Tag: Photos

Touching up the chimney and foundation

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As all of the activity was picking up overhead, a mason our contractor had contacted earlier in the season showed up to touch up the top of our chimney and add a protective cap.

While Jason was at it, the exterior of the foundation could finally get some attention – the foundation itself was in good shape, thank you, despite the appearance from the sidewalk, but the housing inspector we had when bidding on the property suggested this as “something to do down the road.”

And it turned out, Jason the mason and his sidekick, Roger, could also relocate our new wood stove and its metal chimney to the corner of the front parlor. I was outvoted on that one (I hate taking steps backward) but will concede that the position will be safer and the flue will have a straighter shot to the sky, meaning less creosote buildup.

The chimney wound up needing a rebuild from the roofline up, but the results look great.

The foundation, meanwhile, got more than new mortar and concrete – it got a coating of Flex-Coat, too, which covered up the pink paint we had planned to replace anyway.

We had considered blue or perhaps gray as the new color, but seeing the gray in place sealed our decision. Somehow, it makes the place look more solid.

We do feel reassured seeing craftsmen who take pride in doing good work, and that includes taking extra steps on details joyfully.

Going ashore once again

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Using what I had previously thought of as life boats was a common practice during the cruise.

Babson Island a wet landing
wearing Converse high tops sans socks
a mistake
lucky I don’t have blisters

a fine-shell beach
unlike any we have to the east
I know of

so here we are going ashore again
this time for lobster

Babson Island, Maine Coastal Heritage Trust

Our new upstairs front half takes shape

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Do we need say how excited we’re feeling?

Let’s look at the continuing progress from the inside.

The northern half of our front upstairs with the small dormer still in place but the ceiling already gone.
And then with the plaster, lathing, and drywall gone.
We finally got to see what was between the stairwell and front. No hidden treasures or bodies, as it turned out. But we could finally see from one of the front bedrooms to the other.
A spate of wet weather presented a challenge on how to proceed with the “dustpan” dormer that was replacing the old roof line. The answer was by working under a large white tarp. Here you can see a new rafter going into place atop the new front exterior wall. The final old rafters and last bit of asphalt roofing are about to removed.
Here the new rafters are in place under the white tarp. Compare this in the south front bedroom to the first photo in this series.
The front upstairs interior stands free of obstruction apart from the old shell around the stairwell.

Next steps will be the roofing, foam insulation, windows, siding, trim, and flooring.

Can this really be happening?

When I saw this tee-shirt, I started drooling

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Where, for heaven’s sake, would this place be? We don’t have a lot of options in our remote rim of Maine.

And then I was told the restaurant was a late and lamented site a block from my home, now reincarnated as an echo of the grill and bar next door. Only, perchance, a shade better.

Well, as a reaction, I did have an appropriate Greek slang expression I’d found earlier when researching background for my novel What’s Left, not that I’ll quote it here.

Our white deer and a fawn

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Eastport, as you may have gleaned from this blog, can be overrun with deer. They do make gardening a challenge.

The encounters become more lively when mention of an albino deer arises. We’re discovering that Moose Island, where we live, has had a series of white deer, including fawns with the gene.

For the record, they’re probably not albino but leucistic, and as I saw in this case, mostly pink. Defining piebald has its own set of technicalities.

This encounter was on a Sunday morning while I was heading out of town on my way to Quaker Meeting for worship. I passed what I thought was lawn decoration and then realized it wasn’t. When I whipped back, this was the best I could capture before lowering the car’s window, and by then they had slipped behind the house. Wily critters they can be.

The deer in question, by the way, is on the right in the photo.