Two pesky inches :(

We're working on the pretty part of our fireplace:

The slate comes in two types of fun and heavy pieces...the 2 foot long flat pieces and the wonderfully assembled corners.

They all fit together like a nice slatey puzzle. Except that our fireplace is about two inches too wide to make this easy on us. Two corners and two flat pieces on the front leave this little gap:

So close!!

Fortunately, the chimney is less than a foot deep, so cutting one flat piece roughly in half gives us enough for both sides and a little extra for the gaps.

More to come!

10 years of goofy photos

Today is a very special day because it is our penultimate rabies shot!

Yesterday was also a special day -- the 10th anniversary of our first date. We had planned for our first date to be earlier in the month, but freak storms raced through CNY, toppling trees and leaving us without power for a week. Ironically, as I was attempting to post this last night the power in our house (and only our house) went out for the evening.

(Y2K!)

(Celebrating at Brugge yesterday)

Gray, gray, gray.

This is our fireplace as it currently stands on this cloudy day....

We put up lots of cement board, which is boring and messy. So much dust!!

As we were preparing to mount the cement board, we discovered the chimney had probably been re-plastered at some point in time. The crown molding is not original as it runs continuously over parts of the living room that formerly had walls (there were originally two rooms where there is now one).

We can tell the plaster had been redone because it is much, much whiter than the plaster behind the mantle and the floor molding. It was nice to see the floor molding (is there a better word for that??) is likely original as there is no paint or wallpaper behind it. It seems to be quality wood and we're hoping to strip it later in life and return it to wood-colored wood.

We'll be working on the architectural slate tiles soon!!

Persistent Organic Pollutants

Persistent Organic Pollutants (or POPs) are organic compounds that don't degrade in the environment....such as PCBs, DDT and walnut shells.

One of our major accomplishments during dumpster week was the removal of 6.3 tons of black walnut shells that squirrels have been leaving in our garage and woodshed. We estimate this to be the accumulation of approximately 3 months of squirrel litter.


These shells fell from a drop ceiling we removed. That was fun.

The squirrels of our garage clearly had different eating styles. The one bite method:


Two nibbles:


A few three-hole wonders:

And the batman:

An unrelated, but seriously cute picture of Sugar:

The curious incident of the bat in the nighttime.

Don't snuggle with bats.

A course of rabies shots is not fun.



P.S. Wear clean undies to the ER because they are gonna stick you with more stuff than your arms can take, and before they start in with 2 each on your thighs with those oh so large needles, they stick 'em in your rear.

I love living in the country!

One man's trash...

Yeah, its trash to us too.

This week is our dumpster vacation!!! Are you so jealous??


Most of this came from our poor woodshed which was chock full of garbage. We hoped to find some hobo treasure in the back as we were told by an unreliable source that our property held a soup kitchen during the depression. We think the woodshed was the likely distribution center due to the lunch-counter-like window near the collapsed stove.


Can you see it on the left?


We also threw out this carpet (the first of three for the week!) and an old mattress, or as we like to call it: the jungle gym of tetanus.

Woodstove Wednesday

It's here! We also have a fancy new chimney lining. In case you were wondering, our chimney is three layers of brick.


We grouted the tiles earlier this week, but we haven't been happy with any edging options that we've come across. (sad face). Over the next couple weekends we'll put up the slate facing and chop some more wood!

Sugar wanted to help model the new stove: