Report on Siding and Stone for sink

The past two weeks (or is it three?) lots of coming and going into the city.   Lots of city walking, visits, meals, and visits to Occupy Wall Street.  I'll try to fill out that in one of these days--but suddenly things have begun to happen here in New Jersey (of course things have been happening all along, but today lots of forward motion.    Johnny and George have replaced all rotting beams, put up insulation and are finally getting the siding up on the back of the house.  This part goes quickly--not much more to go.

I was racing around myself.  After very productive two days with Sarah (Friday and Saturday), plans for the bathroom are finally falling into place.   We drove each day to Thompson Stone in Montague, about a 20 mile drive.  I found it on the web, but George confirmed it was the only proper stone yard in the area (not to be confused with Polowy Stones, across the way, which sells landscaping stones, not counter tops.

We were looking for a stone to put on top of the little chest that had been in the dining room that we're using as the base for our sink.  Sarah tells me that this is the kind of data that I should be reporting on.  This is almost the first project that we're embarking on inside the house (after all the massive cleaning and throwing out) so here goes.   When I was putting in the new bathroom in my Venice House, I'd bought an old desk at Goodwill to which we attached a piece of leftover soapstone from the kitchen counters, topped with a basin.  Looks great, but truth be told, not the most efficient or practical.  I myself (much to Sarah and Sam's chagrin) much prefer to use the older bathroom--but so be it.

looks like a little robot, no?

Inspired by that model, and assuming we could overcome its inadequacies second time around, we instantly decided to use the little chest as a base.

After two trips to Thompson Stone, we chose a quite lovely slab of green granite --Costa Esmeralda or Costa Smeralda.   Each piece is different, but it looks something like this.

The next task is to bring the sink and fixtures to the stone yard where they'll cut and polish the stone to fit.  We'll also have to remove the bit of wood on top (maybe it could be a shelf).  Planning to do that on Wednesday.

Lots of rain---very bold bears.

Poured rain all day today.  I was the only worker, carrying on my dreary scraping chores.

The house is now water-tight.  There was not one leak--though the drain pipe in the back--not yet fastened down, makes a fabulous rattle as the rains pour down.

And--as a special bonus, glancing out the front window, late in the afternoon, after a long quiet day--two black bears (only one made it into this photo) just inches from the front porch.  This picture is taken from behind the screen door--they kept walking from the house, so later pictures aren't as close or dramatic (here you can see the little bear nose)

siding, scraping, dumpster awaiting

I am not the most adept or efficient scraper--but I do keep at it.  After many hours, it does seem like the ceiling is almost free of its many many layers of paint.  Oh there has been a lot of it...oh I wrote this days ago--but will post it now--I've made a bit more progress on the ceiling--but this gives the general idea.
While I scraped, George and Johnny continued to  pull off the old siding, frame and trim the windows and put up insulation --all preparation for putting up the new siding.

Ray finished taking out the ceiling that had soaked through in the "new room."   Keith, the dumpster champion was bringing over a 10 yard dumpster, but he arrived later than expected, so Ray left before dumpster loading time.   He brought the moldy wet ceiling fragments to the front yard and piled them along the bits of old porch columns that George had replaced earlier in the week.

The dumpster arrived just as George and Johnny were leaving, and once everyone was gone, I did the righteous work of moving the wet ceiling tiles into the dumpster so they wouldn't soak into the soil with the predicted rain.

Sun is shining! Some signs of siding! More bear sightings!

Thursday night.  The sun has shone for the past two days--but to herald the end of summer the temperature drops dramatically at night.  The sun sets earlier, and the nights are too long and cold in this big old house.

That said, the last two days have been splendid.  Wednesday morning with sun shining and Johnny and George working on trim and siding, I began the day with coffee and boiling potatoes, eggs and green beans for the salad I'd decided to make (to celebrate the sun and also visit of Margie who was driving out from the city).  Even in that dreadful underground kitchen I was so happy cooking that I even sauteed apples with a bit of sugar and walnuts to have with ice cream for dessert.

I had put a long overdue load in the washing machine (I"d been waiting for sun so I could line-dry), and hung my full wardrobe out to dry.

I was clearly on a productive roll.  This year, I've done very little around the house beyond some minimal scraping and lawn-mowing.  Last year I'd spent days cleaning and taking load after load to the dump, but this year, I've felt (maybe this is not quite true) that the major structural work had to be done before I could really begin to do things inside.

semi-sraped ceiling

But with lunch and clean laundry waiting, and Margie arriving in a few hours, I was inspired to scrape the ceiling in the eventually-to-be-screened-in porch.  Ray, who had finished the scraping of the front door and was priming it had done a bit of ceiling scraping (George had done some last year).  It is work that everyone hates.

