If a trees falls in the forest...

We drove out to the cabin on Friday evening, leaving after rush hour and arriving after dark, some time around 9:30 pm. Typical for an after dark arrival, we rushed to unload the car and get inside to go through our "opening" procedures of turning up thermostats, turning on the water, etc.

The next morning, enjoying a cup of coffee outside on the brick terrace, I noticed that sometime in the last two weeks we lost a pine tree. This first photo is the perspective that caught my eye. The tree is one of several in the yard that are scrubby and have clusters of small cones on them. It had grown up next to an old stump and an oak, which looks to be about 15 years old. I think the mix of root systems likely weakened the tree.

This tree was about 80 feet tall, and up to two feet in diameter at the base. It fell parallel to the house, missing all the structures and taking down some branches from the neighboring pines with it. Kenny, our friend at Southern States, told us that there was a storm with strong winds last Sunday, the 10th of February, so that is likely when the tree came down. Here are a few more shots of it.

The question before us is what to do with the sudden bounty of nature-provided firewood and gardening materials. Should we take on the project of clearing the tree ourselves, or hire someone to do it. Some preliminary research indicates that we can rent a chain saw for $65/day at the Farm Co-op...we can get a mulcher for the same price...and this tree trunk would make a substantial quantity of firewood for next fall and winter, during the camping and hunting seasons. More to come on this.

Glimpse of the simple life - part 2

Continuing with the summary of the Best Places to Live in Rural America, from the February 2008 edition of The Progressive Farmer...

Wexford County, MI

• 80 acres woods, prime recreational, $199,000 or $2,499/acre
• 168 acres prime hunting land, $285,000 or $1,696/acre
• 294 acres with mature timber surrounded by wetlands, $564,000 or $1,918

Fayette County, TX

• 266 rolling acres with lake, pond, and wildlife, $1,200,000 or $4,511/acre
• 160 acre ranch with home, hills, and ponds, $600,000 or $3,750/acre
• 160 acres partially wooded with two barns and pond, $410,188 or $2,564 acre

Coffee County, AL

• 50 acres with home, pond and buildings, $225,000 or $4,500/acre
• 216 acres with ponds and pastures, $2,000,000 or $9,259/acre
• 155 acres pasture and forage, $527,000 or $3,400/acre

Gilchrist County, FL

• 480 acres of pastures and trees, with home, $8,640,000 or $18,000/acre
• 400 acres with pastures, ponds, and buildings, $7,200,000 or $18,000/acre
• 80 acres of pastures and trees, $800,000 or $10K/acre

La Plata County, CO

• 70 acres with home and barn, $2,350,000 or $33,571/acre
• 80 acres, mountain views, $275,000 or $3,437/acre
• 305 acres, $510,000 or $1,672/acre

More of this, including the stats for all of the top 100 rural places to live, are at www.progressivefarmer.com/bestplaces

Glimpse of the simple life

Somehow we find ourselves subscribing to the publication “The Progressive Farmer” – I suspect it’s because of our account at one of the co-ops in Page County. I am going to look forward to receiving it in any case…articles in the February 2008 edition include: Beating Back Wicked Pasture Weeds, Hanging a Gate Perfectly – the First Time, Parasite Control Starts at Calving, and Holding on to Farm Life. I’ll sum it up by saying the magazine offers a pretty fascinating glimpse of a lifestyle that is very different from what I am accustomed to.

This month there is a feature called “Best Places to Live in Rural America” and ten locations are covered in detail. Among other information about these top ten locations, there is a summary of real estate information – recent sales – on three selected farm properties for each. In this post, I’ll list the first five, and in a future post the remaining five.

