one done

It was 2F when I was up at 3 this morning, and it's a brisk 3F now at 8 am.

Seems a good day to write about a recent project.

2024 has been a year of major projects, some of which are going to flow into 2025. But one project that was undertaken and completed in two November days, is the rebuilding of my chimney.

Ever since the roof was replaced in 2017, there has been a gradually increasing leak in the parlor, from around the chimney. Whether the leak was coming from the 85-year-old chimney itself, the flashing, or the roof, was uncertain. Even if I was still capable of clambering around on my roof I might not have been able to identify the source, but in previous years I would have at least gone up to take a look. Not this time.

Back in February I decided that regardless of whether I would continue heating with wood - a question at the heart of a different 2024 project which will be a topic for another post - I needed to get a chimney professional out here to do whatever it would take to stop the leak.

The mason came out in June and looked at the job, answered all my questions about repair versus replacement, assured me that the leak in the parlor would stop, agreed that height could be added to improve the draw, and gave me a quote of $1500. to take all the original brickwork down to the tile liner and rebuild the chimney. The work was going to be done "either in August or after September." He gave me the names of a few places where I could see the various brick options, and one day I borrowed a car specifically to go brick-gazing. This decision was important; in recent years I've made a couple of big, bad, expensive decisions, the visual and practical results of which I live with every single day, and I'm trying very hard not to make more. (The metal roofing was one of those bad and expensive decisions, by the way. How I wish I had just stayed with ordinary shingles.)

Anyway. After considerable pondering, I selected the brick, and five months later the busy mason finally had the time to do my little two-day job. He arrived with an assistant and the two fellows had scaffolding up in the blink of an eye. They began removing the original brick, saving quite a bit of it for my use in a future project.

Original chimney just before work began.

Brick removal underway.

The entire 2-day process went so smoothly there are only a few snapshots. I try not to hover around people who are doing their work so I puttered by the barn, right arm still in a sling at that point, staying available for questions but also staying out of the way.

Here's the new chimney and the first fire, on November 15th:

This is one of those unforeseen tasks that was thrust upon me, so to speak. It had never once occurred to me that the chimney would need replacement in my lifetime, but the leak made it necessary to take action even if the chimney was no longer going to be used.

And it is certainly being used.

I am very happy with the replacement. (Whew.) The chimney "fits" both visually and functionally - the proportions are excellent, the appearance is smart but not glaringly new-looking. And the draw is much improved, which is a very nice bonus after 40-odd years!

How are your 2024 projects looking?

I'll bet you got more finished than I did!

~~~~~

rain

In the past two days, we have had more than eight inches of rainfall. There have been interludes of drizzle, mizzle, and mist, but for the most part it's been hours of relentless rain, all day and all night.

Beech. There isn't a moment when I don't find it beautiful.

A large materials delivery was scheduled to arrive this morning, so I found my raincoat and went out to move my vehicle to clear the way. Just in that few minutes, I got soaked to the skin.

While the driver was making trips back and forth from his big truck to the top of my driveway in a nifty three-wheeled forklift, I held an umbrella over my camera and took a few snaps.

It was in weather like this - waiting for the rain to stop and rushing out to do a bit of gardening whenever possible - that I planted the saved candy roaster squash seeds in the Very Raised Bed. They had a late start - I think it was early July! But the plants did their best, and have been providing late-season food for bees and perfuming the October air with blossoms. I think the 2016 plants cross-pollinated, as these seeds have produced interesting and varied results!

I must harvest soon.

VRB, winding down.

And, when the rain stops and the muddy ground dries,

work can continue on Very Raised Bed II.

It won't be as high as the first,

and my goal is to have this bed ready for Autumn planting.

My Occasional Helper is ready to pitch in.

I am hopeful it can happen.

Weather permitting!

VRB2. A good start.

Tomorrow - Friday - the forecast is Not Raining. The builders will be back, and it's going to be a very busy day. I believe my job will be staying out of their way.

The Saturday forecast is also clear, and I'm hoping to take Piper for a long ramble by the pond that day, before the rain returns on Sunday and Monday.

And that will be my week, over in the blink of an eye!

How about you?

~~~~~

ginger beer for supper

Tsuga enjoying a black birch sapling, delivered fresh to the paddock.

Thursday and Friday were perfect days for outdoor work. And it's great to have a builder who is happy to add little bits and pieces to his work plan as time permits. Thursday, for example, when my Occasional Helper was here removing fenceposts for relocation, Builder Matt didn't mind taking a few minutes to use his front end loader to lift out a couple of posts that wouldn't budge.

Yesterday, when the tractor was going to be idle for a while, I asked if Matt would park it by a pile of wood and stone that has been a thorn in my side for a few years. It's one of the most frustrating kinds of mess: the ones created and left by previous hired workers. Part of this one was my fault, because I had covered some firewood with what I thought was a tarp but which turned out to be a "pool cover" that disintegrated, shedding fragments of plastic which rendered the wood unburnable. But while I was figuring out what to do with that pile, a barn-builder with a skidder pushed thousands of pounds of old foundation stones into it.

What. A. Jumbled. Mess.

Since the new fenceline will run right through the center of that mess, yesterday I took a deep cleansing breath and began dismantling it. I pulled out individual pieces of wood, tried to brush off every bit of plastic into a rubbish container (on the left in the picture below), then added the wood to the tractor bucket (on the right, below). Whenever I came to a rock buried in the pile, I pulled it loose, picked it up and carried it to a corner of the fence.

Then, when Matt had a free moment, he drove his tractor  about 30 feet to unload the wood. I had outlined a space with sections of a white birch that had been too decayed for stovewood when the tree was taken down two years ago. It was a big tree, and even decayed sections were heavy. But it was worth the effort, because just like that (imagine finger-snapping there) I've got the base of my second Very Raised Bed. VRB2 was very much a backburnered project, due to the intensity of labor required. Having a tractor available to make one part of the process much easier was an opportunity not to be squandered.

I carried quite a few rocks, and filled the bucket with wood twice, but Matt eventually needed his tractor for the main job. I'm probably only halfway through the pile but it's a good start. I have to admit that after a couple of hours, it was really clear to me why I don't attempt this kind of thing anymore. Between the wood and the stones and later wrestling alone with rolled sections of 6-foot fence to temporarily block off a 50-foot opening so the cats can go outside this weekend...

I feel a lot like this squash leaf, but with less color:

It's been a productive week, and lots of good work has been done by the builders, with lots more to come. This is really a three-part project - not counting the little things that come up along the way, or the planned "20 minute" task that took nearly four hours and all hands on deck. I've got more research and decision-making ahead this weekend, but today I made my usual Saturday morning trip to the dump and the library, and that may be IT. I am exhausted, and all I want to do this afternoon is sip cold ginger beer and watch the cats climb through piles of roofing detritus while the autumn sun shines gently through the trees.

I hope your weekend is off to a great start!
Is anyone going to Rhinebeck? Usually right about now I'd be feeling a twinge of wish-I-could-be-there, but right now if I was magically transported to Rhinebeck I would probably be flat out on the ground, moving only enough to eat fried artichokes while watching sheepdog demonstrations.

~~~~~

roof, day two

You may be asking, "What happened to Day One?"
and that would be a very reasonable question.
The answer is, I fell asleep immediately after supper.

It wasn't even dark yet.

I don't know why I was so tired! Unlike the porch job, when I opted to do all the clean-up myself and reclaimed lots of lumber for smaller projects, this time there will be no reusable materials. None at all. Strange but true. So I had the full clean-up rolled into the estimate for the job.

Which means that - apart from frequent discussions with Carpenter Matt about which way I prefer to do some particular thing which will impact the way other particular things will be done farther down the line - I have nothing to do.

Getting the lowdown on combining new and original materials.
Is the perspective puzzling?
Matt is on the roof of the Poultry Palace and I'm on the ladder at the gable peak of the house.

I'm not even doing my own outdoor projects, despite great weather. Instead I've been spending most of the day in the house, hoping to be a comforting presence. I underestimated how much Moxie and Della were going to be upset by the noise and activity. Very very very upset. So I've been puttering a bit. Yesterday I made a big pot of baked beans, and also (finally!) wove the ends in on a knitted sleeveless sweater I plan to donate to the hospice shop. Knitting detour snapshot:

I wanted to make this popular pattern - called Shalom - for ages, and it was fun and turned out very comfy and nice. But when I put it on, it also turned out to be "not me." I hope someone buys it for a few dollars at the hospice thrift shop and enjoys it for years!

End of knitting detour.

Back to the roofing project.

Like the cats, the goats aren't happy about the kerfuffle. But with the weather so nice, they can wander and snooze in the sun and go to the farther end of the Upper West Side and feel more relaxed. Or so I thought until I found this in the clubhouse under the stilt barn. It's possible the herd is planning an escape!

I hope they bring me back something nice.

Piper is the only one not troubled, and I really think her increased hearing loss is working in her favor this time. Even the compressor for the nail gun doesn't disrupt her nap schedule. She walked with me to collect the mail today and we had this view from the Lower West Side:

Which contrasted pretty nicely with the view at the house: 

But isn't this a clever system? Starting by using the plywood roofing sheets to protect the exterior walls while sliding the old roofing materials to the ground. And covering the ground with heavy packing wrap recycled from the lumberyard to later gather everything for appropriate disposal.

I think these fellows have done this before.

On to Day Three!

