After two days.

After two days and sixty miles of sailing, I am getting seasick sitting here on land. Everytime I close my eyes, the room starts swaying back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth......

A friend and I cruised on up to Butter Island for lunch then down to Carver Cove on Vinalhaven to meet some friends at their cabin. A beautiful clear night spent rocking back and forth in the cove. Tasty breakfast and then a jaunt out to Isle au Haut and back to Carver Cove to drop off a passenger. A tight squeeze motoring through the Fox Island Thorofare and a gale coming out into Penobscot Bay. 3 to 5' seas. A calm ride back into Rockland Harbor. Home.

A day back home and off to Milwaukee.

W

News from the Country Estate July 26

Greetings from the Country Estate:

Summer made a cameo appearance this week with temps in the 80's and high humidity. The gloomy skies of clouds, fog, and rain more typical of this year's summer returned however, with today barely reaching 70 degrees and intermittent rain showers. On Friday we received more than an inch of rain in five hours during a 'nor'easter'. KT and I did some rainy day shopping and saw the latest Harry Potter movie for a matinee price. An ok film. Just ok.

During a break in the rain last week I was finally able to install some relatively hard to find shock absorbers on my sailboat trailer. They are actually snowmobile shocks, but they're just the right size for minimizing radial oscillation due to cornering. They were about $20/a piece and non-returnable, so I was pretty glad when they did the trick.

After strapping the boat down, I was ready to bring the vessel home. The drive was relatively uneventful and boat, truck and driver arrived in good spirits.

Now in storage under a tarp next to another in progress boat project, she waits for some more time and money to tackle a few projects before she is seaworthy once more.

The end is in sight for the building project that never seems to end. Here we see the 34'x51' timber frame home after two days of raising work. There are only about 8 lifts left, just four dormer assemblies, four rafters and a dormer truss on the far side of the building. The second floor has 19 feet of headroom at the peak of the roof. That's a great height if you are going to house the raptor exhibit at the zoo....We'll build whatever they want.

A hen left a peace offering of a single egg on our deck after both roosters spent the afternoon digging up my tomato patch and fouling our deck. I immediately fried the peace offering to over-easy and partook of it with salt and pepper.

Probably the freshest egg I have ever eaten.

Inspired by my fresh egg experience, I went out to the garden and harvested a bunch of lettuce, some scallions, and a turnip for a mid-afternoon feast. I chopped and fried the turnip and scallions, adding two fresh eggs to make a country scramble.

I regret not planting four times as much in the garden, but who knew the weather would be this wet?

I spent the afternoon studying poultry slaughter techniques in preparation for the next time the roosters decide that its a good idea to hang out and crow by our window at five in the morning or dig up the tomatoes again.

Tomorrow its off to work again thankfully and hopefully all week.

On, Finally.

The day finally came to get my boat off its keel-blocking and stands and onto the bright blue boat trailer. With lots of help from my friend Paul (the boat's previous owner), especially with the welding part, the trailer sits ready to receive the load. A fixed-keel sailboat trailer has to do two things: support the weight of the boat on the keel (the pressure-treated keel-rest in the middle) and keep the boat from tipping over while standing and driving (the steel tubes braced in two directions; the tubes are from old staging sections. We're always recycling). On the steel tubes will go big threaded screws with a plywood pad on them. When I have the time I'm going to paint the support stands.

The trick is to get a tippy boat on to a trailer without tipping it over.

First, you have to jack the boat up so it is at roughly the same height as the trailer, then pull the trailer as close and as straight up to the boat as possibly. Next, more jacking, and lifting by the boat stands, pulling the trailer back etc. When the keel is resting partially on the trailer, its time to put the truck in neutral, rig up some beefy come-a-longs and actually drag the trailer under the boat. This is possibly until most of the boat's weight actually rests on the trailer, then the come-a-longs actually drag the boat onto the trailer.

With some sweat, patience, and proverbial and actual elbow grease, a 19.5 ' 3000 lb boat can be safely deposited on a custom trailer. Bought retail, a custom trailer like this would cost in excess of $3500. Not including time for labor, I have roughly$500 into this one. Including labor, its probably more like $1500, still a pretty good value

It almost looks like its sitting too far back, but the center of weight is almost exactly between the two axles, right where it should be. Its actually sitting a little heavy on the front. And from the front.

Despite appearances, she's not quite ready to take a dip. First, the trailer needs some kind of stabilizing shock absorbers to counter the oscillating bounciness of the coil springs (its a 1960's era chassis). Second, I have a new hitch coupling. Third, as you can see there is no tongue jack. Fourth, like in the previous post about sailboat launching, It needs a little wheel on the tongue to let it down into the water far enough for floating. All that is just for the trailer to be safe and functional. The to do list on the boat is a mile long, but not all of it is necessary for a few day-sails.

