Catching Up

It has been a long dry spell, both in posting and in fact: the Crick dried up in May and stayed that way until the heavy rains of the last week. As usual, I can't really account for the time--few deeds of merit come to mind, though we did finally finish a long contemplated task: restoring the bay window foundation. Jo dug in fits and starts throughout the summer. Eventually even Susan and I joined in, and it was more or less ready for the footing stage.

The footing was quite massive, and well strengthened with rebar. I realized that at full depth, the stone foundation no longer matched the outline of the bay window. Several of the short walls disappeared. This was to be a challenge for the rest of the project.

After much muddling, I had the forms in place, bedded on the footing and braced to the house wall. I built a platform for the mixer and dumped mainly into the centre of the bay, moving the mix into the left and right corners. This was pretty hard work, even though we were using the comparatively light 55lb bags of readymix. Jo used the tractor and trailer to ferry the bags over as I needed them. The pace increased as we went along and the sun sank in the West. This was the 22nd of October and the days were already getting shorter.

We brought the concrete up to within a few inches of the top of the stone foundation wall, and urged the mixture into the many large gaps and voids. The wind used to rush through this and up into the living room, making the floor so cold that any water splash from the Christmas tree froze to the floorboards at once. We're hoping this will not only stabilize the foundation at this point but make the house dramatically more weather tight.

 For the most part the pour went smoothly, though one corner did end up angling out considerably more than I had intended. This is not just the perspective: it really did end up pushing out far. Never mind; a blind man would be glad to see it. I was a little hesitant about removing the forms, but in the end it was quite smooth without any great air gaps.





Next, we will pump expanding foam into any remaining gaps in the exposed stone. Then we will cover the whole area with flashing, glue sheets of rigid foundation foam to the concrete, and extend the flashing below the grade--then backfill!

Visitor

After the rains finally came again late in September, I was surprised to find this visitor clamped to the back door. He seems confused, and well he might be. At first, the summer was cold and rainy. Then it went dry and cold, and dry and hot. Not only the Crick but Panama dried up, from June to October, a record stretch. People began speculating about mass die-offs of trees. Then the rains started in the autumn, and soon we had reached something very much like the average rainfall for the period.

Founding Fathers

I've been reading Bill Bryson's book At Home, in which he describes the enormous difficulties of obtaining basic building supplies in North America. Washington actually imported both mortar and building stone from England! Well, this foundation was laid more than a century later, but by the look of it, Howard Elgee still had trouble getting decent materials. The stone is certainly local, and entirely uncut. The "mortar" is more like plaster or roughcast. It can fill in gaps but it has little adherence and no strength. Most of it came away when I hit it with the hose. The concrete will fill in the gaps.

Requiescat in pace, Ollie

Beloved lunatic and a fighter until the very end.
Troublesome though he was, I will miss him.

Seedlings Grow Up

Joanne took a nice cellphone picture of the ash recently, and I realized our little seedlings are growing up. We must have planted about 6000 trees, and some, at least, are maturing nicely. In fact, Jo recently went after the cedars on the NE side of the house and cut them back severely--and we are taking out some badly sited trees that are threatening power lines. We have gone from a flat wasteland to a little grove, one that needs thinning. Tempus fugit.

Markland Estates

While visiting Boris in Nova Scotia, we happened upon what seems to be a failed development on a peninsula near Cape Forchu Lightstation. There were roads, building lots had been cleared, and power lines had been extended--but no houses! There even a grandiose entrance celebrating the developer. . . .
The trees were in deplorable condition, as they tend to be along the coast.

Back Outside

It was good to spend time topside once again, after a couple of weekends in the cellar. It will never be a pleasant setting, but at least there are some corners of it that are bearable now. Here's our little flower, Ollie, under the rose bush, with Frey charging up from behind, jealous because I'm not taking HIS picture.

The sky was especially busy today. Great dark patches of cloud would rush across, and then a few minutes of sun would follow--then more clouds. The Crick has dried up completely, in spite of the copious rain!