Home & Living Blog Posts

I haven’t visited the pond in quite a while. The grass is growing high around it, so I’ve been avoiding the area because of my fear I’ll be inundated by ticks. Not that I’ve gotten a tick here yet, but I’m sure they’re out there.

I decided to venture back there this afternoon. Laura caught a snapping turtle in the pool a few mornings ago and I wanted to see if I could find it. According to her, it may be somewhere near the pond because that’s where she released it. I’m concerned that if the turtle does make the pond its home, it’ll eat the other wildlife that we’ve been releasing there. But those fears have been allayed because during my visit to the area today, I found oodles of tadpoles and salamanders. Of course, I took pictures of them and as I was taking them off my camera, I figured I’d post what’s been building up on Laura’s and call it an update.

First, let’s start with the salamanders. Since all my salamander pictures look pretty much identical, I’ll post only one. During my visit though, I did see at least five floating around simultaneously. It’s a riot to watch. They stay near the top, in the warm water, just slowly wagging their tails while looking for food.

By the way, if you’re interested in seeing a picture of an enormous salamander, you can do so here.

As I was standing at the pond, I noticed something wiggling towards the shore to my right. Then after that, I noticed a few things wiggling. To my surprise, I saw about four huge tadpoles. I’ve been wondering what happened to the pollywogs I transplanted back in May. I guess they lived because from what I saw, they are almost frogs. They’ve got webbed feet and everything.

Yesterday was a good day for moths. We were doing some work on the front of the house and found these guys:

They were just chillin’ on the front wall. I don’t know why.

And around the same time, I found a toad hopping around at the side of the house. I was walking back and forth because I was digging up bushes from the front and planting them along the pool fence. Here’s that toad, looking as darling as ever:

Before I walk upstairs for bed at night, I like to turn on the lights in back of the house, just to make sure there’s nothing swimming around in the pool. About two nights ago, I didn’t see anything swimming, but I can remember spotting sort of a shadow near the skimmer. I didn’t think anything of it until Laura told me the next morning that she fished a snapping turtle out of the pool. I’m assuming the shadow belonged to the turtle and I was too interested in bed to make anything of it. Laura says that the turtle was disagreeable and didn’t enjoy being pulled from the entrance of the skimmer. It didn’t try to bite or anything, but it put some muscle into resisting. She let the turtle go way in the back. I will tell you this – I’m not sure how comfortable I am with all this action going on while I’m asleep. I generally enjoy trapping and releasing and things of that nature.

I already showed you all the wildflowers we’ve got growing in the lawn. Those look really great and are moving swiftly through their lifespan. The yellow flowers are turning into those Dandelion puffy things and the orange ones are still going strong. We’ve got some taller yellow ones introducing themselves, along with these new purple flowers. I’m not sure what these are called, but I’ve seen them about a zillion times.

We have many apple trees on the property, but I’m not sure we’ll get any apples this year. For some reason, I didn’t see many apple blossoms and I’ve only seen a few baby apples. The pears are doing well though. We’ve got about thirty little baby pears growing mighty finely. I’m extremely hopeful that these will mature healthily because I haven’t tasted a pear picked from a tree like this in years.

One thing we do have an abundance of is wild blackberries. They are in flower mode right now, but from what I can tell, if these grow to fruition, I’m going to be spending a lot of time picking them. Blackberry and raspberry bushes are also in abundance up in the trails at the end of the road. I heard that people from far and wide come to pick them, so I have to get there early if I want my share.

I found a few extra pictures on Laura’s camera that I thought were worth posting. She’s got a really nice shot of one of our Peonies…

…and a pretty dark maroon flower growing in the grass:

She also managed to capture another beautiful butterfly on film.

Lastly, but certainly not leastly, we’ve got a somewhat blurry, but who cares, picture of a Red-winged Blackbird in flight. It’s the coolness of this picture that made me take notice.

