30 April 2018
28 April 2018
Finished creating the stone wall footer. Of more significance, Chree and I reached an
acceptable compromise on what to do about the Tiger Lilies that are growing
right where the stone wall needs to be built… that is if the wall is to be a
steady 24′ 9″ from the road centerline.
Compromise: dig up the flower bulbs that would be under the wall and
transplant them to between the wall and the road, with a promise from me not to
mow that area. Towards that end, started
removing overburden from the barn-build site, transferring that mix of rich
topsoil and sand to the flower bulb transplant area. As unbelievable as this may sound, the barn-build
site is mostly sand, with the exception of that one monster boulder and a scattering
of other nuggets. That is soooooo NOT
Leicester soil!
27 April 2018
Made one more attempt to excavate the large
stump that remains where the barn is to be built. Not sure why I even tried… Scratched around with the backhoe in the rock
pile for a few hours, creating some more of the level footer where the stone
wall will be built alongside Lake Dunmore Road.
26 April 2018
Moved all of the lumber that Toby delivered
yesterday into the woodshed, ricked for drying.
Final counts: 84 good 2x4’s (of which I need no more than 76 for wall
studs), 16 flawed 2x4’s (which can be cut up for window jacks and cripples),
and 6 okay 1x6’s (which will become shelving somewhere in the barn). Add that all together (quickly now) and it
comes to 50.9 board feet of lumber, for which Toby was paid $4.91 / board foot
(which included the pickup and delivery charges). Said another way, each 2x4x9′ 4″ board cost
me $2.91. Similar quality 2x4x10 lumber
from Home Depot would have cost $5.22 each.
However, using lumber from one of Chree’s favorite trees: priceless!
25 April 2018
Only two small pieces of stump remained on the
ash pile this morning… and they were quickly coaxed back into flame. But then, as forecast, it started raining… Late afternoon, just as Chree and I were in
the throes of getting ready to host a dinner for Marty & Merry (neighbors
to the north) and Lorynda Fish (temporary neighbor to the south who’s been
staying in Kate Middleton’s house since last fall), Toby Rheaume arrived
bearing all the lumber he produced from the hemlock logs. Working as quickly as possible in the rain, used
the Kubota to move the lumber off the trailer and onto the driveway in front of
the woodshed. Threw a tarp over the pile
and scurried to get showered (sans clothes this time) before our guests
arrived.
24 April 2018
Burn, baby, burn!!!! With a nod from the Leicester fire warden,
spent the day letting fire consume all the slash and stumps gleaned from the
barn site clearing operation and stone wall preparation work. By dark only a few stumps remained, and,
pushed together with the tractor, they were busy devouring each other. Found a whole bunch of wire fencing in the
ashes. Where the heck did that come
from? While paying close attention (sic)
to the fire, I finished clearing the miscreant growth along the road frontage,
adding that bracken, roots, and other woody items to the conflagration as they
became available.
23 April 2018
Being a rather stubborn old coot, tried once again
to dislodge the last remaining, extra large stump at the barn building
site. No joy… the Kubota just doesn’t
have enough power to even wiggle that beast… or the boulder with which it is
bonded in true Vermont civil union. Spent
much of the afternoon digging out small saplings and their rather lengthy roots
along our frontage on Lake Dunmore Road.
What does that have to do with building the barn, you ask? Answer: nothing… but one of the (many) other
projects on the list for last summer was to build a New England style stone wall
along the road, using the copious supply of rocks with which we are blessed (or
cursed, you choose). Where that rock wall
needs to go (3 rods or 24′ 9″ from the road centerline) is completely
overgrown, said overgrowth needing to be excised before a wall can be built. The good news is the growth is all small
enough to be ripped out of the ground with the backhoe. The bad news is that obviously there used to
be a stone wall along the road in that location and the growth’s roots are all
tangled around, what is now, stupendously rocky “soil”. The backhoe teeth are gonna need replacing…
soon!
18 April 2018
Preface: at the time we built the house there
was a beautiful, very large, hemlock that resided in our front lawn at the
corner of the car turnaround area. Last
summer that tree up and died, most likely as a result of its roots having been
damaged during house construction. Very
sad!!!! With help from the 100 foot
steel cable and Chree driving the tractor while praying fervently, I dropped
that tree in the 10 foot wide space between some other trees and the
woodshed. Miracle of miracles, that
felling was done without destroying (or even damaging) the woodshed. The trunk of the hemlock was cut into six
logs, each 9′ 6″ long, with the smallest piece still 9″ in diameter at the
small end. That’s potentially a LOT of
board feet of lumber! Our intent was to,
someday, use that lumber in building the barn.
Fast forward to this morning. Toby
Rheaume (logger extraordinaire, who also owns a portable sawmill) showed up
first thing, bringing along his extra-large dump trailer. Without more than normal difficulty, we loaded
the hemlock logs into Toby’s trailer using the Kubota’s forklift. Toby then took the logs away to his place
over in Salisbury, where he will saw them into rough cut 2x4’s, i.e., the
boards will measure a full 2″ x 4″. With
some minor smoothing in my thickness planer, those 2x4’s will become the barn’s
wall studs. After Toby left, dug out all
the remaining stumps at the barn site, except for the monster wrapped around
the boulder that will need Jim Ploof’s excavator to dislodge. FYI: the lake now is mostly thawed and the
water temperature (2 feet under the surface) is a brisk 35°F.
