HALLOWEEN MESSAGE FROM SAMARA MORGAN

Well, I managed to crawl my way out of the attic where this cretinous 'human' keeps me. It wouldn't be so bad up there but for this nearly invisible old lady that talks about stamp collecting and fabrics. Can't see her all that good, but she does go on. At least it's dry up there. In most places, anyway.

It's nice to get some fresh air, anyway. And that horrid well is gone. Nothing but bad memories there.

I'd wish you all a Happy Halloween, but as you know, that's not my style. I do like the climbing nightshade in this front garden, though. Keeps the moles at bay, along with anyone else who comes in contact with it. Who would plant such a toxic thing? Maybe the 'human' isn't so bad after all. At least he grew a couple of pumpakins and surrounded me with dying flowers. That's nice. I hear he's going to let them freeze all the way down. Cool.

Stupid fuzzbag of a dog doesn't even know I'm here.

A TOUCH OF AUTUMN BEFORE THE BIGGEST POSTS OF THE YEAR

This was written the first week in October, when it was pouring every other day (just drizzles every third day now), and the temps were still in the eighties. Autumn has finally descended, and the colors were vibrant for about a week before the most recent noreaster took the leaves down.

So let's go back a few weeks.

It’s been raining here since late August, with soakers drenching New England seven and eight inches at a time. All from storms with colorful names like Florence and Michael. Might be a Delores or Minerva in there somewhere, I don’t remember. It’s the wettest it’s ever been since I’ve been up here. We look up when the sun occasionally shines and say, “What’s that bright thing up there?”

This on top of the most humid summer anyone can remember. Eighty per cent humidity was the norm, coupled with high eighties of July, August, and most of September. I had mold growing on my lawn mower gas canister, for chrissakes.

I’ve sprung a couple of leaks in the roof, one above a previously restored ceiling, and though I am (hope to be) close to closing on the refinance of this place, I won’t get a new roof for a few weeks at the earliest. But it’s gotta happen soon.

So, before I can post the finished stuff, I thought I’d do a little Octobering.

 

I’ve written very little to add to this blog in the past few months, and that’s because I’ve been scrambling to refinance this beast, else I lose it.

That will not happen. The refi is almost complete, and when it is, and all the papers signed, I will be allowed to live here in the house that the bank owns, rather than the family from whom I bought it.

Actually that’s bullshit. It will be MINE. I’ll give you all the details of both the refinance (not enough to bore you but enough o thrill you into considering doing this yourselves before the Corporate Government decides to grab everything you think you own, including the rights you used to have) in the next post.

Okay, enough of that.

I’ll also have, as usual, a long post showing what I did to the Standish House this summer, both to get it further down the Road to Total Restoration, but also to make it appraise for enough so I could get the house refinanced. Trust me, it was tough, but it was very much worth it.

I hope to post more often now that I’m almost out from under Damocles’ Sword.

So.

 Hows about a ghost story?

 

A G-G-G-GHOST??!!!!!!

 

I tole you about the strange thing I saw at Captain Grant’s Inn when I was scoping this area for homes back in 2012. A normal-looking guy walked before me at this very fine bed and breakfast that I hope you will check out while in the area (Hey Carol and Ted!)  . He disappeared as he walked around a corner, and I mean DISAPPEARED. Turns out people come to Captain Grant’s specifically to see ghosts. Who knew? Not me. I went for the great price, fantastic ambiance of a 1754 house, and for the breakfast.

The breakfast!

Droooool drooooooool….

Sorry (wipes chin).

I also tole you of the feeling of a female presence I encountered the first time I entered the house on that same trip. The feeling was strongest in the attic and I’ve always thought there is a benevolent presence of the female persuasion in this house.

And people, I am the biggest skeptic in the world. I should be from Missouri; it’s the ‘Show Me’ state.

But I’m from Arkansas, and we HATE Missouri.

In the same story, I related that I asked Jim Izbicki, the youngest of the four siblings that sold me this place, if there were any ghosts. This was before I’d bought the place. He assured me that there were none.

But as soon as I moved in, he came over and asked me if I’d seen the spook yet.

DAMN!

He, without prompting, related a sighting of a filmy vapor at the foot of the bed in the room in which I sleep, and he was sure it was female. I told him of my feeling, and we agreed there must be something here after three hundred years.

All this was reported in a couple of previous posts entitled ‘A G-G-G-GHOST?’

This brings us full circle to the present day.

 

PART 3

 

I’d been living here at Standish Farm for just under a year when I had my first encounter with the strange sounds. I’ve been restoring homes for a long, long time, and I’m familiar with the sounds old homes make, especially when temperatures change. The wood expands, pops and cracks, and creaks and groans that might be mistaken for some lost relative looking for a drink can be explained by simple physics.

What happens here at the Standish House, however, cannot be explained by simple physics. Complex physics of a variety we don’t yet understand? Possibly. Probably. I don’t believe in ghosts, even if I have seen one. If that’s what it was.

My living room is very, very comfortable, and I like to sit and watch movies or read from the same position Granny did before me. Bertha Izbicki, the matriarch of this house since 1938, is still known as Granny to her kids, especially when talking about her to the younger set (such as me, nearly 60 years old). Her chair is in the same corner as mine in the living room and she put her teevee in the opposite corner, where mine is.

 

I don’t watch teevee; I have a small flat screen in the kitchen that gets two PBS stations, and that’s it. I haven’t watched cable or satellite since 2005, and network? Early nineties.

But I like movies, and so have a mid-sized flat screen in the living room.

I very much like to read, though, and do it often. When I read, I have no other sound going on in the background. Maybe that’s why I sometimes hear what I hear.

It also extremely quiet up here on this windswept ridge, especially at night.

Four years ago, in late spring, I was sitting in my comfy chair reading, my smallest pup Cheerio curled up in her bed on the table next to me. A full blooded shit-zoo, she’s just big enough to get a job as a potato bug, but controls both the Giant Pup Speckle (her baby) and Marley, the quiet one. She sleeps on the table because she likes to be close to me as well as on the same level.

As I was reading this particular night, the unmistakable sound of a tennis ball falling to the wood floor directly in front of me was heard. It bounced, then bounced again, then dribbled across the floor as I listened. It’s an extremely familiar sound in this house. Cheerio, the Ball Playing Dog of the household, awoke, pricked up her ears, and lifted her head, eyes following the sound of the ball as it rolled across the room in shorter and shorter bounces, as tennis balls do before coming to rest.

I leaned forward and looked at the floor.

There was no tennis ball. I knew there was no tennis ball, because I made sure to PUT UP the tennis balls in the house after Evening Playtime. If I leave a tennis ball around, Cheerio is likely to find it, pick it up, and initiate a sleepy game that distracts me and she’s not really into anyway. So there is a net bag in the mud room filled with tennis balls of different degrees of filth and dismemberment.

She likes the new, fuzzy ones best, and I only keep the naked, raggedy, or halfway torn-up ones around for times when I cannot FIND the fuzzy ones.

I stood up, looking for the nonexistent ball, and Cheerio jumped down and sniffed around, unable to find it.

“That was weird,” I said.

The exact same thing happened a few weeks later. Mirror image, carbon copy. Same sound, same reaction from Cheerio. Except this time the other dogs came in from the bedroom to check it out.

Now it wasn’t weird, it was interesting.

The sound wasn’t unknown to me; I often bounce the ball along the floor to get Cheerio into the game, and she takes it from there. Our ball-playing seldom lasts more than ten minutes before she gets bored (she’s not obsessive, nor is she a pup anymore at age eight), and I don’t leave balls lying about the house for fear of stepping on one and falling to my death (I am not a pup anymore, either).

So I have a house that records sounds and plays them back. I’ve heard a number of examples.

Dog feet tromping across the floor, complete with rattling knickknacks (before I reinforced the floors).

Growls and sneezes when the dogs aren’t in the house.

It almost always seems to center around the dogs.

I think it’s interesting that the dogs are as involved with this phenomenon as they are.

I have had no visual expressions or sightings, no vapors, no filmy images, no wails from the attic.

At least, I hadn’t until earlier this month.

And like my ghost sighting at Captain Grant’s Inn (go back and read it), I suffered a typical case of temporary amnesia directly after the incident. In fact, I didn’t think about it at all for three days. Then it came back to me like a hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.

Sorry, that was Nick Danger, Third eye. A quote.

The temporary amnesia I suffered has been experienced by a number of others I know, and is a repeated phenomenon in the circles of those who research such things. Ghosts, UFOs, skunk apes, and other forms of impossibilia are often forgotten directly after sighting, only to be remembered all at once in the very near future. I think it’s a coping mechanism of the human mind, meant to keep from having one’s head explode.

This next encounter did the same thing; I forgot about it until late the next afternoon.

Again, it happened while I was sitting in my comfy chair.

