7 August 2016

Used the Kubota to move further away from the house several of the rocks forming the east side of the patio.  Before, there was just enough room to sneak the 57″ wide Kubota through the opening onto the patio… with ¾″ to spare on either side.  Doable, but kind of a tight fit!  Now, there is room for the 63″ wide snowblower to get through the gap, with several inches left over to accommodate driver error.

5 August 2016

Kevin here again putting in more patio pavers, joined for part of the day by his son, Cory, who we had previously met because he also happens to work at The Lighting House.  With Cory lugging and Kevin laying, all of the central part of the patio was in place by day’s end.  I mowed the lawn for the first time, moving considerably slower than normal for some reason...  Took an hour, with an interruption from Perry, bringing us eight red raspberry plants from his horticultural collection.  I also started building a shelving unit for underneath the stairs (made entirely from scrap material cluttering the shop), on which to neatly organize all the left over paint.

 

4 August 2016

Kevin was here continuing the patio installation.  He got all of the pavers cut for alongside the north side and also installed the drain that (we hope) will catch the majority of the water coming off the roof valley, sending said deluge down the perimeter drain and out into the woods.  While all that was ongoing, Steve Osmer and I tackled Mount Mansfield (the highest peak in Vermont), trekking the Sunset Ridge trail to the summit from Underhill State Park.  Six and a half miles round trip, 5,000 feet total elevation change, 5 hours of hiking.  No exercise to speak of since about forever, so you can color me pretty much dead…

3 August 2016

No Kevin today.  Trailer in tow, I went down to RMG in Castleton (Rutland Marble and Granite, where we got the soapstone for the wood stove nook) and procured another pallet (2,800 pounds) of rejected military gravestones.  Those 1′ x 2′ x 4″ (100 pounds / each) chunks of granite will be used to create the sun room and front entry steps.

2 August 2016

Having figured out how the jigsaw puzzle goes together, Kevin began laying the patio pavers in earnest.  He got the first row alongside the garage wall put down, all of which had to be cut since the pavers are irregularly shaped and (we are pretty sure) the garage wall is straight.  I fixed the electrical outlet problem in the storage room, which turned out to not be as difficult as feared initially.

 

1 August 2016

Rain – yes; Kevin – no.  Larry Stevens from Marshall’s Alarm Service came out this morning and found nothing wrong except that somehow the date / time settings in the alarm system control panel had become un-set.  Installed the missing patio outlet and then two additional electrical outlets in the storage room.  Found, after turning the storage room circuit breaker back on, that one of the new outlets isn’t getting any electrons.  That misbehaving outlet is fed from one that Perry and I partially obscured behind a storage shelf last week, confident that I would never again have to get into that outlet’s junction box.  It’s a good thing we stopped at the NH State Liquor Store yesterday…

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!