NEW DUNBURY

Doing the trim painting in the garage is taking longer — doesn’t it always work out that way? — as the chosen color really needs a second coat to look good.  However, most of it is second coated now.  There will be a lot of follow-on touch-up work since the brushes have been cantankerous and there have been a lot of awkward approach angles that have lead to awkward “oopsies.”

It’s starting to look cool.

So, naturally, I am seeing some things that “ought to be done” that weren’t in the original plan.  More work.  Some of which ought to pay off well.  With luck, all of it will pay off.

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We have received our occupancy certificate for the garage. Yeah! Guess that means we can live there now.

We now have weather stripping on the bottom of the doors which will cut down the visitations from small local wildlife. We still need bolts installed on the right hand valves to snug things up tight. Said bolts are in the mail.

The main area is coming along. Everything is primed and much of it is painted. The intimidating high work around the south upper window remains to be done, but it’s looking good. We are close to completing the “salle d’armes” phase one.
The “upper lounge” needs some some more mudding work, then priming and painting.  The lounge railing needs to be addressed as the “pass the inspection” kluge is really not what we had in mind.

After that, there will be some detailing work to complete phase two.  That done, the salle ought to be ready to open for business.  Of course the workshop will need a lot work, but that won’t get in the way of swordwork.

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And since I was accused of updating this blog, I guess I’ll have to do just that.

Yesterday a couple of the builder guys came by to deal with two of the punch list items. The big one was adjusting the drainage at the north-east corner of the house. We’ll see if it works. Naturally, thunderstorms have fallen out of the immediate forecast.

Today I learned that my arms are currently only good for about 1000 shovel loads of mulch, with attendant barrowing about and raking out. Added to yesterday’s work, we’ve got the future hedgerow berm now covered and part of the “overflow parking” spruced up. There’s still a few more “days” worth of shifting that stuff, but it looks like there will be enough to cover what we want to cover. It will remain an early morning job for a while, since even at the reduced temperatures I end up totally soaked.

Mudding in the garage proceeds at a slow pace due to need to re-mud places where the tape is showing. Naturally, that means I need more mud.

On the wildlife front, today was a day for animal athletics. I saw a SBB (that’s a small brown bird, for those who don’t know) take a butterfly in mid-air. Also one of our local Eastern fence lizards, in departing from the tree down which he was crawling, leapt three times his body length to his chosen landing place. In other related news, I convinced a very agile blue-tailed lizard that he really did not want to worm his way into the garage. This was less difficult than evicting the one I found in there the other day.

We need better seals on the carriage doors.

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And rejects again, this time with reasons.

He wants railings on the stairs (which Michael thought he might) AND balcony. Hunh? Didn’t we specifically say to the builders that we wanted code-approval railings up there?

Then there’s something about electrical boxes next to combustible material. Heck, it’s all combustible. I’m not sure what we have to do to fix that one.

Mood result: grumpy

Guess I’ll go collect the mail before the evening t-showers think about rolling in.

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So you get three posts today because I’ve been away for a while.

Now the news:

This AM while the pest guy (on his rescheduled visit) and I were inspecting the foundation for ant incursions, we encountered a black snake coiled up under the west deck on the brick ledge.  Surprise!

I took some pictures and will see if I can identify him.  He may not be a Black Snake but merely a black snake.  There are several different black snakes around here.

We have been visited by acrobat ants.  Why acrobat?  Because they do “high-wire” routines and contortions.   The first is related to where they like to march in a house, the second to their reaction to a confrontation that involves lifting their abdomen over their thorax.

And we don’t have powder post beetles.  Yeah!  It’s another minor borer who may be a one-time only bug.

Anyway, the pest guy gave me advice on how to deal cheaply with the pests.  If we see ants again after following the advice, it’ll be time for stern measures.

On the good news front, we have grass most everywhere it got seeded.  Much thanks to the periodic thunderstorms we’ve been getting, for doing the watering.

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