FINALLY BACK AFTER THREE YEARS

(Hopefully) last motel I'll stay in for a long long time. Dwawgs are conked from 1200 miles. 400 to go, we'll be home tomorrow!

Thank you, meeses. I not only have no toilet paper but you've pissed on some of my best winter clothes.

A week into trying to clean up the overgrowth, this white ash tree split. missing my good friend Mike's car by fifteen minutes. Ah, farm life!

Wouldn't trade this place for anything.

I thought I'd posted some things to this old blog since my return, but the Blogger Gods kept them from going forward. Hopefully this one (and many more) will go through.

Because I'm back from Exile.

Laid off from Steve Marshall's glass shop in 2019, I went back to CooperLand and redesigned their window Stripping shop, then helped build the Glazing and Painting shops, then proceeded to train the Strippers (oh my!) and Glazers and Painters (well, some). We did all this so we could restore all 438 original wood sashes from Connecticut Hall, the oldest building on the Yale Campus (or so they tole us).

I was so successful at this that they let me go again. I wasn't laid off, just set down. So, after six years in Connecticut, I realized that I was once again ready to go back into the Old House Repair and Restoration biz on my own.

But, but, BUT!!

It was October, and as any fool knows (I am qualified in foolishness, trust me), one does not go out on one's own in bizniz in New England in late fall. It's a Spring endeavour. Thus a call to my good bud Chuck in Little Rock Arkansas, who always  has a house to restore.

So I loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly....no, I took the dwawgs, tools, kitchen equipment, clothes and tools in a trailer to Oak Street, where I spent the next year restoring a 1930s rabbit warren.

And WHY did I stay more than six months? Well, we had this little interruption in March 2020 that shut the country down. You might remember it.

I lived in the house, got paid weekly, and only had to go to the lumber yard, hardware store, paint store, and liquor store. I'm sure I must have eaten, I don't remember. Certainly not at any restaurants.

My neighbors looked after the Farm and it was relatively safe. I even returned for three months the next fall to refinance the house, though it was like giving a starving dwawg a rubber bone (3.6% going from 5.7% and from a thirty to twenty year mortgage, a GREAT choice), then returned to finish Oak Street. But The COVID thing was still keeping me from returning so I took on the restoration of my favorite of Chuck's properties, Hill House on 19th St., across the street from the Guv's House. I'd lived there for five years after my divorce, so it was like coming home.

But finally, in May 2022, I loaded up the trailer and moved back to The Land of Steady Habits. The Farm was overgrown, the mice had filled my dressers with toilet paper and mouse leavings (eeeeeewwwww), and I had a helluva cleanup job. I was with a new dwawg, two orignial dwawgs, and had laid the ground for my window restoration business before leaving, so I arrived with a full dance card of restorations to do.

Of course the property suffered. I took care of everyone else and not myself, as usual. Then things evened out in Fall, and we had the mildest winter in memory. It snowed three times, and only one measured over two inches. Each snowfall melted within two days.

The next (previous in Blogland) post will explain why.

So now, one year after returning, I am a LOT older, my body is failing, and I have winnowed the dwawg pack to two, Speckle the Giant Boxer and her new love, Rissa the tiny Bernese Mountain Dwawg. Rissa has learned to guard and bark from her big sis and they stand guard between naps while I try to tame the briars, bittersweet, and poison ivy, cut down dying trees, and hack back and poison the always evil vulgaris, the Worst Weed in the world. I've built my three shops into Window Restoration Machines and am presently traveling WAAAY too many miles to do window restorations. Other work is also coming my way, and before long, I'll have my Lifers (clients that will always call for services) and Newbies (future Lifers).

My left shoulder and right knee are blown, my right wrist hurts like hell, and I sleep unevenly.

But I'm HOME.

And it feels so good.

Let's POST!

Speckle, happy to be home at last.

Pile o' puppies

Where can I shit in this vulgaris jungle?????

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Ah, the thirty-first of October. Time to turn colder, barer.

Drier.

Fire.

Leaves are pretty much down up here on The Ridge. My variegated maple has held on until the last. It loses its leaves from the top down. So why do my dogwoods go red from the ground up?

