Little House in the Catskills

Stove and Other Fun Stuff

2008-07-23T15:07:00.005-04:00

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

2008-06-29T10:46:00.007-04:00

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...

2008-04-27T19:27:00.008-04:00

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...

2008-03-05T20:03:00.003-05:00

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!

2007-12-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-07T08:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-25T11:01:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-12T09:23:00.001-04:00

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...)

Bamboo Floor

2007-08-02T19:01:00.000-04:00

Bringing us up to date! This previous weekend's project was the floor. Ben hasn't had any experience putting a hardwood floor in but we had heard it was pretty easy if you rent the air compressed nail gun. Originally we were going to put down nice plywood and paint it, but were encouraged by a couple people (Art, Marty) to go for a more professional look, and a bit of research showed that we could buy Bamboo for pretty cheap, so we decided to go for it. It's MUCH more chic!

First we nailed down roofing felt to minimize squeeking.

Ben begins- the first strips are "faced-nailed" straight through the top. It's very important to begin with a straight line, otherwise by the other side of the room you may get a totally wonky thing happening.

Friday I was helping Ben, but the first hit with the rented nailgun was a really loud ear-splitting noise and I felt the baby in my belly literally jump. I was out of there fast and wouldn't go back in the rest of the weekend when they were using it.

Saturday morning our friends Steve and Sibylle arrive to help. Thank god. The not-so-fab nailgun (Steve is using it below) does not sink the nails all the way into the wood as it should, so they have to hand sink each and every one them the rest of the way with a metal thing (nail set) - that's over 1500 nails hammered basically by hand. It was hot and brutal and frusterating but Steve kept Ben somewhat sane just being there working next to him. We are extremely grateful!! Still, Ben's hands and back are still bothering him several days later.

Meanwhile Sibylle and I have a much easier time doing much less- we do all the womanly things like going to the store, preparing food, doing dishes, relaxing by the pond, and making sure there are ice cold beers ready for when they quit.

Below Steve is hard at work laying floor in the bedroom.

They're getting there...

As an aside- our washer and dryer came and got hooked up. Not that we can use it yet with our dirty water, but whatever. Eventually we'll get to drag our city laundry up every weekend which totally beats going to the laundramat around the corner.

At the end of the day we all relax and BBQ up a nice meal.

The crew, with the (almost finished) floor. The rest will be done by hand this coming weekend. These guys really saved us last weekend.

Thanks guys.

Plumbing and Painting

2007-07-30T12:56:00.000-04:00

This weekend was stressful. We billed it as a painting weekend, but when you've got plumbers working it's hard to focus on other tasks. Plus there was this low-level feeling of anxiety- is the well going to work? are they drilling holes in the right place?- you can't help but hover and hope they do a good job. Here are our plumbers:

Here's one of the holes they made- straight through the house! It's for the dryer exhaust. It would be pretty hard to correct if it was in the wrong place. But it's in the right place, so not to worry.

This is our little on-demand Takagi water heater. Takes up no space and heats water as you need it, so no need for a boiler. It's quite efficient as well.

But wait! What's this! BROWN water coming from the well! Nasty silty dirty water! Apparently the well digger should have flushed it out for a day or 2 before hooking it up to the house, though this is something we didn't know (the perils of doing-it-yourself) and now it's already hooked up. We can only hope that flushing it for awhile through the pipes will eventually make it clean.

The plumber hooks up the toilet...

...and there it is. The excitement is tempered by the fact that the water running through is that nasty brown stuff, which clings to the toilet bowl and makes it look as if no one ever cleans, or even flushes, for that matter. On top of that our pressure tank is probably filled with the silty stuff.

By the way, we did get to painting. As you can see, we painted the bathroom first, before the plumbers arrived. The paint color is named "newborn". Is that the color of a newborn? Maybe one with jaundice.

And here is ben painting the kitchen wall "asparagus". The rest of the house is "mountain mist", a very calm pale pale green which reads mostly white.

On a more upbeat note, it was beautiful and blue all weekend. This is our house as seen from our campsite. We had a heartwarming experiences to counter the traumatic nest disruption of a few weeks back. As we sat eating dinner at dusk a Doe came creeping around the pond very tentatively. We stayed very still and after awhile of sussing out if it was safe, a baby deer emerged and came hopping toward her. They grazed and played a bit and I think the baby nursed. Apparently Doe's leave there young in a safe spot all day, curled up and hidden, and come to retrieve them at the end of the day. This one's hiding spot is in the tall grasses next to our pond.

Grouting

2007-07-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

After the tile has set comes the grouting, a much more satisfying job in my opinion. Less room for messing up. Again we had to play with the consistency but we already felt more comfortable with it having messed with the mixing of the adhesive. The grouting went without a hitch, and we were able to finish in a day.

Arial view of Megan grouting.

Close up view of Megan grouting.

And the beautiful finished grout. I just love that step.

Hardcore pregnant worker chick after grouting.

The finished grout in the shower.

The next day our friend Sibylle came up to help out. She's a hardcore worker too. Here she and Ben caulk and clean seams. We are getting ready to paint.

Sibylle Primes the Bathroom.
She and I had fun having a slumber party in her tent that night.

Thank you Sibylle!