When we lived in Connecticut and then Florida, there were these rules – some unwritten and some written. Rules that said each and every property needed to have its lawn mowed and that it needed to look “tidy.” I sort of agreed with the rules, as they were most likely aimed at forcing the not so tidy people to tidy up. I didn’t like the fact that people were telling me what to do though. I was born (sort of) tidy and the fact that I had some official (especially down in Florida) telling me that I needed to mow the lawn, annoyed me. And in Florida, if you didn’t mow your lawn to a certain height, the city would mow it for you – and charge you a hefty fee (if you didn’t pay, they’d put a lien against your house). This was aggravating because it forced all of us to slip on our Bermuda shorts and, in sync, pull our mower starter ropes to do the deed. Well actually, most people has someone do the lawn for them. It seemed as though I was the only schmuck out there laboring over the ordeal.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter because in both places, I had no soul. All of our lawns looked identical and the neighbors didn’t know the difference. I vowed though, while sitting in Florida, that the next place I lived, I’d be on strike. That I wouldn’t mow the lawn and if anyone told me to do so, I’d rather burn it than have my soul ripped from my chest once more. In the world I remember and enjoy, people can do what they want, especially on their own property. Since when did the neighbors and the town have a vote on the issue? Since when did someone you never met tell you that things should be a certain way? If it ain’t pretty, it’s simply unfortunate that someone lives next to something they don’t care for. They need to get over it and harp on something else in their lives. There, I’ve said it.

It took me a while to actually start the mower here in Maine. I knew the grass would get high and I’d like to eventually walk though it. Tall grass needs to get knocked down or else things turn nasty. If you want to get from one place to another and need to walk through the thick, you’ll most likely acquire some ticks and bugs along the way. But if you think about it, it’s rare that you walk around your entire lawn. Usually, you follow the same paths, day after day. And that’s where I got the idea that instead of mowing our entire lawn, I’d only mow certain spots. Paths to assist me getting around to the places I visit most.

I began mowing a good three weeks after everyone else. Sure, I got funny looks from the few who drive up our road, but after explaining the situation and my stubbornness to them, they smiled. These people up here don’t care anyway. They are quite the opposite of neighborhood folks. I mean, a moose ran by the house yesterday for God’s sake!

I started off mowing a few paths through the grass. One from the shed to the pool gate, another from the pool gate to the garage. Eventually, I had my path system down pat. I had all I needed and I sat back and reveled in the fact that I’d beat the system. I had the tall grass I wanted and I had no ticks on my pants. Things were good.

Well, as it turns out, something began happening a few days and weeks after the grass started growing and after I finished laying out my trails. Flowers began to grow. At first, it was Dandelions and then came the Daisies. Now, we’ve got something that looks like the smaller cousin of the Dandelion and a whole slew of orange/red flowers. They are strikingly beautiful.

Here’s what things have shaped up to look like:

I mean, who knew? Who knew my stubbornness would lead to something I look forward to seeing every morning after I wake up? What a treat it is to see these flowers grow and then spread and then grow some more. It’s quite the sight, I’ll tell you that. It’s sort of like a smaller version of the Poppy field in the Wizard of Oz. Crazy.

Please tell me what you think. Did I go wrong? Is this unintended treat something I should do away with or continue on through the years? I’d say I should keep the flowers and let them get thicker and thicker through every passing day of Spring and Summer.

I’ve got a project to complete that I’m really not looking forward to. It’s called something like, “filling in the basement crawl space with gravel, dirt, sand…whatever.”

Do you remember back when I told you about my nifty installation of our sump pump? Well, that installation worked wonderfully. Every time the basement filled with water, I heard the pump go on and off – and on and off. And so on. It was fun to listen to in the beginning, but as time went on, listening to that pump, and connecting the sound of it to the electric bill, became less and less fun of an experience. And today, this very moment, listening to the pump turn on and off is ready to drive me crazy. It stopped raining a week ago and the pump is still working. Albeit it only turns on every hour or so, but it’s got me wondering, “Why in the world do we need to get this water out of the basement so bad?” I mean, I’m not sure if it’s just simple conditioning from what I’ve seen on TV or read on the internet, but really, why do we even have a crawl space? It was there when we moved in, but do we need it?

The answer is no. If we had a much more shallow crawl space, say 3 feet deep instead of 4 1/2, I would never see any water at all. It could rain all it wants to and the basement would never fill. I could keep the entire area covered with my plastic vapor barrier and no one would be the wiser. And the moisture down there would be virtually non-existent. The only problem is – yeah, you guessed it – actually filling in the crawl space. Who’s going to do that? My back truly isn’t looking forward to this one.

I just went downstairs with my pickaxe and shovel, with the intention of moving some of the dirt that was pushed to the middle of the crawl space, back out to cover the footings. I figured that all the material I needed was there. Currently, there’s sort of a moat around the perimeter of the entire area, with the dirt in the middle. Sort of like a donut. I was going to see how much of that moat I could fill in, as to raise the floor level down there.

Here is what the basement looks like if you were standing in the first section, looking into the crawl space. What you see is the vapor barrier with the sump pump underneath. Also, the lump under the vapor barrier is the existing soil.

Moving further into the crawl space, if you look left and then right, here is what you see. I figured I could smooth out those dirt lumps and be done with it.

While I may be able to get away with moving some dirt around in the front section of the basement, there simply ins’t enough material down there to fill in the rear. And that’s where the major issues are. When water enters the crawl space, it sits on top of the plastic, puddling up.

When I lift up and move the plastic over, what I just told you becomes even more evident. There just isn’t enough dirt to make a difference.

I think the plan is going to be something like this – order about 5 yards of pea gravel, or sand, or dirt – whatever is cheaper – and move the material down to the crawl space via 5-gallon buckets. I’m really not quite sure how that would work out over the run of this project, but it’s the only way I can think of right now. We also have a missing cement block that we use to vent the dryer, so I may be able to build some sort of a chute that I can slide gravel or whatever down. We’ll see what happens.

Rigid foam insulation is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s thin, effective, has a great r-value and acts as a vapor barrier. With the time and space saved, it’s worth its weight in…well, rigid foam. It’s sort of expensive though at $18.99 per 4’x8′ 1 inch thick sheet. But the mice hate it and once it’s installed, it’s good for life. That’s why I’m using it to insulate the log cabin room.

I gave you a sneak peek of the one finished wall in my window installation post, but now that this phase of the project has begun, I’m going to be talking about insulation a lot more.

Okay – where to begin. When this past Winter rolled around, we felt a distinct chill in the air. We felt drafts and cold walls. Laura and I had conversation upon conversation about why the house was so cold. After locating and fixing some of the larger problem areas, I decided to start methodically tackling the lack of proper insulation in this house. She kept asking me, “Why don’t people insulate correctly in the first place?” I replied, “Because houses get built in the Summer. Insulation is one of the last things people think about when they are sweating. Also, builders have a tough time reconciling the fact that Winter will return. When they build, it’s 80 degrees out.”

I know that doesn’t make too much sense when reading it, but it’s true. Even me – the insulation nut, has mostly forgotten about the cold now that’s it’s late Spring. I have to kick myself to recall waking up to a house that’s 30 degrees on the inside. My plan is to stop that from occurring, because as they say in book 1 of “Game of Thrones” (which I’m reading at the moment), “Winter is coming.”

In the log cabin room, I felt moving air during the cold months. The room is constructed with 6 inch thick logs, one stacked on top of the other. For the peaks and the roof, it’s stick built. Since the walls are solid, they are not insulated. At an r-value of 1.5 per inch of solid wood, the walls currently have an r-value of 9. That’s far below what’s recommended. Not that I know what’s recommended, but I can imagine having walls with an r-value of 9 is low. The ceiling is insulated with r-19 insulation. That’s also low (I can imagine). But really, the issue in the room isn’t low r-value – it’s draft. The room isn’t sealed. There are hairline gaps and checking in the wood that the walls are constructed of and the roof has a ridge vent that warm air is finding its way through. A layer of plastic all over the interior of the room would work wonders, but I’m going to step it up a notch.

When I touched the walls of the log cabin room over the Winter, they were cold. But while they were cold, they weren’t freezing cold. That solid wood was doing a decent job of insulating the room. I attribute the cold and draft to the ceiling and the windows. As you know, the windows are now installed and sealed.

I got the idea of installing rigid foam to the interior of this room a while back, after learning about insulation ad nauseum. And when I say ad nauseum, I mean ad nauseum. Much of my Winter months were consumed with me reading articles about how insulation works. And after all that reading, I made the decision to go with rigid foam. Here’s why: with foam insulation, the room gets sealed from air flow. The room also gets a vapor barrier. A vapor barrier is very important because I’m pretty sure no one wants to see water leaking out from the interior of their walls.

Do you know how water condensation works when it comes to insulation? No? Well, let me fill you in. When warm, moist air comes in contact with cold, dry air, condensation occurs. More specifically, condensation occurs right at the point of contact. Say you have fiberglass insulation installed in a wall with no vapor barrier. One side of the insulation is cold from the outside air and the other side is warm from the inside air. In this case, somewhere in the middle of that insulation is going to be the point of contact for those two temperatures and moisture levels. When the air collides, you get condensation and puddles. Or, you get sopping wet fiberglass insulation in your walls.

Back when we lived in Pine Bush, NY, we had a house where the corners of a few rooms weren’t insulated. Common problem caused by lazy builders. I can remember trying to paint those rooms in the middle of Winter and having the paint run down the walls and not drying properly. The issue was that those sections of wall were freezing and condensation was forming in the interior of the house. The sheetrock was the vapor barrier. That’s why insulation and the proper r-value is important.

Okay, enough of the lesson. Let’s get to some pictures of what I’ve done so far in the log cabin room. My basic plan is to skin the room with 1 inch thick rigid foam insulation. This will give the entire room a boost of 5 r-value points. This room had no issues with condensation and the temperature dropped to -24 this past season. Like I said above, I’m mostly concerned with drafts.

I’m taping all the seams and I’m going to inject foam in all the gaps that are left exposed after the install is completed. I think it’ll be great.

A few days ago, I picked up this really great tool. It’s an adjustable t-square. I was going to go with the fixed one, but Laura persuaded me to get the adjustable one, just in case. Well, I used the adjustable part yesterday to find the angle of the peak in this particular room and wow, just look at the results.

I’m not sure I’ve ever cut an angle of anything so perfectly. Here are a few pictures of the t-square. The 4 foot length is also especially handy for cutting long strips of insulation like this.

I’ll take more pictures of this part of the project as I go along. I know how exciting it is for all of you!

I was looking at yesterday’s post last night and I began thinking about those pictures of the foam I sprayed around the newly installed windows and how sloppy it looked. I knew I was going to trim the foam, but I was concerned that those of you who read yesterday’s post may think I’m some sort of amateur or something. I mean, I can’t let that sort of thing stand. I’m not amateur. I made sure to trim the foam this morning in an effort to show you something much more pretty.

After I realized the foam had cured, I began cutting it away from the windows with my handy utility knife. I quickly learned that the tool I was using wasn’t the best because of it’s bulkiness. The sides of the knife were forcing me to trim the foam at an angle, and that looked sloppy. My goal was to keep as much material in tact as to offer the highest insulation properties. I also wanted something straight and firm to rest the future trim upon.

A while ago, I purchased 50 replacements for my utility knife. I started thinking how I could use just the blade replacement to get a much more “flush” cut. I started sliding the very sharp razor blade down the foam. Here is a blurry picture of how it looked:

I did a few lengths like this and started pulling the excess foam away from the windows. I couldn’t believe the results. Smooth as glass. Here, look at what I’m talking about:

Pretty clean, huh? I also want to say that these windows are locked in place. They are tight and waterproof. What a great install. Now I just have to do some work working and they’ll be finished.

I just finished installing the new windows in the log cabin room. Surprisingly, the ordeal only took about an hour and a half. I’ve had terrible visions of this project, but now I realize I shouldn’t have worried. It’s just that I never installed windows before and issues can arise.

Really, all I did was remove the remaining trim from the outside of the original windows and pull them out. They weren’t nailed or screwed in. They were held in by spray foam (Great Stuff). It was a decent enough installation, but it was time those old ones disappear.

The windows I purchased yesterday were new construction windows. I’m not sure if I mentioned this already or not, but to get replacement windows would’ve created a “special order” that cost more then the new construction ones. I decided to go the less expensive route and I’m glad I did. I had a nice 2×6 framing the area I needed the window to go and I hung each one from the top 2×6.

Here are two pictures of the space for the windows:

Since I needed something to screw each window to at the bottom, I decided to use pieces that came out from the original windows. Tapered pieces that I screwed to the frame and then the window to it. They worked out very well.

Here’s a picture of one of the windows after I screwed it into place:

And here’s what they look like from the outside:

You might be able to see the large gaps on either side of each window. That’s because I purchased a 32″ wide window for a 34″ hole. I meant to do that. I wanted to hang each window level and have space at the sides for spray foam. So, after I had each window screwed in place at the top and bottom, I sprayed Great Stuff around the gaps.

I have to wait for the foam to cure before I trim the excess away. But for now, here’s a picture of the completed, insulated window installation:

After this comes the tricky part. I have to put up some 1″x4″ trim on the outside of each window and attempt to frame things out on the inside with some sort of lumber. I’m thinking perhaps 2″x4″s and 2″x6″s. Either way, I have to be sure all wood on the inside and level and plumb. I’ll get it done.

I already put up one wall of rigid foam insulation, so I figured I’d share the idea of where things are going. This is a picture of the far wall of the log cabin room:

This stuff is going to coat every nook and cranny of the room. Come Winter, I am going to stand at the windows laughing as the snow is piling up outside. I may even make a fire in the wood stove if it gets cold enough out there.

Laura asked if I needed anything from town today. I’ve been going back and forth with this window thing because I didn’t want to drop the money to pay for them. I know they’ve got to get done, but it’s difficult paying for something that gives me such little satisfaction. Even worse, we already have windows. I just have to install better ones. Whatever. I bit the bullet and agreed to go to town with her. We stopped by Cambell’s Building Supply and made the purchase. Good news too – Dick from Campbell’s gave me a 10% discount. I told him I’m going to be a big customer, so we’re working out some sort of an account. 10% is pretty good too – over $60 saved.

The windows I bought are the “Spencer Walcott” ones from Mathews Brothers I told you about in this post. They are pretty spiffy. Take a look at them in their packaging:

A nice little perk with these windows is that they are made right here in Maine.

As you can well imagine, I’ve already gone over these windows pretty carefully and I can say they are high quality. There is very little flex to them and their construction seems legit. I can’t wait to start pulling out the old ones to put these bad boys in!

One of the things I’ve got to finish up before Winter rolls around is the window replacement in the log cabin room. I’ve already done the wood stove installation and now I’m going to tackle the windows. Basically, I’d like to get everything done that I couldn’t do while there was six feet of snow on the ground. While the room still needs insulation, sheetrock, a floor and a whole bunch of trim, I can do that mid-Winter if I wanted to. I just can’t put a ladder up against the house with those piles of snow that I pulled off the roof. Nor do I want to.

The brand of window I’m going to purchase is “Spencer Walcott” a Mathews Brothers Family Product. I’m going to buy them from Campbell’s Building Supply over in Madison. I think the windows are made in Maine as well.

I was in the building supply center last week and while I was there, I asked to see the windows in the warehouse. They agreed to me inspecting the quality and had one of the guys in back walk me over to their stock. He showed me what I wanted to see and then informed me that the replacement windows are more expensive than the new construction because they’ve got to special order them. I can use either in this case, so I think I’ll go with the new construction. It’s either screw the vinyl to the siding of the house or rest the window in the frame and foam seal it in place. Doesn’t matter which route I take – both will be air tight when I’m finished with the project. Trust me, they’ll be air tight.

The size in need is around 34″x48″. I’m probably going to go with 32″x48″ because I like the wiggle room for more insulation. And the smaller the window volume, more likely the cheaper as well.

I just went outside and took some before pictures of the back of the log cabin room and then a few shots of the window frame after I removed the outer trim. Looks simple enough. I’ll update this site after I get the new windows in hand and start the project in earnest.

The only other time the pool has been this clean is when we first opened it. When we peeked under the cover, all we saw was clear water and leaves at the bottom. A few days after we removed the cover though is when all hell broke loose. Within that time period, a swamp had grown – and rapidly it did. We actually had algae blooms rising from the bottom. A lot of pool shock and vacuuming handled that.

Since then, we’ve been trying to maintain some sort of water clarity with the most minimum of filter action as possible. We also haven’t been using much chlorine. But as I told you yesterday, we received the chlorine tablets, so we should be in better shape.

I had to add more shock to the pool water last night. I’ve been noticing a light green haze starting to form and I don’t think these tablets will cure a situation like that. The only thing that will is a rapid increase in the chlorine level – and that’s what pool shock is for. I did notice a difference in water clarity this morning, however. And after I just vacuumed and skimmed for a while, I must say, the pool’s never looked better. It’s not perfect, as we don’t have that crystal clear water that everyone strives for yet, but it’s definitely swimmable and ready to be enjoyed.