Kent County, MD:
· 462 acres, mostly tillable with a new irrigation system, $5.95 million or $12,879/acre
· 34 waterfront acres with limited river access, $995K or $29,265/acre
· 77 acres of rolling land, 50 tillable acres, $640K or $8,312/acre

Ellis County, KS:
· 157 acres, all grass with water well, $234,900 or $1,496/acre
· 80 acres all tillable, $192,000 or $2,400/acre
· 160 acres with 42 acres grass, $256,000 or $1,600/acre

Livingston County, MO
· 300 acres with CRP, timber, hunting, $600,000 or $2,000/acre
· 538 acres with timber and cattle ranch, $888,525 or $1,651/acre
· 45 acres, excellent hunting, $78,500 or $1,744/acre

Obion County, TN
· 200 acres with 40 acres cropland and remainder in marketable timber, $250K or $1,250/acre
· 700 acres prime bottomland for crops, $1,890,000 or $2,700/acre
· 157 acres farmland, $471,900 or $3,006/acre
· 63 acres flat farmland with frontage, $270,000 or $4,286/acre

Columbia County, PA
· 203 rolling acres with views, $1,300,000 or $6,404 acre
· 94 acres with 90% tillable, $700K or $7,447/acre
· 91 acres with frontage and wildlife, $410,000 or $4,505 acre

If we have any readers from these locales, sorry in advance if we’re giving away your secrets. To the rest of you, they aren’t making any more of this stuff! What are you waiting for?

February already?

Well, looking back over the posts so far this year has me thinking. We are busying our thoughts with the construction projects ahead, there are a number of them to prioritize and line up...the pool, the brick patio and stone wall that needs repointing, new insulation in the addition. Which ones will we get to, which ones will have to wait another year?

We've had Jesse out for a look under the house - you can't make that adventure during the summer, but in the cold of February it is pretty safe, at least from reptiles. We're waiting for his report, which will tell us the state of the post and beam system under the addition. It is likely that there will be some new tasks out of this. For one thing, we know that the under-house insulation is installed paper side down, and will have to be replaced.

We have been talking to a number of friends about the cabin and the potential for visits and hiking. In the midst of the cold weather (unfortunately, no snow here in Alexandria yet) it is great to be thinking this way already. I've got a number of hikes in mind this year, and need to put some thinking in on a great destination hike, like the Old Rag hike last November and the Half Dome in 2005. Starting easy this year, though, with some of the kindler, gentler trailheads off of Skyline Drive.

After catching a little bit of the Pebble Beach golf tourney on TV today, I reread the Robinson Jeffers poem from the January 2 post. Decided to google "Pico Blanco" - apparently it is owned by the Boy Scouts. Also, it led me to browse the Ventana Wilderness, here is a related site....http://www.ventanawild.org/ ...been a while since I have been in that part of California. I need to talk to Mary about a vacation out that way soon, taking in Monterrey and Carmel, along with Big Sur.

A couple of photos to break the winter monotony....here is a photo of the Carmel beach, fond memories of that place from my DLI days at Monterey, and the Bixby Bridge, down in Big Sur - just before the Ventana Wilderness, in fact.

Used Bookstore - Front Royal

Back in October, we took a drive up to Front Royal on a tip that there was an auctioneer who specialized in midcentury modern furniture. While we found the warehouse for this auction, our trip turned out to be a wild goose chase...no furniture and no preparation for an auction turned up.

We did find something else during that trip, a fine used book store in the same complex. We browsed a while on that previous trip, and I made note of the range of WW2 books that they had on hand.

One of our activities during the last trip was a Sunday drive up there - url is http://www.pagemaster-books.com/ - Mary and I both made some purchases.

Among mine are Behind the Steel Wall, A Swedish Journalist in Berlin, 1941-1943, by Arvid Fredborg, and The GDR: Moscow's German Ally, by David Childs. I also picked up a couple of WW2 history books, and a short autobiography by Heinrich Boll (proper spelling would include an umlaut), a Nobel prize winning German author who wrote extensive about the post-war period.

Our next trip to the bookstore is likely to be late spring, when we'll be looking for summer reading. With five purchases here, I think I have all I need to get through the winter!

Been a while...

After nearly a month, we were finally able to make a trip out to the cabin last weekend, February 2 and 3. I started a new job and had to wrap up a Linden Street project - these were the reasons we were unable to visit for nearly a month.

We went out on Saturday - after seeing Greg, my roommate from Berlin, off to the airport. From what I remember, we had an excellent reunion visit with some of our other colleagues from those days: Doug, Jamey and Stan. Cheers to you, buds.

