I'm going to Long Island to paint my friends house. Hopefully I can get it done in a week, or I'll be going back to finish. By the time I get back Bill will probably be done with the last porch and Freida will have another place to sleep.

The chimney king sits upon his throne.
In lotus position after he lays up brick and stone.
His creative skills are for all to see, above the roof line is where he'll be.
So if you need a word of advise or some mentoring you can entice
this worldly sage by shouting his name up the flue and he will appear right next to you. This swami, this teacher this mason, our friend he goes by the name of Glenn.

Every time I drive by the Grange I blow her a kiss and tell it we haven't forgotten her, we're just busy working at Mikes. About a week ago Robbin dropped fill and top soil on the grounds and on Tuesday he'll regrade the area and we'll plant grass seed. Hopefully we'll get some rain because we don't have the water hooked up. We have to finish and sell Mike's house before we put too much more into the Grange, but we will make her look a little more beautiful by clapboarding the front and if we have time, maybe even painting.

We are on our way to having a full working cook fireplace with crane and beehive oven for the making of bread.Yum, yum can't wait.Here are two of the five huge slate stones we discovered under a thin layer of earth,probably used as a walk some time ago.Well we'll keep you updated on the progress!

I was wiring our 200+ year old house yesterday when something rather ordinary happened. I say ordinary because the type of occurrence I'm going to describe has happened many times before ,as I'm sure anyone working on old houses has experienced. I was on all fours pulling wire into a receptacle when I reached for my retractable utility knife where I had just left it on the floor and it wasn't there. I felt around, not there. So I got up to look around me, not there; reached into my nailbag, although I know I left it on the floor, not there either. Experience has taught me that it'll show up, so I got another  utility knife, a non retractable, not my favorite and kept working for another 4 to 5 hours. At the end of the day I made a thorough search of the entire room but alas no retractable utility knife.
              I come back the next day completely sweep and vacuum, dump out my nail bag,clean the dirt, mouse feces and wood chips and place the bent nails and staples into recycling but still no knife. Well I'm about 2 hours into the morning when I feel the urge to pee, so I unclasp my freshly cleaned tool belt drop it on the floor and as I look down at it, my retractable utility knife drops out the pocket. I just had to laugh.
              Never has this favored joke of past souls been so flagrantly conspicuous. 

The benefits of biting cold weather           are limited.

                              Numb fingers moving like snails across a match book. Opening the small door of kerosene burner, plunging the burning match in while holding it between 2 extended fingers. Seems as if this could qualify for an Olympic event. Burner comes to life with a thin wisp of smoke. Outside the wind mockingly howls through the gray bones of leafless trees.
I have become that 200 year old ghost now man again in the frightening wilderness. My clothes are handmade and repaired many times, boots black and cracked, coat of wool heavy, I smell like the animals I keep.
                              And this same wind howls, down the same hill, against the same timber framed house. But  I move my hands over the now warm flame. And it renews me,reconnects me to the now.
                                                                           The benefits of biting cold weather are few, but they run very deep.

                             This house will remain as cold as it is outside for at least another year. A heating system in, walls insulated, plaster finish-coated and painted, horizontal wide board wainscotting applied, interior trimmed out with appropriate period nails, appliances, ready for habitation.
                             And yet I feel something very important lost. With comfort comes softness, we become disconnected from our place. And soon the gentle caress of progress marches us numbingly away from the here and now.
                             So I pick up my nailbag and begin to work, not wanting to become too warm in this place.

                                                                           The benefits of biting cold weather are limited and I am thankful for it.

   We bought a broken house,

                                                                  buried in the ground, barely an arthritic finger left to pull itself up.  

                                                  The original structure was suffocated by later additions.

                                                                       As if no tap root existed to anchor it to this place

                                                          it grew randomly,

across the ground, with only the saddest of intentions.
                   
                          Crawling, feverishly, the further from the core they grew, the more devolved they became

until just a few random boards were left nailed together to create a jagged silhouette.

                                                                    Yet on one gable ended wall,

                                                                    free of this scaffolding to nowhere, was a ladder,

                                                     handmade of roughsawn 2x4's, with 1x4's as rungs,

                            nailed haphazardly, as if in a rush, with what ever nails could be found that moment.

                                                       But

                                                      

when you climb this ladder, whose rungs now dig into your hands,

                  you ascend into another time,

     a 2nd story crawl space,

                  and then you open the paneled hatch with its ancient wrought hinges,

                                                                                                       its cracked and blistering paint,

       and you enter a space that can only be reached by this ladder.
 
                        
                                                                                                And it's then you realize,

                   you've discovered a place of hopes and dreams. And once again all things are possible.                  
     
                                    

                    

 
                 
                               









                                               

    Woke up at 6AM to do prep work for raising the bents at Mike's house. It was raining.  We covered the bents with a tarp and went back to bed.  Woke at 7:45, still raining.  Robbin came by to talk to Bill about the work at Jon's, Tom called and said he would come tomorrow because of the rain.  We were  very disappointed .  I spent the day in my studio.  Bill did all that stuff he usually doesn't get to because he working.  It stopped raining late in the morning, but at least the sun didn't come out.
    Tonight we went to look at a house in Saratoga that Adrienne(one of Bill's co-workers at the Home Depot)is thinking of buying.  It is on ,what is probably, the last run-down block in Saratoga.  It was an old brick house that needs lots of work.  We always enjoy an opportunity to look through an old house and Adrienne was sweet enough to give us a gift certificate to Little India for our help. 

    He made them out of the left over red oak from the tie beam.  First he cut them with the chop box into one foot long chunks.  Then he used the froe and split off 1 inch by 1 foot slabs.
Next he used the froe to split off one inch by one inch sticks.  He put the sticks in the vice and used the draw knife to turn a four sided stick into a tapered 8 sided tree nail.  It came naturally to him as if he had done it before, even though it was the first time.  I thought they were very beautiful and couldn't help thinking of vampires.  After dinner we pegged two of the bents.  All but two joins came together easily.  It was so satisfying to see them come together.  Once again we said how glad we were that things didn't work out with Jim.   

     Today was a day of tiny tasks.  We moved wood then we moved wood. I told Bill that we must really love moving wood.  We could not enjoy our work as much as we do if we didn't enjoy moving wood because we do it so often.  We were both surprised at  how much we must enjoy moving wood.