November 2022 Island Trip – Days 1 & 2

I arrived to lots of completed things, which did my heart good. The walkway to the deck on the east side of the house has been replaced with composite wood left over from our Mainland house front porch. The trim I created from my father’s salvaged wood for either side of the fireplace is installed, as is the new oven. After setting up Stella and putting various things where they needed to go, I got to it:

• I am very happy with the walkway replacement, but not the way boys (on both properties) cannot fucking cleanup after themselves. My apologies to all the boys who do clean up after themselves. The first 1.5 hours of a short day was spent loading the rotten verses salvageable wood into different sides of the truck bed in order to a) toss it onto the ever-growing burn pile, or b) place it into the barn. Picking up every little scrap cut end, or crumbled rotten bit of the above, and fishing dead boards out from under the walkway did not do much for my disposition. This situation continued inside the house in the wake of the oven install, but not as bad. Mainly cardboard and styrofoam pieces floating about the floor. I guess I need to tell people to take away the leavings. I will gladly pay to have them removed!
• The trim needed some touchup. I got the spackling done, and brought paint and paint accessories down to the house in order to finish up the project.
• My neighbor to the east and I took a short walk around the lower 5-acres with her doggo. Her pup has become incontinent at 14. Medication is helping a little, but as she says she ‘has to empty him out before she goes anywhere.’ He’s a sweet dog. My mama used to leave a water dish for him on the porch.

My AN came by and we took a look at a few things that are on his list. The first one is a culvert on the east side of the property. He and his wife spent a certain amount of time cleaning it the other day. He made me a long stick with a bit of a hook on the end and thinks we don’t need to replace it. This pleases me greatly… We worked at it just a little bit. He gave me some advice on wielding this big long pole, and we moved on to the pump room. It’s getting quite cold here. We have heat tape for the plumbing in the pump room, which he says he’ll get installed but we don’t need to worry about it quite yet. He also encouraged me to start using the 220 V built-in heating units in the pump room. When I asked him if they would be more expensive to use than a little oil heater, he said that actually no they would probably cost less because there’s less resistance with greater the voltage. You learn something new every day! He will get the heat tape on pipes in good time. I asked him if I needed to protect the new standpipe in dad‘s garden and he said absolutely not.

I retreated back to Stella for the rest of the night. Had a good dinner, spent time playing backgammon with my DH, who procured my burn permit because suddenly the county’s system doesn’t like to talk to Apple products, and I created a very long list.

Day 2:

• I started the day by bringing more things down to the house in an attempt to spend less time going back and forth.
• Additional spackling was needed on the trim boards.
• I texted my roofer in order to get the name of his electrician and find out if the kitchen skylight was repaired. Also reached out to the gal who does insulation (for the third time), and the folks who service the heat pump. One must be persistently good-natured here to make things happen.
• My new tenants arrived a little later than expected due to ferry maintenance problems. We did a walk-through and then went and had a really pleasant lunch. We were having such an enjoyable time, and they were walking back onto the boat, which was also running late, that we paused at one of the coffee shops for tea and coffee. (Have I mentioned that it was cold enough to start snowing here? Merely holding tea was a delight) On top of being most excellent company, it was also really pleasant to simply sit down and not work so hard. So, chatting with interesting, kind, and smart people, and giving yourself a break from work at the same time is a win-win!
• As we left the property to go to town for lunch the company that services the propane fireplace insert showed up. The unit is running like a champ.
• I ran a smattering of errands after leaving my tenants to wander some shops at the ferry landing. The first was to go to the bank and get cash to pay the contractor who replaced the walk way, installed the trim, and refinished the front door of the house. I messaged him to let him know I had the cash and ask him where he wanted to meet. And heard nothing back right away. Next up was the lumber company to pick up two sticks of insulation for the pump room door, a cake of suet for the birds, bigger pipe insulation for the pump room, and a smoke detector for the house. It turns out I’ve had CO detectors everywhere but not a smoke detector for the bedrooms… For four years! The contractor messaged me as I was about the leave the lumber company to say he was on his way to the lumber company! I waited~
• Once back at the property I sanded the spackle, vacuumed up the dust, and ran a tack cloth over the area. Next I primed all the spackle spots. After that I took the sanding block to the back of a cabinet that creates the left-hand wall the counter that the cooktop is installed in. My father never finished the backside of the cabinet. I bought stick-on tile sheets for that area. We’ll see how it looks tomorrow. By this time I was losing light in the house. So I continued my work outside.
• I went back to the culvert at the east entrance to the property and started digging out the ditch to the south of the culvert. The ditch is now going downhill away from the culvert, and begins at the bottom edge of the culvert. I was able to get a little bit more gunk out of it and found that it’s mainly roots. I’m still a little heady re my AN’s thought about the culvert’s viability: that it will outlast both of us! I’ll have another go at it tomorrow after more water has come through and further rinsed things out.

I’m back in Stella for the evening. Baked chicken wings and salad are on the menu.