14 March 2016

The geese took a break today… something about them getting time off for good behavior.  Eric spent the day putting a second coat of mud on the lower level walls and ceilings.  John came back for about 6 hours to finish sanding the main level.  Kevin finished building the two soapstone walls that form the rear of the woodstove alcove.  That included using a jigsaw (and several blades) to carve a hole in one of the stones through which the flue pipe extends.  VERY, VERY fussy work, as the distance between the edge of the stone and the hole was only ½″ on one side, and soapstone is very brittle.  But, ace mason that he is, Kevin did the deed without breaking the piece.  The finished walls and hearth are absolutely GORGEOUS!!!!  I connected all the zillions of wires (actually, there were nine) that feed power to the woodshed and control lights in that area.  Surprisingly, when I turned on the woodshed circuit breaker in the house mechanical room electrical panel, there were no sparks, no smoke, no fire, and everything worked as advertised.  Went into Middlebury to procure 20 gallons of PPG 6-2 Speedhide latex primer paint at Countryside Paint and Carpet.  I then fixed the drill press switch that was broken when we were unloading the beast after its sojourn from Virginia.  The switch now is better than new: the housing is metal instead of flimsy plastic.