“No! Not the COMFY CHAIR!!!”

The Spanish Inquisition can be SO cruel. Or so I expect.

 

“NOBODY EXPECTS THE….”

Aww, YOU know.

Anyway, I was sitting in my chair, surrounded by the myriad pillows that support my terrible injuries, when a small black sphere the size of a ping pong ball zipped silently across the room. Sporting a neat little hole in its center, it left a streak of black behind it and also seemed to follow another dark line as it traveled quickly across the room.

It was silent and was gone in the blink of an eye.

It took a few seconds for my mind to register just what I had seen, then I sat up in wide-eyed wonder.

“What the hell was THAT?” I said loudly. Only Cheerio lifted her sleepy head for a second before laying it back down. The two Big Dogs never stirred, though the trajectory of the thing, tilted slightly downward, looked to hit them straight on.

If it did, they never felt a thing.

I swore I’d remember this, the first visible ‘spooky thing’ I’ve seen in the house, but within minutes, it had slipped from my memory, only to come suddenly back many hours later.

I’ll let you know if it returns.

And, due to popular demand down at Barb’s Place, I have again placed Samara Morgan out in the front yard, though sans well. Too much trouble to build, and besides, I never do the same trick twice. She’s standing on the front stoop, surrounded by a small pile of pumpkins and a lot of dead geraniums. Reaching out to passerby to ask for help. Or latch on…

Dead geraniums?

 

Are they REALLY dead????

 

BWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

 

NINE DAYS OFF

So I have been left in the lurch (what the hell does that mean? What's a lurch, other than a tall butler that lives with the Addams Family?) by my mean old boss Steve. HE is off to Maine for a week of fun and sun and worrying about shutting down his business for a week while his wife forces him to take some well-deserved time off. I jest about him being mean; he's a great guy and a pleasure to work with/for.

But I am also forced to take time off.

From my job.

You didn't think I would take time off from THE FARM, didja?

I took a day off this January (it was fifty degrees!) and felt terrible every minute I wasn't working on the Farm. Haven't taken another. I have no idea how to relax, mostly because I have to get this thing to a certain level of restoration before I refinance it later this year.

THEN maybe I can take a day off. It'll still take me forever to learn to relax.

So.

For the past two months, I made my plan, got the materials together, gathered and milled the wood I needed, bought paint, and found all my interior restoration equipment, put up two years ago when I finished the kitchen ceiling.

I planned for this Nine Days, knowing that I'd be doing it at the hottingest part of the year. So I made sure to be able to beat the heat by again setting up in the cellar. Last year I spent a number of evenings there, having made a small sitting area with chair and lights and table so I could listen to radio or old cassette tapes from the stereo upstairs, piped into the cellar by the magic of Speakers B. Yes, I have those (cassette tapes, I mean)! Don't smirk! It's seventy down there when its ninety five outside. And it was just that for a week and a half until just after Independence Day this year. I was more ready than last year. I put one of my seldom-used 24" flat screen TeeVees down there, hooked it into my giant rooftop antenna, and BOING! I get two PBS stations. All I can handle.

Then it got cool and I haven't been down there to watch. Don't worry, I will. Most of July and all of August (not to mention the first half of September, a summer month up here)

But not this week!

I be working!

I'll post a few times, rather than saving it up for eight months like last time.

I spent some time this spring building doors for the garage. I want some measure of security as well as some curb appeal. I lightly sanded some eighteenth century white pine floorboards with up and down saw kerfs and a nice chocolate patina (no, they HAD those, I didn't sand them with them!), then made vertical doors from them. Those sat in the garage for a few months until I got tired of them not doing their job, then I put them to work. I liked them so much that I decided the cinder blocks at either side were a sore sight in comparison, so on the Fourth of July (and the following eighth), I did something about it.

This is the reason I had to hide the cinderblocks. They were likely red at one time, but red fades to orange, my most unfavoritest color. First task; pressure wash the moss on the roof! Or off the roof. Half done in this pic. Trust me, I finished, and it looks magnificent.

This is the side facing the street. I do my large makeup work in there; doors and windows, big pieces of wood that need cutting, and all my sanding. My smaller machine shop is too crowded with...machines. That shop also gets over a hundred twenty in the afternoon, and this one is shaded. Yes, I planted trees on the south side of the machine shop, but give them time. Sheesh!

The first real task was to pressure wash the cinderblock. This was done the day before; notice most of the orange is gone. I should have primed it, but I'm lazy and cheap. Mostly cheap.

Now you can see why I had to do something with the cinderblock. Doors, YA! Walls, NEIN! The doors are not complete, and though they lock from the inside, they will, by winter, have interior battens to keep out the wind, as well as an exterior latch/lock and an astragal. That's the piece between the doors that makes them a single unit when closed. Look it up.

Even before I pressure washed the walls, I had to dig a drainage trench to divert water that has flooded my dirt floor garage since before I moved here. I will eventually put a Zurn-type drain in, but the trench will do for now.

Because I work alone, I must use certain techniques to compensate for my preferred lack of yucky human companionship. This is one; a Third Hand. Holds the lintel trim board in place as I nail the other end.

Don't forget to glue the back of the lintel trim board! I'm only nailing to the wood frame, and most of the trim rests on the cinderblock. no, I didn't backprime it. You'll see why. I framed the opening for this set of doors in November of 2013; it was one of the first tasks I did after getting heat, water, and my furniture into the house proper. Took me long enough to do this!

 

The board was slightly warped, so I used one masonry screw to bring it tight to the wall. It's countersunk, and I'll fill it with Durham's Water Putty (a great product, and I highly recommend it) and color it in with ineldible India ink later. Ingullible. Inedible. That's it. Inedible. I know, I've tried. Tastes terrible. Turns your tongue brown for a month. EEEEewwwww.

Cutting a large rabbet (or is it a dado? I think it is) with a circular saw. This allows the side trim to ride over the strap hinges. Oh My!

Strap hinges. It's the square part I need to ride over. Well, the trim, anyway. And pardon the dangling preposition, and those that climb about on their own, as well. The white stuff is silicone, which is an excellent adhesive. I used masonry screw to attach the pressure-treated 2x10s to the cinderblock back in 2013, and despite modern PT lumber's tendency to cup, it did no such thing. Silicone holds it in place very well.

Knock out the wood with a straight claw hammer and clean it up with chisel. Learned this technique in '77 as an apprentice carpenter to Mike Foerster. He instilled me with my  love of craftsmanship. Hey Mike! Give me a call! Haven't seen him since 1979...

BTW, all this white pine, which was likely milled in the 1740s and was prolly three of four hundred years old THEN, was already sanded and coated with an oil-based clear coat thinned 2:1 with paint thinner so it would soak in, repel water, and not look shiny. One coat did it.

Ugly, in't it?

Finally trimmed out. Just needs one more thing…

Tools for the job. I junked the crappy towel for a better one I'd been saving for such an occasion, and the results showed that this was a better choice. I've had that hawk (called a hock in England) for thirty years.

California Stucco is a pleasure to work with. Though it's only made of lime, sand, and Portland cement, it costs fifty dollars per 94 lb. bag. Took a bag to do 1 side. Worth it, though. It was 93 degrees and eighty per cent humidity on Independence Day in Preston Connecticut. I'm sure there were thousands sweltering ten miles away on the beaches of New London, Stonington, and Misquamicut RI. You can have that. I'd rather be in the shade, splattered with cold water and stucco, and doing something useful. Besides, I gots red hair and fair skin. Me and The Fat Old Sun don't get along so good. That Fat Old Sun was westering heavily, and I ached liked I'd just emerged from Dead Dog #2 (the most dangerous and challenging cave in Austin Texas), so I cleaned up and called it a day until the next weekend, when I'd finish the other side.

Meet my little fren'. Thirty inches wide, it blows a hurricane. Five bucks at The Annual New London Unitarian Church Tag Sale. Hey, Sher! This fan's for you!

I've seen a lot of critters around my house, but this domestic turkey was a new one on me at coffee on the following Sunday morning. Took the pic through the screen. Some of my neighbors keep chickens, and I suppose this must be an addition to those. It strutted around the front yard, paying no attention to the seeds scattered at the foot of the bird feeder. The dogs went apeshit, screaming and barking and calling 911. But the thing was very comfortable, and didn't seem fazed at the dogs' uproar. Eventually even THEY quieted down, apparently getting used to it (or realizing their barking did nothing to intimidate it). It paced and gobbled, clucked and warbled. I went out to see if it would come to me, and it did. I beat a hasty retreat back into the house. I have no treats for such a thing, and trust not a bird in the world. Especially one this size. Birds bite. A small dark rectangle can barely be seen on its breast; a homing device, perhaps. It was gone in about an hour.

