The arctic air is gone, and it is 75 degrees warmer (95 degrees with windchill). Nora can be outside without her paws pinching.In the bee bedroom; I repeat the AL foam caps for the 2×4’s I used in the other room.These joist bays are somehow thicker than the other room, so my AL 2×4 caps come off for rockwool.Drywall panels begin.Drywalled in.Mudded.The utility room has drywall hung.Mudded. I’ll paint them in the summer when we can air out the VOC’s.
WeeOne’s manservant used all the remaining bits of AL-Board to fashion an infrared warming bed for her spot by the heater in the bedroom. Then he went and tore into the wall in the stairwell- maybe he needs a scratching post…I cut away plank sub-wall to find old felt paper with water stains.I clear the bay up to the bedroom above, then vacuum a mousoleum from the gap dropping behind the stairs.The door floats with no stud support. Magic?Nothing up my sleeve…The magician’s trick is revealed: the heavy subwall boards floated the door (and lightswitch), and still do!The giant electrical cord has massive copper wire. It snaked around willy nilly, so I zip-tied it to seat behind the boards.All cleared out- these two bays are part of the addition and are the back of the bedroom corner. The original house starts at the clamp light. The L bay was a bit breezy with a few snowdazzle spotlights along the stud hidden by the door.The L bay has blue-air layer with AL foam/sprayfoam, and rockwool to the baseboard. The R bay is rockwool only.Then I made a removable insulation panel to seal the door. The yellow lids (sprayfoam cans) act as big washers.The exposed 2×4 studs are a thermal bridge to outside temps, so I cap them in rails of AL-Foam. I’d planned to cap them with furring strips, screwed into the 3 lines of 6″ furring as a secure backing for drywall. The furring strip idea is abandoned , and I go with all AL-Foam. 3″ Rockwool fits perfectly, and just proud- so no bugs can squeeze behind the drywall. Rockwool / mineral wool is fireproof, waterproof, mold proof, vapor permeable, and seems like solid rock to mouse sonar. Amazing stuff: never use fiberglass.My N95 gains a furry layer of wool fiber. Safety-comes-when Man likes to point these things out.Ready for drywall. The rest of the afternoon is spent in the bee bedroom starting the same process.
Xander & Voices chase me around ’til I sit by the fire. Cold Paws need laps.I pull the temporary / overnight panels and our sub-zero night had frosted the wall and the cut nails.The blue air mattress is behind the fitted AL sandwich foam- one more bay til sprayfoam-seal of the edges. I head upstairs and do the same treatment for the top of the old waterfall, and put a bit of panel up against the roof as well to maybe mitigate the ice-dam.About 20 below zero last night, and the kitchen’s cold water froze in the dead space between the floor and the cabinet bottom. I used our little vibrating massage ball on the line to free it up. The house only warns you once, so it was time to fill the swear jar.Beaverboard over plaster & lathe.Uninsulated bay drops down below the floor to the rim joist of the house.AL sandwich foam over blue-air mesh.Sprayfoam over the blowing blue edges. Rockwool fills the side bays, as the space is too restrictive for the full treatment.Then rockwool over the center bay, and I insert an AL panel behind the waterlines. Some day I’ll cap it in green board (water-tolerant drywall).The faucet gets an AL foam safety guard against tonight’s -28, nearly -50 with windchill. It was a sunny 2 this afternoon.
Danger & Hurt-Em Hammer adventuring in the stairwell.An addition meets the original house along this mess of water damage from pre-metal roof leakage. A pink flower print cotton sheet is the base layer… Cleaned off, and 10 degrees outside. Do I need to pull those heavy boards. Not sure.Fit this panel of AL sandwich foam for now…Old water damage was drywalled over- the first gypsum drywall I’ve found – over the top of the industrial lathe board; thin lathe board backed with a light felt paper and fronted with thin paper-board and paint.Up on the roof is a 3-way intersection on a N-slope. The leak I resolved upstairs last summer has been a problem for nearly 100 years.Blow-in insulation stops well short of the ceiling, has open pockets, and is infused with mouse tunnels, flies, and lacy moths.Ruined old paneling was never fully painted/sealed, yet sports a dainty boarder.Danger works an oscillating saw…The footer board is rotten, and six inches up the studs to find clear wood.Removing the dead wood.All the tools needed to convince the bad from hurting the good. Maybe drywalling over a water-damaged wall isn’t a fix after all.My lumber stash had one run of treated 2×4, with an inch of length to spare. Cut and fit, with new stud feet and sistered supports. This far low cavity was empty of blow-insulation, and critters had bored in (now blocked) and stashed a treasure pile of mica. I have so many questions…9pm and temps are falling toward 0, so panel is thrown on temporarily.Already warmer than ever before.
