Barn Progress

It seems like just yesterday that work on the barn started! I am delighted to report that real progress is being made. This will be a superlative barn!!!













As you can see from the interior view there will be a proper set of stairs leading from the shavings and storage area directly to the loft. I suppose that it is possible that I will miss climbing a ladder to the hayloft but I sincerely doubt it.














This is the view from the stall area. I do hope that the horses will appreciate it. How could they not??? Best of all the lounging area outside the stalls, but still under the overhang, will be dry.

Goods and Chattels

A gloomy Saturday complete with spits of rain off and on. Syd tackled the lower garage. He moved the fertilizer, cordwood saw, spray rig, T posts, DR mowers, Lawn tractor, push mower, fencing material, etc. to the lower level of the hay barn. We plan to store as much of our stuff as possible down there to reduce our moving/storage costs.

I spent the day in the dining room packing up dishes. I filled six 'medium' dish boxes and went through a 25# package of unprinted newspaper. The boxs are labeled with contents AND I took pictures of everything before it was wrapped and packed.

All in all, it was a productive day. The notion that I might have to pack this place up in a matter of days makes me want to grind my teeth to powder and provides the necessary incentive to stick to my plan of packing up a room a week. The job should be done well ahead of schedule.

Floor Plan

After much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair we think that this is "it". The two posts in the front/center of the main floor will move a few feet to the south and that will give us a 4' wall to the right of the front door. On the living room side of that wall will be space for the drop front desk and on the hall side will be room for one of the small four drawer chests.

We've also changed the fireplace dimensions to 42 X 38.

Well Rig

Sidewalk Superintending:

Our barn was started last Monday and here it is on Friday afternoon!! Whoo Hoo !!! I am finally starting to believe that this project may become a reality. The sona tubes that will support the posts that will in turn support the 'porch' roof will be going in this week.

A Dowsing Success

At 9:30 Friday morning 'young' Mr. Gould from Gould Well Drilling, Pawlet, VT showed up with
his crew, a drilling rig and another truck filled with casings, etc. Mr. G walked over to the site with his 'witching stick' and sure enuff that stick dove right down to the ground ... not once but twice. According to Dale and Bruce he used a piece of a branch to dowse when he was there last week. The branch vibrated in his hand when he was over the sweet spot.

They set up shop in jig time and had started to drill by 10:00. I left to do a few errands and was back by about 1:30. It wasn't long before they had gone down 420 ft and had 30 gallons per minute. In fact, there is approximately 6 gallons a minute of over flow. A superfluity!! They were packed up and out of there by 3:30.

'witching' for water














Moving a stone to mark the 'sweet spot' beneath his left foot

Finally Friday

Yesterday I finished up the last of the preemie 'Pumpkin Hats' that I have been knitting for my friend Michelene's attempt to get 50 hats done in time for Halloween. How adorable are they??

Next, I finished up my first pair of socks for the Mittens for Akkol project. " Mittens for Akkol" is an internet group that knits for an orphanage in Kazakhstan.. This was my first pair of sock knit from something other than fingering weight sock yarn. I used a pure merino DK and a strand of alpaca lace weight. This made for very cozy socks but they are much bulkier that what I am accustomed to knitting . It was a bit of a chore to get the sizing right and required some frogging but in the end I am very happy with how they turned out. Now to find a lovely Vermont postcard on which to write a short note to the recipient, package them up and send off to the distribution point.

On the house design front .... all is not well. Jack has known that he needed to get his Vermont license reinstated for months and apparently waited until August to reapply. Grrrrrrrr!!!! The state board meets very infrequently and they didn't approve his application at the last meeting because he hadn't provided them with definitive proof that he has no outstanding complaints against him. Syd has contacted two architects in N Bennington that were recommended to him by a friend. He is actually meeting with one of them this morning after he finished up with the appointment for Lily Rose at the vets.

We really do need to get this project underway NOW in order to be able to move into the garage apartment in June 2010.

We've heard nothing from Dale which indicates that his new excavator still hasn't been delivered. And that means that we are no nearer to having a driveway or septic system than we were three weeks ago. This will be a real exercise in patience and perserverance.