Week of October 4

This past week contained what woulda been my father's 101st birthday....  wow.   It flew by with me dealing with lots of little things while the sheetrock continued on its merry way to smooth thanks to the messy but excellent work of my sub, Kevin. I have been very lazy with the camera. I should have photographed the behemoth mortar mixer – actually more ear splitting than huge – which made another visit on Monday so that Sebastian and I could make the clay & sand mix for the walls. I also should have photographed a new presence on the site last week, Stephen Brander. We met some time ago when he was sent by the manufacturer of the faswall block system to see a house in progress. He showed up because he wanted to do some things and there he was, so some things he did do! He was kind of a savior at various points, and to boot it was fun for me to have a like minded, like humored friend on the job for a while.  He’s a Long Islander.... we hit it off.

With Stephen's help, I got the heat system up and running last week for about three hours, and then poof... it had no power. It was mysterious,  and I was sure I had messed it up, but in the end the designers of the system (who are in Maine) figured out that the main circuit board they had sent me seemed to be bad.   Oy....

The only reason there’s a photo of this is that I needed one to document how the board was wired, in case I got confused rewiring the new one! They sent a new one and indeed, as of it’s connection, we have heat!

    

This is good because the sheetrocking process requires drying. In fact, I realized that claying the walls while Kevin was trying to get his mud to dry was putting us at cross purposes, so we’re holding off on more clay until he finishes this week.  But before I had that realization,  some clay made it up,  and I did get you this one lame shot... It's really a great feel.... even if it's hard to convey in a look!   

Finally this new excuse for a poor photo week: I headed to the house today to take a few more shots of the now smooth sheetrock spaces and as I left the trailer with the camera there was a bird -- a pileated woodpecker-- in a dogwood tree absolutely mocking and taunting. So much so that I had to approach, and ultimately used the last of my battery charge on these!  See the way the old blossoms are red?  The birds love to eat them.    

Oh well, there’s always next week for more house pictures!