~~~~~

in the works

Guess who's coming back.

Last year I decided that 2017 must be The Year of the Roof.

My insurance company concurs.

Vehemently.

After the very successful porch renovation project almost exactly three years ago - can you believe it? I had to check the date twice, but I started taking down the screenwalls in November 2014! - I definitely wanted the same Excellent Carpenter for this next major job.

Stepping back to 2014 for a moment:

my first carpenter/handyperson had to stop partway into the porch reno project due to the onset of severe carpal tunnel issues. (Happy ending: after months of waiting for an appointment, he ultimately had surgery and was completely relieved of all pain! Huzzah!) And meanwhile I was unbelievably lucky to find the Excellent Carpenter who was willing to step in and get the porch buttoned up in a very short timeframe.

And beautifully.

Remember?

Ahhhhh.

Okay, back to 2017.

When we spoke in March, the carpenter told me his first available slot would be sometime in October, and I said, "Please pencil me in. No, use INK." And as good as his word, he came out on the 5th to discuss details, as there is actually more to this project than replacing shingles or even replacing the roof. I've been doing a lot of planning and pricing and pondering and running around ever since. There have been unrelated complications: my vehicle was in the shop three separate days; medical issues (human, canine, feline, and caprine); and my Occasional Helper and I have had mostly out-of-sync schedules. Also, migraines. Oh well.

But after that meeting on the 5th, and some back-and-forth on the phone, and a follow-up visit at 7AM on this past Friday for final measurements, enough decisions have been made to Get On With Things. Tomorrow evening at 4:45 the carpenter and I are going to meet at my Town Hall (the Building Inspector has only 2 office hours/week) and apply to pull a Permit so work can begin on Tuesday.

Tuesday!

Unless there's a problem with getting the Permit. There shouldn't be. But I mentioned the time so you can send good vibes if you happen to think of it. 5PM Eastern time. Thanks.

"Pull a permit"...an odd expression, isn't it? For filling out a form, presenting a plan that complies with local codes, and writing a check to the town? Tell me, do you need permission to replace, remodel, build anything over a certain size, where you live? If so, what is that process called? Are you also pulling something?

So, on we go. There will be lots of process/progress updates on this somewhat scarily major project. Hopefully beginning Tuesday!

Meanwhile, looking back on a moment of calm, Friday evening:

 Actually, it was more like two hours of calm.

In a stocktank filled with hot water.

Spa 2.0

~~~~~

when the right one comes along

A friend once complained to me that her husband "would rather have no furniture in the house than buy something that isn't exactly what he wants!" She was complaining to the wrong person. If I don't need something immediately, I can wait a long time - often years, sometimes decades - to find "the right one" of the items on my longterm shopping list.

An advantage of this approach: when the right one comes along, there's no dithering or delay - it's a snap decision.

By the way, none of this applies to Piper.
Piper gets whatever she wants.
Pretty much instantaneously.

~~~

I've been cutting lumber by hand - and very badly - for a long time. No matter how careful I am, it is always a bit of a miracle when my angle cuts actually fit.

Even when Expert Assistance is provided.

During the building of the original screenporch in 1997, I had the short-term loan of a table saw and compound miter saw. It took a little while to get comfortable with using them - so loud! - but they soon became invaluable - so accurate! so powerful! When I gratefully returned them to their generous owner, both tools were added to the permanent shopping list. Somewhere between "livestock scale" and "adjustable daybed."

Fast-Forward nineteen years...

SNAP!

The lovely person who sold me this well-cared-for compound miter saw for a very low price (I actually challenged it and offered more) is also considering selling a table saw of similar vintage. I gulped (even at a very reasonable price, it is still, in the coin of my realm, a few truckloads of hay) but then said, "Please let me know if you decide to sell, because I would like to buy it also. Anytime."

