Productive Winter

Kristen put a couple of items on my winter todo list this year (for those days when it was too bone chillingly cold to work outside).

First was the kitchen range hood. For some inexplicable reason, it was set up so that it vented back into the kitchen rather than to the outside. Kristen couldn't cook a steak without opening a window so the smoke alarm wouldn't go off.

The new hood (very similar to the old except for the stupid part).

Through the wall into the garage. It was only a couple of feet over to the outside wall. I had to cut a much larger hole through the wall because, of course, a stud ran right through where the ducting needed to go and some reframing was necessary.

The new vent.

Kristen's other todo item had to do with the dryer venting. Our laundry room is on the 1st floor in the middle of the front part of the house. The dryer vent goes through the wall into the area under the front stairs where it elbows through the floor to the basement. After passing through a number of bends and constrictions, it makes its way to the outside through an old window opening that had been replaced with plywood.

My job was to replace the entire duct system and eliminate all of the constrictions. I replaced all of the bends an constrictions with metal ducting and only used flexible ducting on the straightaways. While doing that, I realized that that plywood panel needed to go. Soil was against it on the outside and the bottom was half rotted away, allowing mice to enter the basement.

Just to complicate things, the dryer vent wasn't the only thing passing through the plywood. the electrical conduit to one of the air conditioners and a drain (from something) were also there. I managed to remove them, replace the plywood with a concrete backer-board panel and then reinstall them.

Finally, there was my brush clearing and burning. When we took most of November off to go to California and Hawaii, I wondered how much of a dent I had put into my brush clearing time. Fortunately, this has been a relatively mild winter and I've managed to clear enough for 10 brush pile burns so far. I hope to do my 11th and final burn tomorrow. My burn permit is good until May 2 but, unless we get more snow, I won't feel comfortable with my infernos.

I've found a lot of metal to remove and take to the recycler. There's wire fencing on metal poles buried in the brush along the perimeter. I've removed that as I've come to it. I found a spool of barbed wire that must way a hundred pounds. I also found what I think must be a roll bar from a tractor. It weighs so much (at least 200 pounds) that I'm still puzzling over how I'm going to get it out of the woods and into the truck.

The focus this season was clearing between the lawn and the wall along Barre Rd..and along the back wall from Barre Rd. Here are a couple of pictures from the upstairs windows:

Back wall along the treeline at the left. Barre Rd. at the left.

This is to the left of the previous picture. 

To the right of the 1st picture. Corner of Coldbrook Rd and Barre Rd through the trees.

My one last project was a raised vegetable garden bed. The old beds were in back of the garage and were out of sight and too far from the faucet. I broke them apart last fall, added the wood to my 1st burn pile and filled in the low areas of the lawn with the dirt.

Outside the kitchen.

-JC-

Our Vacation

I ranted about vacation issues in my last posting but promised to actually cover the trip with my next effort. Here goes...

Our trip was a long one and was scheduled around my Mom's 90th Birthday Celebration in Walnut Creek, CA. From there, we continued West to spend 2 weeks in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. On the way home, we stopped for a week in Thousand Oaks, CA and spent Thanksgiving with our Son Grant and family.

When we first looked at options for getting to and from Logan Airport, we decided to rent a car going to the airport and to Uber home. Our flight to San Francisco had an early departure so our plan was to rent the car at Worcester Airport the day before and then make an early trip to the airport. When snow was forecast for that morning, we decided to go early and spend the night at a hotel near the airport. That was such a nice way to do it that we'll probably do it again.

Since I already mentioned our plan to Uber home, I'll finish that part of the story. After our issues with the car going to the airport (see my previous post), Budget gave us a free day of rental. When heavy snow was forecast for the time of our return home, we decided to use that discount to rent a car to get home.

So, we picked up the rental in Worcester on Nov. 7 and spent the night in Winthrop, MA. We left for San Francisco the next morning. We arrive just after noon, picked up our rental and drove to our hotel in Walnut Creek. Our Son Grant was there with his family and my Sisters were there with their families. We all had  great weekend with my Mom.

Saturday, Nov. 9 was Kristen's Birthday. Rather than make it a huge extended family event, the 2 of us had dinner with Grant and family and then returned to my Mom's for cake with the extended group. Sunday, Nov. 10 was Mom's 90th birthday and we celebrated with a luncheon for about 40 people at one of her favorite restaurants (Thanks to my Sister Stacy for making all of the arrangements!).

We didn't take a lot of pictures on this leg of the trip but we did go for a walk in our old neighborhood (of 22 years, 1984-2006) and talk to some of the neighbors. This is our old house.

