There isn’t much traffic on our remote road, but what there is tends to slow right by our mailbox. Some drivers, perhaps, out of curiosity for the new activity at the old abandoned house, but most just for the widening potholes. We shall see, I suppose, what level of maintenance the town affords this stretch.
One passerby that didn’t slow today was driving an Amish buggy, pulled by a sprightly horse. Even so, they were gone too fast for me to get a picture. A facebook friend found an article for us about the Amish settlement in nearby Unity. We shall have to check out the hardware, pies, bread, and furniture.
Another vignette: Big Joe the electrician, in his RealMax camo shirt, noticing a tom turkey calling from the nearby woods, and interrupting his work on the service main to reply with an expert hen call.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll recall I called the electrician yesterday when I learned the wonky wiring in the basement was going to impede installation of the furnace. He was there 9 a.m. sharp with his assistant Bob.
Just ahead of them came the wood stove/chimney guy from Augusta — Chad. He looked at the old wood stove in the basement (not worth anything, not worth refurbishing) and the chimney (pretty good shape, usable). Then we talked at some length about putting a small stove in the first floor a little later in the year, and what we could expect in the way of a hearth and other installation requirements.
Chad also commented on the long run of pipe from the existing wood stove to the its “thimble” in the wall (new term for me). “Well, that’s a big no-no.” Which makes 5-for-5, the contractors who have immediately identified something in the house within their specialty which is dead wrong.
So now there’s no live electric in the house except the porch and the basement, but what there is, is minimally to code. Progress. And I can continue ripping down kitchen walls without fear of live wires or outlets.
Got a quote on the auto insurance.
Picked up quite a lot of little debris around the yard. Broken glass, more engine parts, scraps of wood, wire, piping, random detritus. Then I took a walk in the receding snow (though some is still more than two feet deep) and took some more revealing pictures of the cleanup job ahead of us. The house comes first, but we’re looking forward to reclaiming our land.
Does anyone recognize what this might be? Without probing it I have no basis for guessing how deep the water-filled pit is. Is it a mine? A well? A feed trough? A tunnel to China? It’s about 5′ x 4′.
Not much else to report. Came home via The Home Depot (which I am growing to despise), touched base with dogs and people, had pizza, and Zzzzzzzzz….