Hello, It's me again. Getting Ready for Winter.

Terry's been in Virginia for one of her Smocking Arts Guild gatherings this week. And I've just been sorta loafing around. Sorta.

Besides doing the house cleaning, fixing the garden gate, harvesting tomatoes and peppers, cutting up some longer logs that I had sitting behind the house, and moving firewood from the trail nearest the house using the tractor, I decided to split the wood I had stacked from last year and the stuff I had just moved.

But first, I had to get the wood splitter started. I was a little apprehensive about that. See, I hadn't used it since the fall of 2014 and it had been sitting idle behind the garage all that time. I wasn't sure it would want to start. Or if all the hoses, etc. were still intact. Mice have a bad habit of gnawing on that rubber, you know.

I didn't feel any more confident when I pulled it around the corner of the garage and put some gasoline in the tank--only to watch it leak like a sieve from the area of the carburetor. I shoved a plastic cup under the stream of gasoline to capture as much as I could and took the cover off the air filter so I could get to the problem area. Then the flow of fuel suddenly stopped. I hadn't even gotten to the carburetor and the gas tank still had fuel in it. What the heck?

So I did what anyone else would have done: switched the engine on, moved the lever to "choke" and gave the cord a pull. On the second pull, the engine sparked to live and went running merrily along. Gotta love hose Briggs & Stratton engines! I put the cover for the air filter back in place and started splitting wood.

About five hours later--with only a short break to have lunch--I called it quits. I managed to stack all the stuff I split today while I was working. I still have some wood to split but my back and knees were shouting, "No mas!" The 85 degree temperature didn't help either. I finish the rest manana.

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Terry reports that she's having a grand old time. Before the bulk of the members showed up, the leadership got to go to Williamsburg for lunch one day and had a private tour of some stitching and quilt work at the museum. She's enjoying her classes and meeting with all her lady friends. She's to come home late Sunday night.

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Monday we take our problem cat, Shadow, to the vets again. She had some serious scratches right in front of her ears. She got some oral antibiotics for that as well as a cream that gets applied daily. This in addition to her pill for stomach issues every other day. Oh, and she's wearing a collar of shame, which she detests something fierce. 

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They've been working on Every. Single. Road. around here lately. Mostly in preparation for the increased truck traffic expected to come rolling, rolling, rolling Any. Day. Now. See, Shell Appalachia will be drilling a gas well on top of the hill about 3/4 mile (as the crow flies) from the Aerie. Between construction of the pad, workers, water pre-fracking and waste water post-fracking, there will be some hustling and bustling going on. They've almost finished the road work--we've got a lovely asphalt paved section from the bottom of the slope to the top of the hill now--so I expect the tree crew will be showing up to clear the pad site as soon as the weather cools. Then the trucks with their rock and concrete and what not will be moving along on a regular basis for a couple months.

I can deal with it. Especially if they manage to hit lots of gas and pay out lots of royalties.

Well, that's about all for now.

Working on the garden.

Spent today recycling more of the redwood from the Morristown deck. Turned it into a 42" high wall around the rebuilt raised bed garden. Well, the redwood formed the frame. Tomorrow I'll install the gate and tack up some chicken wire for a stop gap.

Then I can plant the tomatoes and peppers Terry picked up today along with the peppermint and chives we saved from the old garden.

Should be all done tomorrow afternoon. 

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Today's weather was fantastic...except for that one hour when the heavens opened up. Temperatures were in the 60s most of the day and barely got above 70. Of course the humidity was in the same range! 

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Spotted a fat ground hog out on the lawn today. It ran into the weeds as soon as it saw me. 

Finished

I held off on finishing the septic tank cover until Terry came home from a weekend in Erie, PA. She was there for more classes with an EGA instructor. She says she learned a good deal and has yet another skill to apply to her projects.

I prepared everything--an additional supports for the asphalt roof--and we went out after lunch to put the roof in place.

 The sheet material is 48" wide and the cover is only 74". As a result, there's quite a bit of overlap in the middle which is good. The extra weight will help to keep the thing in place when the winds blow.

The ridge cap was just the right length so no cutting was necessary. I drilled holes through which I nailed the roof pieces in place.