During our absence, we'd had a fellow out to finish leaf raking and do some other yard work. There was a large felled tree out in the back that had left lots of debris on the roof of the garage, and for some reason it had been a good idea, according to the previous owners, to store 17 old tires under the pool area. These were all removed, while the leaves were raked into the woods down at the bottom of the hill in front of the house.

Two photos here, above, from the leaves looking back up at the house. I don't think I have posted this view before - shows the brick wall supporting the pool foundation and the deck area. Second one here is the vast pile of leaves that covers the floor of the woods around the little stream.

Next trip will be the 16-17th of February. We're looking into a winter hike that weekend.

SMART Car Revisted

The Smart cars are coming soon. Chris keeps me posted on the status of the dealership out in Tysons Corner, and now we have this WaPo article that gives a review.

Review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/10/AR2008011003220.html?hpid=sidecar

Technical details: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/10/AR2008011003219.html?sid=ST2008011103458

Also, while I am on the topic, here is a photo of a Smart in Berlin, taken during my May 2001 visit. The city council had passed a special law related to parking the little cars - this one is parked illegally, but you can see the flexibility they offer. In Berlin, three Smarts are allowed to park in two parallel spaces. That's part of what makes them an ideal city car in my opinion - and it seems to be how the Post columnist feels about them.

Now: will I buy one? It wouldn't work for the cabin, where we need all wheel drive and cargo space. But for the city - I'm already sold.

More to do at the Caverns

In addition to the caves themselves, the owners at Luray Caverns have a couple of additional attractions that can take up some time.


There is a garden maze - empty and closed the day we visited, although it was a great day.

There is also a collection of antique wagons and cars - two views here. Mary told me that when the National Building Museum (http://www.nbm.org/) did their architecture of the highways show a few years back, this museum is where they got the loaner Model T. There are quite a lot of interesting cars there, but the collection ends in the '30's. And they really haven't done much with the displays, as you can see here - just rows and rows of cars that you walk by...really just glorified storage for somebody's very cool collection.



Of course, there are a couple of souvenir stands at the cavern and there is a cafe. Most of this stuff was closed for the season this weekend, however.

Worth a Visit? Yes -

It was only a matter of time until we visited "the beautiful caverns of Luray." We'd learned that the Luray Caverns are probably the second most important economic engine in Page County - they bring in 600K tourists per year (agriculture is more important, but readers are welcome to correct me). So on Sunday, since it was raining in the morning and our hike was postponed, we took a drive over to go spelunking.

There is pretty significant lore about the caverns - they were discovered in the 1870's and are the largest ones in the area (I know of two or three other caverns in the area so far).



Here are a couple of highlight photos, with apologies for the motocam quality - which doesn't do the sites any kind of justice. There are higher quality images at http://www.luraycaverns.com/ along with descriptions of some of the related activities and development there.

The underground tour covers about a mile and a quarter and takes an hour. The route is paved, but there is a staircase down into the caverns that descends about 40 feet - it may be accessible but is not specifically advertised as such.

The third photo looks down into the "Wishing Well" - a pool of water where people are invited to through in loose change. Well over a million dollars have been donated through this feature.

Also, the town of Luray elected to put up a small memorial to its war dead down in the cavens, since more visitors are likely to see it there. There are bronze plaques in honor of the fallen from WW1 and WW2, Korea and Vietnam.

We have heard about local government meetings being held down there, dances and balls, and weddings. I have no doubt that at some point during the last 6 years, Dick Cheney has been there too.

Wassily Joins the Family

The cabin was built in the early ‘50’s, so as often as we can, we hope to be able to use mid-century modern furnishings in it. It is one of the fun aspects of the place, to try and decipher what influenced our builder, and then to try and imagine what the earliest furnishings looked like.

Our friend Barbara visited this weekend, and offered us this Wassily chair, which we sincerely appreciate. Here is a description of the chair from an unsourced commercial site…

Marcel Breuer designed the Wassily Chair in 1925-26 while he was working at the Bauhaus in Germany. The Wassily Chair was not designed for the non-objective painter Wassily Kandinsky, despite popular belief; Breuer's design was inspired in part by the curved tubular steel handlebars on his Adler bicycle. Kandinsky had admired the completed design, and Breuer made an additional copy for Kandinsky's personal quarters. Chrome plated steel tube frame. Saddle leather seat/back/arms.

