A Slow Week

You have to be careful around here. If you're bad, you get put in time out.


Matthew got the posts up for my porch and I spent most of today outside and failed to get pictures of them. I'll have to double up next week.

We're still trying to get Fountain City emptied out and we're almost there. We loaded up my Bronco onto the trailer Saturday night and towed it home. The 1966 Bronco was a Christmas present from Jay several years ago. It doesn't run, which should come as no surprise to anyone, so we used the "come along" to get it up on the trailer, in the dark. Then I followed Jay back out to South Knoxville, closely, since the trailer has no lights. He unloaded the Bronco off the trailer this morning and we spent the next several hours doing a combination of pushing and pulling that thing from the garage, around the front of the cabin, through the orchard and back yard, down to the potting shed to it's (most likely) permanent home. No small task.


Luckily that's a photo and not a video because the audio would definitely be NSFW. That's a tow strap on the hood.

Speaking of the orchard (because we drove through it), Jeff Shmerler and I attended a program, at a farm out in Corryton, on raising fruit trees. We learned about chemicals and then we went out into the orchard and observed while the instructor cut the peach and apples trees down to nubbins. I was shocked and amazed at the amount of branches taken off those trees.

So I bucked up today and went out to prune my own peaches and pear trees. This was one of the larger peach trees, "before"


And "after"


Let's hope that sad little tree makes it.

It's Beginning to Look at Lot Like...

SPRING! I'm sure I just jinxed the hell out of it. Please, who isn't excited about 60 degrees today? Although we're still dealing with 17 inches of mud, we've also got some flowers coming up...



Even the bees are active...


I went out to check on them today, put some feed on, and both hives are totally alive and kicking! How awesome is that? I managed not to kill them! Let's see if I can successfully assist them through the spring season...

Around the cabin, things are considerably less dramatic this week. The windows came out of the cabin and Jay managed to stay in one piece.


Matthew started working on the morning sun porch...

And he put the mud room door in. Mud room...where Jay will spend most of his time.

We spent most of this weekend in Fountain City emptying out the house. Two truckloads went to storage, 4 construction garbage bags went to the dumpster, and two truckloads came out here.


Although at first glance, it just looks like Sanford & Son stopped by.

Save $1, Spend $200

The boys brought my tub over from Fountain City. They said it was pretty light and easy to maneuver up the temporary staircase. No worries. I assessed the job I have before me.


It ain't pretty. I think it'll look ok in that spot, though.


On another note, the fireplace mantle failed the load test today. This picture sets the stage:

The mantle over the fireplace is a huge log sawed in half - a bit hard to see in this picture, but trust me. Plus, there's a ton of crap currently piled in the area in front of the fireplace due to the construction. Today's objective was to remove those 2 windows at the top. As an added bonus, Jay wanted to salvage the top left window for my potting shed. So he got all the surrounding boards off the window and was ready to pull the left one out. He put the ladder up, propped it on the non-existent window ledge and climbed up there. Oh and, non-existent window ledge? That's key here.

For those of you who don't know Jay, nothing is ever easy. Additionally, rarely does anything go as planned. The window wasn't quite ready to be removed. So he tugged it a bit and did manage to pull it out. At the exact time that he pulled it out, the ladder slipped off that non-existent ledge.

In slow motion, Jay rode the ladder down the side of the cabin holding the ladder with his left hand and that huge window in his right hand. On the way down, the window he was holding hit that log on the top of the mantle and knocked if off. Everything it landed on was smashed to bits. At the same time the log fell, the ladder went through the bottom left window. It was relatively new and we weren't planning on replacing it. Now we have to.

After making sure he was ok, I went inside and took another Xanax.

Another Post About Windows

From the outside of the house, it's difficult to tell this week's progress, except of course for the ... WINDOWS!!


Inside, some walls got framed, a few electrical boxes got installed, and the upstairs floor is complete.


Small problem (one of many, currently, due to an unexpected and uninvited visit by the job inspector) - the bathroom windows are too small to get the tub in. Jay and Matthew are Master Geniuses and I have complete faith they will figure that one out.