Is it an azalea?

New things are blooming at an tigin.  This poor, neglected bush is in the hedgerow between an tigin and the neighbor to our west.  The hedgerow was cut back to the property line by the high school volunteers (as instructed) before anything was leafed out much less in bloom. It doesn't really resemble those beautifully cared for bushes I am seeing everywhere, but I can't identify it as any other possibility.
What do you think? Is it an azalea or do you have another idea of what kind of blooming bush it could be?

On a roll again

Martin is back in action.  He is feeling better, the rain has stopped (at least temporarily), and my son's graduation is behind us.  Martin spent this exceptionally warm (in the mid 80s) day tearing off the crumbling roofing shingles and tearing out the rotten rafters and sheathing.

Looks like we will have a few days of decent weather for him to continue working outside.

Preparation for demolition

Now that Martin doesn't feel like he is dying, isn't having coughing fits, and can work for more than 2 hours without needing a nap, he spent the day at an tigin.  He has reinforced the barn roof.  He will be climbing up on the roof soon to strip off the shingles and take off the rotten sheathing.  He will then tear  out the wall between the barn and the kitchen addition.  To temporarily keep weather out of the barn, he's going replace the rotten sheathing with recycled boards from the house and cover it with 5 mil. polythene and battens.  The walls are going to be cobbled together with old saved, recycled doors and boards from the house.

Why is the scrap metal always gone?

Finally we managed to load up and haul off the scrap metal pile. (So much for rebuilding the car that was buried in pieces in the yard.)  Martin loaded it up recently and then took it to be recycled.

Martin is keeping the oil tank.  He has plans, but hasn't shared them with me yet.  He is probably worried that I am going to veto his plan.

Spring Colds

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  Martin and I both have been under the weather with head colds.  It is probably my fault and I blame my job.

I love my job.  I teach Deaf and hard of hearing students Kindergarten through twelfth grade.  No two days are alike!  I'm in three different schools every day and regularly visit two more schools.  One of the best parts of my job is working with Kindergarteners. They are such a breath of fresh air.  They are so excited to be in school and love trying new things.  They also are very loving and a day doesn't go by when I don't get bombarded with hugs.  The problem with Kindergarteners is that their immune systems are building up a tolerance to all of the germs they are exposed to in Kindergarten, so they tend to get sick more often than older students.  The other problem is that they are less aware of how to prevent the spread of germs and illness. They don't cover up when they sneeze.  They are not fastidious hand washers and tissue users.  The combination of lack of germ control and lots of hugs has lead to me being sicker than usual this year.  Martin has faired better until this round. Unfortunately, I think I shared this time.

So while I am still dragging myself to work because it is impossible to get a substitute to do my job, Martin has been at home resting, trying to recover, and chafing at the bit to get to an tigin. The next project that he gets to do is tear off the kitchen addition.  He also has plans for the rotten side of the barn. It needs to be dealt with so we have room for the backhoe to get in and dig out the basement.  He was hoping to get that done by the beginning of June.

The nice thing about the work at an tigin is that it will be there when we have a chance to get to it.  The house and the work aren't going anywhere. We don't live there, so we aren't under pressure to get it livable again.

Commenting on comments

Some of you are continuing to have difficulty publishing comments. To try to facilitate the process, I checked out my blog and went through the process of posting a comment.

To start with, when you are looking at a post that you would like to comment on, click on the Comments at the bottom of the post. The "Comments" link will indicate how many comments have already been posted.

Once you have clicked on Comments a text box will be available for you to type your comment in.  When you've said what you need to, click on select profile.  If you do not have an account with any of the choices listed, pick anonymous.  Then click publish.  You may get a security item where you have to type in a series of letters and the click publish again.

Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

no butts please

Each top plate at an tigin has a butt joint somewhere on the wall.  This one is part of the west wall, one of the walls that is bowed out.

the leg bone connects to the knee bone

Martin and I have been joking about all of the scrap metal and auto parts we have been finding.  From tires and batteries in the woods to headlamps and windshields (well shattered pieces of a windshield).   As we dig and move top soil, we are constantly finding more bits and bobs of cars.  We figure that if we had saved everything, we could have put an entire car back together. It probably wouldn't have passed inspection (or actually run), but it  would have been a whole car.

Along with finding car parts, we have also been regularly digging up bones. At first we thought it was just bones given to the neighbors' or the previous owners' pets.  Bones that had been gnawed and thoroughly enjoyed before being buried somewhere in the back yard. However, as we keep digging, we are finding more bones and more unique bones. Ones that don't look like a typical dog treat.  We figure that if we had kept all of the bones we had found so far, we would be able to wire them together to make a skeleton. I'm not sure what creature the final skeleton would be, something from another planet probably.  