Also, Mary gave me this fire pit over the holidays. When I considered these things over the last few years, I imagined that you put a pile of firewood in them and set the blaze, but that is really not the case…you can’t load ‘em up and start an inferno. But I bought one of those fake logs made out of sawdust and wax, and that made for quite a cozy little situation out there during my initial use of the fire pit - looking forward to more of this.

New Year Thoughts

Here we are at the start of a new year – 2008. A happy and prosperous one to everybody! This year will be one of exciting change, and hopefully, full of positive developments for each of us as the result!

An old friend recently commented that the Hawksbill Cabin reminded him of the Tor House, poet Robinson Jeffers’ home in Carmel, California. Jeffers died in 1962, and was deemed a controversial artist in poetry circles. I’ve always found the strong natural images in his work to be inspiring, so taking a moment to reflect on some favorite Jeffers poems is a fine way to start 2008.

This one is from a volume I picked up in Big Sur a few years ago, Robinson Jeffers: Selected Poems

Return

A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
I will go down to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
So that they cannot strike, hardly can fly.
Things are the hawk’s food, and noble is the mountain,
Oh noble
Pico Blanco, steep sea-wave of marble.

Christmas Day Hike

We’ve been waiting for the chance to explore the little stream that runs by here, which shows on the maps as Beaver Run. It comes from the south, up in the foothills, gathers a few little tributaries, and then cuts through the hollow across the road, and brushes by our property on the way to Jordon Hollow Farm Inn, and then somewhere over there joins the Hawksbill Creek.

Mary and I went down to the edge of the property by the little pump house and poked through to the stream. On our side of the road the flow is mostly shallow and ripples over rocky spots, but I was pleased to find some pools that are deep enough to shelter trout…I’ll need an expert opinion on this, because the stream is not stocked, although Hawksbill Creek is, and some of them could make their way up here.

As we walked back into the fens and wash areas, there were old sapling stumps where beavers have gnawed them down, so the name is legitimate, but there aren’t any fresh signs of activity from the rodents. Also, we found a small waterfall, which is probably too far away from the house for us to hear it, although we do hear the stream on still nights.

We got into the back areas where the stream borders on the farm, directly under the bluff on the adjoining half acre behind us, and found that part of the stream diverts and fills a cow pond back there.

Another highlight beyond the adventure – incidentally, we were never more than a quarter mile from the house during this excursion. We found a previous version of the house sign, which had been discarded and replaced by the current one. It was blue, in a color that we’ve seen inside the house, and nicely lettered in way that made it clear it had been done by the artist who built the place. Mary decided we should retrieve it and brought it back – we’ll hang it in a suitable place somewhere, probably on the garage or the shed.

More Neighbors

On Christmas day, late in the afternoon, Mary and I had a seat outside on the terrace in the sun with a warm beverage. We watched as a pair of pileated woodpeckers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileated_Woodpecker ) started working over one of the nearby dead trees. I’m reproducing the wiki photo here. These are big birds, big as crows, and normally are very shy. I’d only seen one of them before, across the street where you had to strain to see it through the trees. This time they were out, practically in the open, and not only that, in a pair. The wiki article notes that they are usually permanent residents, so it is a real treat to know they are there.

Meals Recap

For my consulting colleagues who have traveled with me, here finally is a “knife and fork” post.


For Christmas Eve dinner, we wanted to try one of the local, more upscale places for something special, and decided to visit the neighbors at the Jordan Hollow Farm Inn – website here: http://www.jordanhollow.com/ . The inn is place marked on Google Earth as well. The farm property at Jordan Hollow wraps around our development and borders the lots on the North and West edges. They keep horses there, are developing a spa concept, and have some nice cabins up on a ridge for a nice getaway.


There are real farms in the area, I posted some photos of the stock before. Here are the goats, who happily posed for us on Christmas Eve.


The dinner at Jordan Hollow was good; they work really hard at it to make an enjoyable experience. I had snapper. Generally, I have a rule about ocean fish when the town doesn’t have a seaport, and it probably would have been a good idea to follow it, but we’d had a busy week and I had had too many hamburgers, so I wanted a change. The snapper was overdone, but it was pan fried and there was promise in the approach…probably need to get in there as a regular to coach up that chef.