Readers, I will keep you posted. But that one would probably be a Wordless Wednesday: just a picture of a table saw and a tall gin and tonic. ;)

~~~

Remember when I painstakingly salvaged all those bits and pieces of lumber after the porch renovation? Some of it has already been put back to work in the goat barn. And now some of it will be returning to the porch, in a new role: simple brackets supporting the windowboxes. Very satisfying!

This lumber shows its history.

Weathering on the exposed sides...

...claw marks from squirrels scrambling up to the roof...

...a carpenter's note from the Great Gable Window Search...

 ...and the occasional nail-hole, as you can see in a few of these newly-cut pieces. So glad I took the time to remove Every Single Nail from this lumber before storing it for reuse. It was ready to go!

Apparently this project requires special screws - I'm learning something new here! - so it won't be finished today. I hope you don't mind. I'm turning the simplest of projects into a very long process, but having fun doing it.

And soon I hope to show you the windowboxes in place.

For now, here's a peek:

I hope your Sunday is full of color and adventure!

~~~~~

opinions invited

Your input is requested on my next project.

As you may recall, there are windows on the west and south walls of the porch. Three windows on the west wall; four on the south. Even as I was measuring for these windows, I was planning to put up windowboxes beneath them. Because they will get SUN!

Please pardon the parallax in this distorted snap - it's the best I could find at the minute. If it wasn't dark right now, I'd step outside and get a better picture.

Last Spring, the windowboxes had to be postponed. This Spring, I am very determined to Make It Happen. And now is the time, before the gardens can be worked. It's going to take time and effort and trips to buy materials and...well, as slow as I am, I had better get cracking.

Will you please help with the planning?

All along I've been picturing individual white-painted wooden boxes filled with soil, each box supported by brackets attached directly to the walls. Sweet peas growing up! Nasturtiums dangling down! Herbs in the middle! Soooo pretty!

But now that it's time to get to work, I'm - of course - thinking of other options. For example, I've been told plastic is by far the best material for gardening containers because it maintains more moisture for the plants. The non-rotting feature of plastic could be pretty useful too, considering all the water that goes into windowboxes.

Expense? Well, no matter what plastic boxes would cost, it would probably have to be cheaper than building wooden boxes and then painting them, probably with multiple coats of...I don't know, some kind of enamel, or marine paint? I haven't researched the paint yet.

(Sidenote: I have a terrible record as far as painting wood goes. Every time something is built of wood here (by me or by real carpenters) I think, "This time I will paint it. Some cheerful color. It will be so pretty!" And every single time, when the item is built, I look at it and think, "Wood is so beautiful." And I don't want to paint it. So I don't. I honestly cannot remember the last time I applied paint to unfinished wood.)

So, the first question is, the material for the boxes:
Wood?
Plastic?
Other?

Next, do I really want seven individual boxes on wooden brackets attached to the house? There are good alternatives. For example, I could build a shelf or slatted rack the length of each wall below the windows, and put the boxes - or even pots - on the shelves. Flexible for future arrangements.
Or, I could build a tall, freestanding bench in front of each wall, and use the benches to hold the boxes. The only advantage I can think of, is that this option puts space between boxes and walls, which might prevent staining of the porch walls from rainwater splashing or draining from the boxes. The most difficult aspect would be leveling the benches at the start (leveling a lawn chair takes effort here), and annual adjustment after frost heaves.

So, the second question is the overall design:
Seven traditional boxes on wall brackets?
Two long shelves on wall brackets, holding boxes?
Two long freestanding benches, ditto?
Other?

Please feel free to weigh in on these questions! Most if not all of you have much more experience than I do with successfully growing plants. And I'll bet many if not most of you grow plants in windowboxes or planters or containers of some kind, and I'll bet they look fabulous. Please share your wisdom and ideas! Thanks!

Sambucus would like to see windowboxes on the barns.
"Just about chin-height, please!"

~~~~~

a different perspective

Would you like to see a couple of goatcam snaps?

Here is Lily of the Valley,

looking out the open barn doorway.

And this is what she is looking at:

The largest round glow is the light over my back door.

One wall of the porch (with it's new row of windows)

is visible because of the floodlights at the gable peak.

The little bright rectangle of light in between

is the window of the room where I am typing

right this moment.

And in the foreground...

those two blurry vertical streaks?

Those are two tiny snowflakes.

They are not alone.

There have been a couple of brief flurries earlier this season,

but this is the first snowfall predicted to drop

a couple of inches here.

We'll see.

The builder is off til Monday, so I'll be focusing on other projects (fence tightening and gate building, for example) and general tidying up, indoors and out, depending on how cold it is. And taking Piper for longer walks. 

Piper has been shortchanged on fun for much of the past week, I am sorry to say, as the days are so short and I have been, frankly, exhausted. To be honest, even getting the evening chores done has been a struggle; I've started feeding and watering the moment the builder leaves, at 3 or 4 PM, and crashing the moment chores are done.

As a result, Piper has been enjoying an unusual abundance of treats and snacks each day, and of course she gets some exercise running around here at home, but it's not the same as snorting up and rolling in and running through the woods, even briefly.

"Are you feeling guilty yet?"

Today I had a chiropractic appointment, so I put Piper in the car and we stopped for a quick run in the woods enroute to my appointment.

 And then, on the way home,

we stopped again, in a different place:

And - bonus! -

those brief interludes were very refreshing for me, as well.

Ahhhhhhhhh.

