Ranging

One can't work on the house and grounds all the time. I found a little time to put together the long-anticipated target range. It is just a target on a pair of clotheslines, but it's fun. The kids were here, and they proved to be excellent shots. It is really too short for air rifle with scope, but to extend it I will have to do significant chainsaw work. In time, no doubt I will. For now, it was another of those quick and fun projects.

June: Excavations

Although the bathroom and kitchen were the main focus of the spring, June involved quite a number of projects featuring the workshop cellar, that hideous space of darkness and decay. I opened up the boarded-up window on the driveway side and put in the ramp from the house cellar; Lucy and I used this to haul several fish buckets of wet gravel up using the low-rider cart.

I replaced the temporary carry beam (after a post kicked out and hit me in the face) with a permanent one: 6 by 6, pressure treated. It is supported on jackposts bedded in deck blocks.

I also installed a vent fan with magnetically closed vanes; this required a new window frame. I hope this will reduce the dampness, though the only real solution is to pour a concrete slab and put in a large, permanent sump pump basin.













I haven't done that yet, but I did re-dig the sump pit and install a temporary sump basin; the permanent one will require MUCH more digging.

Spring

Spring arrived at last--very late. The contrast is remarkable: just three weeks ago everything was snowbound, dead, and white. Now it's all green again, the annual miracle given added force by the late and savage storms of the previous season.

Visitor

A little bird dropped by. Plump little fellow--looks like a black-capped chickadee. We don't usually find them on the sunporch windowsills.

May Flowers?

Yet another record-breaking storm! I finished installing the new bathroom sink (and I must say, it was brutal. It is hard to believe anyone who has ever installed a sink had anything to do with either the vanity or the tapset. Madness!), and then went to the village. The roads were at their worst--I don't think they were ever this bad in January or February. I saw several sets of skid marks leading to the ditch, and even a street sign that had been knocked down--it was propped up against a power pole.

Brief Respite

It really looks as though we could have an early Spring--the snow has retreated so much that you can see the debris we hurled out of the bathroom window during the renovation! Overall, we have received relatively little snow; it is pretty thin on the ground in the woods. I recall that the first few years here (about 23 years ago now) were quite dry, so much so that our well pump was always on the verge of sucking air. Perhaps we are in for another hot, dry summer.

April Snows

High winds sent me scurrying from my bed to shut the garage doors last night. This morning, I woke up to this. Throughout the morning, heavy THUMPS told me that it's warming up outside. The snow slides off the roof and crashes down--quite a bit of it for a LATE APRIL FLURRY!
Down with snow!