fan in front of the unit thinking that maybe it wouldkeep it from letting water pile up and freeze. Well what do you know i! It worked! We were cool as ever over the weekend and it was no trouble to wait for the repair guy to get here. It was a clog in the area of the condenser coils. All fixed and good now!

When I got up on Friday, my Amazon delivery was here! I ordered non-chewable seating for the back deck. 

Now for assembly. It went together pretty well. Just remember to leave ALL the bolts loose until they are ALL in place, only two or three turns on the nut. Then go back and tighten them all up. 

I really like the bright red color!

And they are more comfortable than they look. 

These two approve!

Kids and dog approved!

Out there eating candy on the deck, what a sweet moment!

And another great moment-Luna got spayed! YAY!!

DD dropped her off in the morning and I picked her up in the afternoon. She's doing just fine and dandy! Very nice folks at the Iowa Humane Alliance. They are a non profit that offers low cost spay & neuter surgeery as well as offering all kinds of products and services for pet owners. 

What Next!?

So in December we had a little trouble with the furnace-a new igniter had to be installed. $300 for the guy to come fix it. SO last week the furnace was acting up again. I called the guy we always call and they sent a rookie guy to try to fix it-it's only -12, gee who needs to have a furnace. Well Rookie couldn't get the thing going, so a 2nd guy came out-the guy who fixed it before. He finally got it going after sending rookie out to this truck so many times, I'm surprised there was anything left in it! So we're warm at least. He suggested we replace the furnace- to the tune of about $5000!!!! SO I got Hubs on the job and he called and had 4 or 5 different outfits come give him an estimate.

 

 We chose to have Affordable Heating & Cooling come in and replace the furnace. On Tuesday they brought us a Lennox High Efficiency unit (they had to go pick it up over in Marshalltown!) and installed it for about $3000. Let the work begin!They could have used a little more space I think.  I took the dogs over to DD's for the day-no need for them to be helping.

 The guys from Affordable arrived on time, came in and got busy. By the time they finished it was down to about 65 degrees in the house. They took away the old unit and now we have this! They did a really great job-installed a new thermostat and cleaned up all their debris perfectly!

What a difference! It's quiet and seems to be working really well! We're all toasty now! I hope nothing else breaks down any time soon!