Day 30 and 31

Lots accomplished today. Jon and Ken had an extra pair of hands (Thanks Carl!), which made the work go much faster and easier.

This is why we love it here.

It looks like a lake but it's really the fog in Hostile Valley. It's quite spectacular.

Day 29

 From right to left: dining room double door, kitchen window and bathroom window.

 Southwest end of the Carriage House

 Most of the sheathing is up.

 Inside view of dining room doors, kitchen and bathroom windows.

 Jon at the end of a long day.

The well. No cap on it yet so the Tidy Cat bucket serves the purpose! Cap to arrive tomorrow.

Day 28

No pictures yet. Jon forgot to take them yesterday, and the weather today is just too dismal to take decent pictures. But here's Tuesday's progress. Monday night after the carpentry work was finished, Jon began digging out the well. Let me explain. Our well is a deep (200 some odd feet) drilled well that was drilled in an old dug well. The dug well had been filled with rock up to about five feet below the top of the well. The rest of the well contained chucks and blocks of cement and layer upon layer of wood scaffolding to support the outside water pump we had been using with Ralph for the last few years. (Thanks Ralph! When you come next summer, all you have to do is hook up your hose to a faucet to get your water. It's been officially tested and is fine.) So all that had to come out to the filled rock line. Good old Tessie (Jon's Kubota tractor) was just the ticket. Yesterday (Tuesday) Knowlton's Well Drilling came and put in a new 10 gallon a minute submersible pump and plumbed the well line into the Carriage House to a holding tank. Jon spent the rest of the day filling in the gaping hole. Since it's been rainy, it's a bit muddy up there but the old well hole is filled in around the well casing. It looks so much better!
      The next big project is getting the roof sheathing on. Jon has extra help coming Saturday to get that accomplished. We are waiting for CMP to replace the pole so we can run power underground to the Carriage House.  It's all very exciting. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather holds.

Day 27

Lots of progress today but it may not be as noticeable. Picture one shows the front dormer and the front of the Carriage house with most of the sheathing in place. Picture two shows where the dormer window will be. Picture three shows the spectacular view from the front window. Picture four shows Jon and Ken getting the framing ready for the back sliding glass doors. CMP came today to finalize bringing in electricity. Tomorrow, the well people will come to put in the water line. Jon worked until dark digging the trench for the water line. He will be up early tomorrow to finish it. Things are coming together nicely. We hope to get a lot accomplished this week and the beginning of next week before our trip to Washington, D.C.  We don't have running water now at camp since we had to take the water pump off the well in order to get the line in. But we are doing okay. We have several large water containers that we can fill bi-weekly to get by. We hope to be able to stay at camp at least until Thanksgiving. Then, we will probably have to move to JD's house until the Carriage house is ready to move into.

A new era

Tonight at approximately 5:30 we officially sold our house on Rankin Street to Joe Bates. We are happy that he now is the owner. It was evident from the beginning that he loved the house and wanted it. It has been a long complicated sale but it is finally completed. In some ways, we will miss the Rankin Street house but it is time for our new life to begin. There are so many memories associated with 240 - Jon and I were married there; it is where we brought our baby (JD) home; it is where Lindsay and Charles were married; it is where I told Jon I had breast cancer. But home is where the heart is and our hearts now belong in Liberty where we are living simply and graciously.  Life is very good.

Day 26

The valley rafter for the dormer completed.

Day 25

The dormer is almost finished.

Day 25

The front dormer takes shape. We can see the mountains - I think they are the White Mountains - from this elevation, This morning, Jon and Ken reported they saw snow on the mountains. Yikes! However, despite the cool weather, we are still warm and cozy at camp.

Day 24

The front dormer begins to take shape. Ken and Jon had to quit early today because of the high winds. The Carriage house got measured for windows and doors today. Quote from Viking will be forthcoming. Check out the picture below. Mr. Porcupine has decided to take up residence in our apple tree behind the camp.

Friday

No work today. Too much rain and wind. Only good thing about today is that the pond finally is full. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Day 23

.Jon and Ken got the collar ties in today in anticipation of the Northeaster' expected tomorrow.

Day 22

 Jon up on the scaffolding. Yikes! The front dormer ready to be framed!

All the back shed dormer rafters are in place. The boys chiseled today and got tons done!

Day 21

The back side of the Carriage House. From right to left: Bathroom (small window at the top), Kitchen (window over sink), Dining room (sliding glass door that will open to a 10 X 12 deck), closet at the top of the stair. 

Day twenty

 Lots of progress today but not without incident. Jon fell off the ladder onto Ken giving him a bloody nose and a cut lip. Both are okay.

The view from the back side of the Carriage House. The big gap is where the shed dormer will go . Eventually there will be a 10 X 12 deck just above the downstairs door.

The entrance to "the compound."

 The bulldozer isn't a permanent part of the entrance, but it sure was handy for moving this ginormous rock into place. The rock will eventually be engraved with "Liberty Farm."

 This is a wider view to show the location of our entrance garden.

And, of course, Hope has to be in every picture I take.

Day nineteen

 Too much wind to get much done on the roof. You can't see it but the back wall is built and ready to go up.

The leach field is completed.

Day eighteen

It's beginning to look like a house instead of a filling station.

Day seventeen

East side of the carriage house. Our bedroom window. It will be lovely to have the sun greet us in the morning. Rain washed out part of the afternoon's work but still lots of progress.

Day sixteen

 The first roof rafters go up!

The septic system goes in.

Day fifteen

 The second floor take shape.

The equipment has arrived to put in the septic system.

24 days from the beginning

This past week we lost some construction days due to rain. While we have only had fourteen days of actual construction (damn those weekends and rainy days) the time lapse from beginning our Carriage House project has been 22 actual days.  The progress has been amazing. I took a lawn chair up to the second floor today just to enjoy the view. I white-tailed deer came out into the west pasture and entertained me with her leaps and bounds. The sky was clear and the air was crisp- typical fall day in Maine - it was beautiful. Sitting up there I could see forever, and I thought of how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place.

Tomorrow, the second floor begins to go up, and the septic system begins to go in.  Let's hope for decent weather for the next few weeks.

RAIN