October,
2005
Things continue to move forward at a rapid pace.
Indoors,
subcontractors are
working through the house from east to west in a manner akin to the
method computer people know as
pipelining
(actually,
the term is borrowed from the
oil industry
practice of pumping multiple products through a single pipe).
In the adaptation of this method,
the wall board hangers started at the east end
and worked west,
followed by the tapers,
the texturers,
the painters,
the finish carpenters and the tile setters.
The net result is that
the east end of the house is beginning to look finished while the west
end
(and downstairs)
is still pretty rough.
The rooms are so full of scaffolding,
table saws and
other equipment that pictures are difficult to take and of little
value anyhow.
Perhaps we will try to post a movie of some of the
interior next month.
We recently learned that the larger timbers used to construct the
Main House were 340 years old.
Out of curiosity,
we looked into
some of the happenings in the world
when the timbers were seedlings.
The panorama below is meant to show how the Entry slab looks and
how the masonry is coming along.
However,
with the sun staying
more to the south now,
there is no time of day to get good
lighting on the north aspect of the house without the sun glaring
into the lens.
This picture was taken in the early morning,
and
avoids the glare from the east.
In next month's report,
the garage roof should be covered with soil,
the stucco should
be on and the stonework finished.
It is difficult to describe
how this will all play together;
we'll hope for better lighting
next month
(perhaps a cloudy day after a snowfall)
so the exterior
finish will be readily visible.
Cornered!
Pumpkin and Neko cooperate in catching a
burrowing animal.
Pumpkin is getting quite good at
catching mice;
she often bounces through the high
grass like a deer,
surprising mice at each landing.
One day,
she presented us with five dead mice at
the front of the Carriage House.
Neko and Pumpkin are also good at
locating dead deer left by coyotes.
This usually
leads to a bath before being allowed back in the
house.
The stone stairway is nearing completion;
it leads up next
to the retaining wall of the south patio (where 4 doors connect
to the Great Room,
Dining Room and Kitchen area).
The top of the
wall needs a few stones to cap it,
then the concrete pillars
will be finished with the same stone and a metal railing will
connect them.
Large lichen covered boulders that match the
retaining wall will be used to line the outer edge of the stone
stairway.
The patio itself is stamped and stained concrete
that closely matches the stone used in the stairway.
Jon Nakamatsu
came to town to perform
this month;
Pauline knows him,
so she contacted him and we were able to take him
to lunch as well as attend his performance.
Pauline's son Marcus and his friend Paul were here for several days.
They came to fish and to see Yellowstone Park
(pictures here).
The weather turned cool and cloudy the day they arrived,
but there was good weather for a Yellowstone visit and for one of
the fishing days.
Be sure to check out the
Main House Progress
( New! Improved! )
Parting Shot
The End of the Flowers
The deer finally discovered our wildflower bed.
We did not chase them off,
figuring snow would soon kill the flowers anyhow,
and it did
—
it snowed the next day
(October 2)
and most of the remainder of the
week.
That slowed down the outside work,
but the weather has
turned good again
(just in time for hunting season).
