Tight Places and Open Spaces

It's still in the 90's every day, but cold weather is coming and we have to get ready!  We'll soon have 5 working fireplaces in the old farmhouse.  Last week the three fireplaces went in from the basement to the top of the chimney.

The basement fireplace will be a large one faced with stone, but it started as an outline on the floor.

All of the bricks that show will be bricks from the old chimneys that Tom cleaned, one by one, and moved back from the old house site.

The fireplaces in the two bedrooms will hold gas logs and are built similar to the old ones.

The four hearths in the house were all different but we decided to make them all the same this time.

Soon the mason started up through the chase, building the chimney in very tight places!

Bricks had to be carried up the narrow stairs to the attic.

From tight places to open spaces!  A brick mason can't have claustrophobia or vertigo!

One chimney finished, one to go!

On our property we have two old stone stacks from log cabins that used to stand here.  The brick mason approved the stones and we plan to use them to face the stone fireplace in the basement.

Tom is taking the stones down, one by one, and moving them to the house.

On the other side of the house, treated lumber for the deck is delivered.

Our new carpenters, Donnie and Steve, are building the deck.

We couldn't wait until it's finished and have already moved a table on the deck to enjoy the view.

Our two bachelor ducks, Felix and Oscar, follow a set routine every day.  They come up from the pond about 6 in the evening to spend the night safe in the guinea house.  On the way, they always stop to greet their friends who live in the basement window.

Then they stop to greet their friends who live in the Miata bumper.

Since they like to look at themselves so much, I put a mirror in the guinea house.  They spend hours talking to their reflections!

We're still having a severe drought in South Carolina and the only things left in the garden are peppers.  I've made dozens of pints of pepper butter that is good on everything.  Tom loves hot peppers!

Porches, Heat, and Air

The weather has been hot and dry but our 5 fig bushes are still producing more than I can process. I've made fig preserves, canned figs, and dried figs!  We're eating them fresh every day.  What else can you do with figs?

We started getting ready to install the front porch last week.  Tom was going to move the dirt himself but ran into problems with a flat tire.

We got Jimmy to do the heavy dirt moving.  I lost my front steps.  Then Tom finished up with his tractor and a shovel.

We ran into a slight problem when we discovered that the corner of the house had been eaten away by termites.  Gary and Jack fixed it and started the framing for the porch.

The porch floor requires 300 tongue-and-groove boards.  They were $10 each pre-primed and $7 each if we primed them ourselves.  Laura pitched in and helped but it still took three of us working five days to prime all of the boards.

The last board!

Gary and Jack installed them as fast as we could paint them.

The porch is starting to look good.

Even though it will be a long time before we can hook them up, the heating and air-conditioning were installed this week.  There's a monster in my basement!

Since the contractors get here at 7 in the morning, we have been getting up with the chickens.  It's nice and cool early in the morning, but still in the mid-90's by noon.

Someday we'll be glad to have that monster in the basement!