Garden Statuary???

These are just a few of the bases that we have unearthed while cleaning up the backyard.  We are assuming they were in a flower garden, but the only obvious flowers that we have discovered are the two crocuses near the property line.  I guess that just goes to show you how quickly mother nature reclaims what we think we have altered to our own whims.

Too much to do and not enough time

Spring time is normally a challenging time for me. Work tends to get busier, although this year it would be impossible to be busier at work, since I normally am there for 10 hours a day and still bring work home.  Then at home there is the yard work. I have three flower beds that need to be raked and taken care of, plus the herb garden.  This spring my mom gave me some rhubarb roots because the ones I transplanted from her and my brother two years ago did not survive.  My sister gave me some daylilies. Both needed to be planted right away.  I have seedlings started and normally would have my 20' x 40' vegetable garden manured, forked and planted with the cold hardy crops already.  Not this year!  I just managed to rake all of the flower beds and the front lawn.  Of couse, the lawn needs mowing already too. Mowing wouldn't be such a concern, but I have an old fashioned reel lawn mower (http://www.mowersdirect.com/stories/55-How-to-Pick-the-Perfect-Reel-Lawn-Mower.html). The biggest problem with reel lawn mowers is that the cut grass when it is within a certain range; shorter and it doesn't need it, longer and the blades push it down instead of pulling it in to cut it.  The end result is that I can't ignore my lawn. When it needs mowing, I mow.  I still have the side and back lawn to rake and mow.  Then forking over the vegetable garden is next on my list. I still need to start my warm weather crop seedlings (tomatoes, chili peppers, sweet peppers).  Don't forget the usual: sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the bathroom, dishes, laundry.  Hovering over the list of to-do things at home is always an tigin.  Finding a balance and feeling comfortable about it is proving to be a bit difficult at the moment.  Wish me luck.

The dangers of renovation

Last week Martin ended up getting to an tigin late.  When he went out to his truck to load up and head out, he discovered that he had a flat.  A quick trip to our local and favorite mechanic, Doug DeGroat of DeGroat's Garage, quickly took care of the flat. Of course the flat had been caused by a nail in the tire.  Martin must have picked it up in the driveway of an tigin.  As soon as he arrived at an tigin, he of course got out the super strong magnet and "swept" the driveway for more nails.

Yesterday, however, I loaded up my car bright and early (5:30 a.m.) to head out on my one hour commute to work. I started up the car and headed out of the driveway, only to discover that my low tire pressure light was on.  Suspecting I might be the next victim of a rogue nail, I turned around and swapped out cars. (Thankfully my children are not at home at the moment and there was a spare car sitting in the driveway.)  When I got back home from work, I headed straight to DeGroat's which was a beehive of business. True to his magnanimous self, Doug made time to take care of my tire and presented me with the nail you see above.

The stump that stumped Martin

It all started with those pesky trees in the back yard. They just happened to be in the way of progress and needed to go. Easier said than done. If you've checked out some of the earlier blogs, the two largest trees (pines) didn't fall where they were supposed to.  Then came the problem of removing the stumps.

Martin was determined that he was going to get the stump out today (4/20/2013).  For those of you who know Martin, you will understand my dismay when he decided this after we had been working at an tigin for a few hours moving topsoil by shovel and wheelbarrow.  I knew that we wouldn't be heading home for a well deserved break until the stump was no more.

So he hooked up a come-along to the stump and to a tree at the back of the property. "To put a little pressure on the stump," was Martin's reasoning.Then he tried to push it over with the bucket of the backhoe.  It wouldn't even budge.

A few bounces on the pry bar didn't seem to help, so he tried chopping the roots with the ax.

Then he got the big guns out and attacked the roots with the chain saw.

He chopped the last stubborn roots with the ax.

The stump was out! If it had only known how stubborn Martin can be, it wouldn't have tried to hold on quite so long.

Genie in a bottle

We dug this bottle up with the backhoe.  It is impressive to think that it was buried for years and then unearthed by a backhoe, yet it has survived in remarkably good condition.  It is 5 and 1/2 inches tall and has "FOSS' 2 oz. FL.

Liquid Fruit Flavors

Portland, ME

Standard Quality

Full Strength"

written on it.

