The end of a perfect weekend of nothing. Nothing but time (for a change). The garden is slowly changing hue from one color to the next as the cherry blossom is all but finished and the saturated red’s of the Azalea wake in it’s shadow. This weekend we spent as much time as the humidity would allow in the yard. Slowly dusting off the signs of Autumn and preparing the garden for summer. We weeded all the vegetable beds and already the Asparagus is plentiful. A few pictures from this weekend:

A moment of relaxation on Sunday after we brought the hammock out into the pine grove. Laying under a fountain of pine trees, sun dancing between the branches as the wind gently brushed them from side to side. A welcome breeze under clear blue skies.

The last few weeks have been the usual day-to-day; working and dealing with traffic. Our vacation to Italy is all booked, a cozy terracotta villa in the valleys of Sienna. The vistas look inviting. Cypress trees and mist over the valley as the cool morning air greets the rising sun. A pool to escape the mid-day sun and a cooling stone interior. Can’t wait.

 
A day trip to Rome; Maranello the Headquarters of Ferrari an hour away. 5 days and then onto Venice for a long, romantic weekend before heading to the UK for a brief stop over on the way back home.

Last weekend we finished up the nursery and tried to relax as much as possible.

The following week at work flew by all to quickly and before I knew it we headed into this weekend with great verve. Various packages had been arriving all week from England and one that I’d been waiting for with in particular with great trepidation was an extension lead! With this I was FINALLY able to complete my stereo, to have enough UK outlets to power 4 appliances. Perfect, absolutely perfect. After having the stereo shipped in late January I was finally able to listen to a complete system again and we’ve been enjoying it all weekend!

To compliment everything else Gran had sent over a book of selected scores by John Williams for piano, in particular one piece: “Exultate Justi”. After a night of tinkering on the ivories it dawned on me that I no longer had my John Williams score’s and; in particular mood for one, was resigned to the fact they were probably in mum and dad’s attic some 4000 miles away. To get another copy from Gran was perfect.

On top of that the Atlas interconnect cables I’d ordered from Mann Audio (ironically made in Scotland. Mum/Dad, you need to find this factory!) also arrived. Then; as I thought the week couldn’t get any better another package arrived from Grandad. Fortunately with some fore-sight he’d sent me a selection of British fuses, which is brilliant. If one of my appliances blew a fuse I’d be waiting a couple of weeks for supplies before I could get them up and running again this just made the start of the weekend even more complete.

Not even discovering a small leak in the ceiling could dampen the start of the weekend.

Saturday arrived, a little colder than usual. Rain was forecast for Sunday, with even a remote chance of snow. Just as we thought Spring was here mother nature decided to play her April fool’s. Determined to make the most of the weekend I bundled up. With the ground finally thawed I was determined to complete the step’s I’d started last March!

On Sunday morning I did just that. 39 steps and 78 hand-widdled stakes later. Completed with sections of felled trees, there was nothing more satisfying then building something from nature. In time I’ll probably add a stair rail and next I want to plant some shrubs to line the path. Rhodendrum, or perhaps some soft evergreen’s. I still remember the Woodland Gardens of Glendoick and hope that someday I can create something similar to that. My inspiration! That is if deer don’t eat it all first !

This weekend was great. A project complete, some Spring cleaning up in the garden and generally, all round, life is good!

Now we just need to fix that leak in the ceiling and with a flood watch tonight that means ALOT of rain! Should be interesting.

Some pictures of us relaxing on Sunday.

And then came the rain.

Greg joked: “You must feel like you’re in England…”. I reminisced a little, smiled, and figured it’ll only last a day or two. It rained! Not just the drizzle kind or the light rain, but horizontal slashing rain. Continuously. For hours and as it turned out for the entire weekend. So much so that the rain had started to create a mini-stream across the garden. Gravity etching a route across the lawn and down the side of the hill. I’d already diverted the stream from a previous rainstorm along side the drive instead of over it.

I was finding that the rain was lifting the blacktop and blowing the drive out. Now, instead, it cuts around in a ditch I’ve dug and drops over the rocks down the hill. It looks really impressive in heavy rain; we have a mini-waterfall running.

