Fearful Symmetries: The Corona Diaries Vol. 14: Butter and Birds

Early May 2021

Things have been busy here in Madison. Before elaborating, I first want to note the 30^th anniversary of a sad day for dairy lovers everywhere, the Great Butter Fire.

On 3 May 1991 a warehouse complex here in Madison – not too far from our house, actually - caught fire because of a faulty forklift battery. The result was, amongst other things, 12,500 tons of butter and cheese catching fire/melting.

As related in this article, a river of melted butter started to flow from the site and had to be contained before it entered a nearby waterway.

Two state DNR wardens were on site to work with crews from Madison’s city engineering and public works departments to steer the butter river into a storm water discharge (pond 1) beneath the nearby highway overpass. According to the DNR’s site file, water had to be pumped out of pond 1 and across the railroad tracks into another pond (pond 2) because the butter was flowing in faster than it could be sent into the sanitary sewer.

The 3+ million gallons of melted butter proved to be a unique obstacle for the firefighters.

At one point while battling the blaze, Davis was sent to the roof of an adjacent building where he and a few others focused a hose on the fire for about eight hours. When he finally came down from the roof at 5:30 a.m. the next day, he and his team attempted to move the hose line further between the two buildings. He stepped off a loading dock onto what he thought was solid ground and instantly found himself up to his chest in melted butter.

“I had butter in places a guy shouldn’t have butter by the end of that night,” Davis said.

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A brief update on cooking. As I vowed in a previous entry, I did cook Moroccan shrimp again and remembered to add ginger this time and used some coriander from a jar acquired after the Obama presidency, unlike the one it replaced. It turned out well and was much tastier than my first attempt.

Unfortunately, I haven't been doing much cooking beyond the basic/usual stuff lately because I don't have a stove at my disposal and we're currently making do with a microwave, an instant pot, and the grill. This is because we embarked on an epic journey of replacing our kitchen floor.

What I had hoped to be a relatively simple affair has turned into a tale of woe. Right now we are walking on the subfloor which sits atop the joists.

We can see the basement through the knot holes. We discovered that, not only was the vinyl we were walking on made with asbestos, but that it sat atop the original tiles from 1950 which were also asbestos-laden. So we had to have it all removed. While getting ready for the abatement process, I discovered that the previous owner had wired a wall outlet, which hosted our microwave and toaster, into a free-standing 220v outlet for the electric stove. The electrician just shook his head at seeing this. That’s been taken care of.

Tomorrow I have someone coming in to put down plywood underlayment and the new vinyl flooring will go on top of this. Lumber prices are sky high because of Covid-induced shortages so it'll be quite a bit more expensive than had it been done pre-pandemic. (4'x8' sheets of OSB are just shy of $51 apice!) Once this is complete, I can move the stove back into the kitchen while we wait for the floor to be installed. The Frau will be happy as she has been reduced to satisfying her sweet tooth by making microwave brownies in a mug. (At least they're Ghirardelli microwave brownies.) The install is about a month out though we are on the cancellation list so hopefully someone else will cancel their appointment so we can move ours up. The earliest date they offered was the day the Frau and I were supposed to go to the Upper Peninsula for her birthday so I feel badly about potentially bowing out of that trip.

In other renovation news, I had hoped to build a new deck this year but lumber prices have put the kibosh on that, for now, at least. If prices go down later in the summer, I might move forward with it but it's looking like that project will be moved to next year. I'll probably host a deck demolition party in the fall so I can dig up the extension cord that runs underneath it as well as having the gas line down there capped. That way we'll be all shovel ready come spring.

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While I haven't done a whole lot of bike riding yet this spring, I have been taking walks both with and without the Frau. One day we saw quite a few feathered friends. Here's a blue jay that I almost got in focus. They studiously avoid people so it's been difficult to get an even remotely decent picture of one. Sadly, this is my best attempt yet.