Friday 30 June 2017

Slow Growth

It is the end of June and the new growth is a little disappointing. It's visible, of course, but for this time of year there should be much more. The trees along the path's edge have a laughable increase.

 Fir is usually quite explosive in June.
They haven't lacked moisture this season, so I think the main factor has been insolation. Dark days, dark days and cold....

Tidying Up

Here is the area cleaned up a bit--ready for the new water heater. The knee wall and footing neatly conceal the undermined foundation, though you can plainly see the state of it by looking a little to the right of the pour.

Thursday 29 June 2017

From the Ground Up

You can see that originally, the bottom few courses of stone were backfilled and buried. They used splatching compound on the exposed stone.

When the joists and northeast sill rotted, they probably dug it some two feet deeper. Unfortunately, this destabilized the stone wall. Rocks have been dropping out of the lower courses for years.




You can see the gaps where incoming  water has carried away the small debris between the stones. With the backfill gone, there was nothing to retain it. Having excavated the fill in this section between the centre footing and the wall buttress, I poured a small slab (6" thick, web of 0.5" rebar) and then set up a form to pour a knee wall.

I ran braces to the nearest mainbeam post and to a joist (to prevent the form from bulging, which it did anyway). It was an awful pour. I had to use a bucket for the top half of the form, lifting and dumping 15 loads of concrete at about 65 pounds each. I constantly whacked my head on that drain pipe.


The knee wall came out reasonably well, all things considered. There's a vicious slash from a screw that I could not back out of the form, but otherwise, it's not bad.








I left lots of rebar jutting out for the next section. The slab was considerably disfigured with spill from the pour, but it was fairly easy to scrape it off with the pickaxe. The new water heater will be placed on the slab, just to the right of the pump and tank. It's a level, dry, and solid platform--unlike the hunk of shale on which the present heater stands.

Thursday 15 June 2017

Foundations

The last week has been devoted to fundamental matters. I dragged home 55 bags (at 55lbs each) of concrete mix, and we put it in the basement using the ever-handy fish tub. What will I do when it finally breaks? The best present, in practical terms, my father ever gave me was this product of his beach-combing. After lots of pickaxe work, and lots of winching out tubs of gravel (Jo bravely went down in the cellar, in spite of rock walls being the favoured abode of you-know-what), I was ready to pour this nice 16-inch footing.

One day--not soon, but one day--this chaos of damp clay and shale will be just a happy memory. Note to self: don't ever buy rebar at THAT PLACE again--double the fair price.

All Weathers

We not only experience a huge variety of weather over a week, but we also have quite a range during a single day. The temperature has risen above 30 and fallen below 10, just in the last few days. And this afternoon, amidst alternating sun and cloud, we had a rainbow.  It's been a funny season for trees, so far. I actually cut down one of our "pets," the white pine at the front. It was badly damaged over the winter; this, together with the very severe pruning I gave it last fall made it quite hideous. Boris chopped it down with an axe! Not to be outdone, Lucy chopped another mangled pine, the one along the east line, also with an axe. The red oak is looking rather peaked as well, and I can see a woodpecker has been at it. Its days may be numbered. So may Ollie's; he has a massive growth on his chest. He is not in any discomfort, though, and as vigorous as ever. He's about 9 now. Abbie and Frey are 13.