Moms with home. Pilings in foreground, foundation exposed, basement studs, then first floor wall with kitchen windows and deck door. Foundation and pilings to be completely buried, and will have (the pilings) posts going up another story to support the first-floor deck. Second floor and roof not built yet.
My hands, I now realize, could best be described on a general day-to-day basis as that of soft baby putty. It took 10 minutes of plugging gravel into a trench with a wooden-handled shovel to come to the conclusion that outside a keyboard, mouse and a squash racquet, my hands don’t see a lot of manual labour. Anyhoo, I lost a little patch of skin on my right thumb; both palms have a little-to-medium-sized poofy puddle blisters.
Also took another couple loads out to our cubicle—which is about the size of a VW Bug—at the storage centre. I then hunted for a cellular phone plan, which I know nothing about, but which the Moms needs being without landline and camping on her property for three months.
I’ve also been studying the inner workings of our non-functioning grandfather clock, which by my father’s decree, I now learn, is to one day pass down to the first born of our tiny outpost in the Werner family, i.e. me. For the past two days I, in just like total rapture, tried to figure out how to release some slack from the three chained weights in the bowels of the clock so we could remove them before the movers come on Friday. This clock has gears. Lots of them, moving at different speeds. I follow their chain reactions and watch them trigger levers and hammer chimes and spin and click and whir. And I got the clock to ding and dong a ton, and finally got the weights off. And get this: There are no batteries! No circuit boards! It’s all very high-tech.
And now some more pictures:
In order from left to right, top to bottom:
- Moms in the trench with foundation, black tar for water-proofing, gravel for drainage. July 4, 2004. All would be burried tomorrow, leveling with the entry to what will be the ground floor (which currently has two walls up).
- Moms in the trench, side of house, ground floor bedroom window above.
- The lot, showing one of its two main views down the valley. Denis Coen, builder, with helper (in red shirt). Moms in foreground.
- View into basement and pilings (which will be buried) for first floor deck.
- Gravel fill load #7 of 15 (the one that gave me blisters).
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