One thing.

One thing that I like about my vocation (house carpenter), is that I do something different just about every day, or at least every week.

Today I hung new wooden gutters with wrought iron brackets on a 150+ year old house. Yesterday I stripped old clapboards and did some roof framing. Tomorrow I'll watch the snow fall (5-8 inches followed by 1/4 inch of rain), plow some of it, and give an estimate on removing a leaky skylight. Always something different to do; always something new to learn.

We're headed toward the blue-print drafting stage of the house planning. More decisions to make.

And, tomorrow is my birthday.....I've passed all the childhood milestones into the obscurity of 'adulthood'.

First Snow

Well its not technically the first snow for us here on the Country Estate, but its the first snow to stick. Amidst all the busy-ness I had time to take stroll in the woods on the land on the Egypt Road this afternoon after church:

View looking Southish along Egypt Road towards Ben Brook

A spot near the northwest corner of the property.

a stream about 300' in from the road near the northeasterly property line

Wags, himself walking amongst the trees.

Largish rocks.

Can you see the photographer's shadow?

Well, I've been all alone here at the Country Estate (boo hoo :( whilst KT is in Dallas for a conference relating to home visiting and parenting education. It was a consolation to know that it was cold there too. No sunny warm vacation for her!

Closed!

Ah yes, the perfect convergence of cash, attorneys, real estate agents, signatures and paperwork. A property closing. My dad has closed on a 27-28 acre parcel right here in Alna Maine. On the banks of Ben Brook and the Streaming Stream. As its steward, I am now soliciting the greater public for names for the new estate. What is an estate without a name?

What would Churchill have been without Chartwell? Bilbo Baggins without Bag-End? Elrond without Rivendell? Andrew Jackson without the Hermitage? Jefferson without Monticello? Washington without Mount Vernon?

and Wagner without .........?

The land has undulating terrain with exposed granite in some spots. Trees include Eastern White Pine, Eastern Hemlock, White Oak, Red Oak, Silver Maple, Sugar Maple, Red Maple, Apple, Cherry, Birch and many others. There are several small and medium streams and a big babbling brook. We'll be building in the Spring a 24x36 two story colonial and later on, a good size barn.

looking good

Here are few shots of the job looking good:

Stain-glass window in custom casing. I went to the trouble of getting brass screws to install it, so they could take it out to clean it, and they asked me to counter sink them and fill the holes with putty!

Long skinny bedroom with vaulted V-match ceiling, pine trim, and goofy track lighting and sconces.

We created this loft for them over the closet and the hallway.

-Boarded two sides of a timberframe today. I like to keep my connection to timberframing alive, even if I'm doing mostly restoration and remodeling these days.

-We'll be headed down to Connecticut for the Thanksgiving weekend. Hopefully my dad and I will close on the land by Wednesday and we can get serious about house planning/clearing/building.

-The weather continues to be perfect New England Autumn style.

News from the Country Estate November 13, 2009

Hihowahya,

-the days are still warmish (low 50's) but the nights are almost all in freezing territory.

-the aforementioned land which my father had made an offer on is now under contract. I am acting as his eyes and ears here in maine. checking on things like soil conditions and driveway permits. Closing will occur before thanksgiving. Yes, we are excited.

-I finally got the snow plow out of storage, only to have no snowplowing accounts lined up. I've got a couple of leads, but no signed contracts.

-A slightly used Stihl 066 chainsaw with a 24" bar (and a 36") is now in my possession-in anticipation of having to clear land for our house.

-I have been doing carpentry work for a company called Sustainable Structures for the last month and a half. We're just wrapping up a remodeling job on Westport Island, a few pics from the job:

Living room with vintage* maple flooring, insulation and drywall.

*this maple flooring was milled from hundred year old logs pulled up from the bottom of Moosehead Lake. I hear they used to do this in Wisconsin, but banned it because it stirred up too many toxins which had settled to the bottom of the lakes.

This Anderson 400 series 36" circular window will house a custom-mounted stained glass window which the home-owners provided.

This bedroom used to have a dropped ceiling below the transom window at right. We raised the ceiling and installed pine V-match to follow the roof pitch and created a loft space above the closet and hallway. We also added dense-pack cellulose and foamboard insulation as well as new trim, flooring, windows and drywall.

Today we laid the vintage* birch flooring in the bedroom. The birch seemed to be of much higher quality than the maple. It will really "pop" after it is sanded and oiled.

-We'll wrap this job up by Wednesday next week and jump onto another project on Thursday.

Dad

Well, Dad Wagner finally made it out to Maine to see what kind of shack we live in and was politely surprised to find out that we live the good life (with 9'6" ceilings).

We ate and drank, talked, played cribbage, went for drives, looked at land, went to church, read books and what not. I think he had a nice time.

For me, it was probably the best time I've ever spent with my dad. Honest.

