Winter Scenery

Yesterday morning provided perhaps the most beautiful scenery yet this winter.  And thanks to a new job where that scenery translated into a two hour delay, I had time to put on some boots and enjoy a quiet morning walk through the snow. 

 

 

 

 

(Did you notice the springhouse is in the picture above?)

 

 

 

The Good Old Summertime

The last few days have been classic summer.  On Sunday we had a family reunion and then I took the kids on the local preservation society's annual garden tour.  I thought the kids' patience would last through maybe four or so gardens, but they wanted to see all eight.  I've got some great kids!  Then for supper last night I enjoyed a big plate of sauted zucchini, red onion and tomato with some lemon pepper seasoning.  Mmmmm!  And the zucchini came from my own little garden:

I'm putting all those salvaged bricks to good use!

Drip Edge

Since Kate asked on my last post - "Is that horizontal strip above the door a drip edge?" - I'll answer here.  Yes - it is a drip edge. 

To the right is a simple profile of how the drip edge fit together.  (Just pretend that the garish bright yellow and red are a more respectable tan and maroon - Homestead Resort Parlor Taupe and Carriage Door to be precise.)  I used my mom's SawStop table saw (and my dad's help) to make the angled cuts and everything fit together pretty easily.

The drip edge is functioning exactly as intended.  I know this because at the end of my last Saturday of outdoor work I spent 40 minutes on a stepladder in the rain wiping Carriage Door-tinted rain splatters off of the Homestead Resort Parlor Taupe drip-edge.  (It had been overcast all day, but the forecast for that Saturday had no mention of "rain" and given my dwindling number of days with temperatures above freezing I figured I would be safe painting on a forecast of "mostly cloudy".)

The hinges and latch for the doors that will go under this drip edge finally arrived last Friday, so I should be moving on to door building soon.

Let It Rain

The shed roof is shingled!

Even without addressing the siding, it's already quite an improvement over what it looked like when we bought the place:



Up next will be giving new life to the stack of barn siding we salvaged a couple of weeks ago.  It makes a deceivingly small pile when neatly stacked, but I know how much area this siding covered on its old barn and I'm pretty confident we'll have enough here for our project.

And in one more "let it rain" bit of news, at right was the view out our bedroom window Thursday night. 

Previously, the sump pump and gutters were all tied into a 4" footer tile that empties into the creek near the springhouse.  While it did okay in a gentle rain, in downpours it quickly became overwhelmed causing water to come through the basement walls, particularly at the northwest corner of the house.  It also became a problem during the flooding at the end of February when the creek rose high enough to cover the outlet of the footer tile, meaning the sump pump and gutters could no long drain.

The new tile is a 6" solid tile  that is supposed to be impervious to blockage by tree roots.  It empties into the creek at a point about five feet higher than the footer tile (high enough that it would not have been submerged even in this spring's flooding).  The sump pump and all of the gutters from the stone part of the house are tied into the new tile.  The old footer tile is still in place, and the contractor we hired thinks that with the pump and roof water all now directed to the new tile, the old footer should again be able to handle its load. 

There's a chance of thunderstorms later this weekend, and I've got fingers crossed that the new roof and the new tile both pass their first test.

Updates

Good News

Celia with one of the twin tiger kittens

We have kittens at the EH!!!  Maude's taking good care of her three little ones who are now ten days old.  Ethel's litter was born yesterday - there appear to be 6, possibly 7 (including at least one calico!).  And because my husband we are softies, we've also adopted twin tiger striped brothers that were dumped in a ditch.  Anybody need a good kitty or 4?

Not So Good News
Preservation Ohio recently announced their list of 2011 Ohio's Most Endangered Historic Sites and the Seneca County Courthouse and Seneca County Museum both made the list.  (The courthouse for the fourth time.)  At a recent meeting of the Seneca County Commissioners, Commissioner Jeff Wagner "made a motion to seek bids for courthouse demolition, but there was not a second. [Wagner] said he would have been remiss had he not made the motion."


Related and Better News
Following up on my earlier post, today's local newspaper reports that at their most recent meeting, the county commissioners "voted 2-to-1 to not sell the museum or any contents, including three paintings possibly created by the Hudson River School art movement."  As for Mr. Wagner, the most civil thing I can write here is to quote a Facebook user who said, "there is a certain political movement that wants to bulldoze the past; at the same time they claim to revere the past."

Not So Good News
It poured rain here again last weekend.  Somewhere around 4 1/2 inches overnight Friday into Saturday.  Although there's a footer tile around the house for the gutters to drain into, it is obviously not large enough to handle the volume of water these summer storms pour into it.  We're slowly accepting that we're going to need to dig it up and replace it with a larger tile.  We also have a new 6 inch deep gulley at the end of our driveway.  It's obvious that a permanent solution to this problem is going to involve more tile.

Since some might be wondering - The basement had water coming through the walls, but with the bypassed tile still in place the sump pump was able to keep up for the most part.  I've not ventured down to check the stone bridge, and I'm not planning to either.  There's nothing we can do for now so I'm trying to just not think about it.

Bragging News
Cecilia was completely thrilled with the cake I made for her 6th birthday.

(Charles thinks I'll have a hard time topping this next year.  I suspect he's right.)

Bat News
This year's crop of baby bats took wing earlier this month. I spent a couple of nights watching them fly out of the bat houses.  The babies are easy to identify, not only because they are smaller, but also because they flap their little wings so much more quickly than the full grown bats.  They're really rather cute.


In other bat news we have bats back in our attic.  Although the majority remain in the bat boxes, a fair number have noticed a small gap in the very corner of the eaves.  We had a local tree-trimming company lined up to come out with a bucket truck to install another one-way bat door, but they had to cancel because the truck was needed to clean up storm damage (see a few items above).  I still need to call and reschedule this.

Bad News
When we contacted the neighbor who told us last February that we could take siding from a barn on his property to let him know we were about ready to use the salvaged siding he apologetically told us he has sold his farm (and aforesaid barn).  This will obviously delay work on our shed.

More Not So Good News
Taking a good friend up on her offer (see the comments to this post) I went to Lowe's prepared to order roofing for the shed.  Only to find out that they can not match the 24" seams on the current shed (16" is the widest available). 

This next bit is a little difficult to explain.  There is a 14" strip on the original shed, immediately above where the new awning joins the old roof, where a previous owner removed the old standing seam roof.  Because I rebuilt the new awning using the old one as a pattern, this 14" strip still remains.  The transition strip available to change from 24" seams to 16" seams and to make the change in pitch only covers 7".  After considerable discussion with the salesman we had four options:

1 - partially dismantle the awning I just built, extending the joists and increasing the pitch so that the new joists would join the original roof at the top of the fourteen inches instead of the bottom;
2 - remove the rest of the standing seam from that side of the building and replace all of it with new 16" standing seam;
3 - use flashing to cover the remaining 7" so the resulting roof would have 24" seams on the top, 16" seams on the bottom, and a seven inch strip in the middle with no seams;or
4 - leave the remaining standing seam and shingle the new roof and the 14" strip above it.

I've tried to talk myself into #1 but I just can't.  #2 would double the cost and labor required for the job and that's something that we're not comfortable doing at this time.  If we went with #3 that flat seven inch section in the middle of the roof would drive me absolutely crazy.  So shingles it will be.



Expect it to be a couple weeks though before I resume work on this project.  As this post shows, I've got a few other issues demanding my attention at the moment.  And I've got kittens to spend time playing with and cuddling as well.  : )

Stormy Weather

I took our camera outside Wednesday evening just before some storms blew in.

We got more (totally unnecessary) heavy rain, but considering what others have faced recently we were lucky.