This afternoon we're going sailing again on Paul's boat. We'll probably just bop around Rockland, Rockport, Camden area.

News from the Country Estate July 7

greetings,

Forgive my clumvsy typeing as I had the geatr fortune of satisfyiung my curiosity about how stapling my finger to a roof feels...it only throbs most of the time.

It rains again, no surprise.

The shed project progresses nicely:


Wall and roof framing in progress. The big openings are for yet to be determined door/windows.

Door and windows bought, roof sheathed.

Tarpapering the roof.

Windows purchased 1/2 price at the Building Materials Exchange.

Gable overhang.

What my sailboat will look like when its done. This is a Bristol 19/Corinthian

KT takes a photo at the end of the dock at Owl's Head as we prepare to head out sailing on Sunday. We sailed with our friend Paul to Islesboro and back. It was a gorgeous day.

Before that we spent a few days down on Cape Cod celebrating KT's aunt's wedding. The weather was mostly great. Then we headed up to Boston to watch the fireworks from a roof top.....

well the rain continues.....

A break!

A break in the steady rain allows a crew of Maine carpenters to sheath, insulate, and hang drywall on a 24x36 carriage house in just two days. With modern materials like structural insulated panels and a crane, a crew of four can do all that and more in just a few days. A house can be built and weather-tight in less than one week.

That's what we do. Now, if only the 'economy' would pick up we'd be able to do one every other week.

In other news, I drive to Cape Cod tomorrow to meet up with KT and attend her aunt's wedding. I might stick around for a week or so if I can find some work around those parts.

News from the Country Estate June 29

Greetings,

With the continued wet weather came speculation that we can expect more of this wet weather pattern as a result of climate change (man-made or otherwise). It certainly puts a damper on outdoor on-site work like the photo below.

A carriage-house style garage timber frame.

We raised that frame on June 16 and got a few days of passable weather in order to board the roof with tongue and groove last week, but since then we've had little respite from low-pressure systems that stall out in the gulf of Maine and send wave after wave of precipitation. In addition a heavy fog and cloud bank has covered the coast for the last month or so. Just a few miles inland, we have seen the sun a few times, but more often than not we have been spending out days inside, playing cribbage and making cookies.

On a slightly less moist day, I was able to frame the deck for a shed-addition for some friends of ours who reside seasonally near/on Damariscotta Lake. Unfortunately time and weather has not allowed any more progress.

8x12 floor for a new section of a shed.

I did find one day with passable-enough weather to help a friend launch his 26' Rhodes Meridian sailboat in Rockland. Before launching we narrowly avoided making the boat a lawn ornament on River Road in Bowdoinham. When I pulled over to make an adjustment the 6-8000lbs of combined weight proved to much for the saturated soil of the shoulder and as I pulled away, the wheels dug themselves 18 inches into the ground, right up the trailer axles. After some tense tippy moments, we were able to pull the boat and trailer out of harm's way and on through to Rockland. In the parking lot of the Snow Marine Park, we painted the hull and prepared to step the 32' aluminum mast by hand. This required KT's brother Shane on the ground with a 16' 2x4 pushing the mast up, me on the stern holding the mast over my head and the boat's owner at the pivot point making sure the pin fastened and the wiring went where it was supposed to go. After the pin went in, I simply walked the mast forward and up (no easy task !). It was such an exertion that my knees were shaking after I got it up. But as you can see in the photo, up it went. We finished wiring and taping the turnbuckles and went off the launch ramp.

In order to float a boat that draws six feet off a trailer, you have to get the trailer pretty far into the water. You can see in the photo above that there is a small wheel attached under the tongue of the trailer. We unhitch the trailer from my truck and lower it onto the small wheel and:

...attach a chain and pull the truck away to take up the slack, at this point we pull the blocks that hold the trailer from rolling down the ramp and slowly lower the trailer into the water. We had lost two hours and the tide had gone down considerably, so we had to use 40 feet of chain rather than the 20 feet we expected. This allowed us to put the trailer way down on the ramp and well under water while keeping the salt water away from my truck's rear end.

The empty trailer of Success!

Now to get my sailboat ready to be in the water....

Maybe we'll get it in by August, but not if this rain keeps up...

