Good news. Bad news.

Snails¹

Summerford:

The men that were supposed to be moving a house in Stoneville today are not. They are instead working on our house. That's the good news.

The bad news is that there is a shortage of 8" concrete block. We'd have to get them from Clarenville or St. John's if we really wanted them. They were able to get enough for two courses and so the decision was taken yesterday afternoon to build the rest of the foundation out of concrete. So they made the forms for the walls yesterday. Today they are pouring the concrete.

As I understand it, the bottom of the foundation will be poured concrete. The top will consist of the two courses of concrete block. That's because -- again as I understand it and perhaps I don't -- as they get nearer to the bottom of the house, things get fiddlier. They will need room to pull out the rails. Blocks enable this process.

I might just get up the nerve to watch as they lower the house unto [I keep typing unto instead of onto; must be my religious upbringing, ha!] the foundation. Certainly not as nerve-wracking as the lift. Or is it? What could go wrong? Um. Let's not dwell on the negative.

Since John didn't come home for lunch, I imagine things must be in full swing in Hillgrade. Not literally, of course (or should I say, I hope).

So let's see. If they get the foundation poured today, I wonder how long it will be before they lower the house. I guess the concrete has to cure. Probably can't put any weight on it for a few days at least.

Nobody has mentioned the "knee wall" in a while. The original plan (concocted without me) was to build concrete block up to about 2 feet from the bottom of the house, and then put a knee wall (whatever that is) the rest of the way. I have visions of a very ugly facade between the basement and the house.¹

I have asked several times why a knee wall² is the way to go and I still don't understand the reasoning. Stuff about making it easier to put in windows. Duh. I've seen windows in concrete walls. I know it can be done. Heck, they're putting a door in, why not a window? I shall have to ask the gods of house lifting again why a knee wall is the be-all-and-end-all. (Hey, that rhymes.)

And so here I sit. Waiting. Again. Like the prisoner of Zenda. [Sorry. Terrible analogy. I just like saying "prisoner of Zenda."]

The local library is open today from 12:30 to 4:30 and again from 6:00 to 8:00 tonight. I thought I joined the library last year but I didn't get a card. I hear now that I should have got one. Maybe it's time to take out my frustrations on the local librarian.

Over and out.

¹The picture above shows some little fellows who came to visit the other day in the rain. They could have made a great meal for those so inclined.

²John saw a house in Cottrell's Cove the other day that has an area just below the roof line that is clad in fake brick siding. Did they run out of clapboard? Did they actually prefer this? Is this was a knee wall looks like?

Things are still looking up

Summerford:

And by that I mean, the house is still up in the air.

And if you're wondering why I've not posted in a while, I've got no reason. No excuse either. Just didn't feel like it.

This living in someone else's house [left] is for the birds. Don't get me wrong. It's a perfectly good house. And I shall be eternally grateful for the senendipitous collision of Pete's departure and our need for a place to live. Not to mention his generousity in offering it to us for as long as we need it. In my naïveté, I thought we'd be back in our place in a week or so. Alas, we may be here another two weeks.

And here we sit. Well, at least that's what I'm doing. John goes up to the house every day to see what's new, to make sure the workmen are not forgetting where the plumbing lines go through the walls, or the furnace fuel line or the water intake line, etc.

Yesterday the boss man (Coates) said that they might not be working on our place today, that they might be moving a house in Stoneville instead, if Nfld Light and Power was going to come through and move it's power lines. The deal was, if he wasn't at the work site by 9 a.m., then he'd be moving the house. When he wasn't at the house by nearly 10 a.m., John and I and Simon went to Stoneville to see the house being moved.

When we were half-way to Stoneville, we saw one of the worktrucks heading up towards Hillgrade. Probably to our site. But we decided since we'd come this far, we'd go on and at least find the house that was being moved, probably tomorrow now.

Now you'd think that since Stoneville has a population of about 150 or so (my best guess), finding a house that is being moved wouldn't be difficult. I suggested we stop at the one and only gas station and ask if they know anything. Of course, that wasn't a good idea according to John and Simon so we soldiered on. We went as far as the road to the Stoneville dump and turned around, figuring we'd missed it. Then we drove back through the town looking extra carefully. Nothing. So we stopped at what appeared to be the only store in town. I went in to ask if they knew anything. They didn't but said they'd call the gas station to see if they knew anything.

