The cool is here.

September 26, 2007 (4:45am)

46º F, Overcast, NNW Wind, 9 mph.

Good evening,

Yup! The cool is here. A pretty good wind yesterday, kept the rain showers moving and not dropping very much here. The did decide to come just as Margriet had finished hanging the laundry on the line and was walking back into the Hobbit Hus! It didn’t last long, if she had tried to take it in again, the rain would have ended before she got it all off of the line.

Had a buck walk up to the main house yesterday, then toward the shop past the burn barrels, before heading west into the woods. It was a young asymmetrical 4-pointer. One side had a nice fork and the other, at first, looked like a spike, but there was a small tine on it too. Not a real big buck, but would be tasty just the same. As he was strutting through, a doe and her two yearling appeared at on the driveway at the edge of the property. They watched the buck very intently, before they too headed west into the woods, paralleling the buck. It was really cool, as we watched them for some time. Friday I was talking on the phone when I looked out of the window at a doe looking in at me. About 8' separated our noses. The Canadian geese are flocking up and really making a lot of “noise” these days too. Expect we will see them disappear shortly. Haven’t seen the turkeys for a couple of days now.

So I started to tear off one of the lean-to’s of the main house yesterday. I need the recycled lumber to put in the floor under the woodstove. The wood floor now is made from 1" OSB and there is some in the lean-to I will use to match what is on the rest of the floor. Much to my surprise, it weighs less than I thought it would. It is still heavy though. The lean-to had shelves built on the three walls of the OSB, about 2' deep, held in place with 2"x4" and 2"x6"’s, sewed on with 16d nails in most places and just a couple in others. I have a 3# coffee can nearly full of pulled nails so far. I got two of the shelves down. The two that are left, one about eyeball height and the other about 8' off of the ground will be the most difficult. Gravity will probably work against me on them. I hope the roof is made of ⅝” OSB, as the walls are, rather than the 1" OSB. I haven’t looked yet, but the “lighter” weight will be appreciated. Hope the wind is not up when I get to the metal roofing! Expect the 4'x16' sheets will make a pretty good sail.

Margriet spent most of the day trying to clean up the dust, &c. from the construction in here. Don’t think she felt she got ahead of the deal though. I will be adding more to it soon-ly again. She also filled the two oil lamps I hung last week and found a box with several more lamps and candles that had been sitting here since we brought it up several weeks ago. Somehow we just missed unpacking it before. Someday this little house will really be mostly finished to live in and most of the construction and mess will be much less - we hope!

Seems like this is the time of year all of the itty-bitty button batteries in various things die. Margriet’s watch is losing time much-ly, my little goose-neck flashlight died, and the small stickup clock Astrid and Onno gave us several years ago also died. The hard part I think will be keeping straight which goes to which. They are also hard to replace, but that I Margriet’s job as her fingers work much better than mine.

Thought I would include a couple of pictures of the hoist installed in the back of the truck. The first is of the arm extended out of the truck picking up a pail of $100 gold pieces (too heavy to lift myself!). Second picture is swinging it into the truck and the last setting the pail down. It was a effortless transfer! Actually it works pretty well. It will be used for sure. Like the color too!

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><