And so it Begins - Laying Hay

The weather forecast for tonight is a wintry mix with around an inch of accumulation.  We are still a couple of weeks away from digging the foundation, so Berne came around to spread some hay and lay a tarp to prevent the ground from freezing.  Alistair helped Alyssa quickly clear the sight.  They emptied the sandbox, moved the slide and relocated some plants.

Berne came with a dozen bales of hay, which Alistair was more than happy to help spread around.

Alistair persuaded Charlotte and Evelyn to come out to help too.

The old fence came in handy to weigh down the tarp.

Charlotte Rose Flower

We have some of our first blooms on the Charlotte Rose, and it is a beautiful flower.  Charlotte thinks it's very funny that the rose is called Charlotte. She has been "Checking on Charlotte" or "Watering Charlotte".  It is a lovely flower.  Now, hopefully it will survive the winter...

Leak is Fixed

Pete the plumber came back out today and fixed the leak.  Yeah!  Because the leak was on the cold supply line, we haven't been able to use the toilet upstairs since we got back from England.  

A Hole in the Ceiling

Yesterday morning the plumber (Pete) came out to look at the leak.  He couldn't find it, but suggested that we make an exploratory hole in the dining room ceiling. Ugh.  We were so proud of our fancy, sound insulated ceiling.  It doesn't seem that long ago that we were there, with our rented drywall lifter, attaching the drywall to the insulating clips. We were reluctant to make a big mess in our living room right now.

When Colin returned from his doctor's appointment, he had another look and found the leak on the cold water supply line.  The plumber came back out again but said that he couldn't solder the copper pipe in such a confined space.  Fair enough.  So today Colin cut into our beautiful ceiling.  I was hoping we could delay taking down the ceiling, but the drywall below the tub was disgusting.  It's going to have to come down sooner than later.  There was still more water sitting up there too.

Colin found the hole in the cold supply line right before it bends upwards.  The water was spraying horizontally.  The plumber was off today getting new glasses, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

After cutting away a section of the ceiling directly below the box around the bathroom drain, Colin found the hole in the cold water supply line.  Thank goodness we shut the water off while we were gone.  The drywall we have taken down is disgusting and damp.  The drywall still up there is probably a mold factory.

A Waterfall

We have been enjoying eating dinner outside on the back porch, but last night we had dinner inside, at the dining room table.  After dinner, Colin noticed a large paint blister on the ceiling.  It was pretty late, so we moved the dining room table, chairs, and mahogany sideboard as a precaution and went to bed.  This morning we poked a hole in the paint to let it drain out.  We have a leak somewhere.  We tightened the tub drain when we did the ceiling ten plus years ago, so at first we went with that hypothesis.  We were literally leaving for England at noon today, so we thought, not a problem, no one is going to be taking a shower or bath in the tub.  Since we are going to be gone so long, Colin decided to poke a hole in the drywall.  So sad.  We worked hard on installing that ceiling.  Anyway, when he did, it was a waterfall of water.

We were still going on the assumption that it was the drain, but just as we were leaving, I went to get a toiletry out of the cupboard behind the shower and I could hear a hissing noise.  Maybe it is a supply line.  We decided to shut off the water to the whole house (the valves to the upstairs don't seem to be working), put down some plastic sheeting and buckets and hope for the best.

Charlotte's Rose

Dorothy loved roses.  On Park Road, she had many varieties or roses, many of them climbing up trellises that she had made.  She had nearly thirty different varieties of roses on Windermere Drive as well.  Sadly, roses aren't has hardy here in New England as they are in England.  But there are some.  One that is hardy here that Dorothy had on Windermere Drive is David Austin's Shropshire Lad.  We talked about it, including my wanting to plant it.  That was of course more than seven years ago.  I want to have Shropshire Lad climb up the pergola that is not yet built (along with clematis, which Dorothy also grew).  I love roses too, so I thought I would try to grow some of the hardy shrub roses offered by David Austin.  One of them is named Charlotte, how could I resist that?  The other one (which is pink) is called Gertrude Jekyll.  (What a terrible name!  I don't like the name Gertrude and Jekyll just makes me think of Jekyll and Hyde.)  I ordered bare root roses on their own root stock.  Here is Evelyn and Charlotte getting them ready for planting.

The Beginnings of a Lawn

We didn't let the odd rain shower stop us from finishing moving most of the rest of the dirt.  We can envision our seating area pretty well now (it is the tamped down oval).  Evelyn had fun digging and finding rocks.

After lunch Alistair helped Colin build a small retaining wall near where the grill will go.

Dirt!

This morning, a dump truck came and delivered 10.35 tons of sifted loam.  The kids (especially Evelyn and Alistair) were very excited about the dump truck.  I was a bit nervous that the truck would damage the raised beds, but he was fine.

We worked for about an hour, shifting and raking and tamping the dirt, before it started to rain fairly heavily.  It was lunch time anyway.

After lunch the sun came out and we finished moving nearly all of the dirt.

Moving Stones

We've been talking about making a seating area in front of the shade garden for a few years.  Originally we were thinking about putting a flagstone patio there, but it is very expensive and not necessary.  Instead, we are just going to make a flat lawn area and plant some privacy shrubs along the property line.  All of this is going to involve a lot of dirt.  The dirt is arriving on Saturday morning, so today Colin, Alistair and I moved the stones out of the way.

Alistair still loves his dump truck.

Black Friday, Black Drips

The morning after Thanksgiving while I went down into the basement to do some laundry, I smelt a chemical smell.  I couldn't quite determine what it was, and it wasn't very strong.  It still was smelly when I rotated the laundry, but we were busy making lunch or something and I can smell better than Colin, so I just put it off.  In the afternoon Colin took Alistair and Charlotte to see Trolls and I stayed home with Evelyn.  When they got back, Colin could smell the odor when he opened the back door.  Going down in the basement, the smell was stronger and smelled like gas.  When Colin investigated, he discovered that one of our two oil tanks were leaking.  Thankfully, not badly - just a couple of small wet patches on the floor.  We called the oil company (at 4:30 pm) and they sent someone out straight away.

We have two oil tanks.  We're not sure why there are two, but we've only been using one.  They are both old and pretty rusty.  (The leaky one is the one on the left.  Kitty litter and a special oil absorbent pad are underneath.)  Because the tank could have failed over the weekend, they wanted to make sure we were safe over the weekend.  So, they set us up with two five gallon containers of oil and connect those to our furnace.

Their plan was to drain our oil tank, and put it in a tank outside over the weekend, until they could replace the tank, but they accidentally brought the new tank instead of the temporary tank.  The new tank is in the opposite front corner of the house.  The old tank location does not meet code for distance from the electrical panel and main power shut off.  (Funny how the electrical inspector didn't point that out when Colin put in the new panel.)  Our Black Friday deal was that we got this slightly fancier thank (the tank is inside the exterior galvanized outer tank, so if it ever does leak, it won't leak into the house) for about the same price as a regular tank.  (This tank didn't fit in the house of the person that ordered it.)  They will come back next week to connect the new tank to the furnace. They also will have to install new pipes to fill the tank.  The good thing is that the oil delivery guy won't have to trudge through deep snow and around our pickett fence to get to the tank.  Now it will be close to our driveway.