The morning of our first round of snow, 6+ inches total. The sun emerged this afternoon to scintillation level, and I x-c skied up to the top of the big hill that overlooks the Little Belt range. Wintery!All cleared of bees and insulation. Center to R the bees had built into an old doorway to the front porch that had been sealed off and uninsulated. Center to L are two bays showing the circular holes drilled out for blow-in insulation.A little out of focus, but that gap is bright with snowlight. The stick frame of the house (sawmill full dimension 2X4!) was clad with heavy board and wrapped with tar paper (some modern builders still prefer tar paper), then the exterior cladding panel boards were added. The interior walls were originally plaster and lathe (as I repaired upstairs last spring), on the ground floor and a few upstairs rooms the plaster/lathe is overlayed with a fiberboard that was the precursor to drywall. At some point exterior panel boards were teased off, a hole was drilled in each wall cavity, and insulation was blown in both upstairs and ground level.The condition of the tar paper is a bit spotty, so an evaporative layer must be added from the inside facing the heavy panels to allow any moisture that penetrates the wall from the outside to dry. The blue media is for exterior stucco, but works just fine in the manner I’ll employ it as a breathing element sandwiched between the heavy panel and the interior vapor barrier I’ll be adding.The blue dimples press against the wood allowing air to dry when necessary, and no bugs or mice.The beehive doorway doesn’t need the blue layer because the bees seal the entire hive with wax to keep the brood safe and dry.Every seam of the panel boards are sealed, the wood face is sealed, and they even sealed their entrance when they left.Seal along the 2×4 and panel- the fiberboard I removed was wax-impregnated as well. I put all the waxcomb outside where bees can find it, as they will reuse it in a new hive. I’m creating a “poor man’s spray-insulation” with foam panel board sandwiched in aluminum, and the side facing outside also has a special white paint layer for hardier uv and weather resistance.The panels are cut a bit small for their bays to allow for the next step.Sprayfoam borders. The panel/foam creates a vacuum seal vapor barrier, and the AL bounces any heat from the room back into the room in winter, and the layer on the other side helps cool in summer.Nora helps me unbury the truck so the afternoon sun can dry it off before our sub-zero temps arrive.I’ve continued to clear the bays til I reached the interior wall- where the 1880’s original butts to the 1920’s-ish addition.All sealed up and ready for mineral wool insulation, then drywall- though it could remain as is and still be 100% improved. The bit of lathe board peeking out is layed over the exterior panel of the original house. This is a trail run / proof of concept for a “little improvement” that would be a game-changer for the house- for now it qualifies under focused triage. We’ll see where it goes…
I wish E was holding my latest bronze sculpture> bees are enviable sculptors!Giant black honeycombs.Strange undulation in gold.Etherial and fragile while structurally perfect. Golden comb is honeycomb.It is really as big as it looks! The black comb is the bee nursery, used year after year, darkening with use.Wagon full of lost seasons.In the bee bedroom the wall has become wonky. Bees have lived in the wall since the 1980’s, but the wall has turned precarious.A bulge pushes into the room, and “bee dirt” litters the floor. Seams are splitting…“Bee Dirt”This little corner panel was placed over shattered plaster over lathe, with blow-insulation and honeycomb behind- and “BeeDirt”.The next bay has no plaster/lathe and no insulation. Something else fills the bay.Honeycomb over a bottom fill of “Bee Dirt”.The black beauty emerges.The empty combs slide out layer on layer on layer…The wood is sealed in wax and the combs follow their own logic.These bays weren’t insulated, so the bees filled the first, and as the wall bulged out, they gained access to the next bay.The new combs are golden and fragile.7 golden honeycomb.Valentine’s day without bees to Bee my Valentine.Peeling plaster and pulling lathe board.Honeycomb construction ended with plug of sprayfoam through old (1960’s?) exterior hole from blow-in insulation.We have all the flavors.Bees coat the walls with wax, then connect the tongues of comb.There’s the Valentine!Lots of these graceful starters.An entrance portal.Another portal.
Xander inspects my work at “mouse corner”; well packed with rockwool.
Then dressed up with corner-round. And the same for the S wall and the E wall to the front door.
The boss and I discuss saw safety when up on the mountain.
The boss is still in-frame as I start to unload.
A 3rd 1/3 of a cord.
A deeper load than it looks from the front.
Full cord in round-stack.
Might as well dig out the waterline.
Two old rusted out steel waterlines ran parallel; one from the house springbox, and the geysering one from up the hillside to run the yard water / corral trough. A bit bent up and cut loose. They leaked and sweated like sprinkler hoses.
I wouldn’t want you to think I dug it out by hand. No. Here is our local WaterWitch, Dan (no relation), using his telekinetic tractor (backhoe).
