Rocking robin..

Not much to say today.... Front room about 1/2 done. 

Not sure if they will finish tomorrow. I suspect they will be finished except for the edge pieces that need to be cut. 

I would think another week on the floor... Grout still as well. 

Door frames, window sills and baseboards....

Did not spend too much time in the yard. Watched the robins for a little while.

Maybe he thought my garden gloves was another another bird.

Plum'n in a week?

A few more pictures of the basement without the worker bees...

Cold room on left and the bathroom room on the right. 

The cold room will get finished with more insulation, dry wall, vents to outside and a door. The water heater will go in the back in the middle. The bathroom will remain much the same as it is now... with wiring in place.

Upstairs .. Here is a better view of how far the in floor heat goes towards the woodstove area.

Thinset down over the mat and cable.

And here is a good portion of the living room floor completed. The whole floor was covered in thinset before the floor crew left.

Outside the yellow plums are getting real close to ready.... Thinking within the week...?

Here you can see the apples and hazelnuts looking good. They have another month or two to go. Out front the walnuts are growing nice and back near the greenhouse I eagarly await the figs to ripen.

It has been a bit crazy this year with all the warm weather.

Here is another look at the back of the house against the white cloudy/forest fire ash sky.

Things are almost clear and the sun has made an appearance.

A step above

So where are we at on a Tuesday evening...?

Floor guy did not come by on Sunday. Forest fire smoke blew into town turning the morning into an eerie orange Martian world, or at least a 1960's TV idea of Mars. The afternoon everything was just grey and thick. The only critters that stirred were the deer of course. In the last few days I have picked up almost 100 yellow- albeit green plums from the ground. Some nibbled, others just knocked off the branches. The lettuce got another trim, as did the fennel. I had tried to lay out some smelly oregano, but that did faze them.

I have saved many wood scraps throughout the build- the shed is full. And as I have mentioned I have trimmed back the hazelnut tree and the cut pine branches from the front (hydro cut). He here is my twig stash....

On Monday floor guy tested up the the new cable, vacuumed the floor and put down the cable.

You can see the two cable sensors in place.. one is a back up. The mat is just protecting the floor and cable from visitors.... That whole banished thing did not hold up, ha!

But as you may have noticed from the corner above, not the best layout... Leaving a blank spot.

The other cable was too long, this is the next shorter. Perhaps a more strategic layout....? The blank on the right is beneath kitchen counters, that's okay.

Anyhow Tuesday saw many workers back on site, contractor included. My woodstove platform is in place.... It is a very small woodstove.. for a small house! 

I did not take a good picture to show the cable, but it was sorta rearranged to span a bit more floor.

You can see it closer to the stove on the right, and below you can just see a teeny tiny bit. There is still a cable void behind he door where a wood box will sit anyhow.

Downstairs, all the stud walls are in place for the cold room and the unfinished bathroom, this is the bathroom below. It is framed to receive a pocket door.

Same area of the room.. But from father away.

Below the crew is working on the cold room insulation. I decided to blot out one guy's face rather than ask him if he cared if he was in my blog. 

You can see that the electrical boxes are all in place in the basement.

It's getting there.....when will I move in? 

Your guess is as good as mine. Upstairs floor another 3/4 days. Bathroom, kitchen, woodstove. Downstairs more insulation, wiring, drywall.... A few doors, ceiling fans.....

Deer tracker.

It was Saturday and time to get to work in the yard again. Yesterday I finished about 1/2 or 2/3 of the pile of brush from the hydro installation cut. Things continued to dry out in the heat and the dry tinder so close to the road was a bit scary and a bit messy. I sawed off some big branches for small logs. Firewood for winter 2016. Today I finished my job and soaked the ground just to be safe. 

Oops forgot to take a picture of my little stick/ log pile under the hazelnut tree.

That looks nice and neat now. The ground is all twigs, branches and needles... But it would be nice to get some plants in there....

I have discovered that not only do I have two 96% dead blueberry bushes near the back fence, but I also have three sorta healthy ones along the fence line... I have picked a total of five blueberries from two shrubs. I have also picked about 6 lbs from a friends garden a few streets over, but I digress.The truck that hit the rhododendron months back, also ran over one of my blueberry shrubs. Anyhow with some more love and water maybe next year might be better.  

I decided to clean things up around the bush that was run over, and I dug up some of the wildflower/ weeds for transplant to the front. I moved the lavender over and put a few rocks in place for support.

I did not do a great transplant operation. As I stated, not great soil and I did not bring much with the plants. I am betting on the prolific hardy nature of these plants.

