If you saw my last post about how we watched the online weather live from KCCI during the storm Tuesday night, you know I was less than impressed their online streaming. Their actual coverage was GREAT! However, the commercials and the stopping of the stream after a few minutes was very disconcerting while hiding in your basement.

So, I emailed their weather department and gave them a link to my “critique” on this site. I got an email back promptly from John McLaughlin saying that he had been trying to get rid of those and maybe my email would help. He forwarded it to internet sales department. He just wrote me today saying that it “has been handled.” I am being optimistic and assume that means better streams and no more commercials during tornados!

I can almost assure you that this wouldn’t have had such a good outcome had it been with a Denver station.

Thanks, KCCI!

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We had an excellent storm last night. Tornados and everything. We didn’t even know about it (we don’t have TV) until Mason’s parent night at school was canceled. We got in the truck to drive over to the school because it looked like it might rain and the severe weather alert came on the radio.

We were watching the online weather from the basement as a tornado came down the street 1 mile from the farm. That is until the internet went down. As our Colorado friend, Jake said, “You win the geek prize my friend.” I have to agree.

After the bad part passed, we drove down to take a look around. I think everyone else in the county was doing the same. It was still raining pretty hard and the lightning was amazing. We thought the highway to the farm was busy, but when we got to Cooper (pop. 30), we knew why. Everyone was down there looking for the chaos. Well, all they really got to see was a few LARGE downed limbs.

All our buildings are okay. We lost a bit of insulation on a side of the corn crib that we hadn’t finished siding. Our own fault there.

We lost a giant tree, but it needed to come down anyway. Actually, it fell into our brush pile!! Less work for us! Can you see in one of the pictures, the white stick thing in the grass? That used to be a 1″ x 2″ marker for our electric service. It was snapped off at the top and bent over. The roadside grass also has a nice new “crop circle” style pattern.

Our neighbors, the Offenburgers, to the north lost the tops of a couple of their trees. Also, the sides on a bike trail bridge between our farm and the Offenburgers house had fallen over. These sides were built with 4″ x 6″ posts!

I have to say, I was impressed by the acuracy of the television station (KCCI) radar. They were able to pinpoint the tornado’s path down to the cross streets. The weather man also had the guts to tell people to stop calling in complaining about missing their TV shows! They needed spotters to call in tornado and damage sitings. Kudos to you!

However, I was not impressed with their online streaming of the weather. The stream would stop after about 5 minutes. We would have to restart it and THEN listen to another commercial before it would start playing again. Not good when you are trying to figure out how much danger your family is in!

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Here’s a quick update on the house, not the farm. We thought we could test some small scale projects here, before going full scale on the farm. The first new idea was to use PEX for plumbing. The old copper, and a few pieces of old iron, were rather corroded, and the kitchen faucet leaked more than it poured. Problem was, it was conected directly to the plumbing. No shut offs or disconnects. Both of the laundry bibs in the basement were also bad, and the shower had been leaking too.
The main problem in fixing all this, was that there was no logical place to cut in. Fixing any one of them would involve cuttin gout larger chucks and redoing large sections to get around old problems.
So, how to fix it? Simple, rip every piece of pipe out of the house and start over! The demolition portion was fast, and for the most part, installing PEX was fast. There are a few issues I’ll point out for anyone else considering.

• Rolled PEX has memory. 3/4″ has a life of it’s own. Having a helper old this stuff still, and tacking parts down first will save on headaches. It will not stay where you left it, and will curve back when you are done.
• Crimpers. The standard kind of crimpers neglect to warn you that the handles need to open 180 degrees to get the jaws open enough to get on the crimp rings. In new construction, it might be easier, but I was working behind drains and in joists. I had a few challenges
• Manifolds. While I love the design possibilities and the flow control using mini-manifolds, I found an issue when crimping. The crimping tool only fits on from the ends. There is not enough room between ports to reach in from the side. That caused a big headache behinf the main sewer drain.
• It’s fast. There are no splices and I used 1 elbow. With so few fittings, there are few chances of leaks.
• It might have been skill, or the lack of a tight fitting crimper. I had to leave some slack in the PEX in order to crimp. This left some curves and bends in a retrofit. In new construction, it would be a little easier. I still can’t keep the 3/4″ lines going tot he water heater straight.
• Curved pipe = fast flow rates? It may also be quiet. The bathroom sink turned hot real quick, and I don’t recall hearing water running.

And here is the best part. Not a single leak!!!! Well, I had 1 drip and that was from the thread to threaf connection attaching the washing machine to the hose bib. Would I do it again, sure. Our local Ace Hardware rents the crimpers for $14 a day, which was the deciding factor. I was holding off when the average price was $150. The next time, we may get all the parts and start some tubing runs before renting the crimpers. You can ‘tack’ the fittings down with pliers, just to get the rings to stop sliding. This might be a better use of time on a larger project.
Cost of re-doing entire house with PEX: ~$350, plus the costs of a new kitchen faucet and a bathtub/shower kit. I’ll post a picture after clean-up is done.

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So, big surprise in the new house. There is insulation in the attic, but NONE in the walls! I mean NONE! We were definitely surprised, maybe we shouldn’t have been, but DANG it gets cold in Iowa. We thought about doing the spray foam insulation, but it would have been $1500 in materials alone and not terribly environmentally friendly.

