21 October 2014
Got an email and picture from Kevin saying / showing
that the sauna building roof was complete.
18 October 2014
Weather forecast was for rain showers starting
Saturday afternoon. Woke up at
6:30 to a pitter patter on the rooftop.
Quickly put the slide-out in, leaves and all… which is another way of
saying that Delores was a good girl and started right up. After breakfast, took her up to Kampersville
for her final constitutional of the season.
Back t’ Fern Lake by 9:30 and continued the winterization checklist,
ignoring the intermittent rain showers.
Was finishing up when Perry arrived just before 11 to help put on the
big blue tarp. Unfortunately, so did a
downpour. After watching it rain hard
for 15 minutes with no signs of the rain relenting, we uttered an earthy term
that, roughly translated, means “we give up”.
So left Delores sans tarp and headed south. Got back to Springfield 9
hours later. Chree appreciated the
birthday cake; I appreciated the Black Label she had ready.
17 October 2014
Jeff Many came by at 8:30 and quickly diagnosed the
problem with the southern garage door not locking as being due to operator
error. Well, just color my face
red! Kevin arrived at 9:30 (having been
otherwise engaged this morning fixing somebody else’s leaking roof) and found
the source of our leak was an unfilled nail hole… which he had made while
putting on the valley flashing. You can
color his face red, too. While I spent
the day cleaning and packing, Kevin finished the house roof. Sean came by, just as I was starting to make
Chree’s birthday cake, to check on progress… and take away the second
installment of his contract management fee.
Sean also designed a simple gutter to be installed over the woodshed
people door to divert water away from the ramp.
16 October 2014
As forecast, rained hard all morning and showered
most of the afternoon. One substantial
leak under the roof valley… one of the areas over which the metal roof has not
been finished. Still shouldn’t leak, though, with the Zip System and waterproof
paper and ice & water shield already covering that area. Grrr….
Spent the day cleaning and packing.
My motto: “A clean woodshed is a happy woodshed!” Another fabulous gourmet dinner over at Lynne
& Perry’s.
15 October 2014
Kevin and Brian continued roofing the house, getting
all but two small sections on the east and west sides of the Sun Room
done. I spent the day in Burlington
spending money at Lowes, retrieving the repaired air compressor, taking Alverta
out for lunch, and ordering a replacement washer and dryer for our condo. Got back to Fern Lake at 5 to find that the
temperature inside Delores was well over 80°, the lake water temperature is down to 61°, and the lake level is 18″ below the top of the
dock.
14 October 2014
Kevin and Brian pulled in just after 7 and went to
work on the west side of the house roof, getting most of it done before beer
o’clock. Earned my pay today: noticed,
after they’d put on only one pan that had to be taken back off (ruining
it), that they’d put the rain diverter over the Shop door in the wrong place, something
they wouldn’t have caught until much too expensively late. Jeff Many arrived mid-morning and finished
installing the garage doors. Kevin and I installed the metal chimney on the
sauna building, which I then cleaned and secured for the winter (the building,
not the chimney). I also put the Kubota to bed for the winter and then started
putting together the pile of tools that will be making the trip back to
Virginia. Perry came by late afternoon and helped me move Hopea Kanootti and
the kayak from the waterfront up to the sauna building for winter storage.
13 October 2014
Mouse #15 was captured and moved, before dawn, to
the tree stump in the Silver Lake parking lot.
Kevin, Brian, and Jimmy all arrived about 7:30. Kevin & Brian put up half the pans on the
south side roof, installed the third (west facing) skylight in the Sun Room, erected
staging along the west wall, and put on the west roof drip edge. Jimmy quickly
finished the big retaining wall. How
big, you ask? 12½ feet tall at the
highest point and 115 feet long at the upper perimeter. In rough-grading the croquet court filled
area, he came up with a good-sized pile of smaller rocks which he moved to
where Chree’s garden will be, as we’ll need a smaller retaining wall there,
too. Wink brought in a truckload of crushed dirt which he spread over that part
of the driveway which was re-graded earlier this summer… and has been rougher
‘n a cob ever since. James came with the
skid steer just before noon (and just as Jimmy was finishing up) and smoothed
out the new fill. Just because I could,
found out you now can go 20 mph down the driveway without losing all the
fillings in your teeth. Merry came up to
see the doings and invite me down for chicken soup, made with a whole chicken
and every vegetable she could get her hands on.