Here's a view from the opposite side of the structure. The entire thing measures 40" by 74" (measured along the ridge).

I Been Working at the Aerie

I've been doing some small construction the last couple of weeks. After living at the Aerie for 8 years (!?!) I finally decided it was time to remove the old pallets and build a more permanent cover for the septic tank.

I first used concrete blocks and pea gravel to create a level surface on which to build the cover. The gravel and the blocks will lift the "house" high enough to make clearing the structure to access the tank easier.

Because of back pain, I've been going slowly. Very, very slowly. This last week, I finally got around to starting the construction on the base I had built. It's a lot like building a small house with very short walls.

 Here you can see the concrete blocks with a rim of pressure treated 2x4 and atop that is the frame for the cover, also made of pressure treated 2x4 (the base) and cedar with one piece of redwood used as a stretcher in the middle.

Another view of the same stuff as above.

Here, I've added some cedar boards to the ends to close them in and also between the "rafters." The only non-rot resistant wood is in the four 1x3 pieces to which the roof will be nailed.

Speaking of the roof.... I picked up the materials for the roof this morning and cut them to the proper lengths so they are all ready to be installed.

One last view of the frame to which the roof will be attached...tomorrow if the weather permits.

Finished the Stone Work

After taking the day off yesterday (it was hot and the Doctor did say to rest), I went back to work today moving stone from the pile and spreading it around.

Some of the stone was used to fill the parking area where we store one of Terry's seasonal cars. During the summer it's the Jeep, during the winter it's the Aveo.

Parking area 1

More was used to fill the parking area next to the house used the vehicle Terry is using at the time.

 Parking area 2

Parking area and driveway

The rest got spread along the driveway. Some went in the low spots along the drive into the Aerie and the rest went on the area in front of the garage.

Drive into the Aerie

 Area in front of the garage

When I was finished spreading the stone around, there was only a small area in front of the garage that hadn't gotten a new layer of stone.If the truck had carried 24 tons instead of 23....

Now we need a little rain to help pack the stone into the clay of the driveway and to rinse the fine clay dust that coated each stone.

Moving Stone

Got the call from the stone quarry this morning. They had a triple-axle load of crushed stone for me. Twenty-three tons of stone.

In an hour or so, as I worked on getting the last high spot out of the parking pad's bed, the truck backed into the driveway and deposited its load right where I wanted it to go.

 Twenty-three tons of stone.

Then it was time for Mr. Kubota and me to move the stone from the pile and fill the bed. For three hours it was back and forth with buckets of stone filling and leveling the parking pad.

 The stone on the left needs to go into the hole on the right.

 Filled and (almost) leveled pad.

I also filled a small gully at the end of the driveway and a low spot along the side of the driveway that just never seems to drain after it rains. (The fine, crushed stone from when they drilled our new well last year may have had something to do with that as that section of the driveway is where the water being flushed out of the well along with the tailings. Those fine particles must have made a seal through which water could not flow.)

 Partially filled low spot on the driveway.

I've still got some additional stone to put into the parking pad and some leveling to do. Luckily there's plenty of stone remaining.

 Still more stone to spread around.

I've some ideas of what to do with some of that stone: the area where Terry parks the Jeep during the summer and Aveo during the winter could use a couple of inches of stone. When that area gets wet, the soil turns to a very mucky clay. Anything left over will go under the deck where there's already a layer of stone. Adding another inch or two won't hurt.

Twenty-three tons is a lot of stone.

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This afternoon I took the Toyota in to get its exhaust replaced, get inspected and, for good measure, get a new battery. It got done in a little over 2-1/2 hours. The worst part of the wait was that CNN was on the waiting room TV and, until everyone else left, I had to endure the worst news programming on TV. (Well, that's debatable. At least it wasn't tuned to MSNBC.)

More Construction, the Finished Retaining Walls

I spent the better part of Sunday and Monday working on the retaining wall for the stone bed--hopefully level--on which I will park the RV--should they ever call to say that it's repaired.

After returning from church and a church luncheon, Terry helped with some of the moving of the 6"x6"s and the racheting down of the lag screws to hold them together. While I was drilling holes for the next set of screws, she would screw down the 10" lag screws to the last inch or two and then I would finish them off. We did 21 of those on Sunday while fastening three sets of timbers (two to a set) together to form the base of the downhill wall.