~~~~~

fret-free sunday

For the first time in over a week, I will not be spending much of the day fretting about where to find nine matching windows. Because as of 9 AM this morning, I know exactly where to find them:

They are lined up on the screenporch!

The building of kneewalls will commence at 9 AM tomorrow.

~~~

After the delivery truck had gone, 

I worked with a light heart.

Even during the babies' hoof-trimming,

which is not a favorite task for anyone involved.

The sun was almost shining,

the air was almost not cold.

There was plenty of time for visiting,

especially with Acer and Betula.

I told them all about the windows.

The mood was quietly festive.

There may have been some spontaneous singing.

"Is that what that was?

I thought someone was grinding stumps." 

"Don't listen to Betula!

I love it when you sing!

And then we have carrots!"

little Vinca: Why was that big truck here?

Betula: It was delivering windows.

Vinca: Why do we need more windows?

Acer: They aren't for us.

...silence...

Vinca: What? I don't understand. Isn't there a building project going on?

Acer: Yes, but it's not something for us.

...silence...

LeShodu: The world has gone mad. Fortunately, our hay supply has not been affected. Let's eat.

~~~

Happy Sunday, everyone! Let's eat!

~~~~~

notes from the screenporch

A fragment of music from my parents' piano bench,
seen thousands of times in my childhood.
No recollection of ever hearing the song.

A few notes on last weekend's clearing-out of the screenporch.

It was A Task.

There was Stuff.

Much of it was there for good reason.

Since I built the screenporch, it has been one of my favorite places to be, from early Spring through late Autumn. It's my dye-simmering spot, my potting shed, my library and writing space. When visitors stop by, we sit on the screenporch and share the view. I knit and listen to audiobooks on the screenporch. It's where I did Drawing August this summer.

I more or less live out there.

Oak galls for dyeing,
collected on many walks with Piper.
Simmering while the cleaning went on.

In the years when I could sleep on a camp mat, I slept on the screenporch. Now I have one of my LaFuma recliners out there for resting my joints between chores.

Piper enjoys the screenporch, too. She snoozes on Grampy's Chair, or stretches out beneath my worktable, keeping an eagle-eye on the driveway and road below, and announcing anyone who crosses the boundary between the two.

my work table, mid-clean-up

But that Piper! 

Do you know what she does? She leaves all her gardening tools and plant pots and buckets of dyes and her stored portfolio slides and boxes of old paperwork all piled up in teetering towers in one corner of the screenporch! What a mess!

Just kidding, Piper!
Except for the box of your toys, it's all my stuff.

Last weekend, I spent many hours completely clearing out the porch. So that I would not lose momentum and get lost in minutiae, I decided that whenever an item beckoned me down Memory Lane, I would just take a quick snapshot and Move On. It worked very well!

flashback to my Master's research

I had to get it done, because I had a deadline.

Monday morning, a long-pondered project began:

turning the screenporch into a many-windowed room comfortable enough to be used and enjoyed year-round.

My goal is to make it my bedroom this Winter, so I can wake up watching the sun rising through the trees. I have a strong feeling that this will be an uplifting and encouraging way to begin the Winter days.

Sounds likely, doesn't it?

Here's hoping!

I've hired a fellow to do probably 85% of the work, which is a reversal of the way I built the screenporch in 1997. Then, I designed the porch but hired a licensed carpenter to make sure things were done "to Code" and to do the parts I had absolutely no idea how to tackle, like tying the roof of the porch to the roof of the house. But I did a lot of every part of the actual construction, from the ground to peak and everything between.

This time, well. I've redesigned the porch, and I've been sourcing materials and doing a lot of prep work, but the construction will be out of my hands. I'm going to try to just step back and enjoy it.

I'll let you know how that goes.

~~~~~