The Junker

As I was up to my neck in the hole that leads to China when a man in a truck stopped by.  He hopped out of the truck and asked if I had any old tires I wanted to get rid of.  I pointed to the tire pyramid and told him to help himself.  On the way to the pyramid, he asked about the pile of scrap metal. I informed him that we would be taking care of it ourselves.  Then he spotted the pallet that I had been using to cover the hole to China. "Can I have the pallet? I'm a junker."  I politely told him that he was welcome to any tires, but nothing else was up for grabs.

He grabbed all of the tires that he could fit into his pick up truck.  He had to fit them around the very rusty 55 gallon drum that was already in the bed of the truck.  He must have come back for another load or two, because this is all that is left of our tire pyramid.

Mountain out of a molehill

Friday, April 19, 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Sunday, April 21, 2013

We had our two student volunteers helping out again.  The pulled roots and moved top soil with us today.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Sunday, May 5, 2013

nice surprises

I spotted the creeping phlox and grape hyacinth today.  Nice to see that some more of the original flower garden survived. Both flowers are near the edge of the property.  The phlox is along the back near the woods and the grape hyacinth is on the same side as the crocuses, but closer to the back of the property.  I think I spotted some lily of the valley coming up and possibly a day lily. I'll keep you posted.

Curioser and curioser

As I was having fun playing with the backhoe last week, I ran across this pipe.  it is about 8 inches away from the back of the kitchen wall.  It seems firmly rooted in the ground, which makes me think that it is attached to something deeper down.  We were told that the kitchen sink drained into a barrel that is buried somewhere in the backyard (presumably close to the house).  Is it possible that this is an air vent for the barrel?  

My other thought is that possibly it goes down to a well that was used before the town hooked up water.  I'm not sure when Cornish provided town water for everyone, but I am fairly certain it wasn't 91 years ago. The original owners of the house must have had a well.  Could this pipe have been attached to a hand pump?  Considering it is just outside the kitchen, it would have been handy to step out to get water.  The scary part of that idea is that is is only a few (10ish) feet from the current outhouse.  Not a pleasant thought.  However, if the original outhouse had been further out in the backyard (a safer distance away from the water source), then when the occupants of the house switched over to town water, they could have moved the outhouse closer.

Vacation in China

I had the pleasure of trying to convince several passers-by today that I was in need of a vacation so I thought I would dig my way to China.  I don't think I had any luck in persuading them that I really was headed to China via this hole.

The water valve is still as elusive as ever.  As you can see, the whole is wider and deeper than it was in the last post (The Cornish Water District told us how to find the valve) and I don't feel like I am any closer to finding it.  If this goes on much longer, I'll make another call to the water district.

No more rotten floor

Well at least in this section of the barn the rotten floor has been removed.  This is where the oil tank used to be. The floor underneath was frozen when we hauled the tank out. It was also very rotten and dangerous, so Martin thought it was a priority to get it out of there before someone's foot went through.

Any Guesses?

A while ago, Martin discovered a bunch (around 40) bricks in the barn.  They are about the size of a firebrick, but exceptionally light and very crumbly.  We took them to family and friends trying to figure out what they were.  No one seemed to know. One guess was a pumice stone for cleaning large cast iron griddles.  That could have made sense if there was only one, but since we had nearly 4 dozen....

We debated what to do with them.  They were too soft to build with. We didn't want to just throw them away; we had already discarded so much and it just felt too wasteful.

Finally I decided to do a web search to see if I could figure out what they were.

And sure enough, I did. 

They are pottery kiln fire bricks.

I approached the art teachers in the high school where I work and asked if they might have a use for them.  The art teachers were thrilled.  Not only can they possibly use them in the kiln, but they can definitely use them for teaching carving.

We were so excited that we could donate them to the school. A happy ending for all involved.

New home found

The canoe that had been abandoned in the woods behind an tigin is on its way to a new home.  The poor canoe is in need of tender loving care, but may be too far gone to be resuscitated. There is a good chance we may end up putting it out of its misery.

Now we really don't have an outhouse

Originally when we first looked at the property, we thought the barn was in better shape than the house. Then on closing day, Martin went to an tigin only to discover that with above freezing temperatures the snow on the barn roof was melting, which made the leaky, rotten roof obvious.  As the weather has slowly (very slowly) improved, we've realize that the "solid" floor was solid only because it was frozen.  So Martin has begun to remove the rotten flooring (including the outhouse step and seat - also rotten).  

 It was then that Martin discovered the "outhouse" really wasn't built to contain much volume.  There is a granite block only a few inches below ground level.  Kinda scary when you think about it.  We are hoping that the original outhouse had been located somewhere else on the property and this one was added more recently. ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Outhouse/ )