Finished walls of the RV parking area

A lot of time was spent making sure those sets would lay level on the ground. I had purchased ten bags of pea gravel to use as a bed for those timbers but ended up having to scrape away not only the gravel but some additional earth as well. It's a good thing we have lots of flat stones laying around, too. Some of the big ones ended up supporting the rear timbers where the yard sloped off steeply and were used as shims to level other parts of the wall.

One of the 10" long 1/2 diameter lag screws holding the timbers together.

I was pretty much on my own on Monday. I drilled holes and bolted down the top timbers on the downhill wall and then leveled the timbers for the rear wall and screwed them together. That required 24 more screws. I happened upon an easier way to screw them down using a tire lug wrench. More leverage.

Downhill wall with second layer of timbers. 

(The short ones will be bolted in as additional braces.)

Rear wall of the parking area.

I've a little scraping to do with the tractor on the up hill side of the box which measures 12' wide and 24' long. The bed of stone will be 8-10" deep on the downhill side and only an inch or two on uphill side. With any luck, that stone will be delivered in a day or two. They wanted to deliver it on Friday but I had a doctors appointment that turned into an adventure when the Toyota's exhaust system failed while traveling from the doctor's to the hospital for x-rays.

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Speaking of x-rays, the results came in today. Seems I've got nothing but a misaligned lumbar spinal column. And an extra vertebra. With spines and spikes. And arthritis. The recommendation is fro rest. Like that's ever going to happen.

I Been Workin'

Started work on the area where I want to build a flat pad for the RV. It's the same area that the RV sat on but...well...it's on  a bit of a slope in the driveway. Like a drop of 15 inches in 10 feet slope.

 The Site, pre-construction

Today I used the backhoe and front end loader to break up and move the driveway so as to level things off a little. I spent over four hours in the saddle of the Kubota.

There's still a slope but once I've built a retaining wall on the lower end using 6"x6" (two high and two wide at the base) and fill the area with pea stone gravel, I should have a much more level area.

After removing many loads of dirt and stone.

There's a drop if 6" or so on the left and a flat area 

on the right where the retaining wall will sit.

We had 0.38 inches of rain over night and through much of the morning so the lawn was soggy and took a beating from my driving the tractor back and forth on it. It was also quite slick and even in 4-wheel drive I slipped and skidded from time to time. It doesn't help that quite often there are flat rocks just beneath the surface. The turf gets ripped off them pretty quickly.

 You can see the damage on the slope leading from the lawn to the driveway.

More lawn damage where I was depositing the dirt and rocks (on the left)

...and turning the tractor around.

I'm not too worried about the lawn. Sure, it will look like hell for the rest of the season, but I'll overseed it when I'm done and let nature take its course. Most of it was clover and plantain anyway.

Tomorrow I start bolting some of those 6"x6"s together. I hope.

Deck Construction and more!

After Rick and I paid a visit to the Big Orange Box store (aka Home Depot) on Saturday to get supplies on Saturday, Eric showed up at Rick's house today for a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon after which we got to work on construction. First we sent Rick out to get two more 4"x8" timbers. Then Eric and I carefully sited the concrete piers for the four corners and the centers. We sistered two 4"x8"x8' timbers to a 16' 2"x6" to form the rear stringer, cut 4"x4" posts to level it across the house, and mounted joist hangers on it to place the joists. We cut the joists to length and then waited for Rick to bring the 4"x8"s that would form the front stringer.

Once Rick got back, we all positioned the front stringer on three concrete piers (only a little adjustment as to their position was required), cut the 4"x4" posts to level the stringer and attached the hangers and joists. All that remains to do now is to attach the cedar deck boards using screws and construct a ramp and set of stairs so as to get up and down to and from the deck.

6'x16' Deck Nearing Completion

 Nearing Completion 

Much of the construction was done under the watchful eye of Penny, the Labradoodle. As Eric had brought his dog, Buddy, with him and the two pooches entertained one another. (In reality, Buddy just wanted to be left alone so he could figure out how to spring the gate to chase after a cat that would have beaten the crap out of him or just to go across the street and smell the California poppies int he neighbor's yard.) Penny seemed very pleased with the new deck ans sprawled out upon it as soon as we laid the deck boards.

