Stove and Other Fun Stuff

We now have a wood burning stove, installed on one of the hottest days of the summer, so I guess we won't be testing it for awhile. It sure looks pretty though. We weren't there to see the installment which is probably good since watching them drill a big hole through the roof would have been stressful. We got there as the stove people were finishing up and they were all bright red and sweating like crazy from having to crawl around in the attic crawl space which was at least 120 degrees. Ugh.

We bought some Rhododendrons on sale at the local fancy-shmancy place- Catskill Harvest Market, and they really help to cozy up the deck. They will grow up and out and fill in- probably about as high as the built in bench.

We also bought a couple more Forsythia for the berm. They get big and wild and will make a wall for more privacy from the road. In the spring they are covered in bright yellow flowers. Here Ben plants it.

The blueberries we planted last year have bunches of ripening berries! They are a most beautiful color- sort of a soft pinkish lavender dusted with powder.

We have an algae problem in the pond and we've been fishing the stuff out with a rake from the side. On this day, Ben was hot though not really willing to jump in the pond as it's a bit icky. Yet when he couldn't reach the big algae clumps from the side he waded in further and further until he was up to his neck. In this way he got a swim by default. There he has a big bin of the slimy nastiness that he's collected. He still has on his clothes and flip flops!

When the pond was dug out several years back we found some big huge clam (or mussel?) shells in the stuff that came out of the bottom- a very curious thing. We figured they were gone but ben found this tiny guy in the algae. I think they help filter water so maybe if they grow they'll eat up our algae?? Wishful thinking I'm sure.

Another very exciting thing- we've found wild berry bushes in several places on the land- black raspberries maybe? They are tasty- here is Lucy clamoring for them. She ate a whole bunch and was covered in black juice.

Lunchtime- Megan, Lucy, and our new stove.

Deck

We now have a back deck on which we can eat, sit, contemplate the pond, and generally enjoy ourselves the way one does on a deck. Ben found a system which allows us to get around pouring concrete footings, which makes the construction a lot easier. He prepared the site the weekend before, then our friends Katie and Quinn came up with there daughter Helen to help with the actual building of the deck. They did it in a weekend- 2 is so much better than 1! Here is the process:

Ben prepares the ground:
He digs up the grass (what little there is on this nasty patch
of clay which is doing a poor job of masquerading as soil...)

Then lays down gravel.

The crane lifts our supplies over the shed

Quinn and his girlfriend (oops I mean Ben, my husband)...
The framing has begun (see behind them).

Instead of a couple of concrete footings, concrete bases are placed very close together to distribute the weight of the deck. It is a "floating" deck, which means it is not attached to the house. That allows for a small amount of movement which won't mess with the integrity of the deck.

The decking is half on. There's Katie and Helen observing.

Dad's take a break and hang out with their babes.

Katie does double duty.

Working in the fog.

Done! The stairs off the sliding glass doors are a great place to sit.

Ben also builds a table.

Enjoying the deck! We will add more plantings around the perimeter to cozify (I made that word up), but we like the openness so there will be no railings. It is low enough not to need them.

Front Porch, Finished...

The porch was finished in the fall, so this all happened ages ago. It rained most of Friday but Ben was out there in his rain suit working on the porch roof and getting as far ahead as possible so that we would be ready for the work crew. We asked several friends to come up for the purpose of, besides enjoying their company, lifting the piece of glass Ben had worked into the design. He had acquired it from JCDA (thanks Jamie!) and it's such an impressive piece of glass, was determined to work it in. It's a really heavy piece of glass...

Ben works in the rain. Nothing deters him.

Quinn and Inti, 2 friends up for the challenge. Quinn is an expert Maker- he can make anything. They worked on the porch roof and the staircase before placing the glass.

Adam, pretending to work.

The guys- Ben, Adam, Inti, and Quinn, place the glass.

Success!

This is a very special piece of glass- It's made by a Japanese company, The Sumitomo Chemical Company, and is called Angle 21. There is a polymer film sandwiched between the glass, and if you look through it at an angle of 21 degrees or less, it is opaque, as if frosted. When you are at a less severe angle, it's clear. This allows us to sit at the kitchen table and look out through the glass door and see the view, but if we are standing on the porch and looking down at the glass, we can't see through it. Neat.

Our lovely crew: Cora, Inti, Ruby, Denise, Adam, Quinn and Katie. Cora and Katie took over cooking dinner because, though I had planned this whole elaborate meal, I forgot that with a baby getting sleepy around dinner time it's not so easy to whip out a gourmet meal. Thanks for the help! We had a great weekend.

Let's Continue...

I miss posting every week, but life has gotten in the way a bit and it's just too difficult, but I've not given up. From the last post, you would think we were done but NO, far from the truth. I expect we will never be done, but the projects will become less crucial to basic living and more geared toward enhancing life. This next project, however, was a necessity- a staircase and deck which allows us to have access to the front door without climbing a ladder. It was built in the fall, as you will see from the background colors.