With a little bit of on line research, we found out that the bottle contained flavored extracts and was produced between 1870 and 1930. (http://www.etsy.com/listing/97639945/foss-2-oz-fl-liquid-fruit-flavors) It was bottled in Maine by a company that still exists. (http://www.schlotterbeck-foss.com/)

You go girl!

Nancy got her first lesson in how to use a backhoe. 

I got to practice digging up blackberry roots before I had the pleasure of digging a trench along the side of the house.  It was an interesting experience, sort of like riding a bucking bronco.

Spring has arrived

Unfortunately along with the two crocuses that popped up on the property, the blackflies have also realized that spring is here. It was nice to see a bit of color and we are hoping we didn't bury any additional crocuses under the tire pyramid.  It wasn't nice to see the first few blackflies!

Martin's new toy

 Yeah, we have a backhoe on site.  This is Martin's new toy, a towable backhoe.  Regular, expensive, fancy backhoes either fasten to tractors that allow you to move them around or they have the capability to move. A towable backhoe basically only digs. You can move small distances (inches) by pushing or pulling with the bucket. It isn't possible to scoop up a bucketful of soil and drive the backhoe to where you want to dump the soil.  So not only did we spend the day digging out roots, but shoveling topsoil into a wheelbarrow and moving it to an out of the way location.

Stumps and roots

 If you look at the photos in Week Seven, you'll see the piles of roots that we took out this week.  Well here they are all loaded up and ready to haul out. We still have the two bit pine stumps and their attached roots and a couple of smaller tree stumps/roots to get out, but this is most of the stumps and roots from the yard.

All prepped for the backhoe

As far as we know, all of the junk is out of the woods and back yard.  The back yard and side yards are raked and ready.  Our next step is to get the backhoe to an tigin and start removing roots, piling topsoil off to the side out of the way, and digging along the "foundation" of the house.

Comments

Hey All,

It was brought to my attention that commenting was not a simple straight forward thing to do. I tried to access comments myself not using my google account and realized that commenting was very limited.  I've opened up the ability to comment.  If you weren't able to comment earlier, you should be able to comment under anonymous.

The Cornish Water District told us how to find the valve that we need to find to be able to turn on the water to the house. We don't really need to know where it is right now, but eventually we do.  So finding the valve became a project today (4/13/13).  Measuring the distance off of the utility pole (there are two right next to each other (both have the same numer and we figured we needed to measure of the older of the two) and measuring off of the corner of the front porch (which is going to be torn down soon), we found the spot where the water valve is buried.  The Water District had no idea how deep it would be, since it hasn't been accessed in over 15 years.  Here's a glimpse of the hole we have so far, about 2 and a 1/2 feet deep and still no water valve.  A metal detector might be the thing we really need!

Nothing like the Egyptian pyramids

Thanks to our two high school student volunteers, all of the tires from the barn and the woods have been dragged and rolled to the edge of our property and stacked.  Martin was the one who wanted a pyramid to make the stack more stable and less likely to fall.  Nothing like having to restack old tires because they weren't stacked right the first time.  An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.

Have you ever seen a nibbed scarf joint in a sill?

As Martin removed the base of the chimney he exposed the sill only to discover that it wasn't one piece across the whole house. To prevent further movement he has braced it.  Also, on closer inspection, the front sill also has a nibbed scarf joint and there is a carry beam across the center of the house, which has a scarf joint and has definitely moved, creating a hump in the middle of the floor.

It was rotten, it was rotten, it was rotten just now

Martin has torn out all of the interior walls, except this one.  This used to be the exterior wall, but then the kitchen addition was put on and it became the wall between the main house and the kitchen.  We'd love to take this wall out too, but can't yet because it is trying to support the roof.  The original studs were nearly completely rotten so it wasn't really supporting much.  Martin has used some of the recycled lumber from the demolition to reinforce the wall.  Once the kitchen addition is torn down, this will become the exterior wall again, temporarily.

Empty oil tank

We finally got the oil tank emptied!  The wall behind it is the joint wall with the kitchen addition. Now that the oil tank is out of the way, the kitchen addition can be removed.  Well as soon as Martin shores up the barn.

I love snow

Normally, I love snow. Currently the only reason I can think of, for loving snow, is that it (or the temperature that comes with snow) is keeping the black flies at bay.  I know both are temporary.