Saturday morning I thought I was going to wake up to an above ground swimming pool; our two tonne dumpster filled with rain water. Fortunately it wasn’t too bad and even though it was still raining hard I wasn’t going to waste the precious two weeks I have the dumpster for. I set out Saturday morning and emptied out half the garage of junk, the shed at the back of the garden was next. I cleared that out. At some point I want to add shelves into it. It’s not too shabby. Maybe 10″ square. Store all my tools in there, make it somewhat of a “man-cave”. Kind of like the garden sheds on old allotments back home in Blighty.

After clearing out the shed I dumped all the old materials that were stashed behind it. Old mailboxes that’d been smashed by years of snow ploughs, old guttering, fencing. Just junk! It all went. By now I was soaked, 2 hours in heavy rain will do that to you so I figured what the heck and decided to rip out two trees that had bugged me last summer. Trees I didn’t want there, but the roots were so set fast it was impossible to remove them.

I suppose you can’t really call them trees. One was a shrub, I think it ‘may’ have been a poison oak bush, with all the rain, gloves and fully clothed, any oil; even if it was poison oak, shouldn’t make it to my skin. With the ground drenched and the soil almost turned to liquid because of it, it didn’t take too much to excavate the root ball either. The other tree is a common variety over here. Seeded by passing birds over-head. It’s a nuisance tree. Kind of like bramble bushes. The root system spreads and shoots new trunks from it so several ‘trees’ are actually growing from one root system. With all the rain that root system came out pretty easily as well. I’m pretty confident for both bushes I took out over 90% of the roots so hopefully those things won’t spring back in a couple of months.

As the rain continued to hammer down, the stream now turning into a brook and gushing over the embankment, I created a dyke to funnel the water into a waterfall over the rocks and down into the gully I’d etched for the water to course before hitting the larger ‘waterfall’ on the lower hill that would send it crashing downhill. If it wasn’t for the drab overhead skies and the constant rain I would have taken more time to appreciate it.

Almost as soon as I’d finished this Greg showed up. It was 11am, perfect! I got showered, changed and we measured up our future nursery. I think I’ve definitely gone into ‘hunter-gatherer’ mode or something because right now I’m all about prepping the house. The spring clean up, cleansing ourselves of all the junk in the house. It felt good to throw half that stuff into the dumpster.

With Greg working the numbers in the nursery like some crazy relative of Albert Einstein. 12′ of this, 6′ of 4″x1″. This and that, myself, my brain just racing to keep up with it all. Greg does this everyday, it’s natural, it was instinctual. Amazed, I just nodded, vaguely comprehending everything we needed. Complete faith that whatever we had on that list the numbers were spot-on. List ready we headed to Lowes. Awesome! My favorite place. About an hour later we we’re set. Caulk, Wood, Brad Nails (O! Yeah! we used nail guns!), Wainscoting, Snap-Line (well that was for me. Greg has one and it’s the coolest idea. Take a piece of string loaded with colored chalk, hold it tight, twang/’snap’ the line for a quick straight line over a long distance. Awesome!).

Materials set we loaded his truck up and headed home. After we unloaded and set the garage up as the workshop, the original plan was to use the deck, but with all the rain the garage really was the only option. We setup the table-saw, ran the compressor hose outside the house and up through the nursery window. Greg has an amazing array of tools, kind of makes sense; he is a carpenter, but to see those tools. Every time it’s great, an ‘I need one those’ moments a million times over. The clamps, the power-tools, the nail-guns. I think, if I wasn’t a programmer, I’d want to do something my hands. Use all these tools.

We quickly set about ripping out all the old ‘trim’. Sorry; before I go any further some quick translating for folks in the UK. ‘Trim’ is a term used to describe the woodwork, which typically comprises of the following: ‘Baseboard’ or translated; ‘Skirting Board’, ‘Crown Moulding’, that’s ‘Coving’. We also had chair-rail and some wainscoting. Wainscoting is hard to describe, but it’s very ‘New England’, the Wiki places it with Victorian Architecture, and in some houses it’s very intrinsic. For us. Well, we kinda’ just like it!

