Yes.  I am also learning how to tape up seams in drywall.  It's actually sort of fun and satisfying.   I must admit that I would be having MORE fun if the drywall mud were purple or turquoise  or even lime green instead of off grey.  


They could come up with something like that.  Right?  Kind of like purple fade to white elmer's glue-in-a-stick?  
I also must constantly fight the instinct to just run to get the duct tape and spray paint, but the process of smearing goo into a crack in the wall and smoothing it down is a lot like painting.  Or pottery.  It's messy.  It accomplishes something.  Your work is immediately visible.  I like that.







I do not like this.
















Or This.

What crazy person put this toilet and sink in here before finishing the drywall?  I mean, really.  Who can reach in there?

I can't even fit the blade in this corner.  Oh - wait - yes I can - If I crawl Underneath the sink and carefully wedge the corner knife up between the sink and the wall, I can sort of smear it downwards . . .





Oh - and installing this light fixture before mudding was a brilliant plan.

You would think this guy was under some pressure from his wife to get a functional potty room into the house NOW or something.

I'll tell you something else brilliant.  It turns out that the water supply fixtures for this sink have some sort of "emergency flow restriction device" or something.  Which means that if you turn the water on full blast too quickly, the sink seizes up and shuts off the water on you.  For HOURS.  Or until a plumber comes and takes the Whole Bloody Apparatus Apart  and resets it.  It's supposed to protect homeowners from water damage if their faucet breaks and starts spraying all over the place.

Well, do you know how many times I've had my faucet break off and start spraying water all over the place on me in almost 41 years? 

None.  Never.  Not at all.

Do you know how many times I've had something go horribly, hideously wrong in the kitchen or the studio and need several gallons of water at 40 tons of pressure NOW! in order to contain the damage or rinse out dye or spilled paint or caustic chemicals or just to pressure wash the burned rice off the bottom of the pan?

Daily.

There had better not be little flow inhibitors on my studio and kitchen sinks.  Let me tell you.


This photo makes it look like I've been put in time out, but I'm actually putting mud in the corner behind the toilet.  (I wonder if there's a difference?)  While Moly runs around taking pictures of herself with the cat. . . .   BTW - that cat has been through about 5 names already.  The latest being something Irish which I can neither spell nor pronounce but which means "she who inspires terror." 

We are still holding the line on it remaining a barn kitty.  Molly may have to go live in the barn, too.  I am appalled at the amount of garbage this kid has.  There's no way I want it all to come into the Beorningsetead.  She has more laundry than most third world villages.  But she thinks up awesome names for cats.

I've spent a lot of time at the Beorningstead hanging about feeling utterly useless.  Let's face it, I am my mother's child.  That means I am not really a perfectionist.  We could be related to Red Green.  We like Duct Tape.  We just want to get it done.

My Sweet Beorn, on the other hand, can (and will) dig a painstakingly perfect square hole.  He measures three times and cuts one.  And if that isn't good enough, he does it all over again.  He doesn't care how long a task takes as long as it is done properly and well.  I honestly don't know how he can stand to live with me sometimes.

So a couple of weeks ago, he showed me how to install outlets.  I was amazed at how easy the first couple were.  Sure, I had to crouch on the floor and use an irritating little non-ratcheting screwdriver - but the process itself is simple enough.  Black wire gets hooked around the gold screw, tighten it down.  White wire gets hooked to the silver screw and the copper wire has to hook on the green screw.  No problem.

But sometimes you have to lead from one outlet to the next.  That's not so bad because you just connect the second wire to the second set of screws except that there's only one green ground screw so you have to connect a short extra length of copper to the two copper ground wires, hold it all together with a wire nut and connect that third length of wire to the one green screw. 

Then you have to cram all of those wires into the box, and screw them in. 

This sounds easy.  It is not.  This is why electricians have big, meaty fingers with which to apply hundreds of pounds of pressure on unruly wires, squeezing and folding them to fit with one hand while pushing the outlet into the box with the other.

Sometimes you have to do this in very tight quarters, almost standing on your head.

Sometimes you go through the whole process and discover that you have installed the outlet Upside Down.

Then you have to unscrew the outlet and turn it right side up and try to get the wires to all fit in again in a new configuration.


This is why electricians are paid big money.  This is also why they have ratcheting screwdrivers.  I bought one the other day.  It makes me happy.

