Flying through July
The month is flying by — as is the whole summer, as they always do. Why does summer always seem to rush by faster than winter does?
Must be because the landscape changes more dramatically in summer: plants sprout, grow, bloom, bolt to seed, and fade in a matter of weeks. By contrast, winter seems so static: hardly any leaves remain in the treetops (looking at you, oak trees), and once the snow falls, the land appears so still and monochrome, it becomes monotonous. Cabin fever sets in; I go off salads and into potatoes.
Speaking of tubers… the river’s running really nice now, which brings a trickling parade of folks taking their inner tubes to the park across the road, for a wet ride down to the confluence of the Sunrise and St Croix rivers. One of these days, I gotta make time to drop the kayak into the river myself.
But work calls — here’s the latest from the little River House.
Back steps and a not-so-big deck!
Built by yours truly, it still needs a handrail (on the posts by the house wall) but is nice and solid, makes hauling stuff in and out of the basement so much easier.
Although it was good exercise vaulting up into the doorway, I don’t need that kind of muscle unless I take up horse-riding again.
The west wall: once I realized Lenny’s chickens have an appetite for the styrofoam foundation insulation, I propped up siding panels as a shield, but didn’t get back to it until last week. In the meantime, a gang of wasps got busy building ahead of me — they had a nest the size of a cantaloupe under one of the panels, so I had to be strategic (i.e. early morning) about disturbing them, and yes, I killed them with killer spray. Not much choice there…
I still need to patch in that bottom row of the horizontal siding, then after the new windows come (scheduled for installation August 15!), it’ll be ready to paint.
These pictures were taken about 4:30pm, almost exactly 3 months apart (May and July). The shadow show changes as the tree leaves fill out, and will continue to slide across the end of the house as the sun moves south for the winter.
Coming up:
The next big thing is for a permanent deck/stairway for the front door.
The guys who cleaned up the east end (link here) will be back Aug. 8 to build something like this. The first sketch I sent included a lower deck, but co$t impelled me to scale back, so now we’re going with the stairway, a 4x4’ landing, and an 8x12’ deck up top. Room for a couple chairs and a table up top, and with a little trimming, a stash place below for my garden tools and wagon.
Or maybe it should be a fort, although it’s not exactly hidden. Hmm…