 Penny the Labradoodle 

Rick is a bee keeper with 5 or 6 hives at various places including one at a friends house a little over a mile away. He works on his boxes in his yard sometimes and had one set in the back that was unoccupied until a few weeks ago when a wandering hive found it and took it over. For all he knows, these may be the same bees that swarmed over at his friends place a month ago.

 Volunteer Bees 

(Check the entry on the left. They're busy as...well...bees.)

 

Aerie Report, April 21, 2011

A very productive day on all fronts here at the Aerie.

We had a lovely spring-like day with a lot of sunshine, cool temperatures, a stiff breeze out of the northwest and, thankfully, no rain.

First Terry and I had our eyes checked and we both needed to have our prescriptions adjusted just a wee bit. My distance vision was fine--hasn't changed in over three years--but my reading needed to to be tweeked just a tad. Probably because I've been spending too much time on the intertubes. I wanted new glasses anyway since the ones I've been using have gathered a few small scratches over the last two years and the frames are starting to suffer metal fatigue in spots. Terry has had the vision in one eye change a little so she needed a new prescription as well.

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Then we got the kittehs crated up to go to the vets for their feline rabies and Fvrcp boosters as well as physicals. The two kids (Shadow and Chester) soiled their carriers in the 6 mile ride--as usual. Julie was just pissed and acted like a lioness when it came time for her shot. As expected, we were told that Chester is too fat (19+ pounds of purring love) and Shadow was headed that way (13+ pounds of indifference). Both were extremely docile on the examination table. Julie weighed in at just 10 pounds but it was all pure meanness after she got poked and prodded a little bit. Leather gauntlets and a firm hand of the assistant were needed so she could get jabbed. Thank goodness that won't have to be done again for a couple of years!

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Don, the contractor who built the Aerie, stopped by with a prospective customer to show him the type and quality of work he/we did. The guy wants to build a somewhat smaller log home just over the hill from here and seemed suitably impressed with both Don and the Aerie. As they were leaving I told Don that if he needed another set of hands on that project, I was available. It's not a Beaver Mountain Log Home, but I'd still like to do some construction--as long as the ladder work isn't too far off the ground!

******

Finally, Terry and I went to Agway for some top soil to add to the gardens and then to Lowes to price some perennials and shrubs (Agway didn't have anything but pansies in their stock yet). We got some good ideas for a few shrubs (Rhododendrons, Burning Bush, Spiraea, Lilacs and, maybe, Holly) and flowers (Bleeding Hearts, Dianthus, Columbine, Salvia, Wallflower, and Periwinkle). The difficulty is in picking plants that will tolerate our 2100 feet on the northwest side of the hill. It can get pretty dang cold in the winter time and we don't get much morning sun in the summer.

Back home, laced up my new boots, grabbed a shovel and turned the soil in the onion bed and in the bed I'll use for string beans, cukes and zukes. The soil was still pretty damp--too damp to put the onion sets in just yet, but it turned easily enough and I was able to get nearly all the weeds and their roots out. I was also pleased to see the number of earthworms in the soil. Every shovel of dirt held two or three good sized garden worms and there were a number of real nightcrawlers, too.

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I've got to start taking the bird feeders in at night again. Last night we had visitors that damaged our thistle feeder and emptied all the others. Although the metal shepherd's crooks were bent, I'm thinking the culprit was more of raccoon sized since most of the feeders were more delicately disassembled than a bear would have done.

A new bird showed up late yesterday. A Rufous-sided Towhee has returned to sing its, "Drink your tea" song. It was on the ground with the feeders this morning. The White-throated Sparrows have been singing their, "Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" song from the top of the shrubs along the clearing. It's a song we hear a good bit around the Bolt Hole and when we go fishing up in northern Quebec but it sounds a little strange to the ear this far south. The Goldfinch males are in full, bright yellow-and-black mating plumage. Soon, I'll have to start hanging my hummingbird feeder out. Maps indicate the hummers return to this area around this time of year but no one at the Tiadaghton Audubon Society meeting last night has seen any yet. I'm already looking in the trees for the Indigo Bunting that has been a regular the last five years. Any. Day. Now.

