Time itself

May 1

We have been laying stone for the last four days thanks to the change in the weather. The front façade is almost complete and we are inching up on the window arches on the two adjacent sides.

After lunch yesterday a new arrival presented itself. Sam noticed an antique octagon faced oak school clock from the turn of the century hanging on a plasterboard wall in the dining room. Someone evidently stopped and hung it there. It will look fantastic with the oak woodwork in the downstairs which is coming from a demolition 40 years ago of an old Victorian house. We need to figure out who the benefactor was! We have been very fortunate in this project to have so many people contribute excess materials. To date we have received a walnut parlor set, a walnut buffet, two mahogany side chairs and a center table and the clock in the furniture department. Then there were the building supplies…baseboard heat units for the whole second floor, a gas fired boiler, a water heater, and all of the roof boards and attic flooring, the hardwood flooring for several of the formal rooms, much of the rough sawn oak to be milled into woodwork for the first floor, metal railings and a spiral staircase to the cupola, and miscellaneous stuff too numerous to mention! Every day seems to be Christmas!  Jim.

There was not a single May Day basket at the front door this morning. Jim keeps warning me to carry a big stick to beat the girls off with. I thought that the stonework going up would surely attract them but apparently not; probably thankfully so. There is, however, snow falling today. I am doing my best at deciphering the meaning of the mysterious clock. Maybe it is a sign that we are taking too long on finishing this project. Or we should be more aware of our own time on this earth. Whatever the case I have dusted for fingerprints, gathered a few loose hairs for DNA analysis, and will be assessing the originality of the clock itself. No stone will remain unlaid! As with all great crime fighters I will never rest until the case is solved.  P.I. Sam