Off grid supplies have arrived

Dad called to say that Bob has delivered all the expected supplies, and that solar panels are now hanging from the tractor shed.
Still a lot of assembly to go!

Finished that weatherizing window trim

Just in time to leave town for WWR in WV in the morning!

Day at Dad's

His garage door was installed today, after which we completed all the sheeting inside. Ready for the solar hardware!

We started the day in the house, where we got the downstairs bathroom paneling at least half up, then stripped the hall ceiling, ready for tile to be installed.

From what I understand, the hall, bath and entry room ceilings along with the remainder of the bath and entry paneling need to be completed before we are allowed to start on the flooring. Then comes appliances, toilet and carpet. Seems SOOO close!

Block wall assembled

Fri Sep 11 07:35:04 EDT 2009

Another Bridge walk year -- and fun in the park!

Rachel and I joined about 49,000 people walking over the Mackinaw Bridge, then spent the afternoon at Thunder Falls. As we were too busy having fun, neither of us was being a shutter bug, so we don't have pictures of the gigantic body slide (how did she talk me into going that high?) or the climbing tower.

Wood cutting day

Got Rachel to try out Gerald's chainsaw.
She had a pretty big grin on her face!

2 days at Dad's

We finished the peak, insulated the shed and got enough OSB on to have the 7'x7' overhead door installed this coming week.



We also ripped out the original 3' high north retaining wall and replaced it with a 6' high beefier wall on Saturday.

Of course, with 2 blocks to go, a Universal joint failed on the skid-steer, giving Gerald something to work on while the rest of us continued working on the shed:

At the end of the day and all blocks installed that we had:

There are more blocks on the way to complete the wall.

Mackinaw City with family

Spent a rainy day with family. Adam drove up and Mary drove down to join us for what was going to be a day on Mackinaw Island, but changed to shopping and dining in Mackinaw City instead.

Back from OKC

It was a 9-day stint.

Fixed that dishwasher (again)

We put in a new 2nd stage filter, but determined the true cause of the arm not spinning correctly was the double-ended screw that holds the arm down. It had backed out a turn or so, causing the arm to be held up, pressing the inner spinner arm upwards to the bottom of the overall cover, restricting the rotation.

Wall painted; Mailbox up

A project that got a boost was David's window, digging out and painting the brick, trying to seal out the water.


Then, I got a hand (or two) to put up the mailbox.

Tinned the roof

Got the long (north) side of the building roof tin on the garage with Dad. From the drive, it looks so much better!

Day of haying

Helped put 1533 bales in the barn with by Dad and brother.

PHS Band calendar

I am toying with making a sharable calendar for the upcoming Petoskey High School Band program. The steps:

• To subscribe to this calendar go to (or create) your Google Calendar account (http://calendar.google.com)
  
• Under "Other Calendars" in the "add a friends Calendar" enter the public address of the band's calendar: 539dl115arq8n0ua5qmvqn4d08@group.calendar.google.com
  
• Once it is in your list, you can go to the "Settings" option beneath that, then "Notifications"
  
• From here you can indicate the types of update messages you need, as well as set a reminder. These updates and reminders can be directed to your email address or a SMS device (text messages to a cell phone)
  

Check it out:

Happy birthday me!

I managed to make the 9 hour drive home after working for a week in Wisconsin.

While out there, I took a couple rides around on my bike, putting on 35 miles in two days. Check out the map I made:

Tractor garage sheeting completed

The last couple days were not good haying weather, so Gerald & Dad were able to get the walls up and sheeted with trusses on top. Today Dad and I got the trusses stripped, eaves faced and Gerald showed up to help finish the sheeting.

Then I took the time to hang the dining chandelier, which opens up the room without all that scaffolding in there!

Ceiling fan up!

Fixed that darn kitchen outlet problem too! Seems someone put drywall over the outlet to the stove, so I couldn't get the circuit to actually work until I rewired them. Luckily the bathroom paneling isn't done yet, so I could just remove the drywall on the other side of the wall and fix the problem that way.

Got the lights upstairs (bedroom and 3 closets) installed and tested. Downstairs bedroom is all put together as well. Moving right along!

A bunch of zeros!

Start electical, worked on paneling

I intended to work on outlets, but Dad couldn't hay, so we worked together on hall paneling.

With the exception of 1 piece, the hall paneling has been completed. Took a while to figure out and make the odd 'wall' to make it possible to finish the doorway from the hall to the basement.

Hey! That darn ceiling is DONE!

The ceiling in the great room is finally completed!

When you add it all up, it was only 5 1/2 days of work, but it was spread out over the last 7 weeks!
What's next you ask? Well:
- upstairs and downstairs bathroom paneling
- outbuilding, walls, siding, insulation drywall, doors, etc
- outlets, switches, lights, etc
- flooring and trim throughout

So you see, there is quite a bit left to do before the open house and big move-in!