Sunday, January 2, 2011

December 31st., 2010: 56 degrees and Sunny!

The first day of our 3-day weekend proved to me quite productive. First, we got a coat of paint applied to one of our upstairs rooms (this will be the craft room). Steve edged...


...Jennifer rolled:


Looks good after one coat, will look great after the second. The trim will be a nice red and the floor green.


Next we went outside since the weather was incredible - just like spring. We got a good burnpile going to burn some of the tremendous volumes of waste lumber scattered all over the property. Some we will save but a lot of it has been outside so long that it's too far gone to re-purpose.


We also cleaned up a huge pile of refuse left behind by the prior occupants. This ended up filling a couple dozen large garbage bags (it was a nasty, nasty job):


Next we cleaned the gutters on our house. After removing many years of goop and detritus, we flushed them out with water from our cistern.


Our good friend Tim Gerardot gave us a sump pump and hose and here you see we are using this to pump water from the cistern into a bucket. Once the gutters are flushed and flowing and once we pump the cistern dry and clean it out, we'll re-route the gutters back into it. The cistern is huge (appears to be 1000 gallons) and collects water from all our roof surfaces (which are metal; excellent for collecting rainwater).


Here's a look into the cistern. The pipes bring rainwater in. The brick divider, we suspect, acts as a rudimentary filter: direct water into one side and it slowly seeps through brick interstices into the other side - leveling itself as water does.



 Next we cleaned the gutters on the garage. Just a bit of neglect? Technically, we think a soil and ecosystem formed in our gutters!


From atop the garage a different perspective (of the junk) is revealed. Junk to the east:


Junk out back:


 Junk to the south:



Junk to the west:


To the north we have a good view of our house. We've got the downspouts directed quite a ways from the house to test the hypothesis that the dampness in the basement (during rains) might be due to lack of gutter maintenance.


Here's a look out back showing the fields and woods behind our place. Our garden shed is tucked into the pines.


On old stump provides a vantage from which the Enchanted Chicken can survey her new home. (Enchanted Chicken is a gift from one of our good New Mexico friends and has shared our many travels with us).


 We soaked up the unseasonable sun and warmth, knowing that winter will soon return....

6 comments:

  1. Hi Jennifer & Steve ...WOW does that bring back memories from when we bought this place...Inside the house didn't have all the junk you had but the huge attached barn( that is non existent now) was full of junk and the property was too!!A lot of satisfaction in doing it yourself and creating your own little knitch from rubble!! : }
    The gutters look like the begining of a good mulch pile..lol : }

    The craft room looks nice and bright ..will be anxious to see how it turns out!!

    Looks like you have had some snow melt..or is that from the bomb fires you have been building lol : }
    It has been warm here to,yrob 48 yesterday but a dampness that makes it feel chilly!!
    Have a great day!!

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  2. Hi ..The yrob in the last part of my comment ...no it isn't and abbreviation for anything or link our code HAHAHA!!
    Don't know what happened there!!

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  3. It's hard to understand why people think that you can just let trash pile up like that and it's okay. Such a beautiful piece of property, why trash it?! Good for you guys for seeing a diamond in the rough. It will be fun for you to have these photos in a few years when you have trasformed it. (even in one year!)

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  4. Wow, look at all the trash. It is so amazing how people can let that happen. Good thing you two swooped in to save the house from its misery:)

    Love the craft room color!

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  5. Entisol or Inceptisol Steve?

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