I should add that the talk on the street this morning was that the young buck had returned with some friends early this morning. Either two or three in the party depending on which neighbour you ask. I had observed tracks and had done my best at reading them. I noticed that it appeared that deer had entered on the south side of the house and left the yard on the north side. It was at about 5:30 in the morning. The neighbour attempted to yell at them to get out of the yard, but they did not listen. Others shooed them down the street away from everyone's yard. A few plums were probably eaten, but no mess was left. The only real loss was once again my yellow rose.

The floor guy was busy all day and the hallway is almost done.

It's getting there... Floor guy said he would be back tomorrow to finish up the hall and lay the cable in the front room. That's good news.

Here is a close up of the expansion joint between the hall and the bedroom.

Here is a nice view in the back door. The tile really does look like a barn wood floor. I am liking it.

But the real exciting news is that I picked a tomato today. I have two different types of tomato plants and a few other 'soon to ripe' green tomatos. I have never grown tomatoes before... So this is the first tomato I have ever picked from my own garden.

It's a Roma tomato and it's not really that big....

Here is a double sunflower to close the day. It's in the neighbour's yard and there is a bee buzzing in there...

Bridging the threshold.

Today the floor guy appeared on scene again. This is good.

First off he began by laying out the tiles. He plans to make a straight line through the house from the back door to the front. The tiles will have to get cropped as they go by the wall. The wall placement was designed (by me) to hold the energy in the room (feng shui), to give the room good chi by not having the front and back doors line up.... Or something like that...

I was busy outside of course. When my contractor cut down the branches for the hydro line he just left the branches in a big pile. I spent the day sawing up branches for firewood and dispersing the rest on the ground.  

In the back I could see that the evil young buck had been in the hood and knocked off a bunch of plums, while nibbling on a few. They are not even ripe yet!!!... The yellow rose is still there though!

Back inside the hallway tiling has finally begun.

I came back later on in the evening to check in, and to close the greenhouse and apparently the shed door as well which I had left open. 

I should have taken another picture showing the entrance to the bedroom, for floor guy did finish off the last rows in the bedroom. Plus floor guy tiled the door threshold which had an expansion joint underneath. This is in place as this is the bridge between two different heated areas.

The sunset had almost taken the light from the sky, the day was done.

Floor guy said he would be back tomorrow.....

Will he finish the hallway or will he lay down the front room cable that he will pick up on his way over, switched up from the longer cable. Tune in tomorrow to find out.....

X marks the spot.

Not much going on... It's still very hot out. 

The crew finished off the framing in the basement.  Wiring is next.

It will be an 'unfinished basement' but the walls will be finished.  I just figured I would end up bumping into and wrecking the vapour barrier if it was left exposed. There will just be a cement floor and the roughed in plumbing, (someday bathroom) will just get studded walls. The cold room will get studded and insulated walls all round and the ceiling will be insulated so as not to make my bedroom any colder than it needs to be. The cold room will have two vents.. A warm air return up high and a cold air enter that will have a pipe down to the floor.

I am not exactly sure how things will proceed around the water piping. Not sure why it is so close to the wall, maybe it will change.

And that's about it.... I bought a couple of exterior lights and then took one back. The deck outside light is so high up that some lights just leave you staring up inside it rather than looking at the light shade - if that makes any sense. I am opting for LED lights as well.

I spend the day looking for stair (fence) post caps and ceiling fans.... I miss Home Depot.

I would hope the floor guy will return sometime soon.... The crew and my contractor will not be back until Monday.

So the sun continues to make things hot hot hot and the sunflower keeps expanding.

My yellow plums are almost yellow, but still quite firm.... Maybe ready to pick next week, probably two weeks.I have not seen the young buck and there does not appear to be any new damage to my veggies, rose or other flora, but he is leaving his mark behind.. Or rather his behind is leaving his mark...

That's a shitty way to end my blog today.... Hmmmm....

I will add that I ended my day by spending almost two hours picking blueberries a few blocks away.

We are not in Texas, but...

It's Canada Day, a statutory holiday. Floor guy is not here but the regular crew have been busy this morning. The basement is finally get attacked. The above ground studs have been waiting patiently on the cement bottom to get studded and then the insulation can begin.

North wall studded with tar paper against the cement.

West wall done. You can see the paint and tile supplies getting moved around.

South wall almost done. I think they ran out of tar paper.

Outside a fun little butterfly was checking out the oregano.

I have two types of oregano. The yellow, and this green variety that grows taller and has these pretty little flowers that the bees really love.

A bear was spotted this afternoon. It was crossing the street, quite a distance away, down towards the park. Apparently it has been frequenting that area. I guess I am not on the route until my yellow plums ripen. Speaking of yellow, aother rose has bloomed. I have doused things in the deer repellant hoping the young buck stays away from it.

This flower keeps getting bigger!

And home to the cottage by the see finds Dora enjoying the sun.