I think a special thing happens if and when you can finally see your father as a regular person just trying to play the hand that life has dealt him (same as all of us). Another special thing happens when your father looks at the life you've built and says he's proud of you.

Thanks Dad.

In other news, the aforementioned Dad put in an offer on 27 acres of nicely wooded land here in Alna. He may be visiting more often!

Running Round

Here on the country estate, we often have to take a whole day to run around. Thats today.

It looks like a beautiful fall day out there, but the day will be full of going to and fro.

The truck is full of construction debris from a remodel job that I spent all day hanging sheetrock on yesterday. It'll be mudded and taped by Wednesday, then we'll install the Tongue and Groove V-match ceiling in the bed room and the hardwood floors. Then trim and then Finished! On to the next one.

We keep losing chickens to coyotes or foxes or maybe hawks. We let them free-range the yard, because who can keep them penned up? But that is how the local predators get them. We don't have a yard dog and the cats won't tangle with a coyote or a fox. But one by one they're getting picked off. We'll have to get another batch of hatchlings. Speaking of chickens, getting chicken feed and bedding is on the list for today.

We're still a long way from being ready for snow to fly (Although, it snowed the other night, the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen.) The snow plow is still buried in the shed, and I've still got piles of lumber and other debris to cleanup before then.

And the house needs cleaning before my dad's arrival tonight.

News from the Country Estate 10/18/09

Greetings from the Country Estate!

A cold rain falls outside, soaking everything. Its a good night to be inside in a warm dry house.

Autumn is in full swing here in Maine at the Country Estate. We've been spending a good bit of time walking among the leaves painted by the Great Artist. Our search for land on which to start our own country estate has yielded two front runners both around 25 acres, one in Alna and one in Dresden. So we've been following orange survey ribbons marking boundaries and looking at trees quite a bit.

On the work front, I've been subcontracting for a growing company called Sustainable Structures while I plan my next long term move in my building and woodworking career. So many aspects to it and such a short life to master all of them!

I've decided that I want to raise some oxen. An Ox is simply a steer (a neutered bull bovine) which has attained the age of four years and, presumably, is trained to work. Oxen require a lot of work to care for them, but can work in situations a tractor couldn't dream of (yes, tractors do dream. they even have psychoanalysts to interpret their dreams). Some of the land we've looked at presents challenges as to how best to harvest timber, and a team of oxen would meet some of those challenges. Don't get me wrong, I still want a tractor. KT says I will NEED a tractor, but Oxen will help too.

Milk Crisis

Coming from Wisconsin, milk has always been part of my life in one way or another. Whether I'm having a four-serving bowl of Cheerios with a quart of milk in it, or a quart of vanilla yogurt, there has always got to be a large quantity of bovine lactose based food in the house.

A friend recently pointed out to me that the roots of milk consumption among the lower classes go back to the days of medieval feudalism in which the lord of the manor owned the meat of the livestock, but the peasants could take the milk. In those days, milk was the primary source of proteins and fats for those who could not afford to eat meat. That legacy lives on as we continue to pour skim on our wheaties every morning and add half and half to our French Roast.

This article refers to a so-called milk crisis of boom and bust cycles that hurt both customer and farmer. Just a few years ago, I would be sent to the Super America station with a five dollar bill to get TWO gallons of milk (1 skim, 1 2% if you were wondering). Our household drank those two gallons in about a day and a half, and subsequently would run to get more. By the time I moved to Maine the days of cheap milk were over, and we had gained a taste for Organic whole milk (especially the widely available Organic Valley milk, approx. $4 per half gallon), the price of milk had risen to over $3/gallon and higher. After drinking organic whole milk in glass bottles from somewhat local farms, we've found our own solution to the milk crisis: buying farm direct, raw/unpasteurized, fresh, whole, non-homogenized milk right from the bulk tank @ $4/gallon. Its pretty much the best milk you've ever tasted. The farm is located not 10 minutes from here on a corner in the road named after the excretion of the bovine (a picture of the sign is here)

Come to visit and we'll pour you a tall glass of this pristine bovine secretion!

Up with the Sun, 41 degrees fahrenheit.

Everyone needs a little holstein steer mooing at them when they come in the drive way.

And chickens to lay fresh eggs (that black rooster attacked me not two minutes after this photo. I was ready for him though, as I had a stick. Gotta show him whose boss.)


Recent porch restoration job. New Framing, post feet, decking and a couple steps.


The time comes every year to pull the boat out of the water. The back end of my truck is almost in the water, while there is a trailer underneath that boat strung out on 3o some feet of chain.


If you look close on the left, you'll see my friend Paul in a little dinghy leaning under the boat adjusting the jack-stands that stabilize the boat on the trailer.

After a couple hours we had her on the hard and the mast dropped (no easy task, but this time pretty painless) and all the rigging tied up and ready to roll. I dragged her to my house first because I had to go to work.



Today a new job starts on Westport Island.