Tiling

2007-07-23T08:53:00.001-04:00

We thought we could do all the tiling in one weekend, but being complete novices it quickly became obvious it wouldn't happen. Mixing the adhesive was a challenge because the consistency is something that one learns from experience. As much as people tell you "it's like peanut butter" or "it's pasty, and doesn't fall off the trowel" or whatever, it's the actual using of the adhesive that gives you that feel. So the first batch was too liquid and the tiles slowly slid down the walls (some tape took care of that) and the second batch was too dry and kept crumbling as we slathered it on. But the end result was success, as you shall see:

Here's Ben, tiling the floor. The tiles continue over the step, which looks really nice. We got lucky with these tiles. We had decided on some cheap (but nice, simple) tiles from Home Depot for the whole job, but the day we went up we stopped at our local East Village tile store. These were left overs from another job, so we snapped them up for a steal. They're super cute.

Megan, tiling the floor (kneepads essential!)

Megan, gouging out the adhesive that smooshed into the cracks. Here you can see the tape we used to keep them from sliding down the wall.

This is where the woodburning stove will eventually go. The tiles are left-overs from Margaret's big house up the hill.

Ben, posing with the tile. These tiles are home depot. Ben had mirror and glass cutting stuff from an art project, so he cut a bunch of mirror the same size as the tiles and we interspersed them amongst the Home Depot ones. It's a great effect- you can see bits and pieces of yourself as well as the walls outside the shower, which will be painted a pretty color.

Megan, posing with the tiles.

Grouting is next...

Prime and Some Heat

2007-07-18T14:11:00.000-04:00

The walls were smooth, all holes and seams filled and sanded, and were ready for priming. First we cleaned. How satisfying to get rid of the fine dust everywhere. For the previous few weekends Ben would finish the day looking like he'd had a light sprinkling of powdered sugar. No more! Here he's vacuuming up the last of it...

And beginning to prime.

It's such a different feel to have white walls! Very open and airy and much more finished looking.

We also intalled under the floor heat pads in the bathroom. It's electric wire embedded in mesh which will be attached to a thermostat on the wall. We can program it to turn on at 5am so on those cold winter mornings the tile will be all toasty warm when we get up. It only uses as much electricity as a 100 watt lightbulb.

After laying out the mat you pour cement over it, which is a good heat conductor. It was a challenge to keep it flat, but ben did a great job.

Next we tile...

Final spackle

2007-07-18T13:10:00.000-04:00

We finished up the last coat of spackle a few weekends back, with the much appreciated help of Mr. Art Domantay, master spackler (or "mudder"). Art and Marie both came up and camped out on the property with us. Marie helped plant a bunch of little ivy plants with me while the menfolk labored in the house.

Here's the fabulous crew

Art brought his mansion of a tent, putting ours to shame.

Spackling away. Aren't they cute?

Art is meticulous and experienced and smears on a nice, smooth stripe.

It was sunny but chilly, so we built the first fire of the season. It was a traumatic experience for me because while cleaning out the fire pit I uncovered a nest of something- vole? mouse? and upset these tiny hairless creatures that couldn't walk or see yet, their little teeny feet pumping uselessly in fear as their warm dark home was disturbed. I tried to gather them up and relocate them to where I saw the mama run away and can only hope she found them again. My mothering instincts must be charged, I felt horrible. Actually I would have felt horrible anyway.

We did have a lovely fire that night and enjoyed the hundreds of fireflies signaling to eachother.

The next day ben rented a major power sander and did the final sanding.

My job was to hold the lamp up as he sanded to better see the small imperfections that needed sanding out.

Next we prime...

Spackle

2007-06-08T07:57:00.000-04:00

The first coat of spackle is on! This is a seriously no-fun stage of work. It's not that it's so labor intensive, but it is very tedious. Every screw hole (of which there are many) and every seam between sheetrock sheets must be filled in to create a smooth and continuous wall. Once the paint is on, you don't want bumps and lumps and stripes showing through. The holes are easy, but the seams aren't. Ben's had practice though, so he's pretty good at it now. Once the first coat is on you must wait for it to dry. It shrinks in the process and sucks into the seams and holes, making an indent. So you do it again and yet again, until it's built slightly up. Then you sand it all down to make it perfectly flat, creating a massive cloud of dust that settles into and onto every single thing in the vicinity. And since you have to wait for it to dry, we can only do one coat per weekend, which slows things down.

Here's Ben with his spackle knife.

And me with mine. I did the screw holes.

I also planted two blueberry bushes. There's one under my hand.

It was hot and sticky, so ben took a dive into the pond and swam with our 10,000 pet bullfrog tadpoles. We may need to start a company selling gourmet organic frog's legs when they reach maturity. I've heard they can become a bit of a menace. And apparently they taste terrible as tadpoles so nothing eats them except for the blue crane. We've seen one visit- it's a beautiful bird- but very shy. He doesn't stick around if we're anywhere near, and he doesn't seem to be thinning out our stock much either.

We're hoping one day the pond will reach a place of balance where no one creature reigns supreme.

Sheetrocking Continues

2007-05-30T13:09:00.000-04:00

Still a bit behind... about 3 weeks ago we went up and continued with the sheetrocking. Ben's family came for the weekend as well, which was lovely since we don't get to see them so much anymore. They were a big help.