We spent Monday night near SFO before heading to Kona on Tuesday morning. We've stayed in Kona many times. We spent most of our visits at a place a couple of miles from town so, to get to the restaurants, we had to drive and pay for parking. On our last visit, we stayed in a VRBO that had a great water view but was right in the middle of the restaurant area. It was no longer listed on VRBO but I still had the owner's contact information. The unit was available and he put his Mother-in-law in charge of setting everything up. She was unresponsive and we came to realize that the transaction was a lot riskier without VRBO guaranteeing things. We canceled and went through VRBO to book a nicer unit that was right next door to the first.

Our unit was 3rd in from the left, 3rd down from the top (shades were down on the 2 units above us). Our previous unit was 1 to the right (behind the palm).

View from our lanai. Restaurant with blue roof used to be a Bubba Gump (and was a restaurant that we liked before that). The restaurant to the left used to be a Charthouse. There's a great farmers market just across the street from the blue roof.

Looking the other direction from our porch. There's a whole row of restaurants along the left side of the street (with more restaurants up the hill behind them). One of our favorites, Huggos, is on the ocean side right next to the big hotel.

Our building from out at the big hotel.

Sunset from our lanai

Sunset from our lanai.

On past trips, liners have arrive every day or two. This time, we had two in the first week and then none. The cruise lines must avoid the time around Thanksgiving. This was taken at dawn.

Kristen with the tikis at Hikiau Heiau at Kealakekua Bay. She posed her with Briar and Grant back in December, 2001.

(Yes, that's my finger) This spot, just toward the airport from Kona is a historic site. and was a great snorkeling spot.

Lots of turtles. The ancient Hawaiians built fish traps out in the bay. The traps were walled areas that the fish could swim into and then not find their way out. Lots of fish in there and I fortunately was able to stand up to spot the way back out.

We left Kona on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and spent a great week with Grant, Melissa and the grandkids.

We finally returned home on Tuesday, December 3. A huge snowstorm that was forecast for Sunday continued on through Tuesday morning. Fortunately, Kristen had the foresight to find someone through Facebook to clear the driveway before we got home.

Some pictures of the snow the next morning:

We had taken the bird feeders down back in early summer after the bears had mangled them (see earlier blog). We finally thought that the bears would be in hibernation and that it would be same to put the feeders back out. The bears struck again within 2 days.

Just to complicate things, we were responsible for cutting, installing and decorating the town tree

and bandstand. The tree was several hundred feet from the road in the deep snow so that was a lot of fun. Before we could even go for the tree, we had to clear a path across the town common to the band stand and clear the snow from the grandstand.

We had had a number of volunteers to help us decorate but the 20 degree temperatures on Saturday helped all but one find reasons to bail. Even so, we were pleased with the result (but they may have to find someone else to do it next year).

-JC-

Trip Issues

We just returned from almost 4 weeks away from home. We started out with a few days in Walnut Creek, CA to celebrate my Mom's 90th birthday. From there, we went to Kona, HI for a couple of weeks. Finally, we spent Thanksgiving week with our Son and his family in Thousand Oaks, CA.

Sorry if the rest of this sounds like a rant, but that's kind of what it is it is.

Our flights were, for the most part, on time. BOS-SFO, SFO-KOA and KOA-LAX came off without a hitch (we even had an empty seat between us on the to/from KOA flights). Then there was the LAX-BOS flight.

The 8:20am flight was rescheduled to 9:39am because of snow issues in Boston and then it was moved back to 8:20am. When boarding time rolled United realize that they had forgotten to notify the crew that the flight was back on schedule (they were able to keep passengers aware of what was happening through a multitude of texts but, somehow, the crew didn't get the word). The flight was rescheduled to 9:00am, boarding proceeded and we were just about to the door of the plane when they had us return to the terminal. The delay had cost us our place in the lineup and our eventual departure was moved to 11:10am (with actual departure closer to noon).

That was flights. Then we had car rentals. Our original plan was to pick a rental car up at Worcester Airport the day before and drive it to BOS and then Uber back home at the end of the trip (the rental prices were much higher coming home). We booked that rental and rentals at SFO, KOA, and LAX.

On rentals between airports, you usually get whatever it is that needs to be moved. Our Worcester Airport to KOA rental was a new Camero that reeked like a dirty bong (I wish that I'd noticed it sooner). It was threatening to snow so we decided to spend the night before our flight near the airport. We drove all the way into Boston with the windows open (Brrr).