That's better. I'll paint the hinges a flat black and the stucco a cream. Prolly use a dark brown for the scallopy wood above. When I have time....HA HA HA HA ha ha ha !!!!!!! Ohhh, my.....

NEXT POST:

TRIMMING OUT THE KITCHEN, DEMOING THE BATHROOM, AND PAINTING THE BEDROOM AN UPPER BATHROOM WALLS. AND MAYBE SOME BATHROOM WAINSCOT...

VERY, VERY SOON.

ALMOST DONE WITH THE FIRST PUSH....OF THE BIG PUSH

If any of my two readers are still alive after trying to read the longest post of this epic (one hasn't even gotten out of the snow pics yet), I have good news. This post will be short and sweet. Okay, shortER and sweetER. It is also a sign that I'm not cracking yet. Don't worry, that'll come later in the year. But I survived last year's usury, debt (so far), doubts, and double-digit minus-temps.

And if you read the last post you know that I AM MOVING AHEAD. And that at full steam. The last post was very long, but everything you saw that was NOT snow took place in the last two weeks of April and the first two weeks of May, and I'm not letting up one bit on the gas.

Every day I get home and go into the yard to do the minimal of what is needed to keep the property from looking unkempt; but only after I go into the attic and put my series of four fans to work. Two have been at it all day, each in a north or south window, one bringing in air, one taking it out. I then turn on my two most powerful floor fans to aid in taking out what built up during the day, usually pointed to the peak of the roof where the heat molecules like to gather, muttering, figuring new ways to kill me. This is, of course, unnecessary, as the old ways they've used since I was in Texas still work perty well.

But SO DO I!

I left you with one half of the East kneewall built, and I will continue in this vein, but don't worry, I won't riterate the technical aspects. Just the broken bones, bloody stumps, and monsterous nervous breakdowns that follow.

But first, it's PLAGUE TIME!!!

Every year I have had to deal with different plagues, usually animal in origin.

I'd list them chronologically, but it all seems to meld together these days.

Flies, squirrels in the feeders, and moles are always around. No plague there.

But. Fisher cats and skunks the first year. Blackflies the second year (clouds of tiny gnats that bite you as you choke on them, their bites swelling into huge itching mounds that itch and ooze for weeks; think of clouds of flying chiggers), along with ARMIES of mice. The mice are a seasonal constant, but were really bad in 2015. 2016 saw the plague of the Worst Sort; yellowjackets and white-faced hornets. Go back into the archives if you've forgotten; I haven't. I am deathly allergic to both and keep three epi-pens within reach at all times. Last year it was fleas (FLEAS! I haven't had fleas in DECADES!) and mosquitoes. I had a hundred mosquitoes in the house every morning, and nearly wore out my favorite $4.00 tennis-racket-type electrocutor each A.M. I smeared the sheers with their guts when they wouldn't fly into the electro-grid. The house smelled of burnt mosquitoes all summer. I had swatters, I had deet on myself INSIDE. I hung bug zappers in the house, including one by the dog door, where I knew they were getting in.

Anyone wonder why I like the cold months? My editor knows. He refused to publish my Old House Doctor colulumn titled "Fucking Bugs and Why You Should be Happy to Kill Them" until I changed the title.

This year, the blackflies (along with everything else, due to the harsh winter in March and the first half of April), have been bad, but not overwhelming. Yes, I need to wash my kitchen sheers. The bloodstains are disconcerting. When the little gnats won't fly into the tennis racket, I merely smoosh the aginst the widow. There's always blood, showing that they were successful in biting either me or the dogs.

The dogs are their own plague, especially this year, as it rains constantly and they smell more than usual, which, even without rain, is quite prodigious.

But I have to thank the pups for the partial elimination of my first plague of the year.

I came home from work last week to find that SpecklePup, who always rushes inside through the dog door when I come through the gate, stood in the yard, apprehensive.

"Oh, Hell," I muttered. This is what she does when she knows she's done something bad, like eating Netflix DVDs (a favorite afternoon snack if she can get them) or a first edition Charles Dickens 1874. I don't HAVE one of those, but if I did, I'd find it in her shit later in the week, still wondering why she was reticent about coming into the house on Tuesday.

But upon entering my mudroom, my eyes went wide.

What good puppies I have! They must be worried that I'm not eating enough!

I'm sure it was Marley, the akita, that killed this full-grown mama groundhog. Several live under the floorboards of the 1860 barn, and I saw this very one snooping around the front yard the week before, heading for the bird feeder.

I'm sure it was one like it (or possibly this very specimen) that destroyed my garden last year, eating my newly-producing tomaters right down to the ground. Luckily I had not removed the suckers, so the fruiting nightshades produced later that summer. Later like AUGUST.

My only question is how the ten-pound rodent got into the fenced back yard? I had just repaired the ground-level electric fence earlier in the week. I'll have to check thr integrity of the fence when I weedeat this next weekend.

It was pregnant and had titties so big that I'm sure she was featured in JUGS; The Groundhog Edition.

Stop going "AWWWwwwww, poor thing."

They'r RODENTS. They have FLEAS (I did spray where she lay after I removed her to the pond, where she would be recycled into a hawk or coyote or shoggoth or something).

No babies from this momma.

However, later in the week, I found another, a young 'un the size of a squirrel, on my kitchen floor. That's how I know I have a plague. ONE groundhog in the house is interesting. TWO is one too many, and is a PLAGUE.

I petted Marley (who was reluctant to come in), telling her what a good dog she is.
She already knows.


Then there are the stinkbugs.
They always show up in spring, but this year they are doing it in HORDES. I had one in my Cape Cod the other night, and nearly swallowed it. I had to brush my teeth and gargle bleach. Yeccch.
Two nights back I had a barn swallow come it through the dog door; it flittled around the kitchen as the dogs jumped and yipped at it. I chased it down, covered it with a dishtowel and carefully took it outside, where it flew into the night.
I lubs my puppybirds.
Three minutes later it was back in the house, and this time I just grabbed the little boofer and after tossing it into the night, I slid the plywood piece into the dog door. I soon heard it bumping against it, trying to get back in.
I only wisht I had Tippi Hedren here; she knows how to handle such things after starring in "The Birds."

The only other plague this year so far has been the return of the ruby-throated hummingbirds, they are HARDLY a plague.

They do drink a lot, even more than me. That's a LOT.

Back ito the attic!!!



This, the west side othe attic, has been a dumping ground for my Art Boxes for five years. I used to live in a house that I decorated with macabre 'found-art' dioramas, and I packed the pieces carefully when I moved, fully intending on displaying them here.

But this house is authentic Colonial, and I like it to be as austerely decorated as I have it now. Sure, I have some Pirate memorabilia and a few mineral specimens as well as scattered strange art, but not CLUTTERED like before. Besides the contrast of architectural styles, I have no A/C, so dust is a constant challenge, what with the windows open and smelly dogs bringing in more dust.

I suppose I'll have to open a "STRANGEST THINGS IN THE WORLD" shop in the barn once I have that finished so I can unload some of that crap.

In the meantime, I moved the boxes behind the proposed kneewall and cut holes in the flooring to expose the girts. On these girts I attached raised 2x6 blocks upon which the flying beams would rest, and on theose beams, uprights would raise the rafters become more supportive as well as less sway-backed.
Yah, it's like in the last post.

It's amazing how much room I made once the old room beyond the chimney was dismantled.

Keep in mind that the beadboard (stacked to the left of the window) was not only not structural, but it was the sheathing of the only 'finished' feature of the attic. This room is also where SHE lives, and I had no idea how SHE would react if I removed not only the walls of the room, but the Granny Boots so carefully hung in the corner.

So I told her what I was going to do and removed the doorway to the left of the chimney, then the nailers, then the beadboard. I used the keeper for the door latch (the door had been removed before I got the house) and screwed it into the barge rafter at the end of the wall, the one that makes the gable end. On this old keeper I hung the granny boots. They can barely be seen to the left of the window.

So far, no visitations, noises, or complaints.

And the attic! It's opening up to reveal the possibilities of creating another room up there in the future. That is, if I want one, and right now, I don't. But it feels really good to open  the space  and support the roof the way it should have been years ago.



A CONTINENT of boxes and junk lays beyond the chimney to the right.



 The flying beams set on the girt blocks. I didn't need to span as wide a space as on the east side, where I had to span the kitchen with a single fifteen-foot beam, so I used 2x6 headers as well as a stretch of 4x4 over a seven and a half foot span. The els, made from 2x4, hold the beams upright on the girt blocks.

A little workbench; I am old and have lots of injuries that manifest themselves as screams from sitting down on the floor and getting up again. This table will hopefully lead to less screaming.

The remaining junk stashed behind the flying beam. The door to the right goes from the kitchen to the porch, and will not be put back into its original position again. I will find another place for it, as the attic heat will destroy it. No, the guitar case is empty. I would not subject my guitfiddles to the attic heat.

