Terry left yesterday (Monday) morning to attend the Smocking Arts Guild of America (SAGA) national convention in Norfolk, VA. As last year's president she gets to attend a few more soirees than the norm. Still, I'm sure that between the stitching classes, and banquets there will be a lot of partying going on. Over 200 are expected to attend and most all of them can break into a clique at the drop of a needle. If they're anything like Terry, they might even have half a dozen that they can join at a moments notice. So far, I've gotten one phone call telling me she arrived yesterday around 3 in the afternoon so she must be busy, busy, busy!
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Don and Adam finished up the work on the Aerie yesterday and today. The stone work looks magnificent and the fresh coat of stain really makes the logs POP! The drab concrete stuccoed walls of the foundation/basement really needed the stone work to dress them up. Now even Terry is thinking we should do the two foot tall expanse exposed on the rest of the house. We've got four boxes of faux stone left over so maybe next year.
I'll see about posting some pictures of the finished product tomorrow.
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While the guys were wrapping up their work today, I fired up the chain saw and log splitter and went to work on the wood pile. I needed the chain saw because there were a few lengths that needed to be shortened to fit in the fireplace. Don't know why I cut them so long in the first place, but....
Anyway, I got about half the stuff split and tossed in to a heap. I'll need to start stacking that more neatly tomorrow before I go to work on the rest.I've got one empty shipping pallet available and two that are already half full on which I can stack more wood. (The left over stone is sitting on one of the half-filled pallets.)
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It's been a lovely two days to work outdoors. The morning temperatures have been right around 40 degrees but have warmed nicely to 60 and 70 degrees under bright sunshine. The breeze today made things feel a bit chillier but nice and crisp.
The folks down the bottom of the hill on Route 6 said that there was a frost this morning on all their vehicle windows. Don, who lives on the other side of the highway and at a slightly higher elevation said he didn't have any on the glass but you could see something on the grass in his meadow. The valley often gets a few degrees colder than the Aerie, especially on nights without a breeze to stir the air, since the colder air sinks to the lowest point of land. Even at 9:30 this morning when I went for the mail, it was five or six degrees cooler down there, being 55-56 on the truck's thermometer at the Aerie and just 50 degrees in the post office parking lot. That's something of a surprise since the Aerie doesn't get full sunlight until late in the morning when the sun rises above the hill top but the parking lot was already bathed in sunlight.
The clear nights have really made viewing the Harvest Moon a snap! If it's any brighter tonight, I'll be able to read a book out on the lawn at midnight. Perhaps something about Wicca?
Jupiter is also very visible early in the morning. Unfortunately, Jupiter and the moon should be nearly side by side tonight and the moon will probably make Jupiter seem less brilliant in comparison.
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Got a detailed listing of all the parades going on west of New Orleans come Mardi Gras and an invite to join our Alaskan traveling companions in late February for a reunion. Very tempting to do so but I wonder if I'll be able to get the trailer out of the barn or if there will be four feet of snow on the lawn at the Bolt Hole. Might have to look into renting a vehicle if we intend to camp.
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