Scraping the floor and the walls had been really difficult, but much of the ceiling paint was almost flaking off on its own.  It's unpleasant work as the flakes and dust (most certainly full of lead) fall all over you--hair, eyes, mouth, etc., but it does come off.  Standing on the ladder, I'm tall enough to scrape, but not tall enough (or perhaps not strong enough) to get a good angle to scrape up the bits that don't flake off.  Nonetheless, I managed to remove pounds of scrapings--doing my bit for home improvement.

The first round of siding is up on the back of the house.  We are indeed moving forward.

While George and Johnny continued their labors, I met Margaret in Chester.  Two weeks at a green market on 77th Street and Columbus, at the flea market I'd gone to with Regina and her sister Patty (whom I hadn't seen since I graduated high school many many decades ago), I tasted delicious cheese from the Valley Shepherd Creamery which I learned was in Long Valley, about twenty miles down 206 from here.  Margaret had never heard of it, and was eager to visit so we met there this afternoon.  It is pretty amazing--extraordinarily excellent cheese of sheep, goat and cow's milk.  They have opened a store in Soho and will soon be opening one in Park Slope--but it was quite wonderful to taste and buy these cheeses right on the farm.

On arriving home, for the first time, I saw the entire bear family as well as many many deer in the big field in front of the house. One pretty excellent country day.

After days in NYC, close encounters with bear

I returned from the city on Monday--it was cold and gray and rain-threatening though Johnny and George were here working on getting ready to put up the next round of siding and Ray was putting the second coat of primer on the front door-way.

Mid-afternoon, I spotted a big black bear out the front window.  Alone, and bigger than the other bears I'd seen (mother and two cubs), this must be the missing Papa Bear.

Later in the day, with rain threatening once again (it did rain all Monday night), I headed out for a walk, but turned around and came home after spotting that big bear again, this time on my very path--along the dam crossing the lake.

Corn stuffed bear scat

The next day, Tuesday, on that very path, I found very concrete evidence of the bear's presence.

Too many days of rain. Off to the city for the New Year

Many many days and nights of rain.  Water rising everywhere.  No need to water the newly planted vegetation, but that is a job I enjoy, so no rejoicing there.

very old wood

Work slowly progressing.  More rotten beams, but also areas of quite intact very old wood.  A section near the dining room door is particularly old and evocative.  Eventually they will be ready to put up the siding.

Just as I was delighting in raccoon triumphs and not worrying about more bumps in the night--I was awakened by a tremendous rattling and dripping.  Torrents of rain rattling the gutter that was still on the back of the house--and as I discovered in the morning, the removal of another gutter had provided the opportunity for the rain to find its way into the wreckage of the new room.

I had ignored it in the night, but come the dim light of the rainy day, I put buckets and basins under many of the leaks, and watched them fill with wonder.   To clarify, they filled ever-so rapidly with water, which caused no end of wonder.

I called George and he and Johnny soon arrived to put up a tarp which stopped all leaking.  I did some serious mopping before heading into the city for a round of New Year dinners, Buddhist interpretations, major walks and other urban delights.

Success!!

Just a few short hours after setting the trap, the raccoon saga has a happy ending.

As soon as night fell,  I heard a crash.  I was on the phone with Sam and knew that the raccoon had encountered the trap.  I wasn't sure if it was actually caught or had somehow tripped the doors--but there was definitely action.

I could see that the traps' two doors had slammed shut, but as we'd covered it with old towels (to disguise its trap essence), I wasn't sure if the raccoon was actually inside.  George had told me it would make a racket once caught, but no sound was emerging from the shrouded trap.

With Sam's encouragement, I gathered my courage, and with a broom handle lifted the one of the towels.  The trap was occupied, but there was no movement.  Could I have killed the raccoon?  I was not enjoying this procedure.  Eventually, I lifted off the second towel, and sure enough, there was a living raccoon, in a state of shock perhaps, but very much alive.  Of course, I could not remember George's instructions as to how to release it, so I ended the conversation with Sam and called George, who reminded me that I only had to lift the lever off one of the doors and set the trap down in the field in back of the house.

That was relatively easy.  I dragged and pulled the heavy trap into the field and lifted the latch.  Nothing happened.  The poor shocked raccoon made no move to regain its freedom.  George assured me it would eventually figure things out, so  I left it in the damp night air.

When I returned, flashlight in hand, an hour  later, the trap was empty.  The raccoon is free And I don't have to worry about waking up to mysterious crashes in the middle of the night.

I did not take a picture of the shocked trapped raccoon, but it did look very much like this.

the morning after

And--for final verification, here's the empty trap in the morning.