East beadboard with turn-of-the-century wallpaper, ready to be removed. I'll do it carefully and reuse it when I sheathe the new kneewalls.

The closet, showing some water stains. Nice workmanship on the door.

I have no idea why the closet door was painted. Nothing else was.

Samara Morgan, the granny boots, and a couple of Lovecraft-inspired Styrofoam gravestones from my old Halloween Party Days decorate the north gable end.

 

Memorial Day Weekend was progged to be rainy, cold, and cloudy, which made me happy to work ten hours a day up there until the kneewalls were finished. Actually, I only worked up there for three hours on Friday; I have to mow the lawn SOMETIME, and it had to be before the Saturday rain.. Beadboard walls, closet, and framing came down. Now you see them... oh, now you don't!

 

The eight-inch wide beadboard stacked against the chimney, rebuilt in the last thirty years. I'll clean it of wallpaper and use it to sheathe the walls later. The beadboard, not the chimney! For chrissakes...Some is a bit short, but I'll find a use for it. Note the hooks from inside the closet. I have better ones in my collection, but these are from here, so I'll clean them up with a wire wheel and repaint them for use around the house. And I DO hang things around here. It's a farm thing.

Also note the twelve-foot flying beam lurking behind the chimney; it wants to mount those blocks! Oh, I haven't installed the next set of blocks in this pic. But it smells the block below the beam on which it sits. I can see it wiggle in anticipation!!!

The taller beadboard leaning on the north gable wall, which, except for where I have to remove a few boards to install a set of blocks on the end girt, will remain beadboarded for now. I imagine the granny boots are looking wistfully at the removed boards; Granny Izbicki liked to sit up in this room and sew. The really great thing is that with every task up here, I can see this will become a very fine suite of two spaces; one for sleeping and another for hanging out. It'll take a few years, but I'll add a wood stove, insulation, install more beadboard, raise the ceilings (the crossbraces on the rafters are very old, as is the beadboard), and put in a few light tubes to add illumination. A couple of interior A/C units (or a mini-split system) will make it habitable year round. Then all of my nonexistent friends can come to stay over. No they won't.

Tallest beadboard. All will be denailed and stacked behind the kneewalls. The flying beam continues to wiggle; it can SMELL the new blocks, though they haven't yet been installed.

FINALLY! It took almost all of Sunday, but I got the last flying beam in. Not true; I also built the last garage door, weedeated (weedate?) the backyard, and went shopping for my ten-minute feast on Monday.The short run between the chimney girts is less than sixty inches, so I used 2x6 instead of 2x8. Even butted some end grain (oh my!) on one side. Screws and glue, my friends, screws and glue.

Completely exhausted. I thought installing the uprights would take a half a day, it took all of Monday. I straightened the roof to a large degree, though the third rafter down the line was already an inch and a half higher than the others. It shows on examination of the roof from outside as well, though I never noticed it until I stood out there to admire my work (whatever I did can't be seen, but it sure can be felt. Especially in my limbs). The roof is rechristened Tighty McTightface. Like the British research vessel Boaty McBoatface. Sort of. Let that be a lesson; never let the public name ANYTHING.

East rafter supports, with a very proud flying beam  in the background. And a VERY tired restoration tech. I've been at this for four weekends in a row and few cool days during the week as well. It had to be done before the heat sets in, though. And there is still one more thing to do; I have to put supports under two rafters on either side of the staircase, and before I jack them, I need to add a separate support for the rafter above the staircase. This will be dadoed into the rafters on either side and held there by the new supports.

But as far as this spring is concerned, this nightmare of a job is DONE! As is the removal of the barn wall!

Now I can finish out the woodwork and countertops in the kitchen and tackle the bathroom. All this before I jump up on the roof and die trying to strip it.

Ah, well, it's been a weird life.

Interesting bit of 1940s memorabilia found under the strips of linoleum in the closet. Colorfast stuff, them old papers. Prolly radioactive Federal Dye Number Thirteen.

 A happy, smiling wife in her slavery apron, proudly showing her achievement, a clean dish. Good for you, Mom! Now go scrub the floor, Dad needs to have a brace of martinis. But not before some (rather personal) bathtime with Junior. "Not again, Dad!" he squeals. By the look on Dad's face, you'd better not argue, kid.

Apparently naked kids and  enslaved women sold soap then. Hmmmmn. Still do!

Wartime news featuring that fun-loving monarch The Shah of Iran. He's quite the playboy at this age! Just wait until he comes of age with the western Powers supporting his tyranny! Oh, what fun he'll have with all those American Dollars!

Isn't this what Memorial Day is all about?

THESE are the people we're fighting for nowadays (apparently then, too!). Or, at least, for the corporations that own them.

And you. And me.

 Brooklyn Dodgers at work in Shibe Park / Connie Mack Stadium . Little did they know who was to become a legend there in a few years. They'd have freaked. And that they'd Go West, Young Man in twenty more would positively kill them..

Now HERE'S something useful! Something to keep podiatrists wealthy and women limping for decades!

Ugly shoes, as well.

Okay, that's enough of my negative political diatribe.

Next time:

I have no idea. After this last month, I need some sleep.

It will likely be Kitchen Woodwork and Room Painting. That's FUN stuff, and I'm ready for it.

SPRING

Wait....It's coming....Soon......

Or is it?

This was winter. Sorry for the pic, I was shaking from the cold and I only wanted to get back IN. Temps dropped into the below zeros in early December, normally an autumn month. A month that has no bugs (a big problem here), cool temps, and no snow.

Not this year. Coldest December on record. No property cleanup. Snow. Hibernate. Not enough wood cut for the next few months, and I'd need it.

Damn.

February normally looks like this, and that several times a month. A lot of foot-deep snows.

Not this year. February was WARM. We even had a few seventy-degree days! All of us thought that maybe the Winter was over, having come early, and we'd be spared. This pic was taken just after Christmas. Note the snow on the tree trunk across the road; it's on the south side. December storms come out of the south but blow dry powder from the northeast. Not this one. It was wet.

No going in the cellar today. At least I fed the birds.

 Note the lack of snow on the roof, usually a sign of a Noreaster, the wind whipping the snow to the south and off the roof. This time it piled up on the southern addition roof.

December, my ass.

I couldn't cry and whine about not being able to do the work I expected to do (I usually do). I turned inward, beginning the sequel to my last novel, finished last spring and polished all the rest of the year. This last year was the Trial of Trials. Job (the bible Guy) and I could compare notes.

Instead, I killed mice. This one met with a rubber mallet when the snap-trap wasn't strong enough to kill it. Stick with Victor traps, people, or you'll be bludgeoning the little buggers as the squeak.

AWWW, you say. You're cruel! Go to Hell. This little bugger was in the desk eating my stories, shitting and pissing everywhere.

Not no more!

The bag next to him (her, I don't care) is filled with others of its kind, likely relatives. I save them and freeze them to feed to the Raptor Recovery Center in Stonington.

Kills 'em twice!

For you bleeding hearts that live in apartments in the city, I also kill squirrels at my feeder. Been pocking them with pellets in the butt for years. No more. I kill 'em and leave 'em at the base of the feeder. Their brethren leave the feeder alone for a few days. Then they come back and don't care.

I saw one sitting on a dead one chewing seeds.

So now I'm back to pocking them in the butt. Most of the time.

Living in the country will make you a bit more hard-edged than you might have thought yourself before.

They're SQUIRRELS.

Plenty more where they came from. LOTS more.

Stocked up with small wood for the stove. Much more was gathered and stashed, despite December.

This is now where I work and what I do. I restore old windows. The gig taking care of apartment dwellers in restored mills was cool until the assholes from Upper Management decided to micromanage me. Trust me, I know more than they.

Bye-bye on the first of the year, which for me, falls on November First. Always has.

Sweet little December snowfalls around the third. Three inches at best. I knew something was going to change, but didn't expect it until January.

I NOT KNOW!

Meanwhile, after ditching the Lousy Job on All Saint's, She Who Lives Upstairs told me to get back into restoration, and that right quick. That was on November first. By the fifteenth, I had joined Steve Marshall, The Historic House Guy, in his window restoration shop. Best move I've made in many years. The Old House Doctor joins up with Marshall, forming the alliance known shopwide as The Old Historic House Doctor Restoration Guys.

I said it was shopwide. You're the first to have seen it in print.

Above,

Restoring a door. Piece by piece.

 

A large Pediment. We don't just do windows, just mostly. Hunh?

Using a quarter-sheet sander to set glass in backbedding before glazing the newly-restored window.

And you thought all I do is rip up and repair my old house. YOU NOT KNOW!

No, there is no sandpaper on the machine. That would defeat the purpose.