Mary had rack of lamb – that’s something I’ll try next, because she really enjoyed it, and it looked like they had made it perfectly. They also had steak and pork chops, which probably would make the cut on a future visit, but Mary had made some great pork chops on our first night out and I doubted the chef de cuisine could top them. By the way, the menu is posted at the website above. We’ll go there again.



On Christmas Day, Mary baked a chicken, a specialty of hers. That chicken might have come from this area for all we know – there are broiler farms all around this neck of the woods – it was definitely fresh! She matched it up with stuffing and Brussels sprouts, and made pan gravy. A nice treat, topped off with pumpkin pie to boot!

Photo Uploads

Here are a couple of photo uploads that go with yesterday's entries - the new Santa votive, the Billy Idol Christmas CD, and the new nutcracker ornament.

And a couple of additional holiday photos - the new firepit out on the brick terrace, and the holiday lights that we put up this year.

Christmas Eve Recap

(written Christmas Day) Yesterday we took a drive over to New Market – more about the town in a future, summertime post – a little town with significant Civil War history that is about 15 miles away on 211, through a pass over the Massanutten range. We knew about some antiques shops and also had seen some antiques ads about the town.


We got there and found everything pretty well under wraps, all locked up, except for a nice little Christmas store that we browsed for a while – here’s a photo of their Nutcracker display. The store is called The Christmas Gallery, and they have four locations including this one. We picked up some ornaments for the cabin – a fat little Santa votive that made Mary smile, and some whimsical little nutcrackers on rocking horses (they match up with some ceramic nutcracker decorations on the tree in Alexandria, the first ones I ever bought).


Our next stop was down to Harrisonburg, where we found a huge antique mall. We spent an hour or so going through the place, which was housed in a recycled five and dime store. Some pleasant surprises in there, as we found some examples of stuff we have in the Alexandria house. Here is a shot of one of the ‘tableaus’ that a dealer set up. I’ve been looking for vintage postcards of Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park, I found one or two there I liked, and Mary found some of Long Branch, NJ – her home town.


Next stop was over to the Massanutten resort (http://www.massresort.com/), which I’d heard about and knew had some ski slopes. I’ve been wondering about the place, only a half hour away, thinking about good times past in the Harz Mountains in Germany – pubs and cross country skiing. Massanutten (or, as my friend Tony Orth called it, Massa Nuthin’) doesn’t get enough snow for cross country. It does have six runs, seven lifts, a couple of terrain parks, and several other all-season attractions.


I’m disappointed that they don’t have cross country, but they do have something I want to try – Peaked Mountain Express Snow Tube Park. This is a groomed area – looks like the golf course driving range – that is dedicated to snow tubing. A ticket for two hours of unlimited runs and lift privileges is $18; its half price on Tuesdays. Some friends from Alexandria have recommended this to us, so we’ll be trying it later this winter.

Christmas Eve Morning Post

(Written December 24, 10:45 a.m.) Mary is out walking the dogs on a sunny day, and the temperature has climbed into the high 50’s already. I had coffee on the terrace, where one of our nuthatches scolded me for letting the birdseed run out and I quickly took care of it.


While Mary and the dogs are out, I am listening to a Putumayo CD that I have grown fond of, “New Orleans Christmas”– it says, “Deck the halls with soul, jazz, and blues holiday classics from the Big Easy.” Here’s a link to the Putumayo site on it: http://www.putumayo.com/en/catalog_item.php?album_id=224.


We have a tradition of buying a new Christmas CD every year; this New Orleans one is our purchase of the year. It makes me a little happy to know that a portion is going to the New Orleans area Habitat for Humanity.


Also, it gives me pause to think of a couple of my Booz Allen friends – Jon Cohn and Will Rowe, who each went down to the city and gave some time and manual labor rebuilding things. Jon brought me back a Big Easy coffee cup as a souvenir of his trip, come to think of it, I think he has gone down there more than once. Good on you, Jon!