If you have never experienced a black fly (that's a joke because black flies never arrive individually), then I'm not sure how to express how awful they can be.  I'm hoping for a light black fly year.  Black flies in the northeast and New England are tiny.  They are a biting insect and fly in swarms. They are attracted to heat or carbon dioxide or something.  Black flies love me and don't notice that Martin is alive much less just a few feet away from me.  I think black flies have contests to see how many can fly up my nose, into my eyes, and in my ears. They also seem to be impervious to bug spray.  The other irritating habit they have is they will land on the collar of your shirt and then crawl just inside your shirt to bite you.  They are determined little buggers!

However, the snow this year is slowing down progress at an tigin.  It is difficult to rake when the leaves and pine needles are under snow. It is difficult to pick up trash that is hidden by the snow. It is also frustrating to cut brush and limbs while the snow on them is melting and dripping on you. I've been alternating using a couple pairs of gloves because they soak through so quickly.

The saving grace is that spring snow doesn't last long.

Foundation within a foundation

After Martin removed the joists from the kitchen addition, he dug out and removed most of the bricks that were the base of the chimney (he only stopped because he was running out of support post and didn't want to have that section of the wall collapse).  In the process of digging it became obvious that there was the remnants of a fieldstone foundation, which is not the full length of the house and narrower than the most recent addition.  Part of the foundation was incorporated into the back wall of the kitchen addition and part of the foundation is under the original outside wall of the house.  Our best guess is, that at some time after the original house was built, an addition was put on. The water line comes into the house within this older foundation, so this might have been the original kitchen addition (that was expanded at some later date) and put on to incorporate the new water line, or this might have been the original kitchen foundation and the owners decided to have the running water piped into it.

if only the price of scrap metal were higher......

If we had sold all of the scrap metal that we have found on the property, we might have recouped the purchase price.  Well if scrap metal prices were a bit better...Okay, a whole lot better.  Don't forget, we've already recycled two very full (and if you know Martin, when I say "very full" it is an understatement) pick up loads of metal already.  This metal take is from this week's excavations.

 I'm trying to convince Martin that this sign might make a great decoration for the barn.  He isn't biting.

Behind the scenes

This is the awkward time to blog about an tigin (the wee house).  The work we are doing isn't dramatic enough to show up well in pictures. It's the "behind the scenes" work.  I could write a long litany of jobs that need to be done and take before and after pictures, but, honestly, I don't want to bore you that much.

At this stage, Martin is trying to figure out several things.  How do we get rid of the big stumps that we are now left with in the back yard before we start digging the septic system.  Where do we put the wood and then the soil when we dig.  They both need to stay on our property, the tiny postage stamp size that it is, and not be in the way. How do we go about jacking up the house to dig the basement and put in a foundation.

Another quandary is that the barn is attached to the house. To dig the foundation, we need to have room completely around the house.  Meaning we have to detach the barn from the house. The problem is that structurally the east side of the barn that is attached to the house is in very, very bad shape.  We don't mind tearing it down, but we want to keep the west side of the barn intact.  How do you remove half a barn without really affecting the other half?

Good news though, a neighbor stopped by yesterday (4/10/2013) and offered to help us jack up the house in preparation for digging the basement and pouring the foundation.  He also said that he has a contact where we can reasonably rent I-beams to support the house while we raise it.

Lastly, we need to start figuring out our footprint size and floor plan.  We aren't planning on making the house any wider (it is an entire 20 feet across).  With the kitchen addition, which Martin will be tearing down soon, the length of the house is 28 feet (the original 20 feet plus the 8 foot addition).  We can make it longer, but need to consider the overall looks, proportions, etc.  We'd love to have floor plan suggestions!  Our goal is to have two stories. The main floor containing kitchen, dining room, living room, 3/4 bath with washer and drier and possibly a small family room/guest bedroom. We would like to keep this floor as open as possible, giving the wee house a bit roomier feeling.
The second floor containing master bedroom and possibly a 1/2 bath (washer/dryer could be here instead of downstairs). We need to locate stairs going to the second floor and to the basement.

Finally Free

The couch behind the barn isn't frozen to the ground anymore. It is headed out of here along with the armchair as soon as possible.

The nail pail continues to fill up

Martin has been pulling nails again and adding them to the nail pail.  

Ha Ha The joke is on us

And we thought we were finished with the junk removal part of the project. Not only are we finding more boards, tin roof, car wheels, broiler pans, roofing shingles, paint cans, etc. in the back yard, but a quick look into the woods at the back of the property has turned up quite a bit more stuff for removal.