Any one of my two readers will remember the old red van I went on and on about last year. Well, the F-150 pickup gave up the ghost when its clutch slave cylinder shit the bed, so I had to move quickly in December (WHY DECEMBER??!!!!) to get Red up and running. This is a pic taken in February, on a sixty-degree day, on Red's first outing. I felt guilty every second of the half-day trip because I was not working on the property. But all was frozen, despite the balmy temps. Still, I don't know how to relax until I collapse.

This is the lower end of the Connecticut River near Haddam. The December freeze was so dire that the Coast Guard (the Academy is nearby in New London), or maybe it was the Navy, across the river from the CG, brought in ice breakers to clear a shipping channel in the River. ALL rivers were frozen in by Decemeber, and even in February, no icebreaker has ever been used to clear a channel for shipping in CT. Bitter fucking month, let me tell you.

Note the huge slabs of ice piled up on shore. Don't touch them, they'll break your arm. Then you fall between them and get broken for real.

Nobody does that. We ain't that dumb up here. Cold weather makes you smarter. Folks from southern Georgia would hoot and holler and daince onna aice!

Then they'd scream and get crushed.

No great loss.

Damn, the cold makes me bitter.

Inna mean time, my computer died. Do you know what its like to be a writer with NO COMPUTER????!!!

So I brought out the old notebook and began blocking the sequel to The Adventures of Shrink McCool: The Wormtrove. I always block out my stories by longhand upon anything on which I can write, thus the plethora of envelopes and scraps filled with notes for the new book. All those have since been transcribed. I'm very pleased with it, and also with the new computer.

The window work continued through the winter. Here I'm scrubbing the excess glazing putty from  glass using calcium carbonate, which we Pro-Fesh-In-Ulls call 'whiting,' but you common scum call 'chalk."

Meanwhile, the warmth of February (did I really write that?) gave way to the promise of an early spring. Everyone talked of April being like April should be, with flowers and budding trees.

"Bullshit," I said darkly. "I've SEEN the wooly bears. Black heads, orange bodies, and black asses. We're in for one FUCK of a March." I paused. "REMEMBER December."

Everyone pooh-poohed me. "You forecast your weather with caterpillars?" they laughed.

THEY NOT KNOW!

Trust the wooly bear caterpillars.

The pic above shows Red, now fully functional but only half-primed in paint, sporting a six-inch snowcap on the thirteenth of March, the forty-first anniversary of the Second Westmoreland Expedition into the Attic of Dead Dog Number Two, one of the most dangerous caves in Texas.

I survived, as did my team. And we reached the virgin territory of The Attic, which I named (but not until W.E. 3, a year later).

The Expedition was also named not only BY me, but FOR me.

Hey, I thought it up, and it took three attempts and three different teams.

March snows are dreaded because they are WET. This one was no exception. My yews, which are dying, bowed to this one's power.

"Damn, this is heavy," I thought, not venturing beyond the back door stairs.

"Christ!" Eighteen inches!!!"

Note that the dogs (Speckle, mostly) had already blazed a path.

Little Cheerio, the Shit-Zoo, likely told them to do it. She IS the social director of the Big Dogs.

And she needs to pee more often, having a bladder the size of a peanut.

Tippo of the ol' hat to Tatum O'Neal! From "Paper Moon."

The yews, more unhappy than normal.

Red, sporting a serious snow-hat.

Sporting a mohawk. Which, in this state of fines and taxes, can cost you a hundred and fifty bucks.

Two hours of digging.

April fifth. The drive home was scary. Shouldn't this shit be overwith by now????

 

I have a serious aversion to driving among others of your species, and so take great pains to avoid highways and so travel country roads. My route to work, which takes an hour each way, is more than beautiful, it is calming. I hope to post some pics of the Natchaug River, Chafeeville Silk Mill Ruins, the Gurleyville Stone Mill, and other wonders I pass each day. All this to avoid contact with your cretinous species. Especially when you creatures are behind the wheel of a mechanical contrivance.

But I knew this was likely to be the last snow, and I took my chances on my backwoods route home. You know the one.

Start at Miller Road, zigzag through Greenville on Twelve, hook onto Ninety-Seven though Taftville (with the largest thread mill in the world, presently being restored), then through Occum and Baltic, finally getting out of the Mill Towns on the Shetucket River and rambling though the farm country up to Scotland, the only 'town' (it's more of a tiny village) on my route.

Sigh.

Do a little jig and a small jag, then hook onto Brook Road, which winds right alongside three of the finest little trout streams you've ever seen, going from Brook Road to North Brook Road, then to Brook Road Extension. I have to grit my teeth and run up Route 6 for three miles; this is a serious four-lane where you will DIE if you drop below sixty MPH. But from this I get on the tiny Route 198 for a quarter mile, where, after I cross the most picturesque Natchaug River (Oh MY!), I turn onto Bedlam Road (watch out for the huge flocks of wild turkeys! I'm not joking!). This jigs over to Atwoodville Road, which winds through a tiny scattering of Colonial homes, crossing the Mount Hope River (mind the trout fishermen, who park like the morons they are [no-necked knuckle draggers] along the side of the road below the NO PARKING signs in the middle of this pristine wilderness). From there, take a slight jog on State Eighty Nine to Mulberry Road, which winds through parts of Mansfield Hollow State Park to tee into Chafeeville Road (by the old Silk Mill; yes, we grew and wove that up here at one time). It's pronounced CHAY-fee-ville. It also doesn't exist. Chaffeeville Road winds between steep hills and jagged schist ledges that poke out into the road (I'm not kidding), past farms and forests, coming to the center of Gurleyville, a quaint little village crossroads whose left turn goes over to the University of Connecticut (UCONN!) and is the home of Peter Tork, the original bass player for the Monkees.

Despite going through Gurleyville every day twice a day, I've never seen him. It might be apocryphal, I dunno. Like I'd recognize him from the 1966 album covers.

Finally, my countryside expedition ends with a three-mile jaunt on Codfish Falls Road, which runs beside Fenton Brook (more a River than Brook). I have to again grit my teeth as I do a mile on Route 44, though Mansfield Four Corners, onto major Highway 195, and after a quarter mile, into the hidden parking lot of the shop in which I work restoring old windows.

See how easy it is???

I do the same in reverse on the way home.

The drive is beautiful, calming, and invigorates me every day, twice a day.

Eliminate the small stressors in your life and the big ones will take care of themselves.

Still, this was my last day driving in the snow. Without the four-wheel drive of my F150, in a thirty three year old rear-wheel drive van.

To top it off, I'd removed the three hundred pounds of sand from the rear of the van and switched out the metal-studded snow tires for warm-weather tires three days before.

WHY??? I hear you ask.

Because the State of Connecticut, in its ultimate wisdom, will fine you four hundred dollars for driving with such tires after the first of April.

Forget that April has snow. Just for a minute.

Okay, you can start remembering again.

I, on the other hand, KNEW this to be the LAST snow. I just knew it.

Because if it wasn't, I'd find God and kill him with my bare fucking hands.

God Knew This.

And I FINALLY got to work.

The first things I needed to do once I was (relatively) sure the never-ending snow was over was to...do the things I had intended to do in December, normally my busiest month here. I tackled the biggest jobs first; I had fifteen pounds of winterweight to lose, a body weak from doing less-than-normal physical activity (standing at a table for a living), and a bank account drained of savings to get Red operating once Baby (my F150) took its much-needed break.

Every action hurt my body in ways I had not expected. My spirits had been down, a deep depression was still on my tastebuds from the abuse I took at the maintenance job and a decidedly lonely existence (self-imposed, I know). I needed to replenish my savings account; two huge expenses lay ahead for this year. One, to replace my eighty-year-old electrical panel with a new breaker box, which would cost two thousand bucks, and Two, replace the roof. I'd hoped to hire this out, but it would cost four thousand or more, even with this tiny roof. I sighed, realizing I'd have to do it myself, probably in the hottest months. And I had a hard time just walking around the property. I was five years older than when I started, and the terrible injuries to my right side from the deer-motorcycle accident in 2011 were singing me their praises daily, and getting worse.

But it's gotta be done.

First task; build staging on the back of the house to allow me safe access to the back roof. I'd do this side first; if it took a long time or was problematic, I'd be hidden from passerby and neighbors. I'm neither proud, unrealistic, or stupid. It would be a Hurculean task for one fifty-eight year-old cripple. Strip the roof, repair the sheathing, called 'roofers' up here, install thirty pound felt, then 1 x 3 purlins parallel to the rafters. This would allow for a three-quartrer inch space between the new plywood and the felt, creating an air space to ventilate the roof once a ridge vent was installed. On the half-inch plywood I'd have to install underlayment, then architectural shingles. The shingles would be the easiest part. I have no friends and therefore, no help. If I get some cash set aside, I can pay for some help with plywood and underlayments, but this is unlikely.