Here’s the playlist for the Putumayo CD:
· Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town – Big Al Carson with Lars Edegran and his Santa Claus Revelers
· Christmas in New Orleans – James Andrews
· ‘Zat You, Santa Claus? – Ingrid Lucia
· Silver Bells – Heritage Hall Jazz Band with Greg Stafford
· I’ll be Home for Christmas – Banu Gibson and the New Orleans Hot Jazz
· Please Come Home for Christmas – Papa Don Vappie’s New Orleans Jazz Band
· God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Ellis Marsalis
· White Christmas – John Boutte
· Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Topsy Chapman with Lars Edegran and his Santa Claus Revelers
· Santa’s Second Line – New Birth Brass Band
· Holiday Time in New Orleans – Dukes of Dixieland

Also, we bought the CD for last year too late to enjoy it during the season, so this is the first year we’ve really had a chance to listen to it: Billy Idol’s “Happy Holiday.” This is a real treat, mates. You can probably find it on his myspace page – www.myspace.com/billyidol - we’ve been listening to it in the car. And to hear Billy Idol sing “We all need some Christmas Love” just warms the cockles.

Holiday Posts

Mary and I, along with Sofie and Gracie, will be greeting the holidays out at the cabin this year. A fallback plan, but the weather is supposed to be good and we’ll plan on having a nice time. I’ll be writing some blog posts while we are out, and upload them on the return.

The bits and bytes will be laced with North Pole magic, however, and readers will have to eat a piece of rum cake or a rum ball in order for their secrets to be revealed.

Nor'easter Elsewhere

I was out at the cabin with best intentions this weekend...Mary had her annual Wellesley holiday tea going on and I wanted to get out of the house. I was keeping an eye on the forecast - hoping for snow to get an idea of what that is like out in the Valley. All we had was rain, which fell all night. The stories you may have heard about rain on a metal roof are true.

In the morning, the moisture began freezing on the trees, and it made a beautiful picture in the early sunshine. Here are a few photos of the area around the house, focusing mainly on the pines that dominate the yard. As the air temperature warmed up, the trees begain shedding the ice, which was an incredible sight to see - like a hail storm in bright sunshine, and just as loud.



Later, as the skies cleared and I could see the Blue Ridge and Massanutten, those forests were particulary pretty in the winter weather. Looking forward to posting some photos of these later, when we've had snow and I have a better camera with me.

WTF Moment

Mary had some digital photos I didn't know about that add to the chronology of this summer's repairs. I am including a few of them today in order to communicate how significant the roof repairs were after we found the termite damage. In these first two, there is a view from the back of the house with the debris pile of old beams and roof materials that were demolished. That's Chris taking a look at the new tech beams in one of the shots.

Also, there are a couple of photos of me as I encountered the scale of this problem. That is my patented "WTF" expression, by the way.

We had planned on a cabin work day that day, but with the construction under way there was no way we could undertake any of our minor projects!

That's one 'SMART' car

While it isn't directly related to the cabin, since it is a lifestyle option, I thought I might post on the Smart Car event Chris and I attended over the weekend out in Fair Oaks.

A few years ago, when Mary and I visited Berlin, these little cars were just starting to catch on. We'd see them parked all over the Potsdamer Platz area, and saw a few of them on the road in the vicinity of Potsdamer Platz, near the Sony Center, the Mies building, and the Bauhaus Museum. (There's the blog link by the way, we have a Bauhaus Museum poster and a Mies print in the cabin.)

In any case, the city of Berlin had made a special parking provision for the cars - they were allowed to park "more than one" to a space, with a limit of 3 cars in 2 spaces. So, I thought, pretty ideal urban vehicle, as long as you're only putting 2 passengers in there, and mostly commuting or running small errands...no road trips, in other words.

After my 5 mile test drive, I'm pretty convinced that the car would work for these kinds of needs. The price points - about $17K for the cabrio/convertible - might be comfortable for those who live and work in town. The model I would consider is "nicely equipped" and runs for about $14K.

It was a pretty enthusiastic crowd all in all. The Smart website is http://www.smartusa.com/ for readers who might be interested. And the cars should start showing up on the street in the spring of 2008.

Photos - ice sculptures near the Smart exhibit, the exhibit, my Smart chaperone, and some Smarts in action.

