Whoa, Now Blogger...

 This summer has been slower for projects -
a) There's simply less low-hanging fruit to be done.
b) It's been Hot, and Covid.
c) I have run out of zeal for projects that seem never to end.

On top of that, Blogger changed their interface. It used to be that the order I clicked on images was the order they would import to the blog. Now it's exactly the opposite. I usually try to curate images into a story that flows (even dis-jointly) in some sort of order.
Now I could go and try to re-import everything, or I could try to tell the story backwards.
So let's start at the end of the weekend.

Some of you might know about how I've been fighting with my lawnmower all season.
This is the little leaver that's supposed to hold a rear wheel up at a pre-determined height.
Notice that it's no longer attached to the mower.

The power washer guy had come and gone on Sunday morning.
Now the slugs can't use it as a buffet.
Soon, a new roof.

There was an annoying pipe sticking out of the ground down near the road. It stuck out about 4" - the perfect height to hit with the lawnmower. (Which might be why it's falling apart.)
I figured this would be a quick project - dig out the weird pipe so I stop hitting it. I assumed it was an old fence post or something. At 3' down, I found that coupling, so today I'm calling Digsafe.

After reviewing how the rest of the images of the hallway prep/paint was going, I decided to delete the rest of the images and re-import them into another post. Trying to tell that story backwards would just not work. Stay tuned...

A little bit of everything

It's been hot.

It's hard to gather the oomph to do messy work on the house, in the house, when it's this hot.

I planted 2 delicata squash plants. I got 2 delicata squashes (so far).

This is the only remaining fruit from the Cheese pumpkin experiment.
The vine climbed up the fence, keeping this one .. gourd? squash? away from nibbling faces.

Tomatos are coming along. Just noticed some blossom end rot on a few,
so I'll have to go grab some bone meal.

My beans did terribly. I think I over fertilized them. But there's new growth at the bottom,
so I cut off all the leggy tops and we'll see what happens.

"Lunchbox peppers" Truly a waste of time.
Barely bigger than a jalapeno, with nothing interesting about it except it's stunted.

The dill is blowing out, but everything else looks pretty happy.
I'm hopeful that this box can get moved to the basement or the shed
and I can rig a light for it over the winter.

Have some carrots going to seed. Never had that happen before.

Blue Jade Dwarf Sweet Corn. So cute! So pretty!
Such a lovely experiment I won't repeat because what a waste of precious garden space!

Dragonflies love my yard. Blue, green, black, and golden ones are not uncommon

At least I can grow cherry tomatoes.
I think these would grow anywhere, under just about any condition, to tell you the truth.

It is color picking time for the upstairs hallway.
The trim will stay white, the floor will stay hardwood (it's more reddish than this picture) and I'm going to have to get test cans, because this is a hard space - The are near the window is quite bright, but the stairwell is quite dark. nothing is going to look uniform.
I'm thinking the lightest versions of #3, 4, and 5 (from left to right.)

The rodent is back

I'm a pretty live-and-let-live sort of person.

Except when the creature involved has hundreds of acres of conservation land to hang out on, but decides my gardens are way better.

There's a woodchuck.

He's eating everything. Mowed down the sunflowers. Smashes the tall Phlox. I have an electric fence up around the veggies, because there's no way I'm watching him stuff his fat little face with all my effort. He dances through deterrents. Sashays through sprays. I hate him.

What it means is that this fall, I have to make another huge push to knock back the brush, expose his den entrances (plug them) and put hardware cloth up to block off under the shed (where he launches his attacks from.)

In the mean time, I've been making slow progress with the stripping of the Office. I have a new orbital sander on it's way to hopefully touch up the surfaces quickly once it's stripped.

Other than that, it's been too hot, and I've been too distracted to get much done.

Now that the wall is all nicely patched, I'm thinking about replacing this railing with something that might look more appropriate when I go to paint it. I found a manufacturer in California who would make be a custom black iron rail for $460 (including shipping.) We'll see. I still need to do that last of the sanding, and then prime and paint it all.