Ben starts with the beams

...and starts adding the deck

he finishes this stage in one weekend.

misty morning

fall colors

Sibylle (Lucy's godmum) and Steve came up, but we didn't let them work as we had already worked Steve's fingers to the bone when putting in the floors. We enjoyed their company as usual.
The next stage of this entryway is very exciting- not to be missed! Stay tuned.

Furnished!

The house is now furnished and we've been going up every weekend for a couple months now. Both of our Mom's came up with us for the moving in weekend which was helpful because we could pass Lucy around and take turns as the others moved in and set up house. As I was preparing these pictures I realized I couldn't find ANY of the Mom's, which is disgraceful, but I will hunt them down and put them up eventually. In the meantime, here it is, the house in it's lived in condition. The light is beautiful. I remember way back when it was a bunch of raw wood and we were camping inside and I would sit there and daydream about the day we would be in there for real, cozy and warm and sitting on furniture and cooking in the kitchen and sleeping in a real bed, and now here we are living the dream! It's been such a pleasure.

The Living room

The Kitchen

The Hall

Ben built the bookshelves out of old solid core doors that Richard saved from a job in the city. they were hanging around the garage up in the big house for ages and Ben took them when it was sold. Finally they found a home.

The Living Room (looking the other way).

The bedroom is on the other side of that wall. The wood burning stove will eventually go where that pile of boxes and junk are now.

The Bathroom

The blue film that protects the doors will be removed when we put the handles on.

The Bedroom

The Bedroom

Very small! Designed pre-baby. We are already dreaming about the extension...

Snowy view from the living room.

Cozy and warm inside.

Kitchen Phase II

Well I'm way behind here, but I have the very good excuse of just having had a baby. This Kitchen Phase was actually completed before Lucy was born, when Ben was coming up by himself and frantically trying to get all the interior finished so that we could come up as a family. He worked himself practically to death (and kind of still is) but it's been well worth it (easy for me to say)... Here's the Kitchen, practically finished:

Butcher block counter top from Ikea

All the cabinets in place. Stove too.

Pretty shelf above the extractor, built by ben with offcuts from the countertop.

This entry is a short one, but you get the gist. Next one will follow soon, I hope.

Lucy Alice: The Birth Story

It's been 2 months since the birth already, but I wanted to get this out there before I continue with The House Story (you all won't believe the progress that's been made!)




At 12:30am the morning of August 26th, one day after my due date, I woke up to go the bathroom and my water broke. There was a gush that hit the floor and a wave of fear hit me in the stomach as I realized it was really going to happen, this birth thing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Ben and I called Kristen, our midwife, to tell her and she said to try and get some sleep and to call her at the first sign of contractions. An hour later I had a mild contraction, like an abdominal cramp, and I waited for 2 more to make sure that was really what I was feeling. I called Kristen again and told her they had started. She said again to try and get some sleep and to call when they got closer together. I was able to sleep in between the contractions, which were about 20 minutes apart, and breathe through the contractions fairly easily. By around 7am we both were awake. Ben made pancakes and we had breakfast in bed, very cozy, with me pausing every now and then to deal with my growing contractions. My initial fear had passed pretty quickly and we were able to enjoy this time, full with anticipation, not knowing how long a haul we had in front of us but knowing the end result would be meeting our little girl. Ben started preparing things around the house, like inflating the exercise ball and soaking washcloths in lavender water and putting them in the fridge.

By 10 am the contractions had become much more intense and I was having to turn more inward to deal with each one. We started timing them and found they were still a good 5 to 10 minutes apart. We called Kristen, and she said call again when they’re 3 to 4 minutes apart. I was sitting on the edge of the bed in our little bedroom and Ben would stand in front of me as I had a contractions and rub my back as I leaned on him. My mom arrived with some massage tools and coke cans to rub on my sacrum. By this time I had started sitting on the exercise ball and bouncing on it every time there was a contraction. The rhythmic movement really helped get through them- in a way it was distracting, having this motion to concentrate on as the pain washed over me. Ben was sitting right behind me on the bed and would rub my sacrum with the massage tool during a contraction as I would breath deeply, and when they subsided I would collapse against him and rest. I was like a rag doll at these times, conserving every bit of energy in me for the next contraction. Then it would come again, and build in strength. My mom helped me through a few when Ben was preparing stuff, and there were a few where Ben was behind me and my mom in front of me, doing double duty to get me through. They continued to grow more intense and Ben suggested we get up and walk to the living room. Such a simple thing, and yet the very act of getting off my ball and walking brought the next one on WAY stronger than they had been. I could barely stand up and started heading back to my cocoon of a bedroom and my trusty bouncy ball, but Ben urged me to stick it out. After all, nothing was going to make me feel better except the birth of my child, and that wouldn’t happen until the progression of these contractions reached their height. Ben called Kristen again, even though they were still more than 4 minutes apart, to tell her they were much more intense, and she suggested getting in the bathtub. She began heading over.