Rich and Ben got a ton of the sheetrocking done.

Binda and Margaret helped me plant some trees and set up the outdoor campsite.

The tulips, daffodils, and dandelions were blooming.

And to top the weekend off, there was a party nearby, friends of Binda and Richard's, who also happen to be friends with Ben and Binda's cousin Oliver. Oliver and his girlfriend Leann showed up and were surprised by our arrival, not having known we would be there. There was a reggae band from Brooklyn there and we all danced and had a good time.

Planting

2007-05-20T16:45:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've been negligent- this post is more than a month behind now, as is obvious for the lack of green you see in these pictures. Around mid-April we did a full planting weekend-No house work whatsoever. We ordered a bunch of shrubs from Cornell Cooperative Extension, which has a subsidised program once a year where you can order shrubs and trees CHEAP. The shrubs turned out to be sticks with a couple dangly roots hanging off them, but whatever. We bought about 60 of them. My dad (expert gardener) came up to help plant. It was lovely and warm, the first really warm weekend of the season. Observe:

Below Ben rakes out the backyard, which is full of rocks and was all lumpy (like all the land that was upset in excavating and septic system construction).

Dad, planting Dogwood sticks.

My cowboy honey, relaxing with Cooper, Dad's dog.

Coffee break by the pond.

The 3 of us, at the end of the day.

I was skeptical of these planted sticks making it (there were some, the willows, which didn't even have roots. My dad just poked them in the ground)... Especially since we aren't there to continually water them while they're getting established. But here we are, a month and a half later, and the majority actually have little leaves sprouting off them! We are praying for midweek rain throughout the summer, to help these little guys establish themselves.

Sheetrocking Begins

2007-05-06T10:56:00.000-04:00

We were worried about sheetrocking the ceiling, trying to figure out who we could cajole into coming and helping us do such an unpleasant job, which we figured would involve doing alot of lifting over our heads and trying to keep these large heavy sheets of sheetrock up on the ceiling as we screwed them in. How would we even get them off the delivery truck?, we wondered... WELL, Ben discovered the tools of the trade and you wouldn't believe how easy it could be (relatively speaking). First of all, Ben asked the Rowley's guys (our supplier) if the delivery man could help him get the stuff in the house. They did better, they simply brought along their crane.

Tubs of joint compound are lifted over the shed and to the front door:

The Sheetrock follows.

Here's the good part: Ben discovers the sheetrock lift, which, while he had already heard of it, hadn't really known it's full value. You can rent it for $30/day at Home Depot, and it's well worth it. It disassembles and fits right in the trunk. Ben sheetrocked the entire ceiling in one weekend, ALL BY HIMSELF, I wasn't even up that weekend to hand him his screw gun. He's now calling this device his new girlfriend. I'm not jealous at all.

You place the sheetrock on the hooks...

Spin it, and crank it to lift. It lodges in place and you screw.

Here's the first 2 strips done.

And the whole ceiling.

And part of the wall.

He's my hero (well he already was, now just more so).

Vapor Barrier

2007-05-02T08:16:00.000-04:00

After the insulation comes the vapor barrier, which is basically a huge sheet of plastic stapled to the entire insulated inside surface that borders the outside. It is there so that the difference in temperature between the inside and the outside, which can cause condensation, doesn't make the insulation damp. Ben did research on the internet and found conflicting views as to whether this is necessary or not, and decided it was worth it. We basically made a big bubble around the interior of the house, effectively sealing us in, along with the warmth. Here Ben stands on the very useful scaffold lent to us by Art (thanks Art!) with his staple gun in hand, ready to shoot.

Here's Megan, looking like an extreme dork, in the paper suit made to shield us from the insulation fibers still lingering from last weekend.

Taking a lunch break (canned soup, as usual, and some bread and cheese).

Our cozy abode. Vapor barrier shown on the left wall. We simply covered over everything and then cut out the windows, doors, and light sockets.

As you can see I'm late with this post, as there is still snow on the ground in this picture. I liked this one because it looks like an album cover.

The following weekend the building inspector came to check the work and gave Ben a hard time because he said he didn't think you were supposed to put a vapor barrier over insulation that has a so-called built-in vapor barrier. He said he'd ok it if we got a letter from an architect or engineer. We called Victor, who did the drawings for the house, who called the engineer, who promptly wrote a letter saying that this is a standard and even preferable procedure to use. We were quite relieved and felt vindicated. The engineer was nice enough not to charge us for the letter, as it was unusual to take issue with such a thing. Phew, the thought of taking down all that work was disheartening!

Sheetrock next!

Insulation=Warmth

2007-04-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

Ben took two weekends to do the insulation, a messy and unpleasant job because of the fiberglass material that breaks loose and floats around in the air. It was cold and snowy as well so the windows and doors were shut, making it a mini fiberglass chamber with no outlet for these little hairs. We decided it would not be a good environment for me in my current condition (pregnant, for those of you who don't know) so it was Ben Solo (kind of like the Han Solo of insulation). Below is his handiwork- Quite a tidy job he did. It makes a big difference already.

Here's scary Hazmat Man in his paper suit and latex gloves. He also had a hat, goggles and a face mask. Still, he said the strip of forehead that was exposed got raw and itchy from this awful stuff.

