WELL, THIS ISN'T NEWS
After two months of hacking and coughing, restricted breathing and spitting up horrible wads of protoplasmic gunk from my lungs, I am finally almost better. It'll take a week or two more to get to the 100 percent I hope to be, and by then I should have a post showing the new ceiling going into the living room. Yes, I know both of my readers have been anticipating seeing me hang sheetrock. And float it. You two need to get
lives.
The fun part will come when I install the new woodwork, but that won't happen until the rest of that frozen stuff outside goes away. I expect that will happen sometime in May. Possibly August. Maybe never. But when it does melt, I can pull the tarp off one of the many scarfed lumber piles that dot the Farm and select the 1803 broadaxed hemlock slabs I will install to mimic the exposed hand-hewn joists that I wish were in the living room. Yes, I'm cheating, or hope to be if the white stuff ever melts. I am not a purist, and this house has been changed and altered throughout the years, so what I'm doing is more of historic adaptation than a historic restoration. Besides, if I wanted to be authentic, I'd have to tear out all that fine paneling so meticulously installed around the fireplaces. Along with the electrical wiring, heating system, indoor plumbing, and appliances.
I'll stay in the 21st century and give a nod to the seventeenth. Wait to see the result; the ceiling, when finished, will be breathtaking.
I can't wait to have my living room back; my hope is to be able to sit in there to watch The Masters the second week of April.
More likely I can see the World Series there in October.
Snow. Sheesh.
An example of historic adaptation. The circa 1750 Pendleton-Chapman House in Avondale, Rhode Island. I work there. Presently in the second floor room on the right, straightening badly sagged ceilings and cutting lumber to accommodate the end chimney, which the original house never had (the enclosure on the right of the house is where the chimney is being built in temperature controlled conditions). This was a fairly straightforward two-story farmhouse, but the owner wanted a Georgian, so we made it into one. This is a bit further than I would go myself, ceiling beams or no. All the original timber framing is in place, though augmented by modern ties and new lumber to expand the original building, and the window glass and siding are all of the same era as the original house. An addition to the left side, which wraps around the back of the house, is twice the size of the original structure. Again, not what I would do to my own house, but when you have money, you can travel. And I have to give kudos to the owner, as he is saving a number of fine structures on the property as well as giving a gaggle of old craftsmen an opportunity to ply their trade for a few more years. Thanks, Chuck!
An example of how to get around The Farm when the two (???) feet of snow from last month (really, it's only been a month) gets more and more each week and never really goes away. You dig canyons and shovel them out every time it snows. This was yesterday, March 2nd, and it was the sixth time I'd dug out a canyon to the bird feeders. I didn't have the energy to shovel all the way to the shop. The day before, we had eight more inches on top of the 3, then 27, then 6, then 3, 3, 5, 12, and 8 more. I'm sure I've forgotten a few snowfalls. The temps have climbed up to thirty-six and topped freezing four times this year. Nothing really melts, except to pool and refreeze into pathways of mirror-ice slick as polished wet glass. Hidden by more snow, of course.
I wouldn't trade it for anything. Except a plane ticket to Dominica. My brother tells me that's the garden spot of the Caribbean. He also teased me about the snow last week while he sipped a drink on his porch in the 68 degree West Texas winter. He'll get his in June. And July, August, and September. Then it'll be ME sipping a drink in my 65-degree backyard and CLOSING MY WINDOWS on the cooler summer nights and NEVER using the air conditioner.
But until then, it's still White Winter Hell up here...
Hey, Bill!
I have to dig out the mailbox after the slightest snowfall; the plows bury it every time. We must look after our mail carriers, and I like Cindy, mine. One thing I have to say. Nothing stops us up here. I go to work in the snow, drive in the snow, go my girlfriend's in the snow. They plow, sand, and salt the roads as soon as there's a dusting. Of course, all the cars are rusted out and the streams will fill with salt in spring. BUT THIS IS PARADISE! PARADISE, I TELL YOU!!!!!
I have to dig out the truck, too. Again and again.
If you go back to last year and look at the Snow Post, you'll see it has NOTHING of this year's depth. And we were all squawking and bitching about THAT.Unless it stops soon, I expect to be buried (and hopefully rescued) by sometime in April. That's when the really heavy wet stuff falls. At least most of this has been powder. But spring snow is quite different.
Quite.