With no money, I went through my years of collected cutoff wood from my three-year stint at DCAM (hey Brian!). Destined to be cut up and tossed in the dumpster, the haf-rounds, hand-hewn edges, slabs of hemlock,  heart pine, and white pine barnboard and flooring would come in handy now. I used the half-rounds (live edge is the real term) for uprights and smaller two-by cutoffs for braces. The pink stones are scarfed concrete pads from a friend.

Workus Interruptus.

Paying money to Our Corporate Government so they can bomb brown people around the world. Must spread the doctrine of Corporate Dominance and Economic Slavery! It works here, it will work there!

Am I bitter? You bet! I'm presently paying back all the subsidies I received in 2016 that allowed me to get the worst health care Iv'e ever received. All because the State program that handles Obamacare (a fairly decent program abused by the insurance companies) told me I was eligible. I wasn't. Eight thousand dollars from me to the Corporation of America. Thanks, health care! I'll never use you again and will never trust any governmet forever! What a program!

As an adittional incentive to love our overseers, I get to pay a penalty next year because I cant afford Obamacare anymore! Yippee! Fine me for being poor! No more health care for you! You should be glad we quintupled your premiums every year and made you pay most of your health care costs anyway! Here's a twelve thousand dollar deductible!

Don't complain; we ALL voted Blue Cross/Blue Shield into Congress.

Still cold on Earth Day, and Speckle likes the fact that I'm frugal and smart enough to use the last of the firewood. I did, too. This all-night blaze was just starting.

During the snow months, I finished the rewiring of the house in anticipation of not being able to afford the new panel. It had to be done, and I WILL put in the new panel; am saving up for it now. While running a wire along the rear sill, I saw a piece of rusted metal. Thinking it was a machete I lost last year (weird how we think; I lost it in the briars, not on a three hundred year old timber under the house), I pulled this old knife from its perch of likely a hundred years or more. It is ground, not folded, which means it was cut from a piece of steel in a factory, not made by a blacksmith. It has a stamped label too corroded to read; I may clean it up and regrind it, but I like to leave such artifact intact.

The knife is large and VERY thick. It has three rivet holes in the haft, and looks to be more of a farm tool for butchering rather than something used in a kitchen. So how did it come to be in the house, and moreover, what was it doing on a sill in the basement, six feet from the floor?

Thickness almost three eighths of an inch at the shoulder tapers to less than a quarter at the end of the tang.

 

The last bit of snow led to a week-long Mud Season. Goodbye and good riddance. We were all Jonesing for Spring. And none of us believed the snow was over.

Mud.

And it wasn't! This was from yesterday, Cinco de Mayo.

Not really! But we all expected it. This was actually the last blast in late March.

Speckie the Canine Snowplow after the mid-March Blizzard. Eighteen inches is nothing to her. Let's play!

 

We really did expect this to happen again; many of us had nightmares.

 

*SIGH*

Another day of digging out.

Finally in the past. Until next winter.

Hey, I don't have to deal with the Arkansas Heat from April until October anymore. This winter was tough, but we have a beautiful eight other months.

 

I came home one day to find the scraggly forest across the street cut down and ground to bits. Most trees still stood, but I saw a few marked with orange tape. This meant the others would be cut down. It also meant this piece of briar/poison ivy/bittersweet tangle was being converted to pastureland. It's a big movement up here; old fields, long abandoned and turned to messy scrub or new forest, are being cleared for agriculture, either growing vegetables, corn, or running cattle. It will raise my property value, make the place look better, and the addition of cows will give Speckle something to bark at. I had mixed feelings at first, but I think it's better this way (or will be when they finish). Cows are better neighbors than humans. Better creatures, in my opinion.

I was concerned that they'd destroy the two-hundred years of day lilies and daffodils by the road, but they left the beds alone.

One of my scarfed Japanese maples I planted in the front yard last fall; it has buds! It's been growing under the larch

"...The....Larch..."

for two years, along with its two siblings. I intend to let each get no higher than six feet, and will trim and wire them as I would bonsai, which I study. They will be fine perches for my puppybirds upon which some can crack seeds.

The other in the front yard. Just a twig now, but wait!

One lone little crocus peeking out from the rocks from Samara Morgan's well (remember her? I'm not sure what happened to the poor little girl...), since dismantled and lining the front garden. I got tired of planting flowers and bulbs there each year, only to see them destroyed by the billions of moles that festoon the lawn's underground. So last year I planted some climbing nightshade from the giant one in the side yard. This suff will choke out everything else, is indestructible, needs no care other than constant cutting back (or it will engulf the house), and makes very pretty little bell-shaped purple flowers with yellow centers that the bees just LOVE.

I lubs my bees.

And when the moles munch on the roots, they die in agony! Yay! Actually, they don't touch them. They ain't that dumb, and as much as I hate them, I only want them gone, not tortured.

But the nightshade is deadly poison. I got sick last year from merely pruning it without gloves. Not no morer!

These stones all came from the barn. For some reason I'm sure has to do with drainage, the barn soil under the long-gone floorboards is made up of schist cobbles piled almost two feet deep. I have been removing them a bit at a time as I work on the barn, and piling them by the north 'garden,' a collection of scarfed azaleas, ground cover, holly, and unidentifiable shrubbery

"BRING US A.....A SHRUBBERY!

...a nice one..."

that I've stolen from places that were being dug up for more civilized plants. The stones will eventually form the wall for the 'garden.'

Sometime next year, if I don't lose the house this year, I'll parge the ugly cinderblocks under the 1940s addition.

Dismantling the 'live edge' hemlock pile for staging uprights. A third were thrown on the burning pile, the remainder were used or set aside for other uses.

The barn as it was in December, leering at me, challenging me to remove the last four rafter sets, the rest of the roof, and the front wall. I began to formulate a plan... and it was the same plan I had last year.

The squared-off hemlock pile being picked through for staging braces. I also threw some of this away, as wood, even stickered, will rot. A lot survived, though. I had to move the whole pile, as the corner braces would need to be anchored there.

Heart pine 1x, intended to be used as vertical barn board. But now I have real white pine barnboard. I'm sure I'll find a use for it. The tarp was put there three years ago, and was more trouble than useful.

Heart pine 2x, awaiting use.

White pine barnboard, doing the same.

Land cleared behind the tractor shed; I did a good job last year. I wouldn't have to do it again this year. Nice! Tires will be used to stack dunnage upon, and the dunnage (thick pieces of lumber made to stack wood upon) will hold all those piles you just saw. As I go through them, that is. The tires have been eviscerated so 'skeeters cant breed in the water they don't collect.

What?

The tractor shed, showing the bulging back wall. Why cant these damn farmers put in a few cross timbers or joists to keep the walls together? Didn't they realize the roof pushes the walls outward? SHEESH!

It's the reason the shed roof is swayed. It won't be when I get a holt of it. But I'll likely stabilize it with a cabled come-along, as I did the barn.

The Barn! I'd better get started on the last of the roof and the front wall before they collapse, bringing the whole thing down!

IT'S SPRING!

Unless it snows again....

On the way to the barn the climbing nightshade whispers "I'm coming back...."

I learned not to touch it with my bare hands last year when I cut some off to see if it would root. IT DID! Easily, too. It also made me very sick. It's not belladonna, also known as 'Deadly Nightshade," but is still pretty potent.

Looks like Cousin It from the Addams Family.

Getting to work. First order of business; remove the last rafters and remaining sections of roof. Remember, there are seven or eight layers of roofing shingles, including the cedar shakes, This is VERY heavy, studded with rusty nails, and an absolute pleasure to remove.

NOT!

It hurt my body like fire to do it, despite the fact that I had ladders and tools and cords and scaffold already set up from the Lost December. I hadn't doen anything physical for months, and THIS is my first task?

Oh, did I hurt afterward.

At this point, I had put braces on the corner post, added some bigtime bracing on the gable end from the inside, and had removed all the rafters, roof, and ridgepole. The front wall, held up by the Major-League Come-Along connected to the huge eyebolt in the center of the 2x10 at the top of the east wall and held up by the north wall on the other side of the barn (Phew! That sentence took a lot out of me!) needs to be cut away and dismantled, but all this a little bit at a time. Otherwise the whole thing would fall and possibly take the rest of the barn (and me) with it.

Crash! Bang! Watch out below! Each section weighed over a hundred pounds.

The West gable wall is composed of two half-round timbers from 1710 along with vertical barnboard from the same time. BIG gaps. The gable was not self-supporting, so I began to add bracing, stifflegs, and plywood sheathing before removal. Note the two half oval/half square holes in thr upper center of the picture. Upon closer examination, they both have obvious grooves worn into the flat cut on the bottom. I surmise they were used to guide ropes that hauled hay bales to the long-gone loft.