After throwing all the old trim to the ground (later to the dumpster), we set about ’snapping’-lines and generally outlining layout on the walls. Then began a day of more measuring, cutting, trying pieces out and my favorite part. Nailing them to the wall. With a nail gun! Marvelous invention!

As the day progressed the room slowly started to take shape. I had some incidents with the hammer, missing a couple of times and truly embracing the old saying ‘blood, sweat, and (almost) tears’.

We eventually called it a day and all sat down for some pizza before wrapping it up for the night.

Sunday. Still more rain. We’d all planned to meet up early. 8am (really 9am, we ‘Spring’ forward an hour this weekend), Jen cooked us all breakfast. Bacon, eggs, sausage and set us out right for the day.

We headed down to the garage to set up ’shop’ again, but on the way down I noticed, with all that rain, the lower part of the garage had partially flooded. With all this water the water table must have risen, or something, because the pump room (where the water-well is) was all backed up, flooded and pouring over the floor. I moved everything that was easily saturated and left the plastic boxes in place and noted that it wasn’t ‘too’ bad, prayed (and still praying) for a let-up in the rain, and that maybe we should drink bottled water for the rest of the week. Bacteria is my biggest concern with Jen being pregnant. Bad bacteria is not good! With our drinking water coming from a well, and, like most American homes, having in-ground septic tanks, that it might be a good idea to avoid well-water for a week. I’m not saying that we’re drinking poop! (a septic tank is usually a chunk of concrete designed to hold around 2000 gallons of sewage). Yeah! this is making me cringe too, but that’s what you get for living in the wilds. No mains sewage or city water. Septic and well water.

Anyway, suffice it to say, with all this excess water gushing around I’m gonna’ play it safe.

After prepping the garage a little we were back in business. Measuring, cutting, more incidents with the hammer. Lets just say, at the end of this weekend, I may as well have just stuck my hand on a belt-sander. They feel rough! There is skin missing, little cuts all over the place and dried caulk all over them.

It’s totally worth it. We wrapped it up mid-afternoon and by then the nursery was looking amazing. Crown molding complete, baseboard, most of the wainscoting all set. Next week I’m gonna’ spend my evenings filling the nail holes, caulking and sanding before we have a little paint-party and really finish it all up. We just need to complete behind the radiator and under the window, it’s going to looks awesome and I can’t wait! Thank you Greg.

Next week, thanks to a head-start on our taxes, we’re going to totally re-trim the nursery. Greg is going to give us a hand with all the carpentry, it should look great! We’re going to try and organize a massive dumpster for the weekend and have an early Spring clean. Throwing out ALOT of old stuff; in addition to the old trim from the nursery.

We’re switching out the baseboard (”skirting board” if you’re in the UK) for a deeper style, adding some Long Island style wainscoting, chair rail, and some crown moulding (”coving”).

It should look great and I can’t wait to get started. I love building stuff and Greg has all the tools so no messing around. Nailguns, table-saw. We’re gonna’ rip out all the old stuff, patch and re-work everything. I think I can safely say I’ve started “nesting” before Jen has!

Anyway, couple of pictures from the spare room/office. The framed photo is some of my brothers handy work from Venice.

The idea was simple; I just wanted to add some shelf space to the closet so that I could move a lot of what was already in the spare room out and tuck it away. Originally we’d planned a trip to IKEA to buy all the furniture with Emily, but with picture-postcard snow everywhere, driving a U-Haul van all the way to Hartford didn’t seem like a sensible idea so I decided to build the shelving instead.

Next week hopefully we can go to IKEA to really deck out the spare room. Should look good!

.. after a few hours work completing the shelves it took less than 20 minutes to clutter them up again! Job complete we then chilled out in front of the TV and watched Couples Retreat. My stereo arrived from England last week and I can’t wait for the power transformer to arrive. Airlink transformers in the UK have made me one and it’s busily winging it’s way across the Atlantic now. As soon as that arrives we should be in business !

