12/19/19
(Above: A come-along winch versus a very-stuck air conditioner. )
Active Summary: This morning began with about an hour’s worth of creative writing which was then followed by a ride around the beef pasture. After that, I began working in the Master Blend freezer room. This consisted primarily of one task: removing the old window air-conditioner unit. I first set about loosening the machine from its glue of caulk and spray-foam which was successfully accomplished with the help of a cheater bar. Next, I attempted to remove the unit, first by unsuccessfully pounding it into the freezer room from the outside and second by fruitlessly attempting to pound it outside from inside the freezer room.
My next attempt was to utilize the come-along, attaching one end to a handy metal pole* and the other end to a wood-and-eye bolt fabrication that I specifically designed to fit in the air conditioner. This worked well (pulled it out about half way) until the bolt began to bend and the board came loose. Padre arrived at that point and hooked the come-along around a lower-right portion of the appliance. The result is shown below this summary.
As for other morning activities, I tended to a Master Blend beef order and found/chipped some pecan wood for tomorrow’s smoker experiment.
(6:25 PM Update:) This afternoon, I prepared and applied a salt & pepper rub to the short ribs that I will be making tomorrow. Farm activities came afterward (lots of cattle feeding and genetic testing), and when I got back to Jacobhouse I made a call into Justhost to adjust the billing for this website. It was the first auto-renew and they were going to charge me $151.00 to keep the site up and running for another year. Last year it was about $95.00 because it was my first year. Fortunately, they were nice enough to give me a 20% discount. Now it is only $121.00 to keep the site up and running (both for the domain name and the hosting service). That was well worth a 15-minute call.
TIL: After finding some odd-looking worms (very slender bodies with very large heads) in a portion of the pecan limb I was transforming into wood-chips, I decided to look up what they were. It turns out that a majority of wood worms are the larval stage of many beetle species. The type that I saw was a ‘flat headed borer’, a form of larva that most often belongs to the jewel beetle family which contains 15,500 different species.
Commentary: Taking out the ancient window air-conditioner was a task that lasted for far longer than I originally estimated. At no point, however, was I discouraged. I simply knew that as time went on, I would utilize more and more over-the-top methods for extraction. If the come-along did not work, I think I would have moved on to a sawzall.
Final Note: Tomorrow morning I will be initiating the pecan-smoked shortribs experiment, cleaning Jacobhouse, visiting the farm market, and if there is still time, begin thoroughly cleaning the walls/doors of the Master Blend freezer room (the rough portions that I mentioned in yesterday’s post).
*One of the poles that belonged to the original cattle-chute.