Aerie Report, September 22, 2010

Welcome to the Autumn! Strange, but while we had frost in the valley yesterday morning, today it never got below 60 degrees overnight. Rose to nearly 80 this afternoon before we had a little front move through bringing a few brief showers and slightly cooler temperatures. I could hear the rumble of thunder off in the distance, but none of those more intense storms passed overhead.

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As I mentioned yesterday, Don and Adam finished the stone work and staining on the Aerie. We used the same stone product from Corning that we used on the fireplace and chimney. Continuity was one reason. The fact that it's the best artificial stone out there is another.

Here are a couple of photos of the finished product.

Front Entry

The area where the stone has been attached was primarily stuccoed Styrofoam used as the forms for the poured foundation. The Styrofoam is left in place to serve as insulation which means the basement almost never gets warmer than 68 degrees in the summer and colder than 63 in the winter. With the in-the-floor radiant heat system, it takes very little to get the temperature up to 65 or 68 in the winter.

Base of the Garage

The garage is the only part of the house that has no basement beneath it. As a result, there was no need for a Styrofoam form to pour the little short walls that form the foundation. The small sections of concrete wall visible beneath the log siding definitely looked out of place. They do not look that way any longer.

Walk-out Basement Wall

The entry to the basement beneath the deck now has a very finished look to it. The drab, gray stucco is gone.

One Portion of the Basement Wall

In this closer look at the stone work, you can see what I mean about this Corning product looking like real stone. In reality, it's fiber laced concrete with various dyes to give it color. I don't think there are any two that are alike. Oh, and to fill the odd sized gaps Don went out into the yard and picked up a stone of the right thickness and shape. So there may be a few in this view that are real stones. I think.

Aerie Report, September 21, 2010

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.

The Wonderful World of Electricity......and old homes.

Well, we (Mark and I) survived our sojourn into the world of electricity today. After helping to wire the Aerie and doing the basement outlets and lights by myself, I must be getting more comfortable working with the juice.

We did make a discovery that made us wonder why the Bolt Hole hasn't burned to the ground long ago, however. Seems that there are 25 AMP circuit breakers in the box when there should be 15s and certainly nothing stronger than a 20. This explains why the outlet box, the extension cord and the router plugged into it fried without tripping the breaker. Weakest link and all that.

The refrigerator was plugged into a circuit that had three other outlets (one used occasionally for the coffee maker and/or the toaster oven) and an outdoor light running through it, while a separate circuit in the living room had just one outlet. Both had 25 AMP breakers and were wired with the old tarred canvas wire from ancient days. We pulled that wire out, replaced the two breakers with 20 AMP spares Mark had laying around, rewired both circuits with 12-2 grounded wire, set it up so the fridge had the solo receptacle...and lived to tell the tale. Took us a little longer than I thought it should, but, then again, working on old construction is never as easy as working with new.

There are still two 25 AMP breakers in the basement and two more in the garage that we'll have to swap out. Plus there's still some of the deteriorating coated canvas wire in the basement that we'll replace with more 12-2 and some wiring in the garage that looks to be 14-2 that should be 12 that needs to be done.

I remember watching This Old House with Bob and Norm and the frequent comments about how you never know what you'll find when you open up the walls of an old house. Now I know exactly what they meant. The core of the Bolt Hole was built around 1900. The wiring was an afterthought...probably soon after they ran wires out to the end of the road. (Prior to that they were using gas generated on sight to light the house. The remnants of that process are to be found in the side yard. Coal and, maybe, wood was burned to heat the place. I still use wood, but my gas of choice is bottled propane. (For the life of me I can not remember the type of gas that was often generated at remote locations fr use in gas lamps and even stove. I remember reading about it once and it was made by mixing some chemical--or maybe coal dust--with water. Happened, as I said, in remote areas in the late 1800s early 1900s before electrification.) (Of course, it's possible that the apparatus is from the 1920s and was used to process the apples in the extensive orchard that was here into a more...ahem...palatable and profitable potion.)