The snow has begun, we’ve been forecast another 3-5 inches by morning! Jen scraping the car was taken this Monday, a great way to start the working week : ) The remote control car Jon sent over last month, with the tires being so big I wondered if the weight disbursment would be enough to take it for a spin. It didn’t work to well !

Chloe looking very chic in her Santa hat. We’ve also started to put the lights up in the trees outside, looks very nice. Very American!

The wonders of Brasso. Jen had never heard of this stuff before, but I found a bottle in the basement and decided to polish up our brass bell outside. Came up a treat!

This year was a fairly low-key affair compared to last year, but certainly no less warming and welcoming as we spent Thanksgiving day on Thursday with Brian and Lee-Ann.

Friday; unfortunately, as the stock market was open, Jen had to work half-a-day. In the afternoon we chilled out a little before her friend Lyndsey came over for the evening.

On Saturday Janice, Greg and Taylor came over for Thanksgiving dinner at ours. Hats off to Jen as she did a sterling job of brining the Turkey, it tasted SO good! Also top marks for the Yorkshire Pud’ and Roast Tattie’s! As you can tell our Thanksgiving dinner is a little non-traditional, instead a blend of tradition and English! It was fun introducing Janice, Greg and Taylor to some Yorkshire Pud’, roast tatties and Christmas Pud’!

On Sunday and continuing with tradition, we headed out to Jones Farm with the dogs to cut-down our tree. It’s always a fun day out. The weather was perfect and incredibly mild, the sun was shining and there was hundreds of trees to choose from. After finding one, chopping it down (no-chainsaws this time!) and driving home we set it up in the house and put the lights on. Seeing a glimmer of Christmas Jen got all the decorations out and officially Christmas-fied the house. It looks awesome!

I began by clearing up a little what we’d already managed to bring down and earlier that afternoon Greg and Janice came round.

Try as we might the tree resolutely stayed fast. Solid as a rock. Later that evening Brian came round with some lorry ratchet straps and still she would not budge!

After trying time and time again into the first 10 minutes of darkness we decided to give up for the night and spent the night laughing over dinner and wine.

The next morning we woke with Greg and I determined to bring the tree down. After a quick race around with me Radio Controlled car, Janice and Greg arrived earlier in the morning; this time Greg was armed to the teeth with chains and a 2 ton “Come-Along”

After we’d attached the chains to every other standing tree and cranked the come-along tight enough to use the chain as a tight-rope she still didn’t fall. We’d been at it since 10am and it was now 2 in the afternoon. Getting more and more frustrated I decided to make some ballsy cuts to take out the smaller tree that the larger one was resting on, as it turned out it really wasn’t, and the smaller one parted the way.

Once more we setup the chains and come-along and cranked it so tight it must have been close to 2-tons of torque. Still nothing. Prior to this I’d made some more cuts in the larger tree to try and get her to crack under tension and fall, but nothing. Just as I was considering making another cut she cracked, a dull crack, then more, louder, I put the saw down and ran. Higher up the trunk the shear tension had caused one of the larger branches to break and it was just enough momentum for her to buckle and gracefully fall to the ground. A massive cheer and a sigh-of-relief and she was down.

I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon clearing up a little before wearily taking a shower and collapsing in front of the TV.

During one particularly bad ice-storm last year one of the bigger trees split clean in half down her trunk; held together simply by her root system. In heavier winds she would gently creak as the wind rocked her back and forth. Normally I would leave nature to take care of such things, but unfortunately it sat a little too close to the house, so this weekend Greg and I decided to try and bring her gently down. With elaborate roping systems for tension and, on occasion, a helping hand from Greg’s Envoy we managed to safely bring down the hardest branches without damage to the house, deck or anything else for that matter. We left the easiest until last, or so we thought. It proved to be the hardest and would result in me taking a trip to the ER.

It looked straight forward enough, it was under tension in the right direction, down-hill, away from the house. I made a clean wedge facecut and then began the back-cut, she started to fall, all 60ft, a resonating crack as her years of growth bowed gracefully. Then the problems began. She twisted on the way down to rest on point which would take a good half-an-hour with a sledge hammer to set free, then she caught another tree on the way down and failed to fall, resting neatly on a younger tree.

