Today was a huge day for the woodstove installation. It's not ready to use - it needs an inspection and the plumbing for the hot water jacket needs to be installed - but it's in the house now and the...
We took another big step toward the wood stove installation today with the laying of the hearth stone. This was complicated by the front door being right next to where is going, especially because we want to keep that door...
The last work actually done on the woodstove installation was back in June. What happened? Well, two things. We're still waiting to have the hearth installed, which is behind - but I hadn't been pressing them because we were missing...
Every now and then living near a major research university provides some immediate advantages. Angelika noticed a growing nest of yellow jackets under the eaves of our house. It's been a few years since we had lots of them, but...
I was happy with the work in our backyard, but all that exposed (if compacted) soil had the potential of rolling down the hill in a major rainstorm. Today I took care of that with four bales of straw. Straw...
While I'm upgrading heat sources and tearing up the back yard, I'm also cursing the heat. Friends of mine who tore up their yards and upgraded their heating systems to geothermal, instead of (or in addition to) a woodstove, are...
The earlier work on my woodstove installation mostly involved creating a path to the chimney from the livingroom. The next round of work was more of an upgrade, adding a stainless steel liner to the chimney and installing a top...
We'd talked for years about installing a duck pond and building some sheds behind our house, as well as wished we could have a source of water at the top of the property. Over the past few weeks, we finally...
I had an exchange this morning on the Sustainable Tompkins mailing list that seems worth reprinting here. On 6/5/12 8:31 AM, George Frantz wrote: More importantly than the question of indigestion, in my opinion, is the question of will this...
When I first looked at this house, there was a woodstove in the livingroom. It belonged to the tenants, and they were willing to sell it - but my ex-wife was allergic to wood smoke and really didn't want a...
I'm trying to get back to what I call "Dawn Patrol Gardening", where I take advantage of the early sunrise and cool temperatures to get garden work done. (The dew is less pleasant.) I was carrying a bag of compost...
After Monday's snow dropped one of our maples on Route 366, the Varna Volunteer Fire Company quickly cut away the pieces blocking the road. That left me, though, with a big chunk of maple on a steep hill that was...
If you were driving down Route 366 in this morning's heavy wet snow, you may have had an unpleasant surprise from my property - a red maple gave way under the weight, crashed through my fence, and landed on the...
Last summer, I heard of a bear sighting at Turkey Hill and Mount Pleasant Roads, and immediately knew the bears were moving in. Those bears apparently moved on through the City of Ithaca, but my beehives were in danger. I...
With the higher temperatures, my count of ice lanterns plunged. I couldn't make new ones, and last night there were only five worth trying. I cleaned up the remains this morning - not much left! Ice lantern stubs. Sunday night...
The weather's been tricky since I first started making ice lanterns, but tonight's cold and low winds are about perfect. I've also gotten a little better at making them. The main problem I've had is that candles melt everything around...
"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:5) In the darkest season of the year, the lights go up. Every year, Christmas lights go up on houses, trees, shrubs, and lately, all kinds of...
When I lost my beautiful Spring dog in February, I knew right away that I wanted to do something permanent (as such things go) in her memory. Spring keeping an eye on the neighborhood. In May I bought a bench...
Dryden is blessed with a lot of older houses. Many of them still have a feature that advertisement after advertisement demands we replace: double-hung windows with storm windows. When I did some major energy renovations a few years ago, I...
I posted some game cam pictures of skunks and raccoons earlier this month, but now we have another night visitor: a possum. Possum exploring Possum visits chicken coop. The possum came by a couple of nights, but doesn't appear to...
A few weeks ago I bought a game camera to try to figure out what's moving around in our woods - particularly deer and coyotes. Although pretty much everything I've seen suggested I was getting the right camera, they seem...
I've always loved Etna potter Gary Rith's work, and when I saw this dragon, I couldn't resist. Angelika loves dragons, especially floppy-eared dragons, so I wrote Gary and asked if that was possible. He made two, and today I brought...
A few months ago, David Makar made the mistake of venturing into my avalanche-prone office. Out of the many things available to complain about, he noticed my growing pile of unrecyclable coffee cups. I've been visting the XtraMart on the...
We bought 5.46 acres of land behind our house and neighbors' houses last month, and are starting to work out what to do with it. As I noted before, there are clauses preventing building houses on it and hydrofracking it...
When I first moved into this house, eleven years ago, I really loved how it was set between the woods and the road. About a year later I realized that the same people who had sold me this house owned...
It's changed from rain to snow now, but it was a pretty exciting morning of waterfalls and mud. Waterfalls between my house and the neighbor. Culvert emptying across 366. Fortunately, the foundation and drainage work from last year seems to...
Housing density increased substantially to the east of Varna over the last few months, without so much as a zoning change, stormwater management considerations, water and sewer infrastructure improvements, or even a building permit. Elderberry Corners duplex housing. Each unit...
