News from the Country Estate

Hihowahya,

Since the post in the summer time, we have moved again (in November), to another small apartment on the same road as our land on which we intend to build our house. Since the summer, many things have changed and many have stayed the same.

We're still trying to scratch a living from the coast of Maine like nearly everyone else around here. I am still trying to make money by putting pieces of wood together with nails and glue, but around here you do whatever you can to make it through the winter. I have recently considered getting a 'real' job, and I have even sent out a few resumes, but there still aren't a lot of jobs out there for folks without specific training (i.e. nurses, machinists etc.)

Last month, I spent a couple days splitting wood (with a hydraulic woodsplitter a Split-Fire 2260, which I highly recommend for its dual-action), and I sold one of our cars (the 96 Honda Civic with 250k miles). It sold in about an hour after I put it on the Craigslist. Somehow we found a way to pay off the Benz-omatic Wagon and now we're debt-free except for our student loans. (Don't even get me started on the American travesty of saddling the next generation with mountains of student loans getting useless degrees.....).

The Astro work van I bought in the fall is performing admirably, getting almost exactly 17.6 mpg on every tank, which is a spectacular improvement over the 10-12 I was getting with my Dodge Ram pickup. I may yet build a center console out of birch plywood, but for now, I like it the way it is. My only complaint is that the back doors leak a bit when it rains and I can't find anything wrong with the weatherstripping.... Maybe it will be a dry summer.

We've been doing a few things on our land. We finally cleaned up some of the debris from the trees that I brought down before Hurricane Irene and piled it into a big pile. I'm still deciding whether to burn the pile or rent a big chipper for a day. Thoughts?

The next step over there is to scrape enough cash together to put in a nice gravel driveway. I'm getting an estimate on it on Wednesday.

Since we got rid of one car payment, we thought it would be a good idea to take on another one, in the form of a shop/storage space down back here at the estate. Soon I'll be setting up my first shop. I am pretty excited actually to have a space to set up all the bigger tools all at once. And have a work bench......the possibilities are endless, as are the ways to spend time and money on them.

Once the shed is empty of tools and other stuff, we'll be outfitting it as rustic guest house for the summer and fall, so we'll finally have guest accommodations. We'll have to figure something out for facilities over there, but I think it will be great.

So with all that news, I'll leave you to whatever dreary or fair March weather awaits you.

-w-

In a week.

Sometimes it feels like you don't get anything done in a week, and other times, it all falls into place and you get a lot done. This week Paul and I finished assembling and sanding all 60 stools and 40 chairs for a new restaurant opening up in Freeport, ME. Our part is done now; all that's left is for them to go to the finish guy to get a few coats of lacquer. Then we deliver the product. What a relief to be done with them. May God be praised for sustaining us through it. We've been hard at it six days-a-week for over two months.

Finished Cathance River Low-Back Barstools waiting for delivery.

I took my first Saturday off in months to get a few things done around the house. I started with coffee, bacon and pancakes. We finally got the last of our stuff out of the attic of our old apartment, and we're finally settling in at our new place. Many thanks to our friend Ivan the Mechanic for getting me a new muffler on the Honda in a about 45 minutes flat.

I guess I need a muffler. My car was starting to sound like the Fast and the Furious.

And right after dinner yesterday, I got the dryer all hooked up and working. We've never had our own washer and dryer, so this is a big deal. (And I got to buy a 4" hole saw out of the deal.)

Not bad for $140 on Craigslist.

An army of Cathance River Side Chairs awaits our command ( or the finish guy )

More good news: KT's job has assured funding through the end of September, so there's now time for the state legislature to make up their minds about whether or not they will fund early-childhood home-visiting programs throughout the state

Sanding the curved backs of the barstools with a 5" random orbit sander and 120 grit.

With a few things around here to wrap up in the next week or two, I'm hoping to make a trip out to the midwest to visit with family and friends who I haven't seen in a while, that I might not see for a while if I don't make the trip soon.

Finish sanding the last side chair with 180 grit paper. The culmination of 8 weeks of work.