The snowy view from the sliding glass doors on the North side of the house:

Early morning sunrise in the East:
When will spring arrive???

Next is the vapor barrier: thick plastic covering all the insulation on the outside walls...

Slowly but surely

2007-03-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

Electric box, blah blah blah...

Cables galore...

Gas lines, blah blah...
Light sockets in the ceiling...

Pretty winter scene...
As you can see power lines don't really turn me on, especially when I haven't been there to see the work happening. I did go up for a visit a couple weekends ago and it is exciting to be there and see progress. For the most part the work of others is over and the hard work is beginning, the work that's up to us. Ben's been up slaving away at the insulation all by himself (such a bad wife I am). As the weather warms up this blog will probably warm up again as well, as I will go up to help sheetrock and we will begin to see a real interior begin to emerge. Stay tuned.

2007-01-13T10:49:00.000-05:00

For those of you confused about what was going on in my last movie-post, I will reveal the secret here: Ben was up last weekend on his own to oversee the plumbers do their thing. Later he heard that mysterious sound of dripping coming from the mouth of the open pipe. He had to think a bit to figure out where it was coming from because there is no water turned on anywhere, it's not even hooked up to any pipes yet. Finally he figured it out - it was raining outside and the pipe eventually leads to the empty septic tank, 30 feet away and buried under the ground, where it could only be drips from the groundwater finding there way into that tank. The echo traveled all the way through the pipes and up into our house, providing him with some lovely music for the evening.

Here's the plumbing...

The famous insulated box, the gatekeeper of all things water and sewage related. There is the large white pipe that leads to the septic system, the small black pipe that brings water into the house, and the smaller black one that brings electricity to the water pump at the bottom of the well. The big black pipe is a drainage outlet that we can use to drain water from the system when we want to shut down for winter and not risk pipes getting frozen.

They drilled hole after hole after hole to feed the pipe under the bathroom floor.

The pipes. The raised floor allows them all to stay above the insulated floor and stay warm. from here they will feed through the walls to the next door laundry nook and the kitchen sink.

The electrician comes early February to rough out the electricity. Our plan is to shut down for winter but since winter hasn't wanted to visit us so far, we'll just forge ahead until it does...

LISTEN

2007-01-07T11:46:00.000-05:00

More Framing

2006-12-20T09:23:00.000-05:00

Ben went up a couple weekends ago on his own to finish the interior framing. He framed out the bedroom walls and the raised bathroom floor. Here are the results...

In the above picture, you are looking at the bathroom on the left and the bedroom on the right, with the hall in the middle leading to the back of the house.

It's looking a bit smushed here - the bedroom wall now butts up against our little camp bubble.

This is looking from inside the bedroom out the bedroom door at our bubble.

The bathroom floor is raised to accomodate the pipes that come from the well and lead to the septic. We need to keep them above the floor since there is no basement or crawlspace and they must be kept warm throughout the winter.

Ben insulated the box where the pipes come up. The box reaches down 3 or 4 feet underground and (hopefully) protects those pipes as they come into the house. We will also have heat taping that snakes down into the well pipe and keeps it warm enough not to freeze (as long as the power stays on).

Here's the fuzzy preview of our view-to-be, the lump at the bottom being our blanket-covered tent. You can get a glimpse of the white horse on the right side of the picture. We like seeing the horse except that it also makes us sad because the owners never ride him or visit him and he's all alone. We're going to ask them if we can visit him once in awhile, but they're not super friendly people so we'll see...

Now we're waiting on the plumber to come rough out the plumbing in the walls, then we'll close up for the winter and resume in the spring!

Camp Breakdown and Some Walls

2006-12-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

We broke down the campsite the weekend before Thanksgiving, in anticipation of winter, though at that point it was still a balmy 50 degrees or so. The straps that had been holding the big tent down were threadbare and snapping at the slightest tug: ready to fly had we waited much longer.

We've left a bit of stuff under the tarp, which will likely become a warm haven for a myriad of creatures thruout the winter. The Farmer's Almanac is predicting a nasty one. I can believe it, I can see it lasting forever because of the mild beginning. Snow in April, maybe.

Looks a bit melancholy, our leftover campsite huddled there on it's own.

That weekend we (ok, ben, but I helped) framed out the walls for the bathroom and the laundry nook.
Framing the Bathroom

Head in the Rafters

There will be a piece of glass in that rectangle above the door to the bathroom.

Here's me sealing the windows with silicone. It was pretty cold- my fingers kept going numb and I'd have to go inside and stick them on the heater once in awhile.

Our new campsite within the house has been great, especially with the unseasonably warm weather. Above is me at the crack of dawn, in the tent in the clothes I slept in drinking my freshly brewed tea brought to me in bed by my honey. It wasn't THAT unseasonably warm, as you can see. Notice the heater inside the tent. It was super duper warm in the night with that thing pumping at the lowest possible setting. Some voiced concern about the safety of this but rest assured (as we did), it's just hot oil in an enclosed container, no fumes or Carbon Monoxide released.

Friday night we cooked a lovely dinner of Progresso Chicken and Dumpling Soup with fresh parsley, accompanied by some carrot sticks and a bottle of Australian Sauvignon Blanc given to us by Binda and Richard.

