I headed out to the cottage on Friday right after work. Margarit and the girls stayed home again so I was out by myself. Traffic on the highway was a lot lighter than it was a couple of weeks ago on the long weekend. I made it out there in a little less than three hours. The days are getting obviously shorter at this late point in the summer and the sun had just set by the time I rolled in. It was rather cold and blustery all day on Friday, and even more so out in the mountains. I went for a short walk around the subdivision before the light completely faded, and then settled in at the cottage. It was getting rather chilly so I got a fire going in the wood store. The temperature dropped down to about 3 degrees by the time I went to bed. I got up once during the night to check the fire and it was -2C outside.
I slept in a bit a on Saturday. There wasn't really any big rush to get outside and do anything as the frost was still melting off. I looked out my bedroom window in the morning and there was a deer and her fawn about 30 feet away. She was nervously looking over her shoulder into the woods as they headed off down the trail. A few minutes later I saw why... as two big buck with their racks still in full velvet wandered into view. The were peacefully just grazing in the yard and slowly wandered along.
By late morning I got busy and set to work installing some more of the stone veneer panels onto the foundation. I finished up the front side of the house and continued arount the corner on the west side. The plywood sheathing overhangs the foundation by a fraction of any inch on this side and it is really difficult to insert the sheet metal drip flashing up under the siding. In fact it's virtually impossible to handle a 10 foot length by myself. I managed to get two on, but couldn't get the last one in, so I was unable to finish the west side. I got about half the panels on the west side so the last little bit will have to wait until next time. When I have another set of hands to help me I'll be able to get the last of the flashing installed and carry on with the stone.
I backfilled with dirt and gravel around the foundation. My contractor left a two piles of gravel around the use for me to use for this purpose. I shovelled a bunch of it into place and now have most of the final grade in place. I had to adjust the downpipe on one of the eavestroughs so that I could backfill around it properly. When this was finished I set about piling firewood. There was a big stack left from where I had split it a few weeks ago. Margarit had started stacking a little of it and I finished up the job. This took a couple of hours.
It had been mild and sunny all day but by later afternoon some clouds rolled in. It never did rain but with the clouds came hoards of mosquitos and no-see-ums. I was too lazy to drag out the BBQ so I just went into the cottage and made myself a pizza. Once I had finished up that I went for another walk around the subdivision. There were only about eight other families out at cottages along our road, but more in the older more established parts of the subdivision there were a lot more people out. I walked all the way around the east part... probably about a mile or so. I was exhausted and feeling pretty sore from all the work. My knees and hips were aching so I laid down and turned in early... about 10:00PM.
On Sunday I slept in later than usual and got up and made breakfast for myself. It stayed a lot warmer over night and only dropped down to about 10 degrees, with a skiff of a rain shower. Sunday it warmed up nicely to nearly 20. A repeat of the day before it started out really sunny and then clouded over in the afternoon. I changed oil on the ATV, and the crawling underneath on my back didn't help my aches and pains any. Once that I was done I got out the hose and washed a little more of the dried mud off of it. This is still from the day back in July when Hailey buried it in the mudhole. Then I tried to fix the winch. I got the cable to wind back in but the mechanism is not shifting properly between free and winch so its still not working.
I took a ride over to the big rock pile in the subdivision. The county has been hauling a bunch of rock out of here recently so you can no longer drive an ATV up to the top of the pile. I picked up some nice flat rocks to use for splash pads at the ends of my eavestrough down pipes and put these into place.
Several times during the weekend I took a break from the physical work and dug out my guitar. I am getting a little better at playing and can now strum along to several songs. I have a playlist of these songs on my iPod and play along with these. By the end of the weekend I had put in several hours of practice and my fingertips are getting pretty raw....
Two weeks ago when we were out on the long weekend I placed a radon gas detector in our crawlspace. It has been recording ever since. The readings are high enough to be of concern with the daily reading now up to about 250, and the long term average around 210. This is just over the safe limit mandated by government. We don't live out there, and don't use the basement, but our forced air furnace draws intake air from down there and blows it into the living space. I am going to have to look into installing some sort of exhaust fan.....
Sunday afternoon it was the usual drill. Clean up and pack up and hit the road for home. I forgot to change out the memory card on the game camera so that will have to wait until next time. I hit the road about 6:30 and got back to the city just before 9:30... tired and sore but with a sense of accomplishment.
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