I'm also pretty excited about my new drill and driver combo. Paul is always harassing me for using his impact driver, so I had to do something about it. We had a Home Depot gift card and did exactly what they want you to do: spend twice as much money as your gift card. So when I saw this combo for just over $200 I couldn't pass it up.

I needed something to drive that 4" hole saw, as if the other three drills I own weren't going to work...

Ch-ch-ch-changes......

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

Bowie didn't know how right he was. Or maybe he did. At least in the chorus.

We are going through out own set of changes. We're moving to a new place on short notice this week in order to position ourselves better for our next move, which hopefully will be to a home I build with my own hands at The Land of Goshen on the Egypt Road.

KT still hasn't heard about whether she'll have a job at the end of June.
I sold the motorcycle.

I'm selling the boat and the big truck.

And I've been basically retraining for a related but largely new career in fine woodworking and furniture making. Carpentry is still a backup source of income, but not a place I want to be stuck forever (life's length still seems like forever when you're only 27). I'm just old enough to wish I had done a number of things differently, but still young enough to do a a number of things differently.

Today is a good day to start.

Here's to the new morning tomorrow. I hope its about more than peeps and bunnies and spring.

Happy Easter.

April Fool

8 to 10 inches of heavy wet snow and I have to go plow it. Looks like I'm the April Fool. Things were just starting to turn around into some kind of spring mudseason, complete with deep ruts and KT said she saw a black fly the other day. Black fly? In March? It must be the result of climate change or the nuclear reactor in Japan. Either way we're in for it, so everybody stock up on guns and gold and iodine and extra sun-tan lotion for good measure (for the extra UV rays due to the hole in the ozone layer). But now we've got a new layer of white stuff.

I like to think the weather reminds us of how little we actually control. We can create monstrous disasters with radiation and oil spills and what not, but the earth just continues on, always healing itself as its creator intended. At some point, that healing process may just put an end to us as the planet gets too hot or too cold or too much radiation or whatever. In the end, though, the earth certainly doesn't need us. Whatever one may believe about our origins, I am convinced we live here on this planet due to the bountiful grace of our Creator, and I will gladly accept whatever comes from the Creator's hand. Even if that means being the April Fool.

Never enough.

How much snow is enough?

There is never enough snow......

Winter cannot last forever, however.

20 years ago, someone decided to put the corner of a building right where I would be trying to back up at 5:43AM on Thursday morning. This temporal intersection resulted in a physical collision of wood, metal and plastic. Coffee went everywhere. I think I only swore once, out loud. By the end of the day, I already had the insurance claim and an estimate to fix the damage. $5600.

The only problem is that I can't afford to have my truck in the shop for a week if its going to keep snowing every two days.

So, it comforts me that winter cannot last forever.

That is all.

A Particular Affliction

A particular affliction of some vehicle owners (myself included) is STS (stuck truck syndrome). From what I understand, it runs in families, so if I have it, my brother is also at risk whether he has manifested symptoms yet or not. In our case, my brother manifested symptoms around the same time I did, though he was in snow, and I was in mud at the time.


Above and below we see the typical symptoms of STS manifested: The four-wheel drive equipped truck, bottomed out on something unyielding and in this case, the front end buried in four feet of snow.



The afflicted truck owner, surveying the 'stuck-ness' of the rear differential on the ice and snow.


Maybe if I attach the hook here I can put another dent in my bumper....


The real culprit in this episode of STS is the desire to help someone out by pushing the snow a little bit farther back than the regular plow guy could. Things just go down hill from there until the 'friend with big truck' is called and offered a six-pack of the beer of his choice to come administer the cure. It is important for the afflicted truck owner to keep their cool and remember that you will get unstuck, someday. It may not be today. When we did finally get her out, we missed the edge of the house by mere inches.


Said 'friend with big truck' did not wish to be identified lest the world find out how good natured and helpful he really is.

After getting the truck unstuck, I got to chill out and play some bass for the first time in three years with my friend Julian.

We need a drummer.