He started adding the body gesture for the kids at the local expos. It does add to the drama!
The springbox to the house and the torn out waterlines. Prior to this E filled every container in the house with water.
O.K. Maybe I didn’t dig it out by hand. And maybe Dan’s telekinetic skills don’t have any practical applications. It was all Dave and his amazing skills with a backhoe. The green shovel is mostly for leaning on.
Two 50′ lengths of pex-line is laid in. One connects the springbox above to the corral; the connection is against the house springbox and is white pvc with the same still-good compression connection my Dad had put in at some point, on the other end we add a compression connection to the good steel pipe near the road that runs higher than the house-water and to the south. A filter and shut-off valve is added to the house springbox, and connects to good steel pipe just as it dives deep under the road. The pipe is like new where is hasn’t lain in the spring bog for 70 years or more.
This is about where the upper line nests up against the springbox to the house. It took us awhile to find it…
Dan with waterlines and Dan with the leaning shovel.
Dave and the working shovel.
Leaning shovel and working shovel.
Water through a waterline!
I zip-tie the lines together.
Now we just have to reveal the steel lines and make our connections.
A huge dirt covered boulder is mid frame, marking where the new line ties onto the old, about 3′ deep.
Dave pulled back-hoe loads of heavy clay and we packed it around the water tank that I had wrapped with pond lining, as the metal is getting a bit porous. Dave then brought in clean fill-dirt from a sidehill road-cut near the corral. One more trip will cover it all.
The water is slowly filling back in, and has just covered the new shutoff valve (yellow) and screen filter (blue).
We try to squeeze the springbox back to round with a pair of wire stretchers after a little bump from the back-hoe.
All the previous waterline work was done from 5pm til dusk. Now we’ll tidy things up, and Dave and Dan will head up to fix two pasture spring-box issues up on the West side.
Dave carefully makes a half-moon in the marsh above the springbox, redirecting the spring to pool directly above the box, then percolate through the soil and into the box. It works perfectly.
Nora does her inspections from the road.
Old waterline bent up from the backhoe, and the big pipe is the old overflow line (now white pvc).
Next Dave positions old concrete slab around the springbox, now opening the box no longer means standing in a bog.
Dave and Dan head out for much more straight-forward jerbs.
Concrete slab around the springbox. This glass beer bottle magically emerged from the ground, unbroken by the backhoe as it pulled out a long-buried wooden springbox for the house water. Other beer cans emerged from different era’s: an old triangle push-cut beer can (’50s), and few pull-tab beer cans (’60/’70s). Many eras of beer-hydration, as there were no leaning-shovels back then.
The overflow needs me to cut a little trench, but all I have is a stick…maybe I could get the leaning shovel and… Nope. Stick.
A group of deer are in the Aspen, another group is ahead of us. Nora’s predatory strategy is to ignore them.
The severe drought left this stand of Aspen desiccated.
Aspen border the forest along an entire ridge, and the 1/2 mile stretch is tonight’s sunset hike.
These dwarf Aspen are the low end.
A panorama; the pine tree from the prior image gives some scale. This is just the lower stretch of twisty dwarfs.
Over the edge of the Aspen glen is this good old Ent.
The ladies stick together.
Elizabeth leads the way through.
The bear has been through…
Back at the top.
The sun is heading over the ridge.
Twilight is Elk hour, and a few fields down from the house we see this familiar Bull Elk near a group of deer and a cow.
Unzoomed. Even this far away he knows I’m looking at him and heads to cross the road and into the forest and cliffs.
I speed up to cut him off, and tell E to be ready with the camera as we head into a blind corner: he erupts from below just as we round the bend, then wheels and leaps back the way he came- clearing the fence and landing at a run.
Here he is speeding along with all feet off the ground, and his rack held steady.
Unzoomed. He got this far away in the time it took E to line up the camera from the last shot.
He keeps an eye on us as we head back up the valley.
A cold front is arriving, it should be in the high 20’s at night for a few nights.
The hot South breezes gave way to a cold North wind, at last!
Frost on the grass and frozen sprinkler hoses in the morning.
Mornings are spent up on the hill brining in more firewood. This is 1/3 cord tossed from the back of the truck.
1/3 cord stacked. 900 pounds or more.
Another morning of bringing down trees and bucking them. 2/3 of a cord. The middle of the circle holds wood as well.
Fixing the springbox up top that brings water to the corral and the yard put more pressure on the old waterline. I started hearing a burbling hissing Yellowstone geyser/mudpot from across the road when running the sprinkler. I put some compressed air in the line and headed over to look at the fizzing burbler. Here I’ve sawzalled the bush to a tame state, and cut back a passel of the bramblewood laid over the spring-fed creek that flows through.
