Dribs and drabs during rain

This was a short week, what with the rain and the other obligations to take care of, but there was some progress on various fronts.

I was able to re-route the kluge-y water supply piping (which had run above ground with copper in a very strange configuration) and sweat new copper connections closer to the house (which should also mean less danger from the occasional freezes, as this wall of the house itself retains quite a bit of heat).  No drips so far.

I protected the plastic with a section of scrap so that in the (unlikely) event of digging mistakes, it'd be harder to break.  I'm glad I didn't try to mark the lines before the rain fell--it was Biblical there for a while.

I also rigged a plank for working on the ledger / reinforcement, although I am not 100% happy with the way that the downstairs drain runs in such an exposed way.  We'll just have to be careful for the next couple of weeks.  Today Muggs is working on laying out piers and beam-lines, and the plan (cleared with Leonard the structural expert) is to have 2 x 8 pressure-treated joists and run 12' to the edge of the stairs, and the wider portion will have 16' joists with a mid-span beam line.  This means fewer piers to pour but still plenty strong.

I didn't want to risk soaking my camera so I only snapped a quick shot of Dale's son Brooke's enormous trailer filled with the debris last Thursday.  That was a breathtakingly efficient way of dealing with the pile, and it leaves the driveway clear again.



Having thinned the hazelnut a little, Muggs is planning to trim a bit more of the rose and cut back the old blackberry canes, so the harvest should be exceptional this summer.  So we are still pretty much following the schedule we mapped out--let's hope for no cans of worms in the next phase.