31 July 2016

Just before noon, while we were down south for the weekend visiting Alex, Katy, & Devin (and Frank & Fran), our house alarm system went haywire.  Result was both a fire and police response.  Devin was thrilled to see, via our video doorbell system, a real fireman on our front porch.  Unfortunately, cell service at Alex’s being on a par with cell service here, we couldn’t actually talk to the fireman ringing our doorbell, so it was a couple of hours before we learned that the house was still standing… and had not been broken into.  Sauna with Perry soon after our return home.  Was in a rush to get the sauna heated, so didn’t close the ash drawer air intake at the normal time.  Consequently, the sauna was a blistering 232°F when we first entered, several degrees beyond hellacious!

 

28 July 2016

Kevin arrived at 8:30 to begin laying the patio.  He spent much of the day figuring out how the pieces fit together.  He also sawed two gravestones in half to make curbs for the ramps that will be outside the garage people door and the shop door.  Kevin tried to plug his masonry saw into the exterior patio outlet, only to discover that there not only was no outlet under the waterproof cover, there also was no wire in that junction box.  Nobody to blame but myself, as I wired the garage outlets.  Proving that miracles still can happen, I opened up the garage wall (taking the drywall out in several pieces during my search and destroy mission) and ran the missing wire (though a quadruple stud combination without benefit of a right-angle drill) in less than an hour.  Many sheetrock screws later, and the wall was sort of back together.  No worries, joint compound will cover a thousand sins… or a monumental hack job!

27 July 2016

No Kevin; no phone call; no surprise.  Still quite a bit of condensate accumulating on the floor in the mechanical room.  On a positive note: the grass has sprouted already.

25 July 2016

Kevin arrived mid-morning, followed closely by a truck from Hardscapes in Williston, bearing many tons of patio pavers and associated materials.  Kevin left after the truck was unloaded, promising to return no later than Wednesday morning.  I power-washed all of the gravestones that will be used for the sun room and front entry steps.  As soon as I finished watering the new lawn areas it started to sprinkle… of course!  In spite of over 5″ of rain this month, the lake level is 17½″ below the top of the dock; the lake temperature now is a balmy 80°.

24 July 2016

Power, land-line telephone, and internet service finally were restored at 11 o’clock this morning.  Let the branch picking-up begin!  Chree finished moving all of the “stuff” out of the second guest bedroom into the storage room.  In the evening, Steve and I enjoyed another delightful sauna while Kathy and Chree canoed around the lake.  Then they were supposed to make sure the quality of our wine supply hadn’t suffered from six months outside the cellar…

23 July 2016

Jim, James, and Burt finished seeding and rolling the new lawn areas.  James and Burt used a special machine (Jim owns a lot of man-toys!) to chop up and spread bales of hay over top of the seeded areas, which will help to retain soil moisture and keep birds from eating the seed.  Before noon, the guys set to work back-hauling all (and by “all” I mean “a LOT”) of the equipment that accumulated here over the past few days.  Chree spent much of the morning finishing the interior RV cleaning while I tackled the under-coach storage compartments.  After everyone left, Chree and I loaded our residual viniferous supply  into the wine cellar (we’re down to only 60 bottles; the cellar can hold up to 300).  James returned mid-afternoon to see the RV.  While he was here we ran through the RV activation checklist, which I thought would be an excellent way for him to start learning what’s what and where’s where.  While we were about that task, a tremendous storm blew through… literally.  Rain rate was well over 5″ per hour… though we only got ¼″ of actual moisture.  The wind was scary-strong!  Branches came down everywhere!  The supply of electrons from Green Mountain Power was, no surprise, an early casualty.  Chree says the whole-house generator we installed was one of our smarter moves.

22 July 2016

Jim, James, Burt, and Perry here again today.  James told me first thing that he wants to buy Delores to use as a temporary abode while building his own house on the property he bought last year… the one with all the good maple syrup-producing trees on it.  So as soon as could, I moved Delores back over to her normal parking spot and then, when everyone left for the day, spent a couple of hours doing a preliminary cleaning of her interior.  Trust me, you don’t want to know…  Burt hauled in crusher-run stone for the driveway, getting his loads from the Carrara stockpile in East Middlebury because I rejected the first load (procured locally) as being too full of dirt.  Burt also hauled in many loads of Ploof’s #1 topsoil (good, rich, stuff; definitely not sand!).  Jim smoothed out the driveway stone using a special tilling machine.  James spread the topsoil around with a skid-steer and rake, then applied many pounds of sun & shade grass mix.  The guys used the Ploof’s big roller to compact both the driveway and the lawn areas.  The roller has a vibrator built in, which literally shook the entire house foundation whenever the roller was close by.  If the house didn’t settle after that treatment, it’s not going to!  Perry and I finished the storage room shelves, made a new bed board and slats for the storage room bunk beds, then replaced the main entry door bottom seal (which had failed after only thirteen months in service).  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that the new seal only cost $5 and took mere minutes to install.