Saturday night we treated ourselves to dinner at Yassiou Cafe, the local Greek restaurant.

Even with just the skeleton of the walls we can see the shape of our house emerge, which is very exciting and gives us a sense of accomplishment. There is SO MUCH MORE to do, but this project is going to be all about the little strides we make, otherwise it feels just too big. Progress is being made.

Inside the Bubble

2006-12-01T23:39:00.000-05:00

Leaks

2006-11-13T17:49:00.000-05:00

Several weeks back Ben and I went up on a stormy weekend. Friday night rained hard and steady all night long, and we had a nasty shock when, in the middle of the night, we woke up to find water seeping in through the window and the door on the east side. There were a couple of puddles forming inside our house, and we barely slept the rest of the night listening to the insistent rain and the wind which was driving the rain through the sieve that was that side of the house. Lesson number one: Try not to put your front door on the side that gets the worst weather beating of all! Granted, it's a good door and it shouldn't be leaking no matter how hard the rain is pelting. The Greys guys are fast and we think they rushed it, with serious consequences.

The next morning we covered that whole side of the house with plastic. The Grey's guy came later in the week and did some fiddling. Ben then siliconed around all the door and window jambs, and used this crazy expansion foam inside all interior spaces (below). You squirt it in and it expands to several times it's size, filling every nook and cranny as it goes.

Once windows are nailed in, you tape the outside lip to seal it before you add the siding and the trim. Our house doesn't have siding, and it seems that the tape wouldn't work because the grooves cut into the exterior plywood would undermine the sealing effect of the tape: the water could still get in. So we filled the cracks with silicone and now must wait and see what happens.

This illustrates the perilous nature of the DIY approach when you don't really know what the heck you're doing. There are so many details, as much as you think about it there will always be things that slip by. This of course just adds to the challenge of making it work as a whole, and we'll just pray these types of surprises are few and far between as we forge ahead.

Winter Coming...

2006-11-13T16:41:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago Ben went up solo while I stayed home studying. It was a cold weekend, and I was hoping Ben would take up the offer of our neighbor to sleep in her extra bedroom, but he was determined to stick it out. My genius husband found a clever way to be warm. His first attempt was to create a plastic bubble (yes, yes, "The Boy In the Plastic Bubble")... He built a wooden frame within the house and covered it in plastic. Since we now have electricity at the shed, he snaked a long extension cord through the hole in the door (where the lock will go) and plugged in our electric portable radiator.

We had moved the tent inside the house the weekend before and he consolidated all our living quarters into a compact space within the bubble .

Ben tells me during the day the bubble was warmer than the outside temperature, though not WARM warm. That night, however, the temperature dropped dramatically and he ended COLD for most of the night.

The next night he pulled the big air mattress out of the tent and deflated it (it takes up the whole tent and it's hard to zip up with it in there). He covered the tent with 2 blankets to insulate, put the radiator inside the tent with him, put one sleeping bag inside the other, and zipped up the tent and himself. He created an igloo which was as warm as a sauna. He slept warm as a bug in a rug.

How cute is that?

That weekend he taped the floor to indicate the walls that will be our next project. Below are the ghosts of the walls to be. Looks lilliputian.

Above is the bathroom on the far left, the laundry "nook" on the near left, and part of the bedroom/shelf space on the right.

This is the bedroom. Just enough for a bed. And a little closet in the far corner.

...Just in case you forgot what the house looks like. The ladder in front of door on the right is our present mode of entry. The hay is insulating the grass seed which we scattered, hoping there would be time for some germination before winter really sets in.

Staining

2006-10-23T17:59:00.000-04:00

Sorry for this long delay in posting, I've been waiting to get a picture of our painting crew since I very stupidly forgot to take one while we were all together painting. A shame! This color is old news by now but I guess still new for many of you out there, so here it is...

We painted the house with the stain/wood preservative several weeks back. We had a fantastic crew who came up to help- Art & Marie, Yayoi & Jeff, Susan & Milos, they all put in muscle and time and the house was painted in a day. It was cold and windy and threatened rain towards the end of the day but never quite did, much to our relief.

We used this intense oil based stuff called Cetol that goes on in one coat and doesn't have to be redone for another 10 years, apparently, which is why we chose this product, despite the lack of color choices. It was the same stuff that we used on the shed but it was called "butternut". It wasn't orange like "cedar", but it was no "butternut"...whatever color that is. You would think it would be a subtle creamy light color, right?? I have to admit when I saw the first strokes go on I had a sinking feeling and thought - butternut? that's BROWN, and I thought it looked more like you-know-what brown, not butternut.

I was very angry (for a minute or two).

Anyway I got over it and when it was done and drying we all decided it was actually quite nice- It reminds me of a cabin, and Ben thought it looked like a Swiss Chalet.

Our very own Swiss Chalet in the Catskills.

