I Think I Can See the End...

... and it looks like Rudolph's butt – way up ahead, catapulting through the black ether of mid-winter; a winking star-burst of exhaustive potential. Yep, the list is shorter, more definitive, but I see Christmas 2010 as the likely terminus for the work of essentially completing this little task I set for myself.
That said, the shell that, for nearly six months, served as a heated campsite is now beginning to manifest evidence in many corners that a real house is in the offing here. Recently, Bruce Oughten and his assistant, Fred, came by for two days of work to get the eavestroughs and gutters installed.Then, much to my astonishment, a Ditch Witch showed up on the driveway late last week. Murray Klassen, the operator for Wiebe's Trenching (Morden) advised me that we are slated to finally get a phone land line in early June. MTS seemed unwilling or unable to share this tidbit with us.

What else? Costco sent a recall notice for my prized Cummins Onan generator. "No, Cummins will not endeavour to repair the unit. No, we won't be carrying Cummins for the foreseeable future." So I found a nearly-new genset over three times more generative that will allow us to run even our air-source heat pump/AC unit and a bunch of other stuff.Oh, and Paula from Manitoba Hydro's Stonewall office phoned with a friendly reminder that my wiring has to be complete by mid-July. And the verandah wood package from Parkside Home Hardware (Winkler) is featured front-and-centre of the house awaiting installation. And McMunn & Yates should be delivering the last of my siding supplies in the next few days.

The inside story is that the tiling David & Dale did looks fabulous. Since they finished that (for me) monumental task, I have finished installing all the pre-hung doors, the dishwasher, the kitchen kickplates, the kitchen cupboard trim, two more toilets, the loft vanity/sink, three medicine cabinets, the master bath lighting, tidy the garage and basement a bit....
Oh, and I managed to swap the snowblower for the lawnmower on the John Deere. What a prize that owner's manual is: cryptic, poorly illustrated and, mostly, pretty useless.
As of tomorrow, I'm switching priorities to three things: the cladding of the verandah beams, completing all electrical installation, and starting the construction of the back porch and the verandah. To add a little pressure to an otherwise leisurely completion backwards principle (decades-old musical allusion there), we are having a birthday celebration for Thomas & Claire in early June, are hosting the choir wrap-up party on June 26th, and the hosting granddaughter, Kate's, first b'day at the end of June.

Hey, the grass and trees are green, the temperatures are pleasant, the flies and mosquitoes are no-existent, and the ticks are few and lackadaisical. What more could a BMW riding photographer ask for, I ask you.

Oh, a post script. The three cats are showing the first signs of getting along.

Der letzte Teil von Fussboden

There's a pun in the title, which translates roughly as, "the last part (installment) on flooring." We're talking tile flooring here.

Ruth had surgery on April 29th to correct the triggering of her fingers on her right hand. On the following Tuesday, daughter Allison drove Ruth and grand-daughter, Kate, to Minneapolis to visit Ruth's sister, Sharon, and her family. It had always been Ruth's plan to do the tiling of our shower and floors, but the diminished hand function overruled that intention. So I was set to learn how to do this particular task while she was gone.

Just as they were crossing the U.S. border, my cell phone rang. It was David Ives. He and his nephew, Dale, had done our taping and plastering and, a few weeks earlier, I had called to see if they might have a few days to do the tile floors. Both of them have done and, more particularly, enjoy, tiling. I, on the other hand, have never done tiling (other than vinyl) and, after the 1,300 sq. ft. of hardwood, was loath to get back down on my knees again. But, back to the Tuesday call from David.
Turns out, they now had some uncommitted time on their hands and David wanted to know how I was getting on with the tiling. I was thrilled to say I could have the place in readiness for first thing Wednesday morning. I hooked up the trailer and headed off to pick up the sub-flooring and other supplies then, upon returning to Ruth's Ridge, cleared the bathrooms, kitchen and mudroom floors.

By Wednesday evening, the sub-flooring was installed. By Thursday evening, the two bathrooms and most of the kitchen tiles were laid. By Friday, the majority of the mudroom was tiled. On Sunday evening, Ruth returned from Minneapolis. It's fair to say she enjoyed her Mother's Day surprise.David & Dale returned on Monday to complete the mudroom tiling which, because this house has more angles than a Federal politician (and most politicians seem to enjoy hanging out in the mudroom) posed a major challenge for measuring and cutting. On Tuesday, they returned for the grouting and, voila, the living-space floors on Ruth's Ridge were completed. What remains is to paint the basement and garage floors to eliminate perpetual concrete dust.

The five days D&D spent have saved me/us a couple of weeks, I'm sure. I can now get to tasks with which I'm more familiar: installing sinks, toilets, dishwashers, etc. I've already hung about half of the interior doors (the first one taking a day; the next, less than 2 hours).
Pictures of the completed floors next post. Thanks so much, D&D, for the great Ruth-surprise and the marvelous Gord-relief intervention.

Yesterday, the verandah wood package showed up. Can't wait to finally get to some outside work after being confined to quarters for the past 6 months.

Time for a Kitchen Party

Well, I was able to keep to my hoped-for target of a working kitchen by the end of April.

When I first suggested to Ruth this interim goal, she said she'd rather not expect its achievement, as everything around here has been taking longer than intended. A very reasonable coping response, but I plodded on. So, it was doubly nice that both of us were surprised and pleased when, yesterday, the oven and cooktop joined the kitchen sink in being commissioned into service.

Ruth's delighted sporadic giggles are wonderful payment for the hours that went into installing the butcher block countertop and appliances. Being a one-man crew meant hauling up two 97 lb., 8 ft.-long butcher block slabs (plus two 6 ft. pieces) out of the basement on my own, followed by the 116 lb. cast-iron sink and the 146 lb. oven (this out of the garage). The butcher block was moved and repositioned many times, the sink got lifted onto the counter and then dropped into place, and the oven got pushed up a ramp and onto a Workmate in order to get into its hole in the wall. In summary, my geriatric fitness program continues apace.

I had a delightful surprise visit from my brother-in-law, Ross, this past Monday. He was in Manitoba for his son, Jotham's, university graduation and so he came to see what all the blog was about before heading back home to Vineland, ON. It was a treat to see the smile on his face and to hear him say that the photos of the location don't do this place justice. Ross has had a long-time wish to build his own place, and he says that following our build online has allowed him to live out that fantasy – although he doubts he'll do it our way now that he sees the price we are paying by way of lack of day-to-day or near-term creature comfort. I must say that I did not fully appreciate (other than in an abstracted intellectual way) how trying this interregnum would be. Ah well, every day is another day closer to completion... and completion is likely to be circa the coming Christmas at this rate.

That said, the days have embraced us with the delights of early spring. The ridge is now pretty much green, with all but the oaks having budded out. We've had our first rains of the year over the past several days, so I'm put in mind of Dylan Thomas' poem, the first two verses being:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

On Thursday, Ruth had her second of four eventual surgeries to correct hand function as a result of carpal tunnel issues and arthritis. She now strolls around with a "Zieg, heil" hand posture, emitting dictates to the moustacheod pilgrim that is your humble blogger: "Wash the dishes; I can't."

So, lieing all around me are the guts of 25 packing boxes (packed by Ruth six months ago, unpacked by me yesterday and this morning) representing the stuff which now needs to be organized and housed in the kitchen cupboards. To the satisfaction of that end, I should now sign off and get the unpacking packed away.

Until next time.