While cleaning out piles of paper that used to live in my office a few weeks ago, I found the abstract of title for my house. It's a history of transactions for the property, going back to 1900 with a...
I really hate mosquitos, and news that bats are in severe decline because of white-nose fungus worries me: populations of little brown myotis in the 115 hibernation locations the study covered were falling at rates ranging from 33 percent to...
Sometimes I finish a project, marvel at the quality I managed to put into it, and wonder why I put so much time into doing something with so little use. Today was one of those days. A few years ago,...
When we put in our fence, I was thinking mostly of creating the largest and safest defined play area for Sungiva that we could manage, while keeping things looking nice. Instead, I wound up with a great fence that's transformed...
Well, okay, Konrad's a little young for it still, but Sungiva's certainly happy and Konrad will grow into it. New sandbox. Sungiva tests out the sandbox. Family sandbox. I mostly built the sandbox out of parts salvaged from last year's...
Whitmore Fence thought it would take three to four days to install our fence, and I'm happy to report that it took a very reasonable three days of work. Josh installing westernmost spindles. It included about 176 feet of cedar...
The new fence is starting to look less like the palisade or noise barrier I'd written about Thursday. John and Josh from Whitmore Fence spent yesterday installing all of the crossbeams and some of the spindles, and in some places...
Folks passing by my house today might well wonder if I'm putting up a palisade. "First he writes about Upstate secession, and then he goes survivalist." Or maybe I've decided the answer to Route 366 traffic noise is a massive...
Once the sill beam was repaired, it was time to fix all the trim and to replace the door whose failing started the whole foundation repair conversation. Once again, Sunny Brook Builders' carpenter Dan was in charge. The first step...
Once the crumbling concrete was repaired, it was time to move on to replacing the rotted sill beam. While the masons had been able to work in small sections, relying on what remained of the beam to hold things up,...
With the drainage fixed, it was now time to repair the damage that water had done to the foundation. My southern basement wall had scars across its upper face where concrete had turned to dust and fallen away, and my...
The underlying problem with my foundation was water. I can't imagine trading life in Dryden for life in the desert, but it's a little hard on buildings. Whoever built my house eighty years ago (maybe Lloyd Bell?) doesn't seem to...
September was a month of major chaos at our house, as we finally got to addressing foundation issues I probably should have dealt with, oh, about when I bought the house. A serious lack of drainage led to crumbling concrete...
Through an orchard full of black caps and other pointy plants. Our Cayuga ducks are great, but get more and more invisible as it gets darker. Every now and then we need to move them from place to place, which...
Because we're having a foundation wall replaced next month, and because it's just been way way way too long, I've been cleaning out the basement. One of the things I found again was a rotting frame with these photos in...
I'm way behind on everything, but hopefully these photos will give you some idea of the past few days. Well, all of them are from yesterday, except for the obligatory (and fun) Sungiva photo. Sungiva stretches out. Peace march banner....
This morning was sad. I drove my 1996 Saturn SL2, which flunked inspection back in December, to Varna Auto Service for junking. I'd bought it new, with ten miles on it, in May 1996. It had done well, climbing a...
My house had a questionable roof when I bought it in 1999. It didn't seem to leak, but it didn't look likely to last, either. The old roof, looking less than perfect. I've thought about replacing it for years, and...
We have nice neighbors. Last year I had invited a lot of people to my birthday party, more than cars would fit into our driveway, So when the birthday came, Simon went over to our neighbors across the street, The...
I'd been planning since July to take a week off and build a coop for our chickens, but that week never arrived, and it's getting cold now. I finally broke down and bought a Chick-N-Barn kit. The kit was easy...
One of the more problematic features of my house has been the approaches. The front entrance has steep wooden stairs that lead mostly nowhere, though at one point there must have been a brick sidewalk. The back entrance has tilted...
I like deep snow. Spring (my dog) is a little less certain. Dog in snow with lamp. Yes, that's the barbecue grill, turned into strange white pyramid with a handle....
For the past few days, I've heard occasional crazy howling that I've always taken to be coyotes. I heard it last winter too, though usually the rest of the year is quiet. It's eerie, but otherwise fine - except that...
While the sudden burst of plant growth in my backyard was a change, especially since so much less of it was grass, the permanent work we did this summer was mostly digging. Some of that was digging to plant trees...
It's been a bit too serious around here, but Spring and Sprocket would like to change that. Spring as a witch. Sprocket as a devil....
Although we've done some very large things to my yard and gardens this year, there was still a large area in the back yard that was basically just lawn. After turning a smaller area in the front yard by hand,...
While the garden has seen a lot of work this year, it's also been hosting a rather large number of unexpected visitors. Some of this is because of the large piles of decaying mulch around, and some of it is...
There's been a dead poplar standing on the far edge of my back yard since we bought the house. It's been decaying slowly, but today it put on a real show - or at least a visitor to it did....