And lastly, the main things I look forward to after snow plowing are the delectable treats one of my customers bakes for me in lieu of payment.
Two pies and a coffee cake will keep my sweet tooth satisfied until the next snow storm

And that's the news from the Country Estate. Bundle up, its gonna be a cold one tonight!

Home Economics-Lesson 1: Lunch for the Working Man

As many people are tightening up the budgetary belt (as we are), I thought I'd share some of the ways we make the dollars go a bit farther.


As a working man, lunch is a very important meal for me, but also potentially expensive. I used to eat a cold cut sandwich and a bit of Stonyfield's organic cream on top vanilla yogurt. Because times are lean, I've cut back on the processed foods. I am blessed with a wife who is talented and chooses to be helpful. Here is KT parceling out my week's lunch into five separate containers. Some weeks its pasta with meat sauce, others its spicy beans and rice. This week, chili over the top of linguine.


I do my part (usually) by washing the dishes. For some reason, I find washing dishes easier when I have a good mustache going.



First, the linguine in all the containers, then, a hearty helping of veggie chili on top. Funny, when money is tight, our diet turns more vegetarian. Every morning, then, I put one of these containers in my lunch box, along with a couple of carrots from our Winter CSA and maybe some piping hot squash soup in my thermos and I'm eating tasty and healthy lunch for about $2 per day instead of $5-6. All this frugality is work, but if you've got time and not money, then its worth it.


Vegetarian, except for the cute little baby chickens we eat every morning! Actually, since I dispatched our last rooster a while back, all our fresh eggs have been unfertilized. This two dozen eggs represents a little less than three days of regular production for our eleven hens. On the whole, owning your own chickens isn't really cheaper than buying eggs in the store. But when you consider the fun factor of searching for wayward hens in the blowing winter wind at night and disposing of rabid raccoons that shack up in the chicken house, then I would say owning your own hens is well worth it.

Keeping busy

What use is being unemployed if you can't hang out, watch daytime TV and eat cheetos? I can't seem to catch a break with this 'unemployment'. We were back at it for a couple of days to put up this 24x36 high-posted cape. It took about a day to ferry the whole thing down there to Bristol, then another day with a crane to put 'er up. This morning we finished screwing down the purlins and put a couple of big tarps on the roof. We're short on tarp tatters, so we thought we'd put it up there ahead of some 60 mph winds (Hurricane Earl) and that would work nicely. Besides, I don't really get enough of being 27 feet up over a concrete slab.


After a quick lunch in my sweltering apartment, I thought, I haven't sweat enough today, so I'll go over the shed and work some more. I put in a little work bench. 38 and a quarter high, 30 inches deep and a little under 12 feet long. It should do nicely for some little projects for customers and our house project.



12 x 16 feet can feel quite small if there's too much stuff in it, but with some clear floor space, it feels just big enough. I'll have to stay organized.


Still not sweating enough, I decided to use the lumber loft for lumber, and I moved a couple of piles of pine boarding and some 2x8x 16' and 20' framing lumber up there to keep it out of the rain and out of sight.




We're watching the Hurricane tracks for Earl and hoping it doesn't get too wild here. Right now we're just in the 40 mph wind zone. If the seas are going to get too rowdy, we'll pull the sailboat ahead of it. Wouldn't want 'er to get swamped!

Progress!

Well, I got the roof on and a temporary door until I can build the sliding doors. Those roof overhangs look proportionally too big, but hey, its a shed and I gotta keep some wood dry.


Next, I re-glazed some old windows and screwed them in with some hinges so I can get a little airflow in the main level.


Finally, I got some hasps and locks on there so I can leave tools there without it being really easy for them to find new owners.

Roofing in Metal

So I have this prejudice against asphalt/fiberglass roofing. It goes like this: you can only use it as roofing once before you have to throw it away (by 'away' I mean 'into someone else's backyard', someone who can't afford to keep you from putting it there). Yes I know, some asphalt roofing gets recycled, but its a costly, messy process. Anyway, asphalt roofing is a mess no matter how you slice it, and its not even cheaper than metal. Metal has the advantage of being completely recyclable, it will outlast me, and when its finally not doing the job, my children can bring it to a scrap yard and get paid for it.