Instead, we decided to go with blown in cellulose. At $100 in materials, the price was right. Plus, it is made from recycled paper, fibers, etc. so it fits our environmental goals. We went through one hole saw and two spade bits in the process of drilling all the holes. Drilling and refilling the holes was labor intensive, but simple.

The real pain was the stupid blower machine. The first one we got looked like it had been dropped which moved the engine just enough to make the belt not fit. They took it back and “fixed” it with a truck, a strap, and a forklift. Don’t ask! It worked for about one stud bay. But mostly it just clogged, threw insulation around the room. Which sticks to skin really nicely in this midwest humidity. So, they took it back again.

A few days later we got a much smaller less damaged looking machine. We had high hopes. That’ll show us for thinking positively! The giant hose continued to clog. It continued to blow insulation everywhere except inside the walls. Mason came out of his room one time and declared that “Dad looks like a wooly mammoth! Ha Ha Ha Ha!”

Only part of our problem was our machine. The other part was the installer needs a certain amount of finesse that we certainly did not have. Our other recommendation for future blow-in insulation installations is make sure you have lots and lots of duck tape!

Even after our “adventures” we will probably use this type of insulation in the walls in the corn crib.

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You’ve seen Rich’s view of RAGBRAI, now here’s mine.

DAY 1
Flat and FAST!

Mason got to ask Lance Armstrong a question at the kids’ meeting with him in Spencer IA after our first day’s ride. What did he ask? He asked if Lance was the rider that hit the dog in the Tour de France this year! Lance said he didn’t know about it, but it wasn’t him for sure. (It was actually Sandy Casar). They didn’t let parents in the meeting so I had to verify with other kids that he actually asked that!

DAY 2
I did it up today, wearing my best 80’s vintage skin suit (see pictures in the gallery). Oh yeah baby! Multi color neon stripes with just a hint of animal print. I accessorized the 3 large oval holes in the back with “Your Ad Here” written in sharpie. It was definitely a conversation starter. No takers though.

Rich, Blake and I did the Karras Loop for the first time today also. It made today’s ride 100 miles.

DAY 3
What’s that I hear? It’s the Andy Griffith Show theme song! My favorite show of all time. Eagle Grove really put on a show for us. Barney, Aunt Bea and Otis were there. Even the squad car! Aunt Bea even had a picnic basket with a jar of “Kerosene Cucumbers”

DAY 4
I am now into survival mode. Just get on the bike, ride all day, eat, sleep. Repeat. The motorhome’s AC definitely makes it more bearable than last year, but there are definite drawbacks. My mother is OBSESSED with water levels, sewage levels, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I am really thankful that she is driving and watching Mason for us, but she is driving us crazy!

DAY 5
Finally! Decorated road kill! There was a distinct lack of road kill to decorate this year. This stylish fellow was wearing a santa hat, mardi gras beads, and a “Hillary” sticker on his forehead.

Our campground was next to a cemetary, so Mason and I took a hike around reading the tombstones. The majority were born and/or died in the 1800s.

Right as we were getting ready to go to bed, a police car came screaming off the main road and through the cemetary toward the river. Of course, I was brought up to gawk. So I walked over to see what was up. We could see ambulances across the river and people crowded around someone on the ground near the river bank. As soon as I saw that they were doing CPR, my heart sank. Someone was in real trouble. Unfortunately, we found out that the Sunday after the ride, the gentleman from Waterloo, IA was taken off of life support. He had been swimming in a fast river near a low dam and got caught in the undertow.

On a positive note, we had an excellent storm tonight! I laid in my comfy couch/bed and remembered the big storm on RAGBRAI in Waukee last year. That one ended with Rich and I sleeping in the truck and throwing our tent in the dumpster the next morning. Not so tonight!! We all woke up well rested, warm, and dry.

DAY 6
On RAGBRAI this year we rode through Iowa Amish country. WoW! I have to say it was the most incredible part of the whole ride. I believe it is the largest community of Old Order Amish in Iowa. There was one farm after another, all neat as a pin

Their gardens were amazing!!! Perfect in every aspect. A few of them had certified organic farms.

Another notable thing I saw on an Amish farm was stacks and stacks of HAND cut hay! At the back
of the field was a horse drawn hay wagon piled high with hay.

Most of the families were outside either selling their homemade goodies or just watching 10,000 cyclists riding by. The kids really seemed to enjoy the show. I kind of wondered what they thought of all us spandex clad folks.

DAY 7
Flat route? Whatever! I forgot to look at the elevation profile for the last day. Lots of rollercoaster hills. The last downhill was a BLAST! 45+ miles an hour!

Bellevue is a beautiful Mississippi River town. Very charming waterfront. We did the tire dip and left to go find the motorhome.

Things I learned this year on RAGBRAI:

• Contrary to RAGBRAI tradition, I CANNOT drink alcohol while I am riding this much every day. Give me a recovery drink and chips.
• I can make a very realistic pig squeal.
• I give RAGBRAI 3 more years before Lance-mania wears off
• Don’t ride with the LiveStrong riders. They will take you down
• Recumbant riders are the vegans of the cycling world (they love their ride and will lecture you about it’s merits). They are also good ones to give an extra wide berth to when passing.
• Rich, Mason and I need to get a 3 person tandem. That’d be sweeeet!
• $2 per person each ride is TOO MUCH for a shuttle ride.

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