Weird that the big timber below (as well as the center timber and all the others) have no nail holes to show that any type of flooring existed to make a loft in which hay was kept. I'm sure there was a loft; barns throughout the ages have similar construction. Hay lofts above, threshing floors in the middle, animal stalls below.

But the middle timbers don't line up! And no nail holes? I'm trained in archaeology. The clues, like the timbers, don't add up.

This corner brace, known as a 'hurricane' around these parts, was newer than the original, which was likely mortised into place. This one is bolted with lag bolts, then used by me as a form keep the rafter plate and corner post together. The mortise and tenon joint belonging to the latter is long compromised.

OMG!!! It's a wooly bear caterpillar! Sporting its spring finery, as well.  This species warned us of the heavy early winter followed by a warm middle and a crazy cold, snowy March. They were spot-on. Note the black head (today) and the orange body (long hot summer ahead). It actually has some black fur mixed in; maybe it won't be so hot as to kill us.

No. It will.

Big pieces of roof fell outside as well. Look out!

Braces installed before the last of the ridgepole was removed. Note that I strripped the shingles and sheathing for better purchase on the corner post.

Lets take a break and look at what I do to afford all this extravagance.

Extravagance.

RIGHT.

This is the old Main Office for the Williams Soap Factory in Glastonbury. It made shaving soap back in the goodle days, when men were men and didn't actually bathe all that much. Now the mill (seen in the background to the left) is a bunch of apartments (I visibly shudder, hope you all felt that). But the Office belongs to ITI, our clients. We remove the windows a few sashes at a time (note the blocked-up windows), bring them to the shop, steam the putty off, cook/grind off the paint (under carefully monitored conditions that keep the lead from us as well as the environment, and I'm not kidding), then scrape, sand, wash, repair, prime, reinstall the now-clean original glass, glaze them with new putty, paint and clean them. Trust me, they sparkle when we are through.

Finally, we reinstall them.

Since it was The Winter from Hell when they were removed, and it takes about thirty hours to do one set, we must plug the windows with plywood and insulation. We also install Innerglass interior storm windows, which you can't see, can you? Nyaahh. We're very good. We have to be, or the women in the building will kill us. They get cold easily and work right below these huge openings..

But when we're done! OH MY!!

And yes, they seal nicely and can open and close. It's likely they won't, though, as the building is temperature controlled and the Innerglass storms will probably be there for some time.

Though we have removed all the old paint, we still make a tiny bit of a mess as we reinstall them, so we go to great pains to cover and clean as we go.

It's SOOO much fun working around these immoveable desks and extremely expensive computer stations.

The results, though, are stunning. Nothing like a clean, clear window. Unless its four of them on the south side.

The building was once the Glastonbury Board of Education. I doubt this was the mark of a bored student; what would such a person be doing there? It wasn't a school. Yet this person scratched the letter "E" into the glass. Very carefully, with fine script and a flourish. Or maybe it was Sammy Davis Jr. after the filming of "Ocean's Eleven" in 1960. You'd have to know the song. "E-O Eleven..." I noticed it once I cleaned the glass after we finished the restoration at the shop, but it really came out when the sun hit it after installation. West side, late in the day. We have to install on Saturdays, as the office ladies are there otherwise.

It occurs to me that this might be a shorthand symbol. Anyone care to surmise?

Oh, yes!

Now they can see!

And be blinded by the light streaming in on their computer monitors...

Back to the Standish Farm...

Speckie's Last Fire in mid-April. The dog blankets have since been reduced, as they are too hot for the pups. I keep them in reserve for cool nights.

Staging, finished. No walkboards yet. They'll be put up just before roofing starts.

The barn front wall, however, will not wait. It is MOVING. And the longer I wait, the worse the blackflies will get. Better use the last cool days of spring. Better use ALL the days. Time is getting short. I have to get this place refinanced by December.

 

Ah! A nice cool spring day! Blackflies are still asleep at nine in the morning. Time to begin the Front Wall Dismantling.

I long ago realized that if I merely let the whole thing fall (see last pic if you don't believe that it eventually would), it would likely take other parts of the structure with it. But the cable/comealong/2x10/bolts combo has worked pretty well for almost four years, so I have had some time to formulate....

A PLAN!

"I GOT A PLAN!!!"

Said by Kevin Bacon in the wonderfully goofy sci-fi sleeper "Tremors."

The plan is relatively simple. After bracing the rest of the structure, especially the gable wall, I'd cut out the areas between the half-round timbers in 3x3 sections. This way, I'd keep the structure intact, loosen sections small enough to transport easily, and keep all those damned shingles attached to a substrate, as opposed to have to pick each shingle up by hand. Not to mention removing each one by hand. THAT would have been rather time-consuming, as whatever nutcase attached these shingles was abit of an overachiever. Each shingle had at least ten and sometines twenty nails. Four is the usual number.

Besides, it's an absolute BITCH to cut up a wall for disposal once it's down. Much easier when you can control what you're cutting.

If you look closely, you can see the structural half-timbers with small strips of plywood and shingles left after I cut the larger sections away with a reciprocating saw.

It took at least ten seriously hardened blades to cut away the roof last year.

I used two carbide-toothed recip-saw blades to do the remainder of the roof and this entire wall. Technology speaks. I still have both blades.



Moment of truth:

The center vertical post was rotted in the center, and all the plywood joined at the line of shingles in the picture above. All I figured I'd have to do was cut out the plywood, remove the come-along cable, and cut the rafter plate away at the top of the left corner post.

I did all this, and the upper half refused to move. I took a long timber and pushed. No go. This thing was built! Most timber-framed structures are. I rocked the upper section back and forth with the timber, watching the gable end and the adjoining barn (to the right in the picture). I heard the thing crack, I saw it try to fall, but the obviously completely rotted upright in the middle was apparently not as rotted as it looked. Finally, with a groan and much cracking, the top half of the wall moved outward and down, falling exactly where I had set up some of the old timbers to catch it and give me room to cut it up on the ground. The Mighty Milwaukee Sawzall sits triumphantly atop the rotted rafter plate, and trust me, I gave a great deal of reverent prayer to those brave men that felled, hewed, and shaped this seven-inch square white pine timber. They also bored the ends with augers and long thin chisels to create the mortises, then sawed strong tenons to fit into those square holes. Finally they whittled long, tapering oak trunnels (tree-nails) with octagonal sides to pin the structure together. They knew that an angled peg in a round hole would bite into the wood and hold better than a round peg. Then they raised the entire side, fitting one wall into the other with more morstises, tenons, and trunnels.

I'm sure they saw the result and stood back when the structure was completed, nodding their heads and shaking hands with each other. This barn would house and feed farm animals for just under three hundred years.

And I'd cut away the front wall in less than four hours one Saturday morning in 2018. With tools they couldn't imagine in 1710.

Don't think that I didn't think of these men every time I added a brace, cut away a rotted timber, or saw that wall come crashing down.

They are with me every step of the way on this restoration.



What was salvageable joins the pile to the left, what could be burned is on the pile behind me, and the remaining small sections are piled up, awaiting transport to the Transfer Station's Big Dumpsters, where I'll pay about twenty bucks to dispose of the pile. I'll soon extend the horizontal brace from the upper plate of the 1860 barn to the middle of the gable wall, reinforcing it all the more. I don't know when I'll get back to work on the 1710 structure, other than to cover the back rafter plate with roofing felt to protect it. I will do some reinforcing to the 1860 barn, as its two left-side corner posts are compromised. But that will have to wait a while; I need to turn my attention to many things, the most important being the replacement of the Main House Roof.

And oh, am I looking forward to THAT.



Tools used to bring down and dismantle the Wall.

Check out the Major-League Come-Along to the left. The boys at Mill and Mine, in the industrial district of Little Rock, would be proud to see what I've done with it.

And what I'll YET do. Next job for it: bringing the Tractor Shed back together.

People stopped by to marvel. "You doing all this by yourself?"

"Who then? My Mother?" was my answer.

Time to go into the Hot Place.

The Attic of The Standish House.

Weeks before, I had been buying 2x8s and ferrying them up to the second floor of the main house. I'd been bringing up specific tools, all the salvaged three-inch screws I could find, and runs of half-inch plywood ripped to seven inches wide. I found tubes of construction adhesive I'd bought when I had the money, and now I had a small window of cool weather in which to do the first task of the most important, physically difficult, and expensive renovation of the Five-Year Plan.

The reroofing of the Main House.

I had truly hoped I could hire someone else to do this, and I even had a roofer picked out, a guy with whom I worked who could do it cheaply and do it well. He has the tools, the crew, the expertise, and the insurance.

I, unfortunately, have not the money. So I have to do the hardest job myself.