Meanwhile

Meanwhile, back at the Country Estate ol' Wags bides his time while Mud Season: Part 3 is well underway. The week's work has been scuttled due to weather that was not and will not be clement. Rain showers and kiln-dried t-n-g roof boarding are not good friends.

confession

I have a confession to make. I've been seeing another woman this weekend. Fortunately, KT doesn't mind because she's only about a foot tall and fifteen pounds and very furry. We had the privilege to 'dog-sit' a two year old terrier-mix-mutt named Lola. She went everywhere I went, in the truck, to work, around the yard ( it could have been that steak in my pocket, I always knew how to woo the ladies ). My usual dog allergies did not prove to be a big factor this time, although if she stayed a lot longer I bet I would get sick.





Now miss Lola is going home to Alaska and I'm off to Thompson Lake again after last weeks false start. We raised the carriage house timber frame, but the panels will not arrive until tomorrow morning. The decidedly wet weather forecast is throwing a wrench in the whole process too. We'll see what the morning brings.

---w---

News from the Country Estate June 14

Greetings from the well-soaked Country Estate!

-The week or so of nice weather (nice for us humans) broke last week with rain, rain and more rain. It rains now in fact. This is all good news for the garden up to a point. The peas, pumpkins, kohlrabi and turnips are doing well, everything else ranges from so-so to dead. If we were subsistence farmers, we'd be worried, but as it is, we say, well you've got to start somewhere. Here is a a recent self-portrait of the eastern branch of the Wagner clan/Maine-branch of the Ruff-Wagner clan. Some of you's have not seen KT's hair short or my face be-goateed. The goat is a recent occurrence for me, but KT's easily-maintained-do is at least four months old. She might add that she is not making any statement other than that of living a simple life expressed through the hair-follicles. As it is, I think she's quite presentable with or without hair :) (Thanks to In-Law Amy for the Bean plaid shirt, it fits great!)


In other news, two weeks or so of stress for me comes to an end as I start work on a new project tomorrow and money flows in again. Not a moment too soon too as big blue trucks don't pay for themselves literally. Its not until they start carting around tools and materials that they begin to make sense. With that in mind I forced the rack I built for the Chevy onto the Italian Stallion (now that Chrysler is owned by Fiat that name seems fitting). Oddly enough the bed of the new truck is two inches wider in the front that the Chevy. Installing the now dry and brittle hemlock posts was not without its challenges. The bed on the new truck is also three inches longer than the Chevy requiring new side planks at a full 8 feet. The result:

I will be putting the whole rig through its paces tomorrow morning. I'll be loaded to the gills with ladders, tools, planks, saw horses and the like for the job on Thompson Lake. We've got two timber frames to raise, one hand cut in Hemlock and one machine cut by South County Post and Beam of West Kingston, RI in Douglas Fir. This will be our first time raising a machine cut frame. It will also be my first time in this particular part of Maine:


Ver mapa más grande

In addition to raising the timberframes we'll be enclosing the buildings with structural insulated panels from Winter Panel in Brattleboro, VT. All that raising and enclosing means a lot of time working with a crane and working on the roofs--exactly the kind of work I had in mind for myself when I was five!

KT sends her greetings to all y'all in the blogosphere and interweb

That's the way it looks from here.

News from the Country Estate June 10, 2009

Greetings,

-Back in Maine, the way life should be, waiting out a rainy week, dodging Black Flies, mosquitos and ticks.

-The garden soldiers on despite a concerted attack of the local slug contingent:

Collateral damage, a mostly eaten butternut squash.

-I've pretty much given up on the butternut squash. Its a little late to be planting more. There are a few water melons hanging on, as the slugs don't seem to like them as much.

Tomatoes in the bed next to the deck.

The right half is our garden, the left is our landlords'.

Peas Left, Turnips Right.

Lettuce/Onions/Kohlrabi Left, Sweet Basil Right.

Open sown corn and beans. Only the beans are coming up.

A hill of pumpkins.

Spring chickens. John Barleycorn, the lieutenant rooster is on the left.

The Commodore, the dominant rooster, front and center.

-In other news, the transportation infrastructure has changed, as I have traded the 2005 Chevy for a 2004 Dodge 2500 with only 22,500 miles and everything on it. It came with a 8.5 foot Fisher V-plow.

Snazzy. And supremely useful.

Plow and newly painted boat trailer

-I also recently traded some labor for a lightly used but in working order job-box for my voluminous amounts of tools. Now I can lock them securely in box weighing close to 500lbs. My theory for preventing theft is to make it supremely inconvenient to steal my stuff. You can never make something completely secure because if someone wants something bad enough, they'll find a way to get it. But if it is sufficiently inconvenient to take something, it will keep something 99% secure. The other thing is to keep the other subcontractors on your site happy, because if they're mad at you, they're more likely to take it out on your tools.

-The rain and wetness continues.

---W---