Holiday Decorations 2

For the last few years we've enjoyed having a real tree from Wisconsin in the Alexandria house. One of our neighbors has some land and a tree farm out that way, and does a few trips a year to tend to the trees. Then a longer trip around T-giving to harvest and sell, and they bring back a number of them for friends and neighbors here in Virginia. So here's a photo of the tree.

Also, the apple squash and pumpkin 'tableau' has been taken down for our annual holiday display, which Mary put up last night after we did the tree.

One final holiday tradition I'd highlight here. Every year after we finish the tree, we play the holiday polka "Must be Santa" - it's on the Rounder Christmas album by the same name. A second great song off of this CD is George Thorogood's "Rock and Roll Christmas" - just checked and it's an easy search to find this on Amazon...I agree with the reviews there as well.

Holiday Decorations Part 1

There is the possibility we'll be spending part of the holidays at the cabin, so we bought a tree and some music. Not a real tree, mind you, as we are going to be away for long periods of time while it's up...this one came from Wal-Mart! And, we bought some tunes for decoratin' -

Projects Update

Here's a long overdue post. We’ve reached the end of the first phase of repairs…we covered a number of the larger ones in the blog already, especially when we had to hire somebody. But also we did finish up a couple of sweat equity ones as well. No doubt the home improvement enthusiasts among our readers will see some natural opportunities to combine several of these into larger projects!

Photo is of Mary and Gracie in the living room of the cabin a few weeks ago - enjoying the new gas fireplace and insulation!

Projects completed:

Get rid of old freezer in the shed
Install new gutters at back of house
Secure gas line at rear eave to of house
Electrical: install GFCI recap/3-prong outlets (partially completed)
Relocate ground wire to exterior
Deal with drain condition at rear door (taken care of by new gutters)
Recaulk windows (we replaced most of the windows – will need to do the larger ones in the future)
Remove loft in livingroom (sweat equity!)
Install new exterior light fixtures
Install carbon monoxide detectors and add additional smoke detectors
Have septic field emptied Apply sealer to wood frame at window in large bathroomReplace electric heating units - wall heating unit in dining area doesn’t work
Install new ceiling fan in living room
Tear down lean-to at rear of small shed (more sweat equity! Thanks Chris!)
Regravel driveway (we got the neighbor to do this, as the erosion was caused by a building project on his lot) Install damper in fireplace
Paint small chest of drawers and closet door in small bedroom (sweat equity)
Insulate water lines (sweat equity)

Higher priority projects:

These are projects we are going to try and tackle during the next year.

Examine under the house for potential issues with the post-and-beam construction and insulation installation
If beams under addition are not PT, coat them with waterproofing
Relocate dryer vent from under the house
Where shingles on back of house are deterioriating, replace or install flashing
Repoint stone retaining walls where cracked.
The pool (this is major and a future blog topic…enough to say that it is a five-figure project!)

Lower priority projects:

Several of these will be sweat equity during the next year, but a few of them require a bit more thought.

Replace/frame lattice under addition and make sure portion of lattice can be easily removed to allow access under addition
Masonry on terraces: level and relay existing brick patio on upper terrace (this is one of several exterior projects we need to take on – will probably combine them into a major effort)
Add protection/covering to threshold in laundry/back door
Paint or finish laundry room floor
Replace flue top/add chimney cap (less urgent now that gas fireplace is installed and the inside flue has been closed off)
Add new sliding louvered doors to large closet in addition hallway
Rescreen small porch off master bedroom
Add bolts to ramp on small side porchGlobe to cover bear bulb in closet
Replace two cracked floor tiles in large bathroom if possible
Trim trees and bamboo especially near garage
Reroof garage and fix electric problemsRebuild brick grillRemove decorative mirrors from wall in master bedroom

New projects:

During the major work we did so far, here are a few more we identified and need to prioritize.

Install new installation and tongue and groove paneling in the addition – similar to what was done in the stone part of the house (higher priority)
Seal moist area on rear wall of stone portion of house (may not be a problem since new gutters were installed)
Secure kitchen counter top, add anti-tip bracket to range, and replace vent fan in kitchen (we may turn these into a kitchen remodel)Restain/seal cedar shingles Add blow-in insulation to exterior walls in addition (higher priority)