I've roofed houses. Not that I liked doing it. But I know HOW. And as roofs go, the Standish House is about the simplest there is; two gables and a central chimney. No dormers, hips, or valleys. Two straight runs thirty-two long by fifteen deep, one on either side of the chimney.

I certainly KNOW how to do it.

But I don't WANT to do it.

I'm fifty-eight and have several catstrophic injuries. My body should not be roofing a house.

The roof, small as it is, has a twelve-ten pitch, which means that for every twelve inches of horizontal run, it rises ten inches. Twelve-twelve is a forty five degree angle. This is barely less steep.

Thus the staging on the back of the house. Roofers don't need staging!

But roofers are usually less than half my age.
And they're roofers.
If you look at the upper center of the picture above, you'll see several pieces of wide pine between two rafters; these have white stripes indicating lime plaster between wood lath, typical of structural studs that supported plaster walls. These are pieces of original studs for inside walls since removed or modified in the house below. I know this because I've opened walls and snaked wires through the one and a quarter inch space between the plaster walls. It ain't easy. But the pine stud sections here were used to reinforce the cracked roofers behind them, or I suppose they were. I didn't remove them, and worked around them. They undoubtedly serve a purpose and are also part of the repairs made long ago. They were installed with square nails, so the repair is not recent, though square nails are still available. BTW, no wrought (handmade) nails have been found so far. Many original components have been removed and many have not been torn out, so there may yet be some. I'm not sure when machine-made nails made their appearance in Colonial structures, but it was earlier than you might think; I'll do some research and get back to this. Keep in mind that all the dates for these structures are gleaned from anecdotal evidence and land-use plats, so they are arbitrary at best. Physical evidence and diaries are better for proof of dates.



2x8s and half-inch plywood being laid out to make a 'header', a laminated timber three and a half inches thick made from smaller components. I learned to make these on my first framing crew at age seventeen. The pine floorboards are old, over an inch thick, and have likely been up there for a while, but not for three hundred years. The roofers can be seen on top of the rafters and are as old as the house. They are dangerous to be near, with many roofing nails of differing sharpness just waiting to puncture your head if you're not careful. I am and I still get tagged once in a while.

The rafters measure 3x4 inches, are on roughly two and a half foot centers, and rest on an 8x6 hand-hewn oak beam called a plate. The plate is tenoned and set in a mortise (square hole) in the gunstock corner post (see living room restoration three years ago in the archives of 2015). Below the plate and perpendicular to it is a girt, a non-rafter supporting beam that is also tenoned and connects the corner post with mortises BELOW that of the plate. Otherwise the mortises would join and the structure would not be strong.

That's Colonial Timber Framing 101.

The base support for the kneewall, the object of all this labor.

The house was built without kneewalls to support the center of the rafter run (about twelve feet or more). The roof has sagged a bit, and one look from the outside shows that the sag is visible between rafters. I am not only going to be dancing around on some pretty ancient timbers as I strip the roof, but I am going to add a layer of plywood on top of this one. I need to have a better substrate for the shingles, and don't want to show the sag between the rafters, so there will be extra weight. Thus the kneewalls.

Here's how the roof will be built.

Strip the present roofers with a de-roofing shovel (got one three years ago) after adding some projecting one-foot wide plywood strips at the bottom to protect the gutters. I'll also lean scrap plywood against the house to protect my newly planted nightshade where the removed shingles will fall. The roof only has one layer of shingles, but they will come off in tiny pieces due to the roof being fifty (70?) years old. The remaining nails will be removed or hammered back down. The friable nature of the roofers will be problematic; I don't want to beat them into splinters, even if I'm not putting my shingles on them.

"What?" you gasp exasperatedly, as if there was such a word. "Where in the world are you putting the shingles?"

On the new plywood roof which will be installed on the old roof.

I COULD just nail the plywood to the old roofers, but I'd like some ventilation from the eave to the ridge, so I'm going to add purlins running in the same direction as the rafters. These will be 1x3 strips on 16" centers, allowing an air space that will help ventilate the roof and keep the attic cooler. A ridge vent at the top and open spaces filled with fibrous mesh at the bottom (both openings stuffed with this to keep critters out) will create this space.

So.

Remove the shingles, repair the roof, save the chimney step-flashing, install purlins, then plywood, then underlayment, then metal drip edge, then shingles, Don't forget the ventilation or to slip the chimney step-flashing between each run of shingles.

I refuse to go into the ridgecap shingles, starter course, or taping the joints of the underlayment.

NOW DO YOU SEE WHY I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ROOF???

And hopefully you now know why I need kneewalls.

Back to  our story.

The picture above shows the header placed on a stack of 2x6 blocks screwed into the chimney girt. The other end (below) rests on the end girt. That way it has strong support from below and does not rest on the flooring. Why? Because I intend to jack the rafters ever-so-slightly and set them on the beam, and the flooring is not structurally able to support the roof.

It is also typical of Colonial timber-framed structures to have the ceiling joists run counter to the rafters. In stick or balloon framing, the joists must run the same direction as the rafters, or the weight and pressure of the angled roof rafters would push the rafter plates outward, leading to collapse. But in timber framing, it doesn't matter. The rafter plates are tenoned into mortises and pegged, so the rafters can push all they want and the structure remains upright and square. If you look at the floorboards, you can see that the joists that support them run opposite to the rafters. You  can also see this in the archives from 2016 when I redid the kitchen ceiling and exposed those joists.

The other end of the flying beam resting on the end girt. There is a three-inch space below the flying beam in case the roof pushes down enough to deflect the flying beam downward. It's called a flying beam because it flies over a space that cannot support it; these are often used to add strength to ceilings below, especially where the plaster has sagged and cracked. One must merely attach the flying beam to the joists with blocks and screws. I've done many of these and they always work like a charm.

Note the stereo. I must have music or news as I work. WNPR, WECS, WCNI (my fav), WHUS, WSHU, and WGBH can all be received on my ridge. Along with the shitty commercial stations, but I stay below 92 megahertz.

But as to TEEVEE? Only PBS, thank Grok.

Gusset plate at the joints of the 2x8s. The joints must be staggered to give the beam strength. It is screwed and glued together and ain't goin' nowhere.

The trays in the background are fiberglass, and are used to collect the water that sometimes drips and sometimes pours through my roof. They were found on the property and were undoubtedly used for holding small plants in the long-gone greenhouses.

Jacking the rafter with most sag.

This is a tricky process. I'm not raising the rafters by more than an inch and a half, and most by less than an inch. Choose the lowest rafter and work from there. I made a jig (Oh, sorry, can't say jig! It's a Wood-Form American) that would transfer the straight up-and-down lift of the hydraulic jack to the nearly 45 degree angle of the rafter.

The tricky part is lifting the rafter and supporting it from the side, where the jack is not. After screwing the new support in and the jack removed, another support is added below the rafter. THIS is the real support; screws put in from the side would carry the weight otherwise, and I want a wood member (oh my!) to do the work.

Completed. I was pleased.

I also wasn't hurting like when I built the beams. These had to be done on the floor, where I sat cross-legged and had to scoot and raise and lower myself constantly. I'm too old for that. Note the chair; I installed the uprights from that. Much better for my ancient body.

Next upright, showing the crazy jig (Wood-Form American. Okay that's enough of THAT nonsense) that had to be rebuilt and redesigned constantly. It would crack along grain lines, along screw holes, and anywhere pressure got too great and a weakness existed.

Speaking of cracks, this rafter was split along diagonal grain. I added a 'sister,' another piece of wood to add support, but decided I needed more once the  rafter had been jacked and straightened.

Construction adhesive  from a caulk gun was squished into the crack with a thin piece of shingle, clamps brought the rafter together, and three-inch screws completed the task.

I don't let things like this go without a fix.

We are not children here.

Yes indeedy. All upright supports are checked for plumb both ways, and when this entire process is completed, I'll have walls that can easily be sheathed with electrical wires running through them. They can be insulated and outfitted with access doors to store (hopefully less) junk within. I will essentially end up with a large room up there, though it will have a chimney in the middle of it. Yes, I could add a wood stove. Let's not get ahead of our purpose.

Looking towards the south window and all the tools, chargers, fans (it was pretty comfortable, since I sarated at eight in the morning), assorted junk, and of course, sweet little Samara Morgan watching over all procedures.

Just waiting to crawl through your teevee and scare you to DEATH!!!

Almost done.

Poor little jig did its job well because I kept adding to it as it cracked.

Oh, YEAH!

Floor cleaned, roof tighter than a tick a dog show, and boxes of junk stashed safely in the dry corner. A lot thrown away, as well.

I done good. The roof even looks a bit straighter from the road.

But this is only one fifth of the kneewalls. Four more plus two half-connectors to go.

And the next has to go where SHE lives, and I don't mean Samara Morgan.

I hope She won't mind.