Fabulous, as always!
12 October 2014
Cutting / splitting / stacking firewood most of the
day. Finished filling the north side of
the wood shed… and then some, as I misjudged how much wood was on the last
fork-load I brought up from the storage pile, which is quite a bit smaller than
it was last spring (see before and after pictures below). Gave the log splitter a bath and put it away
for the winter. Also gave the Kubota a
bath… she being such a nice girl and all.
11 October 2014
Spent the morning putting in the rest of the 1½″ PVC conduit in which the sauna building ½″ PEX water line will be run. Finding decent soil with which to cover the
conduit was a time-consuming challenge, even using the Kubota to cheat like
crazy. Spent the afternoon cutting /
splitting / stacking firewood. Got to within
a dozen pieces of finishing the 5th row (out of 7) in the north side
of the woodshed.
10 October 2014
Jimmy arrived at 8:30 and set me to work scavenging
wall building rocks from around the property, while he continued stacking them
one upon the other. Found a dozen in the
300 to 1,000 pound range, dug them out with the backhoe, and hauled all but the
two largest to the work site with the Kubota.
At lunchtime Jimmy went over to his gravel pit and brought back 3 more rocks
in the multi-ton range. That should give
us enough to finish the wall, which stands just over 11 feet high at its apex. From the house to the wall measures 50 feet…
we are going to have one heck of a croquet court! Sean stopped by again this morning to admire
our creation. Kevin and Brian showed up
at 3:30 to take away their metal forming trailer, promising to return first
thing Monday morning. At the end of the
day, Jimmy dug the trench from the house down to where the sauna building waterline
conduit now ends. I need to put 1½ ″ pipe in that trench; he dug it 3 feet
wide! Think it’ll fit?
9 October 2014
Kevin and Brian were off doing flat roof jobs
today. Jimmy got here at 8 to continue
playing with rocks. We made the MOST awesome cave… EVER!!!! The piece de resistance was a 4¾ ton 9′ x 6′ x 1′ flat rock that Jimmy
had lying around in his gravel pit and brought over to be the cave roof. The inside dimensions of the cave are roughly
4′ high x 2′ wide x 6′ deep. Now the bad news, as hard as this will be to
believe: we are rapidly running out of suitable rocks (i.e., 500 pounds or
larger) for the retaining wall. Who’d a
thunk? Marty (Merry being away babysitting grandchildren) came up for a
real-man’s meal: Scotch, steak, and potatoes, topped off with double chocolate walnut
brownies and ice cream. What’s not to
like?
8 October 2014
Kevin and Brian got here just after 7. They installed the east- and south-facing
skylights and the rain diverter over the garage people door. Then they put all the pans on the east side
of the house roof by their mid-afternoon quitting time. Most of the day I spent cutting / splitting /
stacking firewood, getting to just about the halfway point of filling the north
end. Jimmy arrived at 1:30 and worked
until 6 on the west-side retaining wall.
What he’s done so far looks FABULOUS!
Unfortunately, every time he grabbed the huge rock I wanted to use for
the cave, the rock moved him instead of vice versa. (By rough measurement, that rock weighs about
11½ tons.) However, a “small” rock (on
the surface) that I thought Jimmy might use in the wall turned out to be a 4½ ton
monster that he was able to slide uphill into place to form one side of the
cave. Building stone walls is SO MUCH
FUN!!!! Sean came by for a beer
for an hour to check on progress, talk about a few minor outstanding issues,
and cogitate about continuing the house build next summer / fall / winter.
7 October 2014
Rain showers all morning… a good time to review the
RV winterization procedures and update the inventory of “stuff” that will
either stay in Vermont or go back to Virginia sometime in the near future. Spent the afternoon cutting / splitting /
stacking firewood. Jimmy Ploof dropped
off his big excavator just before 5.
6 October 2014
One match set the accumulated detritus from this
year’s activities well ablaze. Except
for 5 stumps left over from the last burn, all was consumed by noon. While I was doing my part for global warming,
Kevin and Brian started putting pans (the technical term for the part of a
standing seam roof that lies flat against the sheathing) on the north side,
getting that side done by beer-thirty.