And here we are -

July 1st. The days are still blurry. I'm still employed. The virus is still a thing even if some people want to wish it out of happening.
(FYI - Not going to happen. The virus believes in you, even if you don't believe in it.)

I don't feel like I've gotten a tone of work done since Scott did the wall. The flowers have been growing, the woodchuck has been mowing them down, I put up an electric fence to keep him out of the garden, and the veggies are growing well.

We had a socially-distanced dinner for 2 of Ian's colleagues on Monday, for a total of 5 of us. Frankly, that's as many people as I want to share space with right now. I sort of grilled them about their pandemic habits, and still wiped the place down with disinfectant afterwards, just in case.

Ian and Windy have been working their tails off fixing the plaster for me in the upstairs hallway as a thank you for living here while on a local job. The area was kind of a cobbed mess - horsehair, drywall, a smidge of paneling, and some really bad former repairs.

The door is neat and all, but you see the flaking plaster in the upper right?

The stairwell, with it's bulges and chips in the plaster.
This picture is very kind to that area, actually.

More chipping.

This whole section of roof was sort of saggy where the keys in the plaster had let go.

One end of the terrible.partly-cement repair.

The whole terrible partly-cement repair.
Best we can figure, there was a water leak and the plaster came down.
They "fixed" it with a very hard plaster, probably mixed with Portland cement.
Then they replaced the chimney that is right behind that wall, knocking the smashed bricks
into the attic, which, when Ian removed the terrible cement repair, rained down on his head from above the lathe.

The big bulge under the water leak, due to the house moving and settling. The pressure forces the plaster out.

They came in with Big Wally's Plaster Magic (and it really is). All the plaster is reset, and nothing is loose and smooshy anymore. How it works is - You drill a hole through the plaster into the lath, squirt some conditioner in there (very important for adhesion), let that sit for a few, then squirt in a special adhesive with a caulk gun. Screw those washers into the little holes you've made and let it set up really good, acting like a clamp.

It's like art or something.

I helped! I did this tiny section.

Clamps, clamps, clamps.

Once it's set up, you come back and remove all the washers and screws. The adhesive will have done it job. No more jiggles!

Then they started on the fixes -

Goodbye, terrible patch and bulge, hello drywall repair.

And now we're at a point of final touch up and primer -

You can barely tell terrible repair was ever there unless you know to look for it.

This was a super-saggy slope. It's so much better already.

Closeup of the super saggy slope.
It was *covered* in Big Wally washers to suck it up.

The stairwell - It will always have some plaster waves, because it's still plaster.
But it's not falling down!

I can't even tell that this is where the insulation guys blew a hole in the wall last year!

(Before)

There's a few little tweaks left, and then I need to pick out a color paint for the hall. It can't be too dark, because there's relatively little natural light, especially at one end. I need to keep the doors closed to most of the rooms up here to keep the cat out of them, so it reduces the light enough where it's going to be kind of a trick. I'm thinking White ceiling, SuperWhite Gloss trim, and perhaps a light grey with blue undertones. I'm not sold on it though.
Then I need to pull off the last two doors and refinish them/their trim/their hardware. But! I don't have to do two of the bedroom doors because they are a lovely stain/varnish. I'm just leaving them well enough alone.

Also, I got in my Big Bucket of Dumond 30 Coat Stripper, so I know what I'll be doing with my free time for a while...

Quick update

I know. I'm a super slacker and I owe you all a long post, complete with a billion flower pictures.

But right now, let's just give a round of applause to my friend Scott, who moonlighting as a mason came and fixed my front stairs so I won't go butt over teakettle when I try to walk up and down them.

He even found one of the rocks had drill marks from where it was cleaved, so he flipped and flopped it over so they show! (Third step from the top.)
I'm going to get some thyme or sedium to plant around to keep the dirt in one place.