I got in the bath, which felt wonderful and calming as I slid in, but the next contraction came on hard and all of a sudden I was way too hot, followed by shivering as it let it’s grip go. It was hard to be in a reclining position during the contractions, so I ended up holding on to the edge of the tub in a semi-reclined position and grabbing on to Ben as hard as I could as they came and went. I’m not sure how long I was in the tub but all of a sudden my body spontaneously began to push and since Kristen hadn’t yet arrived, I got scared (as did everyone) because as much as I trust Ben, I didn’t want him delivering the baby. Not enough experience! The urge to push was so undeniable but I remembered reading that panting sometimes slows it down, so I gave up the deep breathing for quick short breaths and tried not to push. Ben called Kristen who said she was a couple minutes away. My mom set up the living room with a plastic shower curtain liner and a bunch of towels and we made our way in there. It was all I could do to stand up from the tub and walk into the living room, and I did it quick before another contraction could hit. I got on my hands and knees and starting panting fast, though a few pushes snuck through. Finally someone said Kristen was on her way up- she double parked and my mom ran down to park her car for her. She came in and listened to the baby’s heartbeat, then said I could push when I needed to, which I immediately did. The noises that came out of me were intense- deep and low and animalistic, and they helped immensely with the pain and the pushing. The burn and stretch sensation as the baby started to descend was crazy painful, more than I expected, but the massive urge to push, HARD, at least felt somewhat productive. Someone put a chair in front of me to lean on, don’t know who because I was completely within this birthing experience and not very conscious of anything else. Ben and the midwife were behind me and I did hear Ben say he saw the head coming- he sounded so amazed and it strengthened me for the next wave. Kristen told me to reach down and touch the head which I did and it felt kind of mushy and as if it had a long way to go before it was out. It hurt so much as it was I couldn’t imagine that I had to stretch that much further to get a whole head out. Thankfully Ben and I are both pinheads so we didn’t produce a big headed baby! The burn intensified and suddenly Ben said the head was out- and my thighs were shaky and tired at this point and I was dying to sit down, but of course I couldn’t lest a sit right on my baby’s head and squash it or worse push it back up inside. Kristen said I could switch positions to side-lying but I wanted to wait til after the next push which was coming quick, but that one pushed her right out. Ben caught her and passed her to me in a football pass (underneath me, between my legs) and I sat up cross legged as if nothing had happened, looked into this tiny pink miraculous face as she cried out these cute little mewling cries, and said “oh my god”. What a crazy crazy experience and here she was, all of a sudden not as foreign as she was minutes ago, as I had known her as a bump under my belly that morphed and wiggled, now a face with a little voice. Still a stranger but not.

We sat there looking at each other and making faces as the cord continued to pulse. Kristen didn’t clamp it until it had stopped pulsing in order for all the oxygen and stuff to make it’s last trip through the cord. We wrapped her up a few minutes later and I continued to hold her and stare until the placenta followed about 15 minutes later. Kristen showed us where it had been attached and pulled the bag apart to show us the membrane- quite fascinating to see. Then she clamped the cord and Ben cut it and showed us the 3 blood vessels within the cord where waste and nutrients had passed through. The three of us got back in bed and Kristen helped me to start breastfeeding, which went really well, she latched on with not much problem. Then Kristen weighed and measured her and did all the reflex tests and body checks, and all was in the right order, thankfully. We all hung out staring at this new little one for hours and ended the day with my Mom and Dad and Ben and Lucy and me cramped in our tiny bedroom eating take-out Mexican and marveling at Lucy and the ease at which she entered this world. She slept for hours that day and spent a lot of the night alert and looking around, with us intermittently staring at her and sleeping fitfully. What an experience.

And by the way, here's a picture of the beautiful fall color up there. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Kitchen, Phase 1

Last weekend we started the kitchen, Ikea all the way. Our neighbor recieved and signed for the shipment so when we arrived those signature flat boxes were all stacked up in the middle of the living room. My Dad very generously came up to help with the installation, as I get increasingly useless the closer I get to my due date. I am, however, a master at reading Ikea directions, so I was able to help some. I also assembled the occasional drawer.

Here's dad with the drill gun, beginning cabinet #1.

Ben, with 3 assembled base cab's. He had the harder job of cutting the butcher block counter top to fit, as well as cutting the hole where the kitchen sink fits in. Our Ikea sink turned out to be too small so I made an emergency run to Home Depot, where I bought a sink whose hardware didn't fit our thick countertop, so we weren't able to finish the installation. We started feeling a bit dejected because we really wanted all this done, so that when I have this baby we can go there and actually use the kitchen and bath. No more camping with a newborn! Hopefully we have a few more weeks (please don't come early, little one...)

Relaxing after the workday, grilling up some corn and Lamb
that came from our local Farmer's Market.

It had been raining most of the day, and around 5pm this gorgeous rainbow emerged- a full bow from one end to the other, right there in our open sky. There was a faint double bow as well, which doesn't show up here. It was a magical sight.

Morning sun, stretching from one side of the
house to the other (granted it is not a far reach).

Ben will finish the kitchen this weekend. Hopefully there will be water in kitchen, bath, and laundry very soon (though it's still running a bit rusty colored...)