The thing that gets me about those 25 AMP breakers--which wouldn't tip unless every out let on the 110 volt circuit melted first--is that the master circuit board was done about 15 years ago by the guy who installed the wiring for my old well. He had taken a look at the old board, one using the old screw-in buss fuses, and asked--with a bit of a quiver in his voice--if I wanted to have it upgraded. Said he could do it with what he had on his truck. I said sure, since you're here anyway.... No building inspector of course, and I knew enough about electricity at the time to leave it the hell alone. If it's not broke, don't fix it, was my motto. Never thought about it until now.

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Tomorrow I become a short distance hauler again...bringing the cut firewood out of the forest. After I cut myself a road into the woods.

Aerie Report, September 8, 2010

Well, we're back to our regular routine. After 75 days of being together Every. Single. Day. I was alone at nights in the trailer at the camp while Terry was alone at nights at the Aerie. Then I went to the Bolt Hole for the weekend and Terry was at the Aerie. I came back to the Aerie and two days later...Terry took off to pick up her Mom in New Jersey for a trip to Gettysburg. She (or maybe they) will return to the Aerie on Monday. Just about when I might be getting a call that the trailer repairs are done and I'll have to head north to retrieve it from Alpin Hous in Amsterdam and take it to the Bolt Hole.

Then there's the NY hunting season and Terry's SAGA convention in Norfolk, VA and who knows what else.

Hope we can get together for Thanksgiving. ;-)

******

Traveled down to Jersey Shore (that's a town in PA, not a reality show or a place on the Atlantic) to pick up my log splitter. Joe had it all summer and put it to good use. He cut up some logs left by the previous owner of his new home and then split the rounds into firewood. Stacked as it is, it looks to be five or six cords total.

He said the splitter did yeomen's work and never whimpered all summer. In return, Joe did everything but Simonize and wax the darn thing. Probably got spoiled rotten from all the TLC he gave it. I'll have to see about that. I've my own wood to split both here at the Aerie and up north at the Bolt Hole.

******

When I left the Aerie to head south, it was promising to be a warm day with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the upper 70s. I came home at 3:30 and it was heavily overcast, drizzling and in the upper 50s. I went around and closed all the windows I had left open hoping to keep the temperature comfortably cool and not sweater-mandatory.

The forecast now calls for a breezy night with lows into the 40s but at least the rain will not get very serious. Hopefully it will hold off so Adam can get even more staining done. He's already got the east side of the garage and nearly all of the south side of the house (garage, laundry, bedrooms) done.

Don's got all the stone in place and is now pointing it (applying mortar to the joints between the stones). It's amazing how much mortar it takes to do that. I think he's getting between six and eight square feet done for every 80 pound bag. First he uses a batter bag to squeeze it into the joints and then pokes it in place with skinny little trowels. He finishes it with a stiff brush to give it a smooth appearance. It really, really looks great when he gets done.

Aerie Stone Work

When I got back to the Aerie this afternoon, I was impressed with the amount of stone work that Don and Adam have completed. They've been working just four days (Monday through Thursday). And Adam spent two of those days pressure washing two sides of the house preparing it for staining. (He would have done more, but our cistern was close to empty and the well is slow to recharge.) So we have Don doing most all of the work in putting the stainless steel mesh, the scratch coat and finally the stone in place.

Even so, there's only a small section of the large wall at the end of the basement that needs to be completed before the grout is applied to fill the cracks between stones. Then there's the short (height-wise) wall along the driveway leading up to the entrance and three small squares at the base of the garage pillars.

Right side of basement wall

Left side of basement wall

"Short" wall at entrance

Aerie Report, August 31, 2010

Late Tuesday afternoon and I'm at the Aerie again. The trailer is nearly cleaned out and will be by tomorrow (Wednesday) evening. I've only got a few frozen foods that need transport. The rest of the caned goods and non-refrigerated foods can stay in place to be off loaded at the Bolt Hole.

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Don and Adam started work on the staining and stone work on Monday morning. Adam has been pressure washing the logs to remove dirt and grime before staining begins. The 2500 psi machine is certainly going through the 400-450 gallons f water in the cistern pretty darn quick! With a very slow recharge rate in the well, we'll recover between 30 and 40 gallons an hour. That requires the well pump to run for just 10 minutes and rest for 50. With it having been drawn down so low, Adam will start the staining process as the cistern fills. Meanwhile, Don has put a wire mesh in place and a scratch coat on the exterior basement wall and has started to apply some of the faux stone. This is the same "stone' that we have on the fireplace and chimney. It will really look nice when it's finished.