I have always regarded Halloween as my New Year's Eve. November First is the beginning of the year.

So Happy New Year

and

Happy Halloween.

From Standish Farm and Red

From The Standish Homestead

And from Samara Morgan and Harvey D. Eyeball Congeries.

And, oh, yeah. From me, too.

NOW SHE HAS A FRIEND

Autumn in Southern New England came early and hung around longer than anyone around here remembers. September and October were perfect. Just the right amount of rain and sun, warm and cool. A little too warm for my liking, though. The damned yellowjackets, always trouble at this time of year, were in a constant state of confusion. 

"Warm? Cold? Make up your freaking mind!"

I could hear them cry out in their evil little yellow and black voices.

They're ready to go to ground for the winter, but can't quite do it yet. The woods can be very dangerous at this time of year. And in late October in New England, anything can happen.

So I was on guard that day.

While doing my usual Autumn cleanup around the property, there was some scratching and then squishy noises from the front yard. I heard it because I was not operating the weed eater yet; as I said, the temperatures in southern New England haven't dipped far enough to kill off the damned yellowjackets, so it's pretty quiet here at The Farm.

So I heard the squishing and went to investigate.

Lo and behold, an Eyeball Monster had come to visit. It told me it was a night creature, but needed light, so I did what I could to accommodate it. Apparently its name is Harvey.

Harvey D. Eyeball Congeries

Kinda cute in a squishy sort of way. Smells weird, though.

But when the sun started to go down and I gave it some light to make it comfortable, it shrieked and screamed.

Then SHE arrived.

I hadn't seen Samara Morgan since last Hallow's Eve. It's when she usually comes to visit.

I only didn't know she knew HIM.

And apparently has some control.

As night fell, they began to dance.

And chant.

And sing squishy, disgusting songs like nothing of this earth.

Now they do it every night. Dancing and singing, shrieking and screaming. And scaring the hell out of the neighbors.

If only I could get the yellowjackets to listen. Maybe they'd leave.



FINALLY!

It only took all year, but I finally finished the siding and trim on the wood shop, even building a new door that matches.

 The south side (with the door) has antique eastern white pine instead of antique southern yellow longleaf ("Heart") pine (to the left), and so looks a little darker due to the dark brown patina. The heart pine has been re-cut from huge beams, and so has a newly cut surface. The south wall is made from antique flooring from Colonial-era homes. Some even has the Roman numerals designating where it went in its original building. This wood was rejected at the shop for one reason or other, and being a good little scrounger, I squirrelled it away for a few years to use on this side. Heart pine has more pitch and a tendency to weep sap (even after five hundred years) and split in high heat, and the south side is certainly in the sun all day. Drier, more stable white pine can stand the sun better.

 Autumn is nigh. The yellowjackets are going crazy, landing on anything in a panic; they know from the warm days and cold nights that their time above ground is limited. The mulberry, brought here as a six-inch stick from the roof where it was growing, has grown to about fifteen feet; the pile of glass from the old greenhouse leans against it. It made two berries this year!

The north side, complete with festoons. The shutter for the fan window will soon be shut for winter; I'm not sure what I'll do for a finish. Probably flat black.

Funny thing about those wood signs. They were harvested from the now-demolished section of the 1860s barn's milking floor, and I put them on the wood shop over two years ago. I suppose someone scarfed them up when the DOT went to metal alloy signs. Strange thing is that they still shine like beacons when car headlights hit them. They're only visible for a second, but I often hear car tires squeal from people hitting their brakes, despite them being a hundred feet from the road.

I'm happy this is done. It shows the passerby that work is actually being finished at The Farm, and what the exteriors of the other barns might look like someday.

Now to get the Tractor Shed roof straightened.

MORE SHOP SIDING

Well, I TOLE you I'd get back to this thing as time allowed. Well, time has paid me my allowance. The big Yale Window Job (restoring over four hundred wood sashes at the oldest building at the Yale campus, the 1754 Connecticut Hall) has been successfully completed, taking many months and a ton of overtime. I worked many Saturdays and The Standish Farm cooked in the midsummer heat, which is a lousy time to work outside anyway.

