New Stove

Finally in! After the old one, this is pretty wild. It is self-feeding, self-igniting, entirely automatic. To the left is the old aperture, very neatly filled in by Jo. The vertical chimney promises to vent better during a power outage than the old side stack, and the draft is controlled automatically.

Fimbulvinter

On Thursday, 18 October, as I was changing the oil on the Honda, I noticed a fine dusting of tiny ice pellets. The following Saturday, I changed the tires on all three cars. The snowstorm on the night of Tuesday the 23^rd caught many people by surprise and there were traffic delays and closures. Overnight on Saturday the 27^th we had an ice storm. One of the lilacs split, a branch was torn from the white pine by the drive way, two young larches were bowed over—and the Internet connection is down. Not even my cell data connection works.

It is 10:23, and the internet is back--for now! It has been out for three hours. I'm surprised to find it has been restored so quickly; the power lines have a substantial coating of ice. The strong winds kept this frozen, even as the temperature climbed; now the winds have died down and the ice is melting again.

Red, Red Apples

The apple tree in the front garden is remarkable; the apples are blazing red every autumn. This little snap doesn't do them justice.

Early Winter

It snowed yesterday, but it seemed unthreatening. It resumed this morning. By 7:00 it was coming down in very large flakes. By 7:50, it had accumulated on the roads to such an extent that they were treacherous. Under a thick layer of slush was sheer ice, and the van lost traction repeatedly. The 45-minute commute took one hour and 35 minutes, though much of the time was lost at the bridge. There must have been an accident; certainly there were a few cars that slipped off the road, and a number that were simply parked, for no clear reason, on the shoulder. SUVs. This is early for such weather. Not a good sign!

Whopping Big Crane

This was supposed to be about trees, but home renovations keep intruding. Here, we position the new pellet stove--with a two-ton shop crane.

I think I'm going to like this new tool.

Winding Down for the Winter

The eaves and north wall project is over for the year. I'll be painting it again in the summer to try and cover up the VERY prominent knotholes, but other than that the wall is ready for the bad weather. Now it is time to turn our attention to the garage, the remaining blight on the landscape.

Eaventually

Here is a job that has hung over us for 17 years: the eaves on the NE side of the house. We demolished 16 feet of rotten wall and the eaves went with it. Then we hastily tacked up some vinyl siding . . . and left it. Later we added two windows by the admirable expedient of cutting holes in the vinyl. This is the final reckoning, which will see the construction of new eaves and the replacement of the vinyl with proper clapboard. As I started putting up the third level of scaffolding, I nudged the eaves above the cellar entrance. A large number of curious but not immediately aggressive wasps emerged to size up the situation.

I was holding a scaffolding frame at the time: I dropped it over the side and bailed, escaping without injury. When I returned, I was armed with suitable sprays (visible on the platform in the image to the left). I made the main supports out of simple triangles cut from a 10" plank. The back of the house is post and beam, and the rafters terminate at the top plate, so there is no communication between the eaves and the peak. The project went fairly smoothly once the wasps were out of the way. I wasn't really surprised by their presence--since 2000, when we demolished and rebuilt the NE wall, the top end of the eaves above the cellar entrance have been exposed. Late in the project, I discovered various irregularities in the line of the roof edge had led me astray, but I'm used to that. I don't expect straight lines!

In the end, the open conduit which allowed the wasps to make a home was closed. This was probably a route for the odd squirrel as well as the wasps. Now it's down with the old vinyl and up with new clapboard.