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!!

Oh the places....

Another day at the office. This time, the office is in Berlin, Maryland, just west of Ocean City. Raising a 24x48' high-posted cape with a 10x24' kitchen addition.

Lifting the first bent (in this case Bent 5) off of the assembly area in the grass. We assembled on the grass to avoid messing around with the plumbing stubs sticking out of the slab.

Bent 4 coming to meet bent 5. Bent five is temporarily supported by two diagonal kickers to the mudsill and two come-a-longs to my truck, out of frame on the left.

John, master crane operator.

Bents 4 and 5 up and connected with lower connectors hung with their braces by come-a-longs from above. Bents 3, 2, and 1 assembled on the ground.

Bents 2,3,4, and 5 raised, connected and joisted. End of day 1.

Last bent (bent 1) raised and connected.

Flying in a daisy chain of purlins.

Shed Rafters and collars hung from main rafters, waiting for shed wall section.

All done. Homeowner (right) and I nailing on the traditional evergreen sprig on the gable.

Completed frame. Trailer packed. End of Day 2. Next stop: Ocean City beach.

Post/Girt/Connector Joinery

Queen Post, Collar, Rafter joinery seen thru the stair opening.

The Strip, Ocean City, MD: 8 miles of high-rises, t-shirt shops, bars and traffic.

George Washington Bridge. New York City.

After two days of work and two days of driving, I'm quite happy to be home in Maine where things aren't quite so crazy and the weather is perfect.

Launch!!

Launch day is always an adventure, even with a little boat like this Bristol 19/Corinthian Sloop. Even on a relatively simple boat like this one you've got to make sure she's seaworthy and you have all the gear to make sailing safe and enjoyable.

Applying a copper-based bottom paint. You definitely don't want to breathe these fumes much!

All hooked up, strapped down and ready to go.

Making ready in the Make Ready area of the Mere Point boat ramp.

Stepping the mast. Not a big deal on a little boat like this. There's a bit more 'heave-ho!' involved on our Rhodes as the mast is more than twice as heavy.

Making fast the forestay.

Launching, just before letting the trailer down the ramp on a long rope.

Out in the midst of Casco Bay by early afternoon. Had a nice little sail out from Mere Point, around Goose Island and back.

Paul, scrubbin the deck, only later to have to pull up the mooring ball and all its barnacle mess up on the foredeck. What a mess it was! Sometimes the mooring pendant or painter gets all wrapped around the chain when a boat isn't hooked on for a while.

So now the boat is in and we can all go sailing whenever. So come on out to visit and lets go for a float.

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. :(

the first of the season

With the first backed up line of cars in Wiscasset, we know that the tourist season is here. Despite some of the anti- tourist sentiment (bumper stickers like: "if its called tourist season, why can't we shoot 'em" and "I'm NOT on YOUR vacation" for the locals), people round here know that its money from Mass, Connecticut, NY and elsewhere that makes the Maine monkey dance. Without tourist dollars ( and in that, its mainly the second home folks ), Maine's economy would resemble upstate NY-not much going on other than casinos and logging.

The weather this Memorial day weekend has not disappointed so far. Except for the farmers among us, who would prefer maybe 1 or 2 days of rain per week.

I've spent the last 3 weeks building furniture with my buddy Paul at his shop, working on the Bluebird (our 26' Rhodes Meridian/Seafarer), and enjoying the nice weather. Starting tomorrow, I'm back cutting timbers for a big horse barn going to New Jersey for a couple of months.

I just bought a 3o year old or so, Delta Unisaw table saw. Powered by a 5HP single-phase 220v motor, it will be all the table saw I will ever need. It was collecting dust in an old mill building in Biddeford and I offered a few hundred bucks and got it. Now, where to put the thing when I go pick it up?

Better, but not....

Better

but not yet best. Might not ever be, or at least not for a long time.

But the stomach has finally settled and I will go back to work tomorrow.

Scavenged material resulting in 17 2x4x8's (x $2.50 each =$42.50) and 4 2x6x8's (x $3.00 each = $12.00 more). So about $54.50 in lumber for the 12x16 shed going up on the land. I just changed the design from a 5/12 shed roof to a 12/12 gable roof, thus increasing the cost by about 40% but increasing the useable space by almost 100%. Now I will be able to store 16' lumber in the loft, a big plus when you're trying to build a house. The down side is that the increased floor space makes over 200 sq feet of floor, and a building permit is necessary; $50 and a four page form.

and

The black flies have arrived. KT wants a screen porch on the new house. They are as bad as I remember.

Ick.

Ick.

Sick.

Losing days of work.

Worst part is I know from whom I received this 24 hour flu and they even warned me.

What goes down must come back up.

Trying to maintain hydration .......

Back

So, we're back from Florida and just worked all week.

Woke up this morning to half an inch of snow. It was gone by noon. Spring has reasserted herself.

These Maine roads will wreck a suspension...just put $1300 into the Mercedes and $1300 into the Dodge. The Benz got new front struts, strut mounts and ignition wires ($250 for the set!!) and the Dodge got new front U-joints, new ball joints and an oil change. Next time buy a beater and get triple A.

Lost the camera cord, otherwise we'd post recent pics.

No movement on housebuilding due to lack of funds........but we've got steady work for the moment.

Just keep looking ahead and putting one foot in front of the other.

FLA

Sometimes you just have to obey your father when he tells you to get on a plane and fly non-stop to Florida and stay there for a week.

A welcome diversion from Maine's seemingly never-ending mudseason, we're in Orlando taking in the theme parks with part of the Midwestern Wagner clan. Along with lots of chillin out, we've already been to SeaWorld to see all the shows and what not. They even have two neat rollercoasters there.

On tap for the rest of the week: Epcot, Anna Maria Island, watching nieces be cute, and maybe Coco Beach.

We'll be back in the Maine woods this weekend, hopefully bringing beach weather with us.

---w---

Still

Still. We're still here, but hardly still.

Here is what is going on:

-Working again for Connolly and Co. Timberframe Homes and Barns. After two weeks almost finished with a 24x48 story and a half in Hemlock, going to Maryland. The other side of the shop is cutting an octagonal cabana in Western Red Cedar, so we end up wearing dust masks all day because the inflammatory effects of the cedar dust. Looks like there's at least 8 more weeks of work at Connolly's, maybe more. My friends over at Sustainable Structures have landed a new home contract over in Jefferson, and I might jump on that when the work at Connolly's runs out, as I think it will.

-Mudseason is in full swing, almost all the roads are posted "Heavy Loads Limited". Its hard to move anything heavy any where. Otherwise, we'd probably have clearing begin on our land.

-We've been pursuing a particular house design from Timberworks Design in South Burlington, VT. You can see its basic layout here. It is a 24x24 dutch saltbox. We're going to flip the whole thing around and add a day-light basement to get some more out of the small floor plan. We are still hoping to build this year, although it may be better to wait until next year.

That's about it folks,

w