Tiger And Wood

     House construction has taken a back seat to winter preparation for the last two weeks. Winter is plodding steadily toward us and will be here in earnest by the first of November.
     We had quite a lot of wood left over from last winter stacked and dry down by the barn. all of that wood, spiders and all, was moved into the basement for this year's fires. Six rows deep, it totaled about three cords. My guess is we'll use two. We'll see. The house is a lot bigger and we have two fireplaces.
    In any event, after all the wood was stacked in the basement, Ed needed to get the TV cable ready for the satellite TV guy to come out and install the dish. He had to climb on top of the woodpile and six rows back to hook the outside cable to the inside cable. He had a special tool for crimping the connectors together...nothing else will work.
    Now I'm upstairs at the computer when I heard a lot of banging and clanging, and I thought "Gee...I thought that crimping tool was going to make it easy. He's sure having a tough time hammering that thing together." The banging continues.
    Several minutes later, Ed comes up out of the basement. "Didn't you hear me calling you?"
   "Uh...no... I heard some pounding but I just assumed you were working down there"  I said.
   "I was yelling and pounding on the ceiling for you to come help me."
   Oops. He had dropped the crimping tool down the back of one of the stacks and needed a flashlight.  I'm just glad he wasn't hurt and yelling for help because I would have never heard him.

    Now that all the old wood is up into the basement , Ed has been splitting all the wood left over from the creek restoration project for future winters. The creek restoration required one existing alder to be removed. Part of an old big leaf maple had fallen down and had been dragged out of the way, plus there were some large cut-off pieces of douglas fir that were discards. Wood's wood. Ed hooked the log splitter up to the tractor and went to work. Day after drizzly day, Ed has been cutting the logs into 12" rounds, dead-lifting the rounds up into the splitter. When the wood is split, it gets piled into the Gator, driven up to the barn and then stacked at the side of the barn to dry for next year. See those logs? I don't know how much a 12" round off of one of those things weighs, but my guess is after you've lifted those all day, you probably can skip a trip to the gym.
    Ed gets frustrated because he's been pulled by time-driven chores like the wood cutting, and not been able to work on the house. He was working so intensely on the house for so long, then pulled away by the need to cut the wood before winter. Now he feels the pressure of unfinished projects inside the house.

Small Items: 

1. Adjust oven on the old stove. The propane to oxygen balance is incorrect, and there is too much moisture      
    coming off the heat to use the oven.
2. Hang drapery rods in bedrooms. We don't need them but guests feel a bit exposed.
3. Stain stair rail parts..ballisters, rail, newel posts. I'm looking forward to this one.
4. Hook up spa tub.
5. Order and install backsplash tile. This is my job and I just haven't done it.
6. Sand basement floor in preparation for staining the concrete.

Big Items:


1. Shingle the columns.
2. Re-grade part of the back yard, install retaining wall so he can
3. Build back porch stairs.
4. Install upstairs balcony glass rail.
5. Install porch rails.
6. Pour cement between house and garage.
7. Rebuild stairs to apartment to meet code.
8. Get the final on the permit.

     I use the terms "small" and "big" loosely. They would actually be "big" and "humongous" if most people were doing them. Ed always makes them look so easy.

    In the evenings we have been preoccupied with pets. We have a new cat, Tiger, who lives on the porch at night. Our other male cat, Midnight, is definitely top cat. Once Midnight goes into the garage for the night, Tiger appears on the porch for dinner and some attention. He's not a feral cat, but he's not a tame one either. It's taken several weeks to get him to the point where he will let us pet him and pick him up. He's only about 6 months old and trainable. We managed to get him to the vet last week for his shots and a tune-up. After re-establishing trust for the last several days, we  were able to coax him into the house. He doesn't seem to be concerned with Abby, the dog. Kendra, our geriatric house cat is afraid and hides. Tiger scoped out the living room and then tried out the furniture. It was a perfect fit. But he only stayed there for a minute, then had to run for the open door to make sure he wasn't trapped. He's a funny boy. We're hoping he and Kendra can work out a deal where Tiger can sleep inside out of the cold.