That evening we grilled sausages and peppers and onions and had a big campfire. Harold, who had loaned us 2 gigantic ladders, joined us and we all warmed up around the fire, ate, drank wine, roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. It must have been 30 degrees but it was a lot of fun. That night we all stayed at The Carrier House B&B which is run by a really nice guy named Alan. He has decorative themes happening in his two rental rooms- one is "The Cabin", with kitchy 50's paintings of reindeer on the walls and a woodburning stove, the other is "The Loft" (a one bedroom with separate sleeping loft) decorated in a fantastic 50's modern style, complete with magazines with Elizabeth Taylor talking about her "nights with Richard", an etch-a-sketch, a gyro-wheel, and other fun knick-knacks. Alan makes cornbread and hot cereals for the guests in the morning, along with fruit and juice and coffee...It's a great place and was a treat- especially for Ben, who had been camping out 4 nights in a row in the freezing weather all by himself.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our fantastic crew. It was an incredible help to us and it was really fun to boot. THANKS!!! I will post their pictures as soon as I've got them.

THE HOUSE!!!

2006-10-20T16:35:00.000-04:00

Well here it is, the one we've all been waiting for. The house went up last week with hardly a hitch besides the rain that fell all day and all night. I wasn't there to catch the action but Ben took some lovely dramatic shots of the men working in the fog. Brace yourselves, this will be a long one. Remember to click on the picture if you want to see a bigger version, and click "back" to return to the blog.

The shot above is the Grey's Woodworks guys arriving with the pre-fabricated panels stacked up neat.

Above is the crane lifting the first floor panel. Notice the hole in the floor already made to line up with that box Ben made for the pipes. Turned out it didn't match up (their fault) but some tweaking got it lined up.

Above is Mike, with his remote controls and a cigg dangling from his mouth. In fact every picture I saw there was a cigg hanging from his mouth. He controls the crane from that remote.

Here is the floor, which is basically an insulated box. Since we're on piers we needed to make sure it was as insulated and airtight as possible to keep cold air from coming up from below. We will add another floor on top of that later. They have plastic on the rest as they work because it was raining on and off.

Here they nail-gun the subfloor on over the insulation, with yoga-style posing.

The first panel!

The second panel!

The third panel!

The triangular piece that holds up the roof! (Sorry, don't know the term for that)

Art the Excavator/Septic Man and Harold, our Nextdoor Neighbor, fast friends by this point. Harold has been great, looking out for us when we're not there, lending us tools and advice, and telling many stories about the old days in Liberty when he was growing up. He built his house himself and keeps his property imaculate.

Unfortunately, they didn't get the roof up the first day and it rained all night. Our poor floor was covered in plastic but still got totally soaked. Apparently the water was running right through and coming out the bottom. We're hoping and praying that the insulation and plywood dry out and that no moisture gets caught, because once that moldiness starts, it's insidious. Here's the soaked interior in the mist, looking very much like some spooky haunted house.

The next day we get sun, and they are back to put on the roof.

Nailing in the windows...

Eh Voila! The house in the morning sun. The house is in dire need of some grounding, what with it being up on stilts, with no stairs, decks, plants, just smack dab in the middle of a dirt pit.... It seems a bit like it wants to float up into the air. It will be a challenge to bring it down to earth, but a challenge we are looking forward to.

From across the pond.... Gorgeous little thing, isn't it?

The house from inside, morning sun. Here you see the front door and the picture window, facing our beautiful view.

This is the road side, facing south. We didn't want to be too open to the road yet wanted southern light, hence the clerestory windows at the top. This will be the kitchen, with the sink under the vertical window at the right, the counter and cabinets to the left of the sink, and the fridge just before that far vertical window.

This is the northwest corner. You can see the sliding glass doors on the right, which opens out onto the pond. The corner will be our little bedroom. Someday if we get to expand, this will all be open and the bedroom will be the dining area.

Next we paint the house, which will change the exterior look entirely. Stay tuned.

The Foundation

2006-10-17T21:29:00.000-04:00

The foundation will be made up of concrete piers. It's cheaper than a slab or crawl space because it uses so much less concrete. The benefit is that it's unlikely we'll ever get flooded (knock on wood).

Grey's Woodworks came and dug holes and placed the sonotubes in, which are the forms that the concrete is poured in to. They go down about 4 feet so will be below the frostline.

The posts go into the sonotubes and everything is leveled with this nifty string trick.

Ben built this beautiful box to sink into the ground underneath the house. The box will line up with a hole in the floor of the house which opens into the bathroom closet. It will be heavily insulated and all the water and sewer pipes will come up through the box. There will also be electric heat tape snaked into the water pipes which will help ensure against freezing water pipes in the winter. The box, like the sonotubes, goes down 4 feet to go below the frostline.

Bob, the builder, meets with Mark, the city building inspector, and gets the go ahead to pour the concrete. Don't they look like a couple of tough guys facing off?

The concrete truck comes and pulls out it's big tube (the truck looks like an anteater with it's big nose sticking out). The tube is manipulated from inside the truck and pours concrete into each sonotube. Apparently the concrete truck guy never even got out of his cab.

Concrete is poured!

The base frame is built, and the truck with the back hoe scatters gravel all underneath to help with drainage and cut down on rain splatters from the dirt.