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I harvested a couple of dozen white onions from the garden this afternoon. The reds still have their fleshy tops and were left in the ground for another time. So far we've almost as many onions as we did last fall and those nearly made it to April. Some of the onions were smaller than I like, but, since they grew without any weeding or cultivating or watering at all other than what Mother Nature provided, I'll take the results.

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Weather has been nearly perfect for outdoor work. The sky remains clear although the days are, perhaps, a bit too warm. (It's reached the 90s the last three days.) We haven't seen any rain since the 23rd and the forecast shows only a chance on Friday night into Saturday--depending upon Earl's behavior.

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Tomorrow I will be heading over to the Muck to assist other members of the Tiadaghton Audubon Society with the annual maintenance of the boardwalk and blind. There will be some carpentry, some weed whacking, and some staining to do there as well.

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Thursday, I'll hitch the trailer up and head to Amsterdam, NY and the Alpin Haus to get its slide out motor replaced. I'll then retire to the Bolt Hole for the weekend. Hopefully, Earl will swing out to sea and there won't be much in the way of rain Friday night into Saturday.

Aerie Report, October 29, 2009

The fog lifted--well, it didn't actually lift lift, it sorta just thinned out temporarily--to expose the windmills across the way and that crane must have been busy under the cloak of the clouds. All the blades are in place and I never got to see if they lift all three at once--which I suspect is the modus operandi--or if they do it one at a time. Guess I'll never know unless I hit one of the breakfast spots (or a gin mill) where the crews hang out.

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As I mentioned this morning, the weather.com folks said we would have a mere 10% chance of rain today and that it would be mostly cloudy. Well, truth be told it hasn't rained, but it's difficult for it to rain when you are either in or above the clouds. Thank goodness the temperature has been hovering between a low of 48 and a high of 52 degrees. If this had happened when the air was around 32 and the surfaces cooler, everything would be coated in ice.

I see that it's supposed to be around 50-55 degrees at Yankee Stadium tonight and no precipitation is expected. Looks like MLB has lucked out for one more night. I look forward to when the Brewers make the World Series and get to play in their new outdoor facility some brisk November evening. Or even for the Rockies to make it into the fall classic. Perhaps they can play it with baseballs colored orange or some other more visible shade. Certainly the fans in the stands will have an abundant supply of blue ones.

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That wasn't a backhoe on the flat bed as I suspected, it was a grader. I know this for a fact because it went to work grading the road in front of the Aerie just a short time ago. It was being followed by the sad sack of a flat bed that it came in on. Probably had to repair the damage to the road the flat bed created while it was spinning its wheels.

As long as the grader makes things flat again, the fleet of loaded dump trucks--which continue to move up and down the hill--will have it packed as hard as any steamroller could possibly ever hope to do.

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The little birds continue to hit the feeders on the deck hard. They were joined today by some Goldfinches, a couple of Purple Finches and a pair of Downy Woodpeckers. I watched the female Downy give the male a lesson in proper etiquette (ladies first, last and always, sucker! and don't you forget it!) and then settle down to wedge a sunflower seed in the cracks between the deck floorboards where she could comfortably peck it open for the kernel inside.

We even had a couple of gray squirrels come up on the deck for some sunflower seeds. This is a bit of a surprise because there's been one heck of a crop of acorns in the woods and I thought the squirrels would still be busy with that harvest. Perhaps they just wanted some variety.

I think I can. I think I can. I th...OH SH*T

I've mentioned before that the Aerie is situated at 2100 feet. I may have also mentioned that the road up to the Aerie is quite steep-especially the last 100 yards up and the 3-400 yards beyond the driveway--hence the need for Terry to have a 4-wheel drive vehicle for those times when the Aveo can't quite make it.

Well, snow and ice are not the only deterrents to travel on that steep stretch. The road is packed clay and gravel, but mostly clay. And when it gets wet....

Not only does it radically change the color of my dark green Tundra and the bright yellow Aveo, giving each a nice shade of tan along their sides, but it becomes slippery as...well...snow or ice.

