SUMMER TIME IS NOT FOR BLOGGING

THAT’S MY EXCUSE AND I’M STICKING WITH IT.

I am not blogging much this summer.   Summertime for me is maintenance time, and last summer I fell behind when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer – she is doing great.

I have a post and beam house and it is built like a fortress.   

The sills are 8x6 inch beams and they are covered on the outside with a spacing board that allows Styrofoam panels to be placed between the interior and exterior walls. 

 I found some rot in the outer plate covering the sill so had to remove the siding, cut out and remove a section of the outer wall, replace the spacing board and then put it all back together: a two-day job that turned out to be four because of measure twice, cut once, then measure and cut again….   It took me three tries to get the siding right because six-inch cedar siding is five and a half inches wide and I had my head up my ass.

 

It is done now and done properly.    Now I have to repaint the front of the house.   

WINTER IS COMING.  

It is also time to put in my firewood for the coming winter.

 I order firewood cut and split, but about a third of the wood is larger than I like it, so I split the larger pieces before placing them in my wood shed: splitting firewood in the winter snow and cold is not fun.

    

I also have to replace some parts on my eighteen-year-old snow blower and hope it will get me through another year.

  

There are at least a half-dozen other jobs I hope to complete before the first snow – then I can kick back, feed the wood stove, read, blog and take it easy…. between digging out from snow storms.  

All this is not a complaint: I love my life in Maine and I wouldn’t change it.    Summer work and winter chores keep me grounded to the earth.   How boring and superficial it would be to have everything done for me.

the Ol’Buzzard