Day 2979

Part of the greenhouse roof blew off this morning. Jeez. I didn't even think it was a windy day. Apparently, it didn't take much. One minute the roof was fine and the next minute it was on the ground. As if I didn't have enough to fix already. I knew it was going to be a rainy day, so I hurriedly tried to get the roof section back in place. I managed to cover the hole, but a proper repair will have to come later.

The damaged greenhouse wasn't an auspicious way to begin the day, but is was a sign of things to come. We did manage to get Dash walked before the rain began, but while we were fixing breakfast, I noticed that there was a coating of ice on the back wall of the freezer again. It was time to defrost the evaporator coil. I had been overly optimistic. I was hoping that the refrigerator would operate normally for a few more weeks because things have been going well this month. Apparently, the coil freezes faster when the humidity is high. When I disassembled the freezer, I found that the coil was frozen solid. This process only took half as long as it did when the humidity was lower.

All bets are off. When the refrigerator was working well in January, I thought I knew exactly the part I needed to get things running reliably again. Now that the coil is freezing rapidly, I don't have a clue. I'm ready to give up. Maybe I'll go out and buy the new refrigerator I don't really want tomorrow.

I can't get the toilet to stop running either. It doesn't seem that cleaning the parts helped at all. Plumbers tell me that I should give up and buy a Toto toilet. Of course, it was a plumber who told me to buy the ridiculously complicated toilet I have now. Am I asking for trouble to go from a French toilet to a Japanese toilet? I should have just kept the old toilet that came with the house. It used a ton of water, but it was virtually indestructible.

Dash's eating habits are driving me crazy. At the end of the day he's usually eaten enough to satisfy his nutritional needs, but he doesn't eat consistently anymore. He'll eat a little and then turn up his nose at the rest. I'll have to put the food back in the refrigerator and try something else. Often he'll like something in the afternoon that he hated in the morning. This reluctance to eat seems to have something to do with his sense of smell. He carefully smells his food and even his water bowl before he eats or drinks. He didn't used to do this. If it doesn't smell exactly right, he won't touch it. Dash spends a lot more time smelling thing on his walks now too. It is as if he has developed a hyper sensitive nose. I know dogs can smell things a lot better than we can, but this is getting ridiculous.

I hope the weather forecast is wrong. It's going to be a very long week if it doesn't quit raining. There is no point to even examining the roof now. I know it is covered with standing water. I've just got to hope that the elastomer coating holds up. I've learned the hard way that the coating is very fragile when it's wet. I can do more damage by tramping around on the wet roof than the rain can.

It's hard not to get discouraged. This is not what I imagined retirement would be like at all.

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