The dump trucks (which continue to to carry heavy loads up the hill as I type) have little trouble making the grade since they have that spare third pair of tires on the rear and enough gears to down shift sufficiently to create a rumble that causes the earth to quake. But (and there's always a "but") there are some trucks that just can't cope with the conditions. These are usually cargo containers on 18-wheelers or flat beds. Regardless of whatever load they are hauling, the weight is distributed differently and deflected off the drive axles of which there are usually only two directly behind the cab and ahead of the load.

I've watched several 18-wheelers grind their gears and make it just past the driveway only to run out of low gears and come to a halt a few yards up the hill. They then have to back down the hill and try, try again. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they give up.

I saw one give up and park on the side of the road until a bulldozer came down the hill to haul the flat bed the rest of the way up the hill. That truck's engine must have hemorrhaged for it backed (rolled?) down the hill and remained on the side of the road for days. The driver stayed with it for much of the time until one day it was gone.

Today, a flat bed hauling a large backhoe attempted The Hill several times.Each time it would creep past the Aerie and grind to a halt just above our driveway. It would slowly back down the hill to a somewhat leveler area and have another run at it. Three times it tried. Three times it failed. After the third attempt, it backed down and parked along the side of the road. I heard some wheel chocks being moved about and then the backhoe fired up its diesel engine. Then the backhoe climbed the hill to be followed a short time later by the unburdened flat bed looking totally embarrassed.

It all seems so futile for some of these trucks. There are more gentle slopes to the west and east but none as direct as our road. Still, I have to wonder if the wear and tear on the engines, the time lost in multiple attempts, etc. couldn't be better spent in exploring one of those alternate routes.

A Foggy Day at the Aerie

Well, the weather gurus have screwed up again. Sometime after dark, the rain (that wasn't supposed to happen) moved in and fell for a goodly portion of the night. Current statement on weather.com is for cloudy skies but just 10% chance of showers and a visibility of 10 miles. Even the temperature readings are off. They say 54 degrees we have 48. That's not uncommon, however, since we are at 2100 feet and Lord knows where the "official" readings are being taken.

Meanwhile we're sitting in a cloud bank. Visibility may be measured in hundreds of yards--if that. I can't see what's happening across the way with the windmills but I can hear the crane at work. Perhaps when the fog lifts off the hillside they will have finished erecting the third windmill.

Dump truck after dump truck of gravel and stone have been going up the hill for the last two days. There were at least twenty loads yesterday and another twenty this morning. I can hear some grading going on in the distance. They are either working on the road along the mountain ridge or the access roads to the windmills and gas drilling sites after the heavy rains. I'm sure all that water must have turned some of those into quagmires.

[UPDATE: A second caravan of trucks went up the road at 11 AM. Makes me wonder how many I missed yesterday! They are moving mountains, I tell you! Mountains!]

One things for certain, if you run a stone quarry or drive a dump truck in this area, you are making out damn well right now.

Bolt Hole Report, August 15, 2009

The last couple of days saw my buddy Mark and I demolish the front porch, attempt to jack up the front beam of the Bolt Hole and prep for the rebuilding of the porch.



Mark had to leave for a previous commitment Friday and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the demolishing, stacking the old tongue-and-groove flooring in an out of the way place, and burning some of the most rotten and powder post beetle damaged wood you'd ever home to see. (Although when the back shed gets torn down--or more likely falls down--the porch wood will seem like solid oak in comparison.)

Suffice to say, it's been a sweaty, dirty couple of days and there's still a huge, gaping hole where the porch and house meet that affords ready access to the basement for the chipmunks and other critters.



All this hammering and banging has deterred the mice, however. After trapping nine in the first two nights I was here, they haven't bothered the baits.

This morning I hooked up my utility trailer and went down to Lowe's for materials to rebuild the porch. Sheets of AdvanTech, pressure treated 2x6s and 4x4 posts, a bag of mortar and a bag of concrete to patch up the foundation, and all the hardware and fasteners set me back $500. Call it a stimulus to the Lowe's bottom line.

I've got to be heading back to the Aerie for clean clothes, a good meal or two, and some tools before Mark and I can rebuild starting Tuesday.