The garden work has slowed down a little as planting season comes to an end. We planted lots of trees, including plum, hazelnut, birch, poplar, maple, and chestnut, but work on major changes to the overall landscape has slowed down...
I wrote earlier about the beds and paths we built outside my back door on Monday, and on Thursday and Friday we continued that project. Behind my house there is a deck, was a yard, and is then a series...
Joshua Dolan and his partner Grace came by my house today to work on contour mapping and also some construction. I'll cover the contour mapping more when there is a complete map, but the work we did to the small...
The main reason I had trees cut down last week was to increase the amount of sunlight my yard received to make it easier to grow things. This past weekend and Tuesday evening my girlfriend Angelika and I put ten...
It's been bright and sunny, but every time I've gone into downtown Ithaca I've noticed that it seems to be a week ahead of us for flowers. Today looks pretty nice, though! Tulips and daffodils bursting onto the scene This...
I mentioned earlier that I was working on permaculture design for my house and its surrounding area. A key part of that is planning, and I've hired Joshua Dolan to help with that and more. To get started, he and...
I'm starting a multi-year project this spring, changing the current mix of shade trees and ornamental plants on my property and increasing the number of edible or otherwise useful plants. I'm planning to use techniques from permaculture, developing a system...
I haven't seen a huge number of deer this year - though I did hit one at slow speed on Hanshaw Road a few weeks ago - so I was surprised to look out my window on this scene: Deer...
Yesterday I made what I hope will be the last necessary major energy-efficiency improvement to my house for a while. A few years ago, I had the furnace replaced and the house insulated, but since the water heater still worked,...
This winter, I've been trying to shovel my driveway rather than use my snowblower. The snowblower is small, loud, doesn't turn off until it runs out of gas, doesn't do a great job anyway, and is buried further in my...
My water heater's been less and less happy over the past few years, and I'd been thinking about solar energy anyway, so I called Performance Systems Contracting to take a look at possible solar water or power here. (They'd done...
Repairing all of my windows is going to be a big project, one that will take some time, though I hope I'll get better at it over time. I'm also trying to do some smaller projects, though I'm finding again...
Our house-painting saga has reached its happy conclusion. After power scraping in January, Bob and the crew from Perfect Painters returned two weeks ago to finish the job. They spent their first few days prepping, scraping, and priming, and they've...
I'd never planned to live in a white house, and the final coats of paint definitely won't be white, but my house has now changed from this brown: 1259 Dryden Road to this: My house in white primer. As usual,...
When we first bought our house, it was obvious that it needed a lot of work. We immediately stripped and refinished the floors throughout most of the house (and eventually added a layer to the livingroom floor). We had much...
This week's weather has been wonderful, and signs of spring are appearing all over. These are just a few pieces of a developing story. Crocuses bursting with color. Flowers amid the sticks. Sprocket, our small brown dog, sunning herself in...
While I don't love having Route 366 in front of my house, it's been nice to know that the forested property on the other side of 366 is Cornell Plantations nature preserve. Between that and the massive amounts of fill...
The last step in the professional work we're having done to our livingroom is complete: carpenters came yesterday from Perfect Painters/Heritage Builders and installed crown and shoe molding. Will and Luke transformed the look of the room in less than...
Today's the first day in a while that the house isn't busy with painters working on the walls. The exterior's been quiet since last week, as the rest of the stripping and painting won't start for a few months, but...
There isn't a lot of traffic on 366 today, but I suspect a few people may notice the strange appearance of my house over the next few months. 1259 Dryden Road, missing most of its paint. You can see the...
Back in April I posted some pictures of a visiting cardinal. The cardinal still enjoys banging into our windows, but now I have a new visitor: Bird, looking in I'm not sure what to make of this one, since it...
I took some pictures of blossoms on a tree in front of my house. The first picture here is pretty typical flower stuff, but the second has an extra feature you don't normally see in flower pictures, a passing truck....
The Ithaca Journal's editorial today examines the annual assessment process. This process has come under fire lately, largely because taxes and assessments have risen at the same time. I think the Journal is right that annual assessment and a central...
I wrote earlier about how we'd had an energy audit followed by major energy improvements to our house last year. Monday night, I got a call from the Energy Star folks saying that they wanted to take a look at...
I reported a few weeks ago on the energy efficiency improvements we made to the house last summer, and that our gas meter at that point looked very promising. A new bill has arrived, and the results are in: we...
Thanks in part to New York State, my 74-year-old house finally has substantial insulation and a new furnace. When we bought the house, it had been a rental property for years. The owners had lived in it briefly at some...
I live on a rural highway, New York State Route 366. It's a 45mph zone, largely used by commuters going to and from Cornell University and downtown Ithaca, with lots of gravel and concrete trucks going by during the day....
I live at 1259 Dryden Road, Ithaca, NY 14850. Does that address say Ithaca, when this blog is about Dryden? It sure does. The house is in the Town of Dryden, but is just barely in the Ithaca zip code,...