Window restoration shop glazing area

So now I've been set down, hopefully for only a short period before the next job comes into the shop, and I'm taking advantage of the cooler weather. It's only 85 today! But it has tempered a bit, and the every-third-day rain has slackened to every fifth day, which is as it should be.

Time to get back to work.

Ah, but where to start?

Where I left off, of course. Try to finish the siding on the shop.

If you need to refresh your memory of just what this entails, how long ago I planned for it, and my luck in scarfing a ton of wood from my employer, just go back to the March 24th post from this year, and you'll wish you hadn't. It's very extensive.

I'll wait.

Dum de dum de dum….

Oh, right. All three readers are lazy, I'll give a quick synopsis.

Back in 2014 thru 2016, I ran the Woodmizer at the DCAM shop (Deschenes and Cooper Architectural Millwork), where I milled antique longleaf pine timbers into slabs for use in several huge restoration projects. This left a lot of unusable wood, as the timbers had nail holes and pitch pockets and splits. We only used the best, and I was told to toss the rest. I begged to take it home, and since this saved Brian Cooper (Hey Brian!) from paying me to cut it up and put it into the dumpster or kindling bin, I was given these leftovers. Management at the shop thought I was crazy, taking this rough, stained pine home.

For years they've been in several piles around the Farm, stickered to keep them from rotting. Some did anyway. I always planned to use them for re-siding my outbuildings, and the Shop, being the newest and ugliest, became my first project.

Besides, I was getting tired of looking at these piles.

Pile reduced for the west side of the shop, re-sided this spring

 Wood from the "woods" pile after pressure washing. Unlike the west side wood, this ws set in the woods, where it got wet leaves and constant moisture despite the stickers that kept the boards apart. I had plywood on top of it for a good deal of the time, but I still lost 15%. The rest had dark spots and streaks, which show in the finished product.

THIS is why I needed to add more rustic siding. Tongue-in-groove siding on the left (south) side and T-111 sheet siding over the T&G on the right (east). And a lovely salmon pinkish orange paint that has long since faded.

The louvers keep out the rain in the summer as well as the light year-round. I have lights, and the glare of bright outdoor light is detrimental to seeing properly in the shop.

 Not all the wood I took home was so gnarly. This wainscot was made of pine too thin for use in DCAM projects. It was kept under cover, as opposed to the siding wood.

 Bathroom wainscot pre-milled into beadboard, not enough for a project at work but fit like a glove in my bathroom.

Kitchen wainscot being varnished.

 This was actually the best of the stickered wood, it went on the west side. It looks bad because it's just been lightly pressure washed and was drying.

I had to raid this "woods" pile for the east side.

The stuff on the left was rejected. Then I went through it and used some anyway.

The west side has the best wood.

 In late spring, I put felt over the original siding on the north side, thinking I'd side it next. WRONG! I worked on the yard next, and when I had time to do this siding job, the high summer sun had taken a nearly above-my-head ecliptic, and what was easy shade in the spring was now swelteringly hot in July. Me not do sun so good.

A ways back in spring, when the ecliptic was still low.

Deciding to move the operation to the east side, I found that the last half of the day has it in shade.

 It took very little time to put up the siding. This is the fastest part. I  pre-sanded and finished the wood before installation. Saved the shorter pieces for the fan vent louver area. The horseradish should give me some hot roots this November.

Choosing, milling, and finishing the battens takes longer. The bees were bothersome, especially when I removed the newer pine fascia, which they inhabited. I have nothing against carpenter bees, even though they bore holes in the wood, but they freaked me out as I worked on the ladder, so a few had to be whacked. No wasps, hornets or yellowjackets. Thank God for that.

Siding finished, cornice installed, and all battens, drip edge and louvers installed. The electrical line, a small gray wire, will be stapled back and tidied up.

 NOW the building is starting to look like it belongs on an old farm. Or at least like someone that lives here has pride of place.

 I wrangled what to do with the holes. These are from large bolts, electrical lines, and other accoutrement of the woolen mill from which the original 15"x7"x 28' timbers were salvaged.

I spent some time cutting plugs with my plug cutting bits on my drill press, but there are many sizes, and each would have to be tapered, then glued up, then sanded, then finished.