Sometimes, it's the darnedest things

Back when I was looking for a house to buy, I would regularly turn to MACRIS if it was an old house to see if it was listed. Back in the 80's and 90's there was a huge push to get properties listed in the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System. Then if they qualified, listed on the National Register of Historic places. 
I don't know why, but for whatever reason, I don't believe I ever searched this house.
Or I did and it hadn't been digitized yet, I don't know.

But now I do know - I live in the T.L. Jacobs house. A Greek revival, single dwelling house, built c. 1830, first appearing on a map in 1855. In 1991 when the survey was taken, my house was white, with what I think is a taller front chimney. The sidelights in the front door are full, not half. But the driveway had already been done, and the windows already replaced.

The Stone House (the big red one on the corner) and Brigham Farm (the big yellow one up around the corner) also have entries that are fascinating. This house is quite short and modest in comparison.

But... Holy Geez. 
Research!

Chipping!

One of the big outdoor projects I wanted to get done which is sort of time sensitive was Whacking the Forcythia.
I like them well enough - they are holding back the hillside over there - but they had gotten very encroach-y. Last year I could barely get past it with the lawnmower. Cutting them now gives the plants time to regenerate new growth, so hopefully it flowers next year. After I took a big bundle of cuttings for my mom, I started.

If you zoom in, you can see the row of stumps that at this point I'd already cut and chipped.
I'd say here I was about half done.

The last of the pile!

I raked up all the chips and put them down where the shade from the forcythia
had killed everything under it to hold the dirt back.

This took me from about 11 am to about 6 pm, start to finish. I had intended to chip onto the driveway for easier cleanup, but was restricted by the length of my extension cord.
Now I'm standing in my office, trying to decide which Norway maple saplings are going to go next to open that up a little more.

This weekend I also got in some paint remover. The speed heater is great, but it's pretty messy in the house. Maybe I'm not super skilled at it, but It's just not living up to the ease hype for me. I had heard about this Dumond system, so I ordered the test kit.

Fun times in a box!

This is what was in the kit: 1 pair gloves, 1 scraper, 2 scrubby pads, 3 chip brushes,
1 package special paper, and 1 each of regular, high-test, and masonry paint remover.

I've started with the Regular remover in patches to see how long/how many coats it will take.
At the top: 3 coats/removes, little yellow bar is only 2 coats/removes, lower block is 4 coats/removes. 

Timing is tricky with this one. You want to leave it on as long as possible to let it work, but if you leave it on too long it starts to harden back up again. It seems to really only be taking off 2-3 layers at a time. It's cleaner, certainly not quicker though.

Those of you who's been through Agile/Kanban training yes, I have a sticky-note Kanban board on my wall.)

Hey, if a method works.

 Last week I saw an interesting recipe for Dandelion shortbread cookies on the internet.
So... Why not?

Ahh, humble Dandelion. You're so nice and dry in this picture.
Shortly thereafter it started to rain. soaking me and my Dandelions.

Do you have any idea who hard it is to pull Dandelion petals?
Particularly WET Dandelion petals?
Let's just say this was a one-off experiment.

You make the cookies, roll into a log and refrigerate overnight and then cut into slices.
They were ok. I think the water content of my rain soaked flowers turned the cookies soft though.
I was hoping for a snappier shortbread.

Still trying to get out and get a walk in as regularly as I'm able (though after the Great Forcythia Massacre, I crawled into the shower - that's as far as I was walking.)
It's fun to see what's coming into bloom.

An odd little Violet with oval shaped leaves, not the normal hearts.

Cluster of Wood Anemone

Quaking Ladies!

Little white Violets

Jack-in-the-Pulpet.

May 9th.
It snowed. The hummingbird dropped by. Then it snowed again.
I wore my winter gear walking, and I wasn't overly warm.

Hope you all have a good week. Stay safe.