For my approximately 480 sq. ft. shed roof, I priced metal and asphalt side by side, and metal came out cheaper by almost 20%. The key with metal roofing is that you don't have to sheath the roof in plywood or boarding. You can simply strap it with 1x3's and screw it down. So, I ordered a bunch of 'burnished slate' colored metal roofing and went for it.


They even cut to length for me so I didn't have to buy more metal than I was going to use. (They won't do that for you at Home Depot or Lowes....)


This is a 'wear-gloves' job.


Predrilling all the sheets on the ground (and having square and plumb roof framing!) is the key to success, just make sure you drill the holes in the right spots.

More to come....

News from the Country Estate 8-24-2010

Is it really almost the end of August? What happened to the time? December--soon it will be December and everything will be covered with snow and the plow will be hanging ready on the nose of the Dodge....But until then, there's still time to enjoy what has been a perfect summer (for weather).

Saturday and Sunday, KT was out of town, seeing her sister off to college (Univ of Minnesota), so I decided it was time to take my first solo daysail out in Casco Bay. I had plenty of wind, and got to practice a lot of things. There seems to be chaos on board when you're single-handing--you only have two hands and one free knee to manage, sheets and halyards, and of course the tiller. So it went ok, not the prettiest bunch of tacks and jibes, but I found my way back to the mooring field after 3 and a half hours. After practicing sailing up to lobster buoys several times, I sailed successfully up to the mooring, stalling the boat into the wind right on top of it. Then with a debonair and casual manner, I strolled up to the foredeck, with all the rigging flapping in the wind, and seized the pin-buoy and the mooring pennant. I felt pretty smug after that....

After church on Sunday, I had the time to go up to Cushing to the Historical Society which was holding a small art exhibition in their barn. My friend, David Cadbury, was showing some of his recent work. He uses Microsoft Paint as his medium and creates pixilated images of coastline and other subjects. I had to stand back 20 feet to get the real effect. Neat stuff.

Over the last few weeks, I had the time to build a custom bed frame for some seasonal resident clients of mine.
The corners are of a reused 8x8 Douglas Fir timber. The rails are simply spruce 2x6's mortised into the corners and pegged with red oak. The slats are white pine. The whole thing is sanded and finished in beeswax and citrus oil.



The client will be using a latex foam mattress on the bed, and so they requested that the surface be made up of slats so the mattress can breathe. We'll see how they find it to sleep upon. I am offering to build similar pieces for $800-1000 depending on the materials and dimensions.



Progress on the shed continues, with the back gable all studded out and one of the four gable overhangs framed. Today I'm going to frame the loft door in the front gable and then build the rest of the overhangs. Rake and eave trim will go up next, then the metal roofing on thursday. Hopefully I'll have the doors and windows going by early next week. Then a paint job.

KT is back safe from her travels, and I am glad to have her home.

Thats the news from the Country Estate for this week.

w

Late summer limbo

Well, well, another late summer limbo. I just got cut loose from my regular job because there's no work right now. Maybe a new project will come in the next couple weeks, but until then its limbo time for the bank account. How low will it go? In the mean time, we'll just eat the bounty that God gives us--this years blackberry harvest has been a bumper crop.


Then there's always the church potluck fellowship meal. We made a not-so-spicy chili.



Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves in the basement of Sheepscot Valley Community Church. Next time we have a potluck, we'll have it outside if the weather's nice.


Then, of course, there's always work to be done over at the Land of Goshen. I've had a shed platform framed up for several months now, but the time has come to frame the rest of it. Here's a progress shot from yesterday. Walls are framed and boarded now, all the rafters are up, and now I'm framing the gables and gable overhangs. I've got a whole bunch of corrugated metal roofing coming on Tuesday to get the roof on. Hopefully I'll get it all finished by the end of next week. Then I gotta figure out how to pay my lumberyard bill! Maybe I'll sell that 12" sliding chop saw you see there!!

