the mud room is framed in

Martin has the mud room framed in. He needs to frame in for the windows and storm door.

we have electricity

 Central Maine Power, the local electric company, arrived and hooked the electric cable up to the power lines. 

Martin has access to one outlet in the basement for electricity. He doesn't need to run the generator any more.

driveway regrade done, for now

vintage gas range

We went to my mom's for Thanksgiving. We started our trip after refilling the electric and water trench. Taking time to try to refill the trench delayed our departure to my mom's and we ended up driving several hours in the winter storm with a night spent in a hotel. We made it to my mom's Thanksgiving morning.

So Friday morning Martin and I (mostly Martin) loaded this lovely Oriole gas range into the back of his truck. It will need to be refurbished. The back and bottom are very rusty. It needs cleaning up and the oven, broiler, and warming oven need to be cleaned up too.

The challenging thing is that the range doesn't seem to have pilot lights and the oven doesn't seem to have a pilot light or thermometer. It will take some practice to learn how to use it well enough to do any baking.

regrading the driveway

Along with the front and side yards, the driveway slopes from the road toward the house and barn. We need to raise the grade. Because it is the driveway, we didn't want to raise it with only sand. Martin is hauling rocks. Those rocks were the foundation of the original kitchen addition, which we hauled and piled on the property line in the back yard. Now we get to haul them into the driveway and then cover them with gravel.

 We've made progress. The driveway is up to the grade that we want across its entire width and from the garage even with the mudroom foundation. The more rocks we haul, the less material we need to buy and have trucked in.

Unfortunately, the winter storm that arrived the day before Thanksgiving, has buried the driveway and the rock pile. Martin is spending today digging out and assessing if he can continue to make driveway regrade progress.