The finished frame

Another Beautiful Morning

2006-10-12T21:16:00.000-04:00

Septic System

2006-10-11T22:18:00.000-04:00

Have you ever thought about what happens to your excrement???? I never did either, until we started learning about septic systems. It's a pretty amazing system (actually, there are several), using simply the bacteria that shows up in what you flush down the toilet and the earth's natural drainage (although sometimes you have to help it along a bit). For those of you interested, it goes like this: There is a big tank (3000 gallon capacity, 10 foot long concrete) buried in the ground. When you flush, it goes into the tank. In the tank, the solids begin to separate from the liquids. The natural bacteria present works away at the solids, decomposing it and turning it into (we hope) compost type stuff. The liquid gets purer and purer at the top, and then reaches a point where it flows into a long pipe which connects with a smaller tank. This smaller tank has a bunch of pipes leading out to the leach field, where there is a whole network of perforated pipes. The (clean, we hope) liquid leaches out and partly sinks into the earth and partly is evaporated by the sun. Such a natural process, it's unbelievable! Of course this only happens outside of the cities where there is no city sewage system. While I was learning about this simple (yet large) system, I couldn't help looking up at all the highrises in this city and realizing how many bathrooms there are, and where the heck does IT all go? Intellectually I know, of course, it goes to the sewage treatment plants, wherever they all may be, but when you really think about the pure volume of waste that flows through all the pipes it's quite alarming- think of all that stuff flowing through the walls of all the buildings and in networks all throughout the city. It's a friggin miracle a city this big can handle it all without thouroughly bursting with stink.

This is the edge of the big tank, with it's pipe leading out. Unfortunately we weren't here to catch the lowering of the tank into the ground. It must have been something, with Art working BY HIMSELF, if I'm not mistaken. The man is amazing.

Art digging the leach field trenches.

Muscle Man

The second tank with the pipes leading to the perforated pipes that make up the leach field.

The dump truck that brought the gravel. This get's put under and around the pipes to help drain. We need extra help because of all the clay in the soil, so Art also had to build up the leach field with extra good soil.

The building inspector came to inspect, it passed, he filled it all up, and voila, our very own sewage treatment plant. A tip for future septic owners- use of a lot of bleach and antibacterial type detergents can lead to septic failure because it kills the natural bacteria that helps decompose everything.

Fog

2006-09-29T14:31:00.000-04:00

Broken Ground!

2006-09-29T13:47:00.000-04:00

This is our excavator and septic man, Art Eggleton. He's a really cool dude and tells great stories. He's been very helpful and patient while dealing with us novices.

Grading of the land has begun. Actually, at the time of this posting it is pretty much done, and the septic system is well on it's way. I've been really disapointed not to be there taking pictures of every step as I had imagined, but work and school are keeping us in the city most of the week. These pictures above show the spot where our house will go- unfortunately the apple tree had to be removed becuase it was at a different elevation, but the hydrangea was saved and moved near the pond. We've flattened out the land and brought it to an even level with the driveway. We've left a berm (hump) by the road and will plant tall shrubs on it, so as to protect us better from the road, for both privacy and water run off.

Here Art moves the Hydrangea tree. These machines can cut through our clay and rock soil like butter! He dug a big hole lickety-split, cradled the Hydrangea in that big arm, and transfered it over. It was a little surprised and drooped all it's leaves, but we thouroughly watered it and it was looking ok when we left.

Ben gets to try the tractor. Even though I didn't catch it on film, I assure you he did move a bunch of dirt around.

Megan gets to try the tractor. Lots of levers and pedals but no real brake. It stops when you will it to hard enough. Very powerful thing.

Monday Oct. 2nd Grey's is scheduled to dig holes and place sonotubes (forms for concrete) for the piers the house will stand on. The following week the house shell is assembled, weather permitting. Things are really cookin' now.

Tent at Night (Ben Reading)

2006-09-29T13:43:00.000-04:00

Organized Shed

2006-09-24T18:47:00.000-04:00

Shed Improvement, phase I

2006-09-24T17:53:00.000-04:00

Last weekend Ben started a project to extend the shed. To get more use out of the space the shed sits on he built a roof on the back and will enclose 2 sides of it. More storage for us that will be somewhat protected from rain and snow.

Fall Color

2006-09-24T17:46:00.000-04:00

Labor Day Weekend

2006-09-10T10:12:00.000-04:00

I regret to say we forgot our camera Labor Day Weekend so there will be no pictures... a bummer, because it was quite a dramatic time. We needed to paint our shed to protect it before the tail end of Ernesto blew through- so we went up on Friday and furiously painted (they gave us the wrong stain color so it's not red, it's more orange-y or, as the can said, "cedar"...) as the wind propelled bits of leaves and bugs onto the sticky stain. We then covered it with a gigantic tarp which really wanted to be a kite and staked it down, hoping it would last through the night. We managed to cook up a nice meal despite the wind, and then retired to the tent, which proved to be quite cozy throughout the night. It was windyer (is that a word?) than ever, and we fell asleep to the sound of a hundred oceans crashing around us as the wind tore through the trees (wow that's poetic). Sometime around midnight it started raining, and though I barely slept for the entertainment of the elements, we felt safe and warm in our little tent. The next day continued the intense wind and rained on and off as we transfered tools and random stuff from our campsite and our neighbors barn to our shed. I had to get in the car and turn on the heat once in awhile because it was so relentless. By the afternoon we were ready for a hot cup of tea and our slippers and since we have no "inside" we came back to the city. We really appreciated the roof over our head that night as we watched movies, cooked dinner and drank wine while it rained and rained outside. The next 2 days were beautiful, sunny, and warm. We spent them in the city and enjoyed every minute of it.