News from the Country Estate July 11, 2010

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

For the last two days we have had rain during the day, only to have the clouds break right around sunset. Yesterday we had a beautiful sunset on the west side and a full double rainbow on the east. Today's sunset was no less spectacular!

Its a hard life when your sunsets look like this.

Wags, profiled by the sunset.

Clouds, reflected in driveway puddle.

Early 1960's cedar lap-strake Old Town runabout.

Its been a hot few days here at the Country Estate. Temps and humidity in the 90's is about as bad as it ever gets round these parts. Unfortunately, I was in New Jersey all week putting up a horse barn, so I had the distinct pleasure of working in 105 degree heat and full sun for four days. I'd like to say it was bearable with plenty of water and sunscreen, but the pounding headaches really made it hard to work much more than 8 hours. We even started at 6am to beat the heat, but by 3pm we were pretty much all like frayed rope. In any case, the money was good and the frame went together with few hiccups and no joinery mistakes.

For a little fun, I put all three ducks in a big plastic tub to see how they'd like it. They had a good time splashing around until they couldn't figure out how to get out, then I had to use a little persuasion.

The one broody hen finally got up from the chicken house and roamed around the yard again. We were starting to think she had an egg obstruction or something, but I seen her scratching for food this afternoon. Lately they've all stopped laying due to the heat or the ducks encroaching on their space, I don't know which. I hope we can get them laying again soon, or else we'll have to buy eggs for the first time in well over a year.

Coming up we've got more summer, a couple weeks of work, then I go down to Maryland to put up another frame. This time it's a high posted cape with a lean-to shed on one side. We're still progressing on design for our home. Its a slow process, but we finally feel like we're getting somewhere.

Lastly, the motorcycle is in pieces still. :(

news from the country estate 2-17-09

Greetings from the 'didn't get any snow this time either' country estate,

Other than the reliably pleasant mid winter weather, we've got a few other news items:

-work has been slower than slow, but thats February in Maine.

-housebuilding or more like housebuilding planning has begun in earnest. Septic system design is underway, estimates are being made, financing pursued

-I traded some work for a 6.5 kW generator recently.

-I've been prototyping some new furniture with my friend Paul over at Paul Baines Fine Woodworking. I'll post pictures just as soon as we've got something to show for it. Think about Bamboo though.

-We were down in Boston doing some preliminary marketing work for the above mentioned PBFW's line of Cathance River Stools. We're trying to get them some exposure, so I can work more building furniture as well as houses. Boston is a bit of a culture shock after being on the country estate for a while

-And, that's about it, now go over and read my other blog about Porch Restorations.

---w---

Oot and a boot.

Winter is a great time to be out and about in Maine. There are no crowds, no traffic and no tourists from 'away'. I think the low temperatures and precipitation keep them away. But we find plenty of interesting things to do, vocationally and otherwise. I just created a new blog for my carpentry endeavors, you can see it here: http://woodandwagner.blogspot.com.


Here is part of a timberframe I recently had a hand in raising. All that snow presents some serious challenges to the project. If the trailer at right looks a little high that's because it is. The site was so tight that the crane truck drove in with that trailer and to get out had to pick the trailer up off the ground and spin it. Conditions were so icy that the crane and trailer got stuck on the way out with all of us behind it. There we sat for over an hour, idling, while a sand truck came to put down some traction.

These bunch from our snowshoeing jaunt yesterday at the Land of Goshen:


Wags, winter forest head shot. (Photo by KT)


KT, winter forest head shot. When the temperature is in the teens or lower, she opts for the artificial beard.

Birch among Pines.


If KT received a revelation from heaven while snowshoeing, I imagine this is what it might look like.


There is a fungus among us. In this case on a big dead pine trunk. (photo by KT)


The aforementioned fungusy dead pine trunk. (photo by KT)


Wavy ice on the streaming stream. (photo by KT)

Last weekend I got to go snowshoeing on Saturday with our friend Rob from Milwaukee. Then on Sunday, we got up in the wee hours and drove up to Sugarloaf Mtn to experience what many say is the best downhill ski experience in the East. I can say it was the best I've ever skied. I'll post pictures from that soon.