Finished stuccoing the wall reinforcing concrete while Chree continued the concrete form disassembly process. Then we shoveled and swept the wall footers, preparatory to tar and feathering. You haven’t really had fun until you’ve spent an afternoon in the hot sun putting really thick tar-based foundation coating on concrete walls with a stiff bristle brush. As you can see in the picture (that Chree insisted be put in the blog), stirring the tar bucket contents was way too exciting. Amazingly, we got ¾ of the walls coated with one 5-gallon bucket of tar, in spite of applying most of it to ourselves. How, one wonders, do you get tar on the skin of your back while wearing a shirt… or tar on the skin of your arms while wearing a long-sleeved shirt and gloves? Just raw talent, I guess. Jeremy Hughes from The Door Doctor of Middlebury came by late morning to discuss garage door options and pricing. Having heard both his and Jeff Many’s sales pitches, the only thing clear is that no two companies offer products that can be compared to each other very easily.
Spent the day, trowel in hand, stuccoing the many places where the wall reinforcing concrete was, shall we say, less than smooth. Used a fairly stiff mortar made from 1 part Type S cement to 2 parts masonry sand which adhered really well. (Normal mortar for laying stone is made with a 1 to 3 ratio of cement to sand.) Chree spent the day, drill driver in hand, disassembling concrete forms and putting the resultant lumber and plywood into the to-be-used-again and to-be-bonfire piles. Another fabulous dinner at Marty’s and Merry’s – butterflied lamb and roasted veggies done on the grill, along with one of Merry’s to-die-for garden salads, and a very good Jason’s Vineyard merlot from the north fork of Long Island.
Jeff Many from Green Mountain Door came by early afternoon (and less than two hours after I called him) to discuss options and pricing for the garage door needed for the north end of the shed lower level. Chree and I spent the day sweating bullets taking apart the rest of the wall reinforcing forms and bracing. The first concrete form I put on (bottom section on the south wall) was the hardest to remove due to perpetual landslide action from the south bank. By the time I got to that section it was in full afternoon sunlight… just brutal working conditions. Five minutes after that section came off Chree was taking a cold shower and I was in the lake. It was so hot that Shlomo made several unauthorized trips to the lake throughout the day to cool off… and we didn’t care. Geisha, on the other hand, is limping badly, probably from spraining one of her joints while chasing Shlomo through the woods, so she stayed close by when not snoozing in the RV.
While Alex, Katy, and I were putting together the rest of the forms for the auxiliary storage area walls in the morning, a cold front rolled through, heralded by a wicked good thunderstorm. Afterwards Katy and Chree removed the forms from the underground roof, discovering that the wooden Triangle Square Circle insets seem to be swollen in place... at least for the forseeable future. By 2:30 the auxiliary storage area wall forms were in place and the sun was peeking out, so all four of us began the back-breaking task of hand-mixing and placing, one wheelbarrow load at a time, the 2,200 pounds of concrete that it took to fill them up. I had anticipated that job would take between four and five hours; we finished in 2½, though there weren’t much left of any of us by the end. Used the form tie and rebar system for the first time and the result, though not perfect, was much better than previously achieved with external form bracing. A dip in the lake, some Chrysalis Vineyards Sarah’s Patio Red over ice, and wonderful spare ribs done over the campfire soon dulled the pain. Alex made a tremendous bonfire out of the scrap plywood and lumber. But, having killed my bottle of Sapling liqueur, we all were abed by 9:30. Katy slept right through the midnight rainstorm.
Attended the annual Lake Dunmore / Fern Lake Association meeting for an hour in the morning. Interesting guest speakers, as always. Then drove down to sister-in-law Anne Swanson’s place in Charlestown, NH for the annual Tarrio family get-together, this year honoring mother-in-law Fran’s 80th birthday. After stuffing ourselves silly with the usual fabulous repast, Katy and Alex followed us back to Fern Lake.
Worked all day building forms for the auxiliary storage area walls. Screwed up virtually everything I touched all morning; just one of those days! Consequently, only got the two forms for the exterior side done, but did install the wall reinforcing steel mesh and roof reinforcing rebar. This puts us well behind schedule, as I had hoped to place concrete for those walls and the roof on Sunday while Katy and Alex are here to help. Chree only saw one mosquito all day, but a sudden influx of deer flies late afternoon caused her to don her bee keepers helmet for the last hour of work. The air temp today was 70 degrees; the lake temperature is 75. Ahhhhh!!!!! After a steak-on-the-grill dinner, began the substantial task of making used-but-not-worth-keeping lumber and plywood become pretty flames and smoke.
