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Yankees are a thrifty bunch, and Maine is the Yankee homeland. We are no exception. Well, okay, Michael is because he’s actually from Florida and who knows what’s going on with those people. But Cherie, she’s a good, old-fashioned cheapskate, Mainer. Ayuh.
Anyway, it seemed a shame to just get rid of all the wood we’ve been clearing out. So we are salvaging. There’s actually some fine oak that is large enough to mill down and eventually use for built-ins. But the rest is being tucked away for firewood next year. While hauling all these trees around isn’t a good time, next winter when we are snuggled up next to the woodstove it will all be worthwhile. We hope. Oh, our aching backs, we hope so.
Here’s the woodpile as it stands now:
Everything else went here:
Thoughts the day after hauling tree after tree after tree up a hill:
Ow.
That’s all.
Let’s all have a round of applause, because we actually managed to accomplish something this weekend. We now have a way to get to the house site that doesn’t involve trailblazing and climbing gear. We hauled several hundreds of pounds of wood up our hill, some for the burn pile, but some to be saved as firewood for next winter. There was much complaining. But it was a success.
Once again, big thanks to Mark for allowing us to exploit his lumberjack aspirations. And his chainsaw.
Oh, and it turns out that the Rock of Gibraltar? It only goes about six inches further down. Michael and Mark, in an impressive show of manliness, moved it about four inches. Hopefully we’ll be able to rent an excavator and get it and all the tree roots out soon.
Before:
After, the view from the road. You can see the rock right smack dab in the middle:
And the rest of the driveway, taken from the curve. You can see the sunlight in the clearing:
but we have a building permit for the driveway. Mixed weather is predicted for the weekend, but we may actually get something done.
The idea for the driveway is to curve it slightly to provide some privacy from the road. Of course, the road is pretty off the beaten path and is not even close to being high traffic, but still. We’d like some privacy for our drug-dealing and money-laundering activities. (Just kidding, Moms!)
The only real matter of concern for the driveway is a large 2X3 chunk of granite right in the middle of the planned path. Our options are to fill over it, which would create a large hill right at the beginning of the drive (not ideal), or to somehow dig it out. Presuming, of course, that it is just a single rock and is not connected to the giant piece of granite ledge which, as far as we can tell, runs beneath the entire state of Maine. (As an aside, you should have seen the panic in people’s faces back in the 90s when they found out that granite releases radon. Our whole state is granite! Ah, well, the cold will probably kill us all before the radon gets started.)
Anyway, if the rock turns out to be ledge, here are our plans:
Cherie: "We could explore possible different driveway placements to avoid the rock, or, at last resort, hire someone to blast a little."
Michael: "Hit it with a sledgehammer."
Cherie wants to state publicly that if Michael injures himself this weekend, she is not at all responsible and SHE TOLD HIM SO.
Absolutely nothing was accomplished this weekend. And it wasn’t really our fault. Torrential rain and high winds on Saturday made working outside impossible. In fact, the weather was very nearly disastrous because our basement flooded about two inches that night. (Hint: sump pumps work great, but not when the electricity goes out for three and a half hours.) Unfortunately, we had all of our doors for the new house–beautiful old pine doors salvaged from Cherie’s mother’s house plus a new exterior door–stacked down there. While we wish we had thought to take photos of the two of us in the basement, desperately moving doors to high ground by flashlight while dressed in pajamas and Muck boots, sadly, we were a bit too flustered at the time. You’ll just have to use your imagination.
By Sunday, winter had remembered that rain and 45 degrees are not appropriate for January in Maine and switched over to 20s and ice pellets instead. But kept the high winds for continuity. Hence, we decided to scrap Sunday as well. Not a complete loss, especially since we didn’t have much we could do anyway. We can’t go further on the driveway, the most pressing project, without a permit. Which we didn’t get this week. (Hint #2: if you show up at the municipal offices at 4:45 on the Friday before a long weekend and ask for a permit, they aren’t happy.)
Shown below is the sum total of what we managed to accomplish this weekend: we cleaned off the desk, we looked at lighting catalogs, and Cherie bought new shoes. These shoes will not be stored in the basement.
We’ve been planning this house since October, which is when we went under contract for the property. For various reasons, the seller didn’t want to close until 2006. So for almost three months, we’ve been plotting, sketching, discussing, arguing, and researching. All before we could even cut down a tree. And now, due to the realities of winter in Maine, things are moving in slow motion. We can’t work during the week because of the lack of light–sun rises at around 7, sets at around 4, and we have jobs people! Unless we have a freakishly warm winter (which so far is sort of true) we will not be able to pour the slab until late March. While we’d be hard pressed to argue that this planning time wasn’t helpful, it would be great to just get on with it, already.
With that said, we spent early this week planning the darn kitchen some more. We love small houses, but the smallness of the kitchen is causing some headaches. We cook a lot and need both chopping and baking space. Arrangements are limited by the big bay window over the sink (shown by the lines on the wall). Neither the stove nor the refrigerator can go in front of the window. The current arrangement (with big fat thanks to Todd the architect for coming up with this solution, the best one we’ve found) is this:
Apologies for the lame scan, which I was too lazy to fix, and the lamer labeling. Click for a bigger version.
On our first weekend after closing the weather cooperated. A sunny and mild Saturday meant that we actually got some clearing work done with lots of help from Mark, Lynn, and Todd. While we hope to save as many trees as possible, some just have to go.
We both smell very strongly of burn pile.
Not much to see beyond the chainsawing, so here’s a shot of what give this lot most of its personality: the big oak and the boulder. Oh, yes, there’s a giant boulder. This will be the view from the big bay window in the kitchen.
After much signing, and explaining, and more signing, and more explaining, and yet more signing…
We own this:
Hopefully it will look a little more exciting in a year.
Off to celebrate!
Can you believe someone (who shall remain nameless but Cherie went to college with her and she was a troublemaker then, too, by the way) actually had the gall to point out that we neglected to tell people where the property was? She wanted something a little more detailed than "Maine." The horror.
Here’s what we can tell you, folks. The property is 3.5 acres on Mount Desert Island (MDI), a bridged island about 2/3 of the way up the coast of Maine that is most famously home to Acadia National Park. Though many areas on MDI are mostly seasonal homes (occupied only during the summer months…wimps), this particular area is almost all year rounders. It is in an older subdivision (1969), which is formed of large, wooded lots and is only a few minutes from where we currently live. We will not be able to see our neighbors. The dog will have room to explore. There’s some beautiful old oak trees. It is quiet. It is lovely. It just needs a house.