While that was ongoing, I split a bunch of kindling wood for this winter
/ next spring, then cut up and moved into the woodshed some of the slab wood
pile left from Toby Rheaume’s beam-sawing endeavors back in August 2010. That red oak and maple has been under a tarp
the whole time and still is in very burnable condition. Went over to Kate’s for
wine and hors d’oeuvres, joined there by Tammy and Fran. A fun time… and somehow we made two bottles
of vino fino disappear.
5 October 2014
Finished caulking the house basement control joints
and securing the basement for winter.
Installed the door handle and deadbolt lock on the sauna building. Put the horizontal wedges on the hydraulic
log splitter ram. With those on, one
pass will split a 9″ diameter log into 4
perfectly sized pieces. Spent two hours cutting, splitting, and stacking
firewood, finishing off the first (of 14) rows. Each row will hold slightly less than ½ cord
of wood.
4 October 2014
After just a little bit of chainsaw / splitting work
yesterday, my left elbow is pretty much dead.
Not good! Rained most of the day,
as forecast. Spent much of the morning
figuring out what was wrong with the balance in the checkbook used for house
construction and logging expenses; been screwed up since sometime in July. Given the number and size of the checks being
written out of that account, knowing the current balance is just kinda
important. After lunch, put the radial
arm saw to bed for the winter, did a Type-A cleaning job in the house basement,
and caulked some more of the control joints.
3 October 2014
One of those days where I got virtually nothing done
except at the very end. Kevin and Brian
arrived about 8:30 and finished putting the hip caps on the house roof, then
put the drip edge and two of the hip caps on the sauna building. Found out that Labatt Blue really isn’t too
bad… for lunch, which is when the dynamic duo left to attend to another job. I
spent several hours in the morning using my new Porter Cable angle grinder
(Merry Christmas, Chree!) sharpening the Northstar hydraulic log splitter
blades. The Orkin guy came for his
bimonthly spraying visit, finding no problems. Took the two Anderson CW34
windows to Goodro’s to be put up for consignment sale. Finally got myself a 2″ trailer ball so I can tow the log splitter
around with the Tacoma. Did so, setting
up a log processing station in the house car turnaround area (in front of the
woodshed). In somewhat over an hour,
cut, split, and stacked about 1/5 of a cord of firewood. New
chainsaw and log splitter ran like champs!
Found out that Labatt Blue really isn’t too bad for dinner, either.
2 October 2014
Another glorious shirt-sleeve fall day. Acorns are dropping like rain and the leaves
are starting to show some good color. Kevin
and Brian arrived at 8, having already spent an hour bending metal into drip
edges and hip caps. After maneuvering
their portable shop (big trailer) into position, Brian started putting on the
house roof’s drip edges while Kevin went off to another job site for a few
hours. They worked until mid-afternoon,
getting on all but the west side drip edges and most of the hip caps. Meanwhile, down at the sauna building, I put
on shingles until I didn’t have (in a stained condition) the next two of the size
I needed. Then I brought tools and
materials up the hill from that work area, starting the process of securing the
property for winter. Rough calculations:
I’ll need to stain and put up another 450 shingles (roughly ¾ square, which
will use about 1½ gallons of stain and 950 staples) to complete the sauna
building siding… which should take me around a week to do next spring.
1 October 2014
I challenge anyone to be able to put down The Disposable Man by Archer Mayor, once
begun. Started that book after dinner
last night and, even knowing I had to get up early this morning, didn’t finish
it until midnight. Ack! Set the alarm for 6:30, hoping to at least be
vertical when Kevin Betourney (the roofer) got here at the expected 7
o’clock. He pulled in at 9… In 3 hours, working by himself, he erected
staging around 3 sides of the house. No
staging on the west side because it would interfere with Jimmy Ploof’s anticipated
grading and stone wall building activities next week. I stained another 99
shingles in the morning. That’s the last
batch to be done until next spring; say “Halleluiah!!!!” After lunch, took $8.10 worth of returnable
bottles and cans into Brandon for redemption, then immediately spent that cash
on the two most important food groups: beer and ice cream. When I got back to
Fern Lake, put a bunch more shingles on the west wall of the sauna building. Perry stopped by late afternoon to check on
progress and talk about a shingling job he will be doing next week, for which
he’d like to have his air compressor back.
Good timing, as I’ll be done using it tomorrow.
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