The Newport Forest Mothers' Day Bluebell Walk

With no time to lose, our second walk in the same day takes us to Newport Forest near Wardsville about an hour west of London off old Highway 2.

Our hosts Kee and Pat Dewdney welcomed a very good turn out of visitors for the annual Bluebell Walk along the mile or so walk on the trail in the forest.

 

Muriel in foreground and Kee's wife Pat (with stick)

A good turnout, we  divided up into two groups for the walk.

Kee snaps a picture of the group for his newsletter.

Professor Kee Dewdney with his son Jonathon.

Our group leaders Will Van Hemessen, Muriel Andreae  and Erin.

Muriel  Andreae, leading our group, shows us Goldenrod Galls

One of several Trail Cams are set up on the property to monitor animals passing by.

Above is a huge Poison Ivy vine attached to a tree. Wendy and I had no idea the plant got this large.

Right in the pathway a crayfish chimney beside a log in the bridge.

I forget the name of this umbrella like flower made up of tiny yellow flowers.

Out of focus Red Admiral butterfly.

The group ahead of us were concentrating on birds, while we were looking more at the flora.

The Thames river is still high and fast but nothing like the winter run-off a few weeks ago when it crested a record 18 feet above normal.

Corn husks and debris could be seen in trees and bushes some of which were 8 or 10 feet above the ground which is already several feet above the present river level.

 At last, at the half-way point of our walk we were treated to the beautiful Virginia Bluebells, the title of our Mothers' Day walk.

Muriel takes a sit down break, still explaining the surroundings. Ooops - wet bum!

Back at camp, the treats and cookies await us. As much as I love nature, I must admit that part of the attraction of this walk is the after treats.

Good conversations and stories abound.

Kee presented Wendy with an authentic hat from the "res".

Our guides Sarah Bonnett and Will Van Hemessen relax with Kee. Excellent weather and a beautiful warm Spring day. Wendy says there is nothing she would like to do more than tromp through the forest on Mothers' Day. Read more CLICK HERE.
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Stumped!

 Here's my ad in Kijiji for FREE hardwood mulch:

Click on the ad to enlarge it.

The stumps of the Ash trees we took down in the summer of 2016 were unsightly and caused an obstruction to the lawn mower so I engaged a stump removal company to take them out.

The machine reminded me of some sort of prehistoric dinosaur or dragon monster.

The stumps are as hard as iron but the yellow machine attacked and ate them voraciously.

The amazing machine made quick work of grinding off the stumps to below grade level so that we can grow grass over them.

After grinding up the three huge Ash tree stumps in the back yard we had a large pile of wood chips to get rid of.

The resultant chips seem to be in fairly high demand this time of year for gardens and play areas.

I'm hoping I don't have to trailer them to the dump. I have had a good response to my Kijiji ad.

Too good to waste! Tim hauled the chips up closer to the street for our sale.

I advertised with emails only to minimize phone calls. That way I could somewhat control the flow of people on the property. The rain miraculously held off until we were done. No trip to the dump with a trailer, and a dozen or so people got free mulch for their projects.  That was easy!
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Artsy Google Pic

Here's the artsy picture for today. I found this place in Italy, TX on 104 N. Ward St. off the main drag.

 Add a little work and a little sunshine and it looks pretty good don't you think?

To go to the Google Map site CLICK HERE.
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Happy Birthday Tim jr.

Today is our son Tim's Birthday. . . Happy Birthday to the Birthday Boy.
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Spring Project - New Pool Heater.

What could go wrong with a 20 year old pool heater?

That's what I thought when I took a few panels off my old pool heater. I can't remember exactly when we stopped using it, but it was working, I remember that. The trouble was it was spewing rust particles into the pool and staining the liner.

I thought maybe I could remove the rusty old cast iron headers from the heat exchanger, strip the rust with acid and re-coat them with epoxy. Maybe get one more season?

Rodents beat me to it. The years of neglect as it sat disconnected from the pool pump turned it into a rodent hotel.

My original plan was to get it running for the season and see how serious Erin and Wendy were about using the pool this summer.

So much for that idea. The mice got into every part of the heater. Even the headers themselves were packed with debris.

Originally the firebox was lined with some sort of non-asbestos, white, fireproof, glass wool. The mice ripped it all apart and made nests.

The glass wool must have held the moisture because the firebox and the burner tray was rusted to the point that there was a substantial amount missing. Other metal parts simply crumbled as I worked.

I took at least a half bushel of nest material out, along with a lot of the structure. There was no way this heater was ever going to see another day of service.

Tuesday morning we drove to the pool supply and picked up a new unit.

Here's our son Tim bringing the new unit to the pool area.

With the old heater moved out of the way we could begin to install the new one.

The job involved five separate phases. I call the first one the removal of the old unit.

The second part was necessitated by the fact that the headers (non corroding polymer) needed to be reversed left to right to match up with the old plumbing.

Basically I had to disassemble the new heater to reverse the headers and re-route the sensor wiring etc.

It took a couple hours to re-arrange the heater for this location.

The third phase was the gas connection. I lucked out with the location on the the new unit so the gas hookup went smoothly without having to call in a gas fitter.

Soap testing the gas pipes showed no bubble/leaks.

Tim drags the old unit and cardboard to the front yard for disposal.

Phase 4 was fairly easy. I had to bore a new hole in the side panel for the electric connection. Fairly straight forward, doing the wires up with wire nuts and fastening a ground wire to a ground lug.

The fifth and final connection was the white PVC water lines. Again I was fortunate that the old lines were usable (after I blew out the mouse nests in the pipes).

There we go. Today at about 1:15 pm I started up the new heater and everything worked perfectly. The pool water was up over 70 F, 21 C by 6 pm. Bring on Summer!
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