I wrote to Budget about their foul car and was eventually given a coupon that was good for one day of rental. In order to claim that coupon, I had to register on their site. The coupon made renting a car a favorable alternative to taking an Uber so we booked a rental for our trip home from the airport.

Our rentals at SFO and KOA were uneventful (non-Budget). Then we got to LAX. It was Tuesday of Thanksgiving week so it's understandable that things were busy at Budget. We inched through their line for over an hour and were then told that we should have gone to their FastBreak kiosk and avoided the line. That would have been nice to know. Apparently, when I registered to receive the coupon, I became a member of their FastBreak program. The car that they gave us only had 8 miles on the odometer so that was a plus.

Then there was that final rental home from BOS. We followed the FastBreak signs past the Budget counter to the line of cars in FastBreak slots. There was no indication whatsoever of who those cars might be for. We backtracked, looking for a FastBreak board with our name/contract on it. Eventually, we found a FastBreak counter with a long, long line with one person at the counter (and another that wandered in ever 10 minutes or so, helped one person and then wandered off again). When we reached the counter 30 minutes later, they were unable to print the contract because the printer was out of paper (you'd think that it would have been pre-printed). We were told where to find our car (not in the FastBreak line) and that the person at the exit would print our contract for us. That person didn't know how to do that so we had to park the car and return to the desk. The line was still long but I went straight to the person at the counter. Miraculously, he was able to immediately produce a contract. Fastbreak seems to be a wonderful thing (avoid it like the plague).

Arriving home, we found that we'd had about 18" of snow. We had been warned and Kristen had hired someone to clear the driveway. As agreed, he cleared the straight part of the driveway all the way to the back edge. We were able to pull all the way in but still had to cross about 20' of 18" snow to get to the house. Interestingly, we'd had at least one package delivered (well ahead of what the tracking indicated) and it was just sitting in the yard on top of the snow. If there are other packages, we may not find them until the snow melts. I got the blower out to clear a path so we could bring the luggage in. We cleared the rest of it in the morning.

Which brings us to our first day home. Lots to do to get the house out of vacation mode. Once the driveway was cleared, we had to return the rental to Worcester Airport and then to a large marketing. An unexpected bonus task was dealing with a pellet stove that worked fine when we got home and in the morning but wouldn't fire up when we returned from marketing (the stove has a long history of issues). No one can look at it before late on Christmas Eve.

The big task on day 2 was to get ready to decorate the town common on Saturday afternoon. We somehow acquired that responsibility a couple of years ago but we've never had to deal with snow before. But first, we decide to pay a visit to the people who sold us our stove. It seems to be a real lemon and we're working on them to replace it. We did manage to get their service call moved up to the 18th (from Christmas Eve).

Back at home, we cleared a path across the town commons, shoveled the snow out of the bandstand and got things set up to receive the tree. After lunch, we headed out to the New Braintree tree farm that always donates the town tree. It was hard work hauling a large tree across the tundra but the tree is now in it's stand in the bandstand.

We'll have lots of help for the much easier decorating job on Saturday but we sure could have used some of that help today.

That's enough of my bitching and moaning. Maybe my next vacation blog will actually deal with the vacation,

-JC-

Baby Bobcat

-JC-

Brush Cutting: Explanation and Progress

Kristen was mentioning the other day that many of our friends and family members that aren't local to New England (and that's just about all of them) probably have no real idea of the reasoning behind or the extent of the brush cutting that I've been doing each year.

The house, driveway and lawn area account for less than 1/2 of our 2.6 acres. The remaining acreage is mostly woods and leach field. The entire property is surrounded by fieldstone walls that were thrown up when the property was cleared for farming 150-180 years ago. Here's a link to a post that I made in 2015 about our Plot Lines.

The leach field was put in place when the house was restored in 2006. It's maybe 1/2 acre and is essentially a very large mound of sand that was trucked in for the purpose. People plant lawns over their leach fields but, from what we've read, it would be a bad idea to let trees or larger plants take over the leach field.

The primary plant on our leach field has been a native New England bamboo. It is dense and can easily grow 6-8 feet in a month. It disappears with the first frost but comes back with a vengeance in the Spring. From what I've read, as long as it has leaves, it stores energy in its root. Cut it off and it has to use that stored energy to regrow. Keep it cut off and it will eventually use up its supply of stored energy and die.

This summer, I have kept the bamboo cut off at ground level. It has needed cutting less and less often so I'm pretty sure that it's working. We'll have our first freeze this week so I guess we'll see what happens in the Spring. I'll get after any that shows up at first sprout.

