It warmed up today, enough that I decided, “Oh, let’s put a screen in Colin’s window which faces the east, but is blocked from southern exposure by a second floor that was added over the garage. It’s in a brick corner, in other words. And it hasn’t been opened in a long time, in some more words.

I took out the inner storm window, which wasn’t stuck at all, and then I went to crank out the window. Yes, I haven’t really mentioned yet that these windows have eight panes each and crank out. It would not budge. But, hey, I was prepared; I took my trusty mallet and gave it a little tap and voila . . . it didn’t budge.

I then did a lot of things: unscrewed the crank mechanism, pounded on the frame with the palm of my hand, tapped it some more with the mallet and used a screwdriver to try and leverage it up a bit. Then I stepped back and looked at my stuck window.

I repeated these steps, plus I added getting something to drink. Putty knives were a  no go. But then, I found a piece of wood and put it against the bottom where the frame was stuck and tapped that with my mallet. It moved . . . a little, but it did move. Oh, so carefully, I inched the window open and then cleaned the window bottom and the sill and soaped them both.

With the crank reattached and the area vacuumed, I tried to close it; It got stuck. So I planed a little wood off and resoaped it and by pulling on the cord attached to a strong eyelet I had previously put into the frame, I got the darn window shut.

Then I opened it again . . . and I told everyone to call me when they wanted it closed. This may become a saga.