I bucked a couple of sections off to lighten the load, but still no joy. In the end we decided to sacrifice the younger tree to bring her down. The younger tree was only 12″ in diameter so I decided not to make a facecut, simply take a notch out the back and let her crack to control the decent, she was pointing downhill with the weight of the larger tree on her so direction was guaranteed. As the younger tree cracked, I’d listen to see if she would continue, and then edge her a bit more, each time killing the saw and moving back. On my last nudge though she cracked hard and the saw kicked. I moved back to a safe distance not realizing the saw had partly kicked into my leg.
I looked down to notice I’d shredded my Eddie Bauers. Greg and Jen looked decidedly green, fearing the worst. After I ripped open my trousers to expose the wound I realised it wasn’t too bad, I was lucky! We called Brian, an EMT friend just down the road and he cleaned me up before heading to the ER.

There Jen and I met Jay a sound PA (Physicians Assistant); 1 down from a full MD, but just as effective. The spitting image of Tom Cruise he hit me up with some Novocaine and we were set for some stitching. As he prodded the needle into my skin asking if I could feel anything I simply marveled at modern medicine and thought about the old days where you simply had some whiskey and bit down on something hard. It was fascinating to watch and as he worked away he seemed quite happy to let me snap some photos for Facebook.

An hour later we left, myself with a sobering respect for chainsaws. Needless to say, and I don’t care HOW ridiculous I look, I will be investing in some professional Protective Chaps!

On inspection it turned out that this lump of steel, which is now stupidly banned in Europe for fear of dis-embowling someone in the event of an accident (yet ironically you’re still allowed to run around with bull-bars attached to the front of your car!) is held to the bonnet with nothing more than 1/32″ steel guage cable that you’d typically find stopping you as you apply the brakes on your push-bike (unless of course you now have hydraulic/disc brakes, smarty pants!).

Water had eroded the cable and caused it to fail. With some mental notes on how it all came to pieces I dismantled the housing and set off to the nearest hardware store with yet another fabulous excuse to buy more tools! I’ve always needed a crimper!

First off I upgraded the cable from 1/32″ to 1/16″ then I bought the meanest, baddest looking steel guage crimps I could find and an equally menacing looking crimper.

After a quick detour to our favourite place, the Newtown Creamery with the dogs, and polishing off some several small cups of ice cream (the dogs had their own cups, Jen spoils them too much!) we arrived home and I eagerly set about fixing the car.

I cleaned off the old rust with some good old WD40 and a wire brush and coated all working compenents in a layer of marine-grease in an attempt to prevent future water damage from eroding away my new 1/16″ steel guage cable. With some finesse from Jen, a little patience and the action of some lovely crimpers we were set. The pouncing Jaguar mascot was faithfully returned to her rightful place.

Seizing the opportunity to capitalize on a glorious day I then set about doing some fall clean-up around the garden. Saturday was a day of nothing but rain, Im thankful, but it meant a great deal of time was spent indoors watching trash TV, including my new favourite show; Nitro Circus. (The antics of these adrenaline junkies are jaw-droppingly crazy to watch).

First off I gave the grass possibly the last mow of the season and had great fun listening to the 46″ deck munch through several inches of leaves and grass. After that I topped up the leaf-blower with some 2-stroke and spent the next few hours playing with the specification rating of 200mph winds. Great fun!

I then moved onto to splitting some wood, great for burning calories and, I find, quite relaxing. I’d bought a new wedge specially for the task after somehow managing to break the previous lump of solid iron whilst pounding it into a rather large stump of wood.

By the time I’d split almost another cord of wood the sun was setting and long shadows began to race across the lawn. As dusk saturated the autumn leaves even more, I took a moment to appreciate how beautiful this time of year really is. With a rising moon set against a russet sky the last remaining leafs on the trees twinkled with a golden brillance. I took a deep long breath of the cold crisp air and thought to myself, in the words of the late, great Louis Armstrong. “What a Wonderful World!”.

This last photo was looking down from the stump left from having the tree cut down last year. I decided to climb up it for better shots of the garden !