Let's go swimming

My husband was moving a pile of wood chips by the pond in our back yard when he uncovered a clutch of 20 ping pong ball sized eggs. They were a light green and very leathery. Snapping turtle eggs. How big does a turtle have to be to lay 20 ping pong balls at one time? Here are some of them.


Are you kidding me?

It's cold in here

At last we are insulating - just in time for the warm weather. Kevin Fleming contracted with North Pole Insulation from Whitehouse Station. First, they used spray on insulation on all the stone studded walls. This stuff is incredible - it comes out of the hose as green liquid and then expands filling every crevice. It becomes as hard as styrofoam.



Then came the batting insulation - R30 for the ceiling and R19 for the walls.

The #%*#^!*%&# weed

The above is a picture of the worst sort of invasive plant ever to make it's way to the United States (maybe with the exception of kudzu). It is called Japanese Stockweed and of course, it is all over our yard. The previous owner had some fill brought in from road work and spread it from front to back and the roots were in the soil. It is almost indestructible. It is impervious to fire, it loves Round-Up and by mowing it you are simply pruning it and making it stronger. It's roots can grow to seventy feet in length and the plant up to eight feet tall. In England it is so rampant that the cuttings are considered and treated like hazardous waste with a heavy fine for not disposing of them properly. Once you know what it looks like you will notice how it has proliferated along roadways all over the state. I called the NJ Department of Agriculture and was told they never heard of it and never had any complaints about it (?). I called the Rutgers Extension and one way to get rid of it is to cut it down to the ground and not let any leaves grow until it dies which is fine if you have a small patch of it. I have hundreds of them. Last year I kept mowing it and sprayed it with Round-Up a couple of times in September when the plants are storing energy in the roots. It didn't work. This year I will mow it down and cover a small patch at a time with black plastic in July in order to cook the roots and try to kill it that way. If anyone has had success in eradicating this demon please let me know.

In the gutter

Today it was time to put up the gutters and leaders and get some of the water away from the house. Steve Zander and company did a great job putting up the white aluminum gutters. They were rolled out of a machine on his truck. Then came the copper leaders. We used copper because it is so cheap now. Ha ha. Actually, the architect thought they would look a little more authentic and they do look great. We saved some money by using aluminum for the gutters and they can't really be seen against the white trim.


The copper leaders took a little more time and work. Here is Steve applying flux to the seams and soldering the pieces together.

The house, just about finished.

The sawmill

About a year ago we had a huge broken limb removed from the horse chestnut tree on the side of our house thinking that one day we would make a mantel out of it. How cool it would be to have a mantel made out of part of the tree outside our window. I am just trimming the tree a little but you can see on the lower left where the branch was cut.



Well today was the day. We loaded the branch into the truck and took it to a small sawmill in town. The young man, Travis, who runs it asked if we wanted to watch him mill the branch. Of course we stayed to watch.



It was a unique place filled with old saw blades and tools and a late 1800's planer. This looks safe.



He had a boom jerry-rigged to an old truck. Pretty resourceful but I don't think OSHA would approve.





It is finished being milled and now Travis is taking off the edges with an axe.



The final product before staining which we will do in the fall. Thanks to Corey and Chas for lifting it - it weighs a ton.


If anyone is looking for wood for making furniture, Travis at Middle Valley Lumber has a huge stock of extraordinary wood of all kinds - walnut, cherry, hickory, oak, etc. all dried in drying shacks on his property.