End of July

End of July

It has been a difficult month. The weather has refused to cooperate. It has given us only a couple of suitable days to work on the foundation. Either it has been a soggy mess at the site or the dew points and temperatures have made it feel like the Amazon and put us at risk for heat stroke. On one of the recent good days we worked 10 hours. I think Sam finally believes that you can accomplish more in one good day than you can in three bad ones. One good week would bring our foundation up to ground level but that will come in time. The weather here always has a flip side and maybe nature will grace us with a long cool fall. It has been amazing to see how much of the piles of stone and other building materials have disappeared in the last several weeks. Yet, the limestone from the old shed foundation is still holding out and it feels a bit like the Biblical story of the loves and the fishes…the more we use up, the more there seems to be for us to use. The first tomatoes from the garden are ripening up and yesterday for lunch we had Sam’s home-made bread with slices of fresh cucumber, Havarti dill cheese and fresh sliced tomatoes with Parmesan and olive oil. There are some parts of summer that are definitely OK!

Today the sawmill called. Rather than wait for the weather to improve, John at the mill decided to get ‘er done if we didn’t mind sweating a little. We started about 1:30 and finished hauling the last load in by six. Hot, dusty, but the oak for the central staircase is all cut and has to be stickered up tomorrow so it can dry. The eight sided six by six for the stair turned out beautifully in spite of a few carpenter ants in the log. The log was a donation from Harley. They had a storm move through their woods that took out the tops of a number of stately oaks and he offered us one if we wanted to go to the trouble of hauling it. Thank you Harley! We should have all the wood we need now to finish the interior of the first floor and when we are ready in a couple of years it will be dry and ready to use!

Jim