15 April 2018
Spring has sprung; the grass ain’t ris.
Do you wonder where the
flowers is?
Underneath the snow and ice, he says.
14 April 2018
Since we’re under a winter weather advisory
today for sleet, snow, and freezing rain and I was feeling kind of masochistic
macho, figured I’d try to get a few more stumps dug out. Actually was successful for the first half
dozen, including the second-largest stump needing removal, which was the stump
for the maple whose core was rotten.
But, after two hours I was back to trying to dig completely frozen
ground and was, myself, completely frozen.
In keeping with that theme, Fern Lake also is still completely frozen.
12 April 2018
Perry made several trips to cut up and haul away
the hardwood trees that he will use for firewood. (Chree and I already have many years supply
of hardwood logs destined for our wood stove.)
While Perry was busy chain sawing, I started to dig out the stumps left
from yesterday’s mutant ninja beaver attack.
Turns out winter isn’t quite over here in Vermont… the ground is still
frozen (solid!!!!) from the surface down 6″.
I mean solid, like concrete. Got
a few stumps out where the sun has been penetrating, but the rest will have to
wait for warmer weather… except for the largest stump (of course!) that appears
to be wrapped around a monster boulder, both of which will need a non-Kubota
excavator to dislodge.
11 April 2018
With the approved Zoning Permit and Mr. Jonsered
in hand, set out to attack the stand of trees where the barn will be situated,
formerly the location of the barbeque pit that Chree, Geisha, and Shlomo dug back
in June 2009. First step was to move two
piles of “used-but-good” lumber being stored under black tarps in that area. Pulled the tarps off and found many furry
creatures inhabiting the Trump Tower of mice nests. Properly encouraged, the mice scampered away,
inevitably going to join their not so wealthy cousins living in Delores. With the exception of one 70 feet tall maple,
all two dozen or so trees were easily taken down without coming anywhere near
Delores or other fragile objects, i.e., yours truly.. The aforementioned last tree was leaning
severely to the west… and needed to come down in an easterly direction, as
destroying the house main power panel was not, I thought, a good idea. So, set up my tall extension ladder, very
gingerly climbed to the top (thinking, as I ascended, “Chree isn’t home, so if
I fall off this thing I am totally fill in the blank.”), and attached my
100 feet x ¼″ steel cable. With the
other end of the cable fastened to the tractor backhoe, put a lot of tension on
the tree. So far, so good! Made the front cut, then started the plunge
cut to define the felling hinge. The
chainsaw went through the middle of the tree like there was nothing there
because… there was nothing there, i.e, the tree was totally rotted out. Understand that when pulling a tree down in a
direction radically different than the one it naturally wants to go, a solid,
extra thick felling hinge is absolutely critical. Understand, too, that pulling a tree down
with the tractor normally is a two person job… one not-too-bright gutsy
lumberjack running the chainsaw and a life insurance beneficiary driving the
tractor. So, in baseball parlance, the
count was 0 and 2… and Delores and I were just a tad bit nervous. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I cut
the trigger (the small portion of the felling cut that is left intact until
ready to drop the tree), then ran, not walked, to the tractor and drove
away. Five minutes after the tree hit
the ground (right, I might add, where it was supposed to), Perry arrived… No surprise, after using a chainsaw all day
for the first time in six months, I was pretty much knackered by this
point. So, while Perry cut up and hauled
away hardwood firewood, I downed one of the best tasting whiskey and gingers ever… and 1,600 mg of Ibuprofen.
3 April 2018
Heard back from Tim Comes that 2x4 studs will be
fine for the barn walls. However, each
of the roof hips will need to be double 1¾″ x 14″ LVL (laminated veneer lumber)
beams. Those critters be H E A V
Y!!!! My back is hurting already… Even heavier (though the tractor forklift
should be able to place them in position), the 16 feet wide barn door header
will have to be double 1¾″ x 16″ LVL’s.
2 April 2018
Finalized (yeah, right!!!!) the barn design and
submitted it to Tim Comes, one of the owners of Goodro Lumber, my favorite
place to spend an inheritance. Tim, in
turn, submitted the plan to a structural engineer to answer the weighty
question of the day: Given the barn roof design snow load of 57,330 pounds (yes,
those white fluffy things do get kinda heavy hereabouts) can the barn be built
with 2x4 studded walls or will 2x6 studded walls be required?
26 March 2018
Met with Mary Anne Sullivan, the Town of
Leicester Zoning Administrator, to submit an application to construct the barn
/ third garage (why stop at two?) / auxiliary storage building that is
desperately needed to house the man-toys that have accumulated. All was going too smoothly until Mary Anne
noted that neither Chree (the official landowner) nor I (the applicant) had
signed the application. My part was
easy. Chree, in Middlebury at the gym, had
her ears on (fortunately!) and stopped by the town office on her way home before
Mary Anne left at noon. Fortunate,
because Mary Anne is only there on Monday mornings. Is this screw-up and rapid fix a harbinger of
things to come. Stay tuned…
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