No, the Root River has not wiped us off the face of the planet; we have not been wandering aimlessly in the woods; there is no mystery.

It’s just been a long summer—a very long summer!

October first. Days are noticeably shorter, temperatures cooler, and already the migration is underway. The colors of the valley […]

Activity at the house is moving as quickly as humanly possible these days and while the crews have a nice break this Memorial Day weekend, Nancy and I are still going full-tilt as several things near completion—and that’s great news! More on that in subsequent posts…but there’s other ‘news’ being reported this weekend that we […]

After several sunny, warm spring-like days, clouds moved across the area today, scattered rain is in the forecast, and a possible late-winter rain/snow/sleet event may be in the offing later in the week. But spirits are high as work resumes this week on the ceiling, painting, exterior siding and more. We’ll have a few catch-up […]

When I first used that headline back on December 1st (the first day of ‘winter’, according to the record-keepers), little did we know – or even expect – we’d be building during what is now officially the 5th coldest ‘meteorological winter’ ever (December 1 – February 28, as defined by the NWS – National Weather […]

Winter weather continues to threaten, but so far we’ve been able to avoid the worst and continue to make progress on a couple of exterior priorities…including the roof. Just before Thanksgiving, the roofing crew was back to finish all but one last panel on the house’s south side. It required a lot of detail-work to […]

Framing this house isn’t a quick job. It’s a puzzle with two layers: the exterior frame (going up now) and the interior frame, or Larsen truss, that will follow after insulation, vapor barriers and plywood are layered in to form the first floor. At the site yesterday it was clear to me that all […]

We woke up early today and headed out to move some sand in our storm/root cellar before rock goes into open areas in the floor this week.

We designed this space for shelter from storms, but also to keep garden food fresh all winter and to hold a 1000 gallon rain water collection tank. Water […]

Today it was about as humid as it can be without rain—and hot. About 8 p.m. I went to measure the amount of sand inside our garage foundation and the distance of the radon pipe conduit from the north cellar wall. Hmmm…How much more sand is needed to support the garage floor? Will the cellar […]

On one hand, it was just another in a series of gray, overcast days similar to what we’ve experienced for the past six weeks—underscored by the fact that May set numerous records for the amount of rain we’ve had this spring. On the other hand, it was the day we’ve been anticipating for three years—in […]