We don't seem to have bamboo anyplace else on the property. What we do have is multiflora rose, poison ivy and tree strangling bittersweet vines.

The multiflora rose is an Asian plant that some idiot thought would make excellent fencing to keep cattle in (or out). It gets huge and it's large thorny branches wrap themselves around everything in reach. Multiflora likes sun to it grows on the edge of the woods and climbs trees to get closer to the sun.

Poison ivy seems to prefer the shade. There seems to be 2 varieties. One variety covers the forest floor line a ground cover. The other variety grows like a vine and climbs trees.

The multiflora and poison ivy are the nastiest to get rid of but their climbing vines don't seem to be particularly threatening to the trees. The bittersweet vines are another case. Bittersweet can be 2" in diameter and they can choke the life right out of the trees. They are very leafy and they can completely cover a tree. We've had cases where we didn't realize that a tree was dead until we killed the bittersweet vines (by severing their connections to the ground).

When we first moved in, the brush had encroached to the point where it was overhanging the edges of the lawn. The multiflora thorns frequently made mowing a painful experience.

These lilac bushes were tangled up in multiflora vines. The closest lilac and row of forsythia bushes were planted later.

We had no idea that these rocks were even there.

Looking across the back of the lawn toward the leach field.

Looking from the back corner of the lawn toward Coldbrook Rd. The non-lawn area here was completely overgrown with multiflora.

That same stretch of lawn looking back from the Coldbrook Rd. end.

 Part of my clearing operation has been cleaning up under the trees on Coldbrook Rd.

Cleaned woods to the left of the lawn. Our property line hits Coldbrook Rd. at the storm drain which is just to the left of the concrete post.

At the other side of the driveway, I've cleaned under the woods to the corner with Barre Rd.

There's a a lot of clearing still to be done once you round the corner.

There's a stone wall along Barre Rd. that was so overgrown that it was invisible and inaccessible from both sides. After the town came by this summer and mowed down the big stuff, I sprayed the entire Barre side of the wall with brush killer. It's still a work in progress but I've been working on cutting the now-dead brush.

From Barre Rd., looking down the wall that marks the back edge of our property.

From that same point, looking down the Barre Rd. property line / wall. That building down at the corner is Rose Cottage, the oldest surviving house it Oakham (1790's I think). It's been empty for years but our friend Brian just bought it and is in the process of restoring it.

Closer to the corner.

 Now let's look at that wall from the inside.

Looking across the leach field toward the point where the back wall meets the Barre Rd. wall (back wall is across the top and a little of the Barre Rd. wall is visible on the right). I have never been able  to clear all the way to the wall because, at some point long ago, the property was fenced in for goats. The overgrown wire fencing was several inside the stone wall and nearly invisible inside the tangle of brush (deadly for chainsaw and brush cutter blades). My project this year has been to remove the fencing and posts so that I could clear brush all the way to the wall. So far, I've removed the fencing all the way up Barre Rd. and maybe a third of the way across the back.

Closer look at that same corner. A couple of my burn piles are in the shot (I'll be able to burn from Jan 15 through May 1).

Rose Cottage through the trees. There's still a lot of clearing to do in this area.

Looking further along the back wall. 

This patch will definitely get my attention this year. I learned a long time ago that, since the multiflora vines grow toward the light, it's much easier to approach and cut the trunks from the woods side. The last couple of pictures have been the woods area that I've cleaned up as I approach this final tier of multiflora.

Back wall straight back from the house. Just to the left of this, the wall turns uphill before continuing farther to the left. It then turns left again and becomes our common border with all of the houses on Maple St. An old hand-dug stone well is up at that highest corner but it may take a couple of more years before that can be easily accessed.

This area is scary. It's back behind the huge log that was in some of the earlier pictures. The multiflora will have to be cut out first but most of the trees are being choked out by bitterroot. We had a tree blow over back here recently. It hung up midair on a smaller tree so I cut the smaller tree to eliminate the hazard. With the smaller tree cut, neither tree budged. Both were suspended by vines from a third tree. Quite a crash when I cut that one.

This is near the back corner of the lawn. The end of the huge log is behind this bunch of multiflora. This is pretty much the same bitterroot section of woods that was in the last shot. The red dots mark treed that are dead and need to be cut.

I've been inching my way toward the backs of the Maple St. properties each year. This clump of multiflora in the front is the last bit that I'll need to do in this area...

...Then it's like this all the way back to the well. This kind of area just needs some thinning out.

The house from the back wall / Barre Rd. corner.

-JC-