The house spring is the metal circle at the top L, with the drainage behind the white rocks. The wetland spring flow comes from around the backside of the tamed bush, and the burble is rising behind the mossy logs center R in the center of the “crick”.
This is an intentional bramble to keep the cattle off the water.
I’ll try digging down a bit.
A steady upwelling flow, the Yellowstone geyser effect has faded out.
Next day running clear. I talk with Dave and ranch-wide this makes 3 water issues that need a little excavator, which is the magic number. A few minute with an excavator is an ideal solution- to reveal the level of fix required.
The fall light at this latitude magically backlights everything all day long.
The Ash was mostly green when we arrived, then we had a frost and she got things changing.
A few days later and her green is nearly gone for gold.
The hillsides are putting on a sunset show under a cloudless sky.
We head up the hillside to shift more water to the corral/yard, and continue on for a little hike.
This is the head of the coulee for the house spring. The bear has been living here all fall with a bumper-crop of choke-cherries, old logs to grub, and a springbox full of cold clear water. At the top of the forest there is a shady glade of sweet bright grasses, a sign of the spring water beneath. The bear has decorated the green carpet with a random and thorough design of novelty-large berry-scat.
Nora takes the lead upon spotting the ranch house down the valley.
The ladies make long afternoon shadows in the glowing landscape.
E has to get back to the virtual office.
It has been July/Aug temps of 75+ for nearly two weeks, with dry winds; and mystery smoke probably from one of the summers nearby fires which are officially out, though still smoldering.
I got around to cleaning out this center bay of the garage and discovered that the support pillar at left was rotten.
The wooden framing on the concrete slab has rotted away, and the bottoms of the support pillars are rotten as well. This is why none of the doors have ever worked quite right; it has been on the path to ruin for at least 30 years.
I’ve gathered all the pressure treated wood remnants, and am pretty sure I can come up with a solution without having to drive the 80 mile trip to town.
Pretty good.
The door swings up and is in the way, so I can’t lift straight up. I come up with this wrong answer. The wall lifts and travels toward the jack binding the jack in place when lowered.
At least it settled part way onto the new wooden support, though it is part way off the concrete and far out of position.
I rig up the come-a-long and pull the wall back to position.
Under tension and the jack can come free.
I remove my bad idea, and realize I’ll have to span a 2×4 on the inside across the wall to hold a ratchet strap that will tie to the truck to pull the wall back out. Then I’ll set the jack under the opening for the rolling door next to the column. This should float everything up and allow me to adjust position before lowering down onto the new support structure.
Worked.
The concrete has a scrim of dirt, but the board is set clean to the concrete.
The third layer of thick old salvage plank was needed to make up for more rot in the uprights. They split, but are toed in place and sturdy.
After our singular run to town for all things; there are blue-screws for pinning it to the concrete, more rot and part of the split support salvage are replaced with 2×4 at R, the board at L helps hold the old upright together as it was compromised by the spring tension.
Also, a faceplate of pressure treated 1×6.
The door opens easily and square, and the big rolling door to L is a breeze to manage now as well.
All this cleaning and fixing was to make a spot to bring in log sections for future firewood-
An old wagon axle/wheels are under the tarp, with a welder and odds and ends. Bisecting the two bays of the garage is a stash of old salvage lumber.
The big bay can fit a full size truck, or hang all of Rodney’s game during hunting season.
All good from the inside.
I scraped and painted this a few years back. It could use some redux- but there are 3 other sides…
A wall length of wild rosebush leads to a bundle of wire anchored by the biggest rosebush of the lot. I have to use the come-a-long to pull the ball of fencing wire til I can cut away the roots of the bush.
Then the pickaxe clears down to the cement footing. And take note of the scrub tree at the corner.
The sawzall and I decide the rangy scrub has overgrown the corner for too long.
Plus, it is one less place for errant cows to hide.
I have a length of webbing under the stack, and once it is about 3x this big I’ll put a towing chain over the top and fix it to the truck and drag it over the spent woodpile in a near pasture.
If E and Nora were cows, we could easily push them sans bushes.
The garage is feeling much better, inside and out.
Ash leaves burrowing into the long grass. Time to mow.
A short mow for fall.
Now all the leaves sit on top.
E and I set up lawn chairs and keep the tree company.
I start the short fall mow out front.
This bit was all scarified with the Sun Joe three weeks ago- it was as far as the extension cord would reach.
Even cut short, it is looking good!
Here is three weeks of growth, and the short cut line.
Out beyond the cord reach, here is the same cut line. Not so good.
Looking straight down at the unscarified lawn.
I brought up a 50 foot 10amp cord as a first leg to the 100 foot 12 amp cord, and could finish scarifying the entire yard. I removed hundreds of pounds of bound up mulch.
Short mowed and scarified.
The boss makes a close inspection. Good enough to poop on.