Yes!   A shower at the Beorningstead!















And this is what Molly wants to bring home. 

How can we refuse?

(Please - help me find a way to refuse!) 






It's so soft.

And cute.

And fuzzy.

And it rides on her shoulder.

















And it hasn't actually pooped on anything or clawed up any sofas or barfed any hairballs yet so I'm still susceptible to the cuteness.   Beorn is remaining strong, though.  He says it must live in the barn and she can visit it out there.  He remembers stepping in cat puke and having shredded furniture with much more ire than I do.

We didn't make any progress on the Beorningstead last week but we sure had fun.



Monday night's canoe adventure was just the beginning.  We celebrated Bry's birthday at the new house on Tuesday evening.  I made the ugliest birthday cake ever.  (It tasted great, though.) 


The kids ran around a lot.
















Ken made a new friend (I think it's time for Burlington to get Kim's dad stable so she can come home, eh?) 








Gifts were bestowed  (yes, Derek, Linc & Molly - those are climbing holds.  There are plans.)











Babies were bounced. 
















A nest of robins was discovered.
















Wednesday Molly had a concert and Friday was a day of rock climbing and general running wild in the woods. 
















Blogger doesn't like to let me put up ALL of my photos so I'll put some up on Facebook later on this week.  We're loving that new camera!





















........

Literally.

Yes, we are closer to being able to move in.  And the Ft. Jackson Bridge is quickly coming into focus.  It is supposed to be finished by July - a bit ahead of schedule.  Now it is a race to see who will be finished first - will the Beornings get to move before the bridge is ready??? 




I have news about getting an offer on the Ft. Jackson house but I'm too disgruntled to talk about it today.  Maybe tomorrow.  In the meantime, please enjoy these fun tilt-shift photos of the bridge's progress.

This Saturday, we all went to do some work at the Beorningstead. 

Bryan worked on our Teeny Tiny temporary Shower. It still needs water and some waterproof walls and a vent.

Ya.  It's not going to be fun.  But we have determined that we will have to wait for summer vacation to get the roof work done on the back part of the house, which means that the main bathroom will have to wait until the roof is done. 










After sweeping upstairs and pulling off a bunch of loose wallpaper in preparation for priming the upstairs bedrooms and hallway, we determined that it was a good time to get this abomination out of my studio.

It is the sink/counter top that Barbara used to use.  There was a disgusting rickety old improvised hand pump attached to it.  The pump came off with just a teeny bit of prying and promptly fell apart as I pulled it up out of the counter.  The rest of the de-construction was a bit more challenging.  I started in on the project myself but Molly & Maxx, seeing something they could pound on, promptly promoted me to supervisor/journalist and set to the task quite happily themselves.

As mentioned in previous posts, the Amish used huge nails to hold all sorts of things together.  They used several rail-road spike sized nails to secure the counter top to the back wall.   The bottom was inset into the floor and was nailed to the wall, the riser around the counter bottom and to the floor.  Some nails were pounded into the structure from down BELOW.

That thing did not want to MOVE. 




(Don't you love how Maxx had to insert himself into that photo?!)
It was finally dragged out, after much sweating and prying and now I have an empty spot with a lowered floor in my studio.  This is where I plan to put my long dyeing table.  I'm not sure how I will deal with the inset in the floor but I surely am glad to have that icky sink thing out of there.

Oh - our swallows are back.  As I was packing up our lunch gear, I head this little guy singing away about springtime, nests, old barns and bugs to eat as his mate swooped around the eaves.

Molly took some beautiful photos this weekend.











We all love the Dinner Bell.  However, seeing this photo, I can sense trouble a-brewing.  One of these days, Maxx will start yanking on that chain and all 50 feet of it will come slithering down out of the sky onto his head. 

He will cry and then someone will have to climb up onto the roof to wire it back on.










We have running hot and cold water.
















We have a potty to flush.

Yes.  This is a teeneency little room.  That's O.K. 

It will be very handy when Sissy is using the washroom upstairs and Maxx begins pounding on the door insisting that he has AN EMERGENCY! and needs to come in right now.  Very few things rouse contention as quickly as that scenario. 


There are also two working lights in the kitchen, one on the front porch and an outside motion sensor light above the side entry door.  Thanks, Mom!


This is a poor photo because it was getting dark and we were in a hurry to get home for baths and bed.  We're making progress!!