Fall Has Arrived

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Monday was the first day of Fall. Sounds crazy. I’m pretty sure yesterday was the first day of Summer. Regardless, the rain and cooler weather has been making me feel as cozy as Maverick here. We’re putting the garden to bed – i.e. MIL (Mother-in-law) is letting the chickens and ducks roam free through the garden on weekends and eat to their hearts desire. Needless to say, the birds are a big fan of Fall so far. Even with all the rain. We’re also getting a few apples and pears, though nothing compared to what we inherited when we closed on the property last September! Hopefully next year is more fruitful. The leaves are beginning to turn. And the rain has already been here for two solid weeks. I can’t really complain though, yesterday and today there has been a bit of sunshine and it was even a little warm. Crossing my fingers for a couple more long weekends of sun. Maybe like Thursday – Tuesday. The weekend after we get done prepping for media blasting and sealing sound okay?

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This past weekend we were able to bury the South and West side ditches from the foundation and french drain. It looks so much more closer to completion and made it a lot easier to work on removing the chinking. We had to install some vent covers for the required crawl space air vents prior to burying. On the North side we realized that we hadn’t yet gotten a cover for the crawl space access, and upon searching for one we couldn’t find anything that was affordable. We ended up adding a new item to our list: to pour a concrete access before burying the North side. The East side is a little trickier as the drain comes almost all the way to the top of the ditch. Because of the addition, the ground was lower here; and because of the clay, the ditch was narrow and only as deep as necessary for the footing. So the drainage is very tightly packed into the ditch and just fits. Not sure what our plan is there yet.

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On Saturday, Husband pulled out all the old framing for the upper windows while I was at work. He even got a good start on removing more of the old chinking. By the time I got home, I had to go up on a scaffold to reach what was left of the chinking that needed removing. We got pretty far, but didn’t complete the removal.

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On Sunday our best friend came over and said he’d help us remove the rest of the chinking if we went mountain biking when it was done. In the rain. In an area where I do not have the required skills to ride with ease. But I’ve been neglecting my bike a little bit, so I agreed and we got to work. When we got to the upper windows we realized that without the new framing in, the logs would be floating if we removed the chinking around them. We decided it’d be better to frame them in and then do the final chinking removal next weekend. So we got to go ride our bikes a little earlier. And I only crashed a few times. I even had one of those can’t stop grinning spells when I did an easier section decently fast.

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Tuesday school started back up. Today I go back to clinic at the hospital. I’ve got evenings this quarter three nights a week. I’m interested to see how well my brain functions later in the evening. I’m typically in bed pretty early. This weekend we’ll attempt to get the crawl space access finished, bury the North side, frame in the upper windows and remove the last of the chinking and other random stuff on the Cabin walls. Sounds like a lot. But if we’re able to get all that crossed off, then all that’s left is to replace the South facing upper vertical boards, the lathe on both the North and South sides, and then we’ll be very close to media-blasting, sealing, chinking and getting the new windows and doors installed. If the weather cooperates that is.