Shed Erected

2006-08-28T16:15:00.000-04:00

The Grey's Woodworks guys came to erect our shed, the first structure to go up on our property. It's made in a similiar manner to the way the house will be built- They constructed panels at their shop and put them together onsite. Now we have a place for our tools and can free up our campsite a bit.

The shed, completed, from across the pond. We will paint it red next weekend.

First Camping Weekend!

2006-08-07T12:52:00.000-04:00

Early Morning Sun

2006-08-07T12:50:00.000-04:00

Camp Breakfast

2006-08-07T12:30:00.000-04:00

How To Make A Hearty Camp Breakfast

-open can of corned beef hash with personalized swiss army knife brought back from Switzerland by Sibylle
-spread in pan while not paying much mind to slight dogfood smell
-cook for awhile til a bit crispy, then crack two eggs on top and cook til done
-put on plate and eat- Yummy!*

*truth be told: it was a little nasty. It stuck to the pan and burned instead of getting crispy. The eggs took too long to cook while the hash was burning away. Next time will use non stick pan. But really, it wasn't too too bad- we ate it with gusto.

Ben Does Dishes

2006-08-07T12:19:00.000-04:00

Dead Herbs

2006-08-07T11:53:00.000-04:00

I killed my fledgling herb garden by not going up for 2 weeks during the worst heatwave of the summer. I was holding onto a bit of hope that they would make it but as you can see, they ended up crispy little wisps of nothing. I had left them in a tray of water which they probably went through in just a couple days. This weekend I planted a small mint plant because mint grows like a weed and is very hearty. If the mint makes it, at least we'll be able to make mojitos.

Outdoor Shower

2006-08-07T11:43:00.000-04:00

We created an outdoor shower spot this weekend. It was a challenge to find a secluded spot because our property is very open to the road and neighbors, but this spot proved to be perfect. We have a solar shower that we filled up in the city and warmed in the sun, then rigged it up into the trees. We layed out flat stones and filled the gaps with sand, and Ben built a bench. It was wonderful after sweating all day to shower outside in the speckled sunlight and get clean before dinner.

First Fire

2006-08-07T11:29:00.000-04:00

We had a delicious meal and ate it by the fire. We wrapped potatoes in foil and put them in the coals and had porkchops marinated in herbs and mustard and grilled peppers and carrots. At dusk we noticed what we thought were sparrows going crazy over the pond- flying around eachother in a swarming manic mass- then we realized they were actually BATS, flying around like atoms in a volatile gaseous state snapping up insects for their dinner. That was a thrilling sight.

House Plans

2006-08-01T09:03:00.000-04:00

We are using a pre-fab'ed garage structure for the shell of the house. Grey's Woodworks is a company near us that makes sheds and garages in panels in their shop and then assembles them on the property. They are really flexible, and will add windows and doors per our spec's, leaving out the garage doors, of course. We took their general plan for a 20" x 28" classic style garage and then ben and I did a million scale drawings to figure out the best way to organize a house so small. Then we had Victor Kask, an architect-in-training, draw the official set of plans as a residence. The shell will then get outfitted by the plumber and the electrician, and then it's up to us to do the rest. Here are the official drawings. Click on them to enlarge.

Building a Firepit

2006-07-26T07:55:00.000-04:00

Campsite

2006-07-25T08:56:00.000-04:00

The big house up the hill is no longer ours for the using as of July 26, so we've set up camp on our property. Our good friend Sibylle came up to help. Our neighbor Ramona has very kindly let us use her barn to store furniture and boxes and stuff, but most of the garden tools and other garage/shed type things will be stored under this tent, which is also where we'll live when we're up there. It's a cozy tent and we have an air mattress for extra comfy sleeping. It's very romantic. We have a little stove, a BBQ, a solar sun shower, and even a bucket with a toilet seat that fits right on, complete with bio-degradable bags. I've started a little herb garden and plan on cooking up some gourmet-roughin'-it-style meals.

Background...

2006-07-24T09:04:00.000-04:00

There has been a mass exodus from NYC of the Humbert-Droz-Colebrook-Lloyd family to Northhampton, MA where there is space and green mixed with a healthy dose of culture and like-minded people. It's an exciting but also sad change, as the "family compound" in Liberty (home of the infamous Connell-Colebrook wedding) has been sold. But the good news is that 2.5 acres of land has been donated to Ben and me, so that we can continue to enjoy getting out of the city when we can. So begins our homesteading experiment. Since there is nothing but a driveway on this property, we are going to have to put up not only a structure but also dig a well, put in a septic system, bring in electricity, and everything else that one needs for a house with all the modern ammenities. We will be acting as our own General Contractors as well as doing much of the interior work (i.e. sheetrock, walls, kitchen, etc). For those of you interested in following the trials and tribulations, musings and milestones, I will document the process here.

The Land

2006-07-19T18:11:00.000-04:00

Looking east. This is the spot where the house will go, just to the right of the apple tree.

The pond, with Margaret and her reflection. The house will be to the left of the apple tree in this one.