But I am an artist, and rather complicated one at that. So I will do a number of things to hide the holes, including installing a few extra battens to cover those in line, applying stars and moons (and clovers! Always after me lucky charms...) that I'm cutting from scrap heart pine, and inserting a few rubber snakes and other critterage. Hey, it's a garden on this side.

 These would be covered with corner boards to be installed later. Most would, anyway.

 The last of the heart pine, ready for the north side. The ecliptic is now lower in the south sky, so I can work in shade. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the low seventies with low humidity, so I'm going to start this then. It's harder to cut on this side, as each piece has to be custom cut to match the angle at the top and they shorten from east to west.

 More of the last longleaf.

 The last of the longleaf siding, finished and ready for cutting.

 Amazing what one can do with a simple portable table saw. The nail gun helps, too.

I know I already posted this pic, but take a look at the swayback roof on the 1830s tractor shed. Not that there was a tractor in there in 1830. I want to illustrate the REAL reason I wanted to side the shop, other than those of aesthetics. After selecting, washing, and drying the pine, I couldn't stack it back in the outdoor piles, so I had it stored in the loft of this barn, and the only way to get the roof straightened is to jack it and pull the rear plate in simultaneously. The wood was simply in the way. And I cant do this in the winter; the bats are sleeping then. In fact, I have to do it quietly in the late afternoon and into the evening when my little batty guys are feasting on mosquitoes.

 Inside the tractor shed, the big wood collection is reduced to a pile of battens. The battens would be more complex on the north side; I had mostly short pieces left, and they would have to fit together. I have a feeling I'll be raiding the reject pile again.

 But this pile is pretty much gone.

 So is this one.

 Only the white pine barnboard remains. It will go up on the south side, which has a door and a window, so it will need shorter pieces. It also gets full sun all day, and the more pitchy and harder longleaf pine will likely seep, sap, crack, and warp in the heat. Antique eastern white pine in my last pile is a mix of barnboard, flooring, and sheathing from Colonial-era and slightly later buildings. Again, a donation from Brian Cooper and Early New England Restorations/DCAM. I couldn't be doing all this without him and the ability to reuse that which we would have cast off from our other reuse/remilling of the timbers. Thanks, Brian.

I really do like the way this turned out. All the passing cars slow to see it.

 It isn't all skittles and cream, though. This cheap but effective roof patch was necessary on the bedroom addition, as it went from a tiny leak to a monster waterfall. The roof of the original structure was beautifully reroofed last November (Hey Ozzie!), but it got too cold, then too hot to reroof the two additions. The south addition roof doen't leak, and I needed to buy time until I get the money for new decking. I have the roofing left over from the main house.

Nor it it peaches and beer, neether. The Monster Briar, which gives my bedroom window both shade and singing birds in the morning, must be kept at bay from the roof a few times a year. I use shotguns and flamethrowers in high summer, but this late, loppers and hedge trimmers do the job. Along with rhinoceros-hide gauntlets and a long steel rake.

 Late summer. Hot. Speckle stays on the cool wood floor, head propped up, as usual. Marley is in her hole under the Dog Deck, sleeping in the cool dirt.

 A lousy year for basil. This is my second planting; the first wasn't much better, and it flowered within two weeks of planting in May.

 The dogwood I planted last year is taking off, as did all trees this year. A whole lotta rain. The bulkhead doors are also scarfed from a section of garage door replaced at DCAM four years ago. Hey Brian! Thanks for your contribution! ALL your contributions! Standish Farm owes a lot to your offerings.

 Little dogwood, also on the south side, will offer much-needed shade in a few years.

 Grass under the variegated maple took nicely; this had been bare since I moved here.

 I don't know what this weed is, but it envelops my firepit's wood piles nicely at this time of year, and the bungle bees love the little orange flowers. I look after my bees.

 The grass at the old greenhouse took well. I have to mow it to keep the undergrowth from re-establishing.

 The apple seems happy with its new support, which has held up through a number of 50 MPH storms. Still no apples, but after another big trimming next spring, I'm going to spray it and see if it produces.

 The grass planted back at the old animal pens is a harder case, without as much light as the other spots. The undergrowth is more tenacious here as well.

I'll keep a-mowing.

Next time: The North Side