Within minutes, we were on our way, past the town dump nearly to the town of Port Albert. We found the house which I'd describe as a large cabin [right]. The hydro people were there when we arrived taking down the hydro pole and dragging it away. The move is scheduled for tomorrow. Simon knew one of the fellows on the hydro crew who said when we walked up, "You never know what's going to walk out of the woods around here." I'm still laughing.

Below are some pics of our place showing the forms for the footings being made; and concrete being poured for the footings. Today the footings are curing. The men might be working on replacing the rotten sill plates at the back of the house, or they might be dropping plumb lines for the block walls which will be the next step in the foundation. John is supervising, no doubt. 

Oh Shit

Summerford:

We took a run up to the house last night because John remembered he left a tarp on the ground. If the wind came up, it would be down on the wharf or out in Friday Bay by morning.

He also went into the house to get a few things we needed (hair dye for me, the electrical meter for him).

I stayed in the car as has been my wont lately. I really don't enjoy seeing the house up in the air like this. But for some reason I got out and took a stroll around. I had my first Oh-Shit-moment of the day when I noticed that the crib under the porch seemed to be on a slant. What the....? It had been raining all day, off and on and perhaps the ground was soft. Did it cause the crib to slip? Or was it always like that and we didn't notice?

Needless to say, my stress level soared into the stratosphere. I called to John and made him come look. He said something that sounded like "Hmm". I think he was choosing his words carefully, knowing what I'm like. He did his best to make me think that this was the way the crib had looked the day before and was supposed to look. I was not buying it.

So we got in the car and we were very quiet all the way up through Fairbank and Virgin Arm. I think we spoke only once and that was when I made him promise not to go under the house again. Ever. I don't think he committed to that. I think he uttered another "Hmm."

When we were almost back to Summerford, I realized that we had not taken a picture of the damn crib. I didn't have my camera with me so I had a good excuse. I'm also not a photojournalist. Another good excuse.

I was hoping that we'd get in touch with Robert Coates last night but we didn't. I'm not in charge of phone calls to Mr. Coates so I don't know why we didn't call. And I'm doing my very best to give the responsibility of the whole thing over to the experts and tell myself that if they're not worried, I shouldn't be. It's just that I know these same people are probably expert also in not showing when they're worried.

Today John went up to the house to see if the men showed up to work. It's raining and they didn't. The forecast shows the next day without rain will be Wednesday. That's 5 (count'em) days away. Yikes.

There wasn't much John could do at the house. He waited to see if the crew would turn up and when he was just about to start the car and come back here, a semi arrived. It was headed to the wharf to pick up a load of crab.

The driver must have been new on the job because he opened his window and asked John if this was the only wharf around here. Poor fellow. I guess he was panicking at the thought of backing this behemoth down the lane to the wharf, especially since John was parked near the corner and there was a load of dirt on the road (from our digger this week). As is the case whenever a load of anything is picked up, there were Fisheries inspectors up the yingyang with their vehicles parked all over the place.

The driver of the semi got out and asked our neighbour to move his pickup. He may have got a strip torn off him for not being able to turn his semi on a dime.

Finally the truck got turned and backed up. But not before it tore through our pile of dirt, flattening most of it and leaving the rest in a precarious cliff on the road. I suspect most of the dirt is bonded to the eighteen tires.

Once he was able to get clear of the cove, John phoned to say he was definitely going to buy a wheel barrow. We'd discussed this earlier and I thought there were things we needed worse than a wheel barrow. But I just got outvoted.

Bonus: John said he'd move the dirt himself since we have only one shovel and one wheel barrow and also since he knows how stressed I'd be up around that damn crooked crib. I thanked him profusely - and then suggested that it might be a good idea to put a tarp over that crib to prevent it from deteriorating any more in all the rain we're going to get.

And the drama continues. Probably mostly in my head.

Postscript: Just noticed that today is Friday the 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious.