Holiday Season

Tree is up and decorated. Missing the top
ornament though. 

It's never been clear to me whom or what decided that the Holiday Season runs from Thanksgiving to New Years, but I don't have a problem with it. I suspect that it was driven by commercial interests, i.e. retail and shopping, but it has been around for a long time. Certainly it has been so for my entire 50+ year life. I remember early on seeing advertisements on television saying "Seasons Greetings" beginning with Thanksgiving programming. I know many, if not most people, get upset when they see the wrapping paper and Christmas trees showing up in stores in October, but it doesn't bother me and having worked in retail in high school and college, I understand the reasons behind it. Certainly, the retail giants would not put the holiday items out if it didn't make sense and money for them.

For Cindy and I, decorating for Christmas begins just before Thanksgiving. It is early but logistically it works, with both of us at our jobs full time, and it allows us to enjoy a month of time with the house beautifully decorated. We both love the holiday season, and it fits into our more leisurely winter lifestyle. Evening consists of dinner in the living room, with a fire in the fireplace, Christmas tree lights on, village pieces lit up on the mantle. Cozy, peaceful. and bright. A defense shield erected to resist winter's cold and gloom.

In the middle of nowhere. 

We went out to get our tree, a Spruce of course, a week before Thanksgiving. We've been going to the same Christmas tree farm for years. The owner expects to see us before his official opening, but he doesn't seem to mind and is, I think, a bit amused by us. There is a problem though, in that he stopped planting spruce years ago, since fir trees have become more popular. Each year it has gotten tougher to find a tree that we want, and this year we finally struck out. It was sad to tell him on the way out, since we both knew we'd never be back again. After a couple of fails, we began to get nervous that we may not find a spruce. However, I took a recon trip one weekday morning and investigated a tree farm we had visited many years back. I was thrilled to see acres of spruce, nothing but spruce. Cindy and I returned a few days later and found our tree quickly. The farm is a throwback to the old days, with no attendant, at your own risk mud roads, and an honor system for paying, that consisted of a hole in the side of a small barn. You pay what you think the tree is worth. Awesome.

Over a brief Thanksgiving break from work, after decorating the tree, I also put up the outside lights. I'm old school there as well, going with 4 strings of C-9 lights. Not energy efficient at all, but they give off a warm glow that you cannot get with LED lights. I like that you can change out some of the bulbs with twinkle bulbs that give a very random and slow flashing or twinkle to the lights.  I did buy a couple of LED spot lights that I am using to eliminate the side of our house, which is now easily visible from Grand Boulevard since the leaves are off the trees.

Delicious bread. Some light, some dark. 

Also, Cindy and I spent a full day baking Christmas bread, which we will distribute to family. We are still getting used to our new oven and adjusting the temperature, so some of the bread turned out a bit dark, others a bit light. That was somewhat by design, as some like the bread darker, others lighter.

So, while we may be a bit early with things, we are pretty much ready for the holidays. It's nice to just relax and enjoy, and not be a part of the frenzy. We still have some shopping to do, but Cindy and I have really cut down on the gift giving at this point. We really don't need or want all that much, and it really helps keep the spirit of the season while lowering the stress.

Our little spruce

 I love trees. I believe I get this from my father, who also loves trees. During his teen years in the 1940s, dad worked in a cemetery that his father managed, often trimming and pruning trees. In the late 1960s, and early 1970s, into my early teen years, dad planted a couple dozen trees of various types, including a few spruce. He taught me what types of trees are good for various purposes and locations.

Healthy White Spruce

I like extremes. The highest, lowest, fastest...this is the weather guy side of me. I grew up rooting for the strongest thunderstorms and heaviest snowfalls. So, what has the to do with trees, and particularly a spruce tree? Well, the spruce, specifically the white spruce, is an extreme tree. It's a North American native, and lives further north than any other tree. It survives well north of the Arctic Circle in places, and has been known to survive temperatures to -70F (-57C). Another neat thing about the spruce is that it is native to New York, and is common in the Adirondacks. They grow just fine in the Binghamton area, and can be found growing naturally in patches on northern facing slopes in the higher elevations of the area. There are other things to like about spruce trees. They are generally bug and disease free, they grow in almost any soil, require little maintenance, and are, of course, the classic Christmas tree.

So, you would think that this desirable and hardy tree would be readily available for purchase, right?  Ah...no. I couldn't find a local nursery or garden store that had one in stock. You can find Norway Spruce (too droopy), Frasier Fir (too weak), and Blue Spruce (too blue), but none of them are native New Yorkers. This leads to looking online for a tree. But purchasing a tree online is difficult, because you can't see the exact tree you are getting, and it must be shipped, which is both expensive and dangerous (for the tree). Lacking other options, short of stealing one, I forged ahead. What I found on the internet, was a wide variety of options and pricing. I won't bore you with the details but tell you I ended up buying a white spruce for $19.99 plus $10 shipping. There were no details other than it would be potted (good thing), not bare root (bad thing), and would be shipped in 7 to 10 days. Good. Fall is a perfect time to plant and I would still have enough time to plant before winter hit. Purchase completed, I would begin to look for our tree in a couple of weeks. I moved on.

That's about 18" of baby spruce. 

The next day I noticed a small box on our front step. Uh oh. It couldn't be. It was. Inside the box was the cutest little spruce tree you've ever seen. I had purchased a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. After my surprise wore off, like Charlie Brown I immediately fell in love with the little guy and am committed to letting him grow. There were issues though. First, was the weather. Despite their hardy reputation, you do need to take care in transplanting a spruce because it may have been grown in a warmer climate. Fall is the perfect time to plant it, but in typical Binghamton fashion, our near term forecast is for temperatures in the teens at night, with wind. Not exactly normal fall weather. I could keep the poor thing in the basement all winter, and bring it out in the spring, but I wasn't sure that would be good for it either. Bringing it into the warm house could cause it to prematurely bloom, damaging for next year. Looking carefully at the tree, I could see no fresh sprouts so I decided it would most likely be safe outdoors, so I went out to dig a hole in the side yard. I dug the hole about three times as deep as needed, not like I needed that it that deep, but I then removed the rocks and filled it two thirds of the way back up with loose dirt. I put the little spruce in and filled the hole, then watered. I need to put up a post or stake so we don't trample him since just an average snowstorm will bury him.

Can you see the tree? This spruce has

plenty of room to grow. 

If I can do so, I may get a tiny set of lights to decorate our spruce this holiday season, but that's if I can find the tree again, and assuming it's not buried. Anyway, it will be fun watching the tree grow.

On the same subject, but at the other end of the subject are cold hardy palms. There are species of palms that are very resistant to cold and grow without protection as far north as Cape Cod. I believe I can get one to grow in Binghamton, on the south side of my house, with some winter protection. That would give me the most northern most tree, and a southern tree, growing on the same property! I told you I like extremes.

On the home front, we raked and bagged for the third time this fall. An article in the local paper advised that you can simply leave the leaves where they fall, or mulch them, and they will fertilize your lawn. I think we have too many for that, plus I just don't like the look of the sloppy, wet mess on the lawn. I did run over what was left to mulch before I planted the spruce. You can see the result in the above picture.

After discussion with my lovely bride Cindy, we've decided to move our work into the upstairs bathroom for a freshen up. At some point we need to do a complete remodel, but until then we cannot live with the awful paint job, cracked walls, and leaky caulk. So I caulked the tub, repaired the cracks, and have begun to paint. The ceiling is done, and I have the first coat on the wall surrounding the tub and shower. I've been forced to turn the heat up in the house to help dry the paint. Seems to warm for me but Cindy and the cats love it.

Baking and raking season

A good start

The Fall season has been mild so far. We have had a frost in most places, but with the clear skies has come generally warm afternoons under October sun. This has kept the leaves on the trees a bit longer than usual and I think has limited the Fall color a bit. We had enough leaves to rake so we did our first batch earlier this week. Limiting the amount of leaves this year was the leaf mold that attacked the Norway maples. Wet weather in the first half of the summer allowed the mold to spread through the area including the trees along the park fence at the north end of the property. These maples make up a good percentage of our trees and they dropped their leaves early which ended just getting mulched up by the mower. The rest of our trees, a silver maple, some sugar maples, linden and a hickory were unaffected by the mold and seem to be holding on to their leaves longer than usual.

First fire of the season

One night did get cold enough for our first fire of the season. The fire drafted well and it was a nice hot fire, almost too hot and we ended up sleeping with the fan on that night. I did get the chimney inspected and the report was mixed. The chimney is fine, and safe to be used, but an odd 90 angle in the flue makes it impossible to clean properly. Any debris that falls down from the top is inaccessible from the bottom due to the right angle run of the flue. The chimney guy suggests that next year we install a clean out on the outside of the chimney so they can access the entire flue. Also, he did say there was some loose brick and mortar which may need to be repaired at the same time. Stay tuned.

One batch of cinnamon buns. We made two batches. 

As mentioned in the subject, it is indeed baking season and we did two large batches of cinnamon buns. It's actually pretty easy to do. We use a recipe that came with our first KitchenAid mixer many years ago. All the mixing and kneading is done by the mixer, so we just have to roll out the dough, put down the filling, and roll it back up. We do doctor up the drizzle coating and filling a bit to give it our own stamp on them. They came out real nice.

Next on the baking list is our Christmas bread. We follow and old white bread recipe from the church cook book to make large round loaves. This is more work for me since the amount of dough overwhelms the mixer so that I have to hand knead the bread. It's kind of messy and back braking since the kitchen table is just too low for me. Another problem is our overstuffed freezer. We just don't have enough room to store the bread after we bake it so we're going to have to work on that.

Fall decorations are up. Note the empty flower containers in
front of the porch. They're filled with rocks and dirt and I'm
too damn lazy to move them.  

Cindy had the idea that corn stalks would be nice to have at the front of the house so we went out to look for them. I was shocked at how much money they wanted for those things. There are vast fields filled with them awaiting to be ground up for silage so they really should not be all that expensive. Anyway, we ended up getting three nice bundles at a local farm market for $15 bucks. I tied them to the columns at the sides of the porch and in the center. I really like the looks of them and they are appropriate right through Thanksgiving. I intend to get my money's worth out of them!

The transition to fall accelerates

Last year's leaves. Soon to be repeated.

For whatever reason, we've had some very nice fall's lately. It's a far nicer season in upstate NY than spring, generally drier and warmer, with more sun. As a meteorologist, I understand the reasons for this, but as a resident and native, I appreciate it. It is truly the best time to be in this part of the world, well, most years anyway. We tend to spend days under high pressure bringing hours of sun, but cool and clear nights. No longer dependent on air conditioning for comfortable sleeping, breezes blow the curtains gently at night, As the inversion settles in late, fog develops and sound carries distant train whistles. Even the distant thrump of tires on the highway is somehow comforting. The days are dazzling. Color develops in the trees and is set off by deep blue skies. Mums, followed by pumpkins, appear on porches adding to the unique orange of the fall season. Our cats, hiding from the heat all summer, sense the impending cold and decide they want to snuggle again, and search for spots where sun streams through windows, warming the sill and the floor.

2016's Xmas tree. I did turn the
saw around properly before cutting.

The food changes as well. Cider and apples are everywhere, and even though you can get them year round, they taste better now. Soup for lunch or dinner is suddenly and option and grilling, while still an option, is less leisurely and seems more urgent as the evening sun is shorter, and the end of the season looms. Casseroles and couch time is more likely than burgers and porch time. It is a great time for walks, as the cooler air is more comfortable, and the bugs are less plentiful. Plus, who doesn't like kicking through crunchy leaves?

It's a great time of the year to be a sports fan. Football from high school to pro, is in full swing. Baseball playoffs are underway and the October classic is just around the corner. Very soon, the best spectator sport in town resumes as our local hockey team begins it's season. There's nothing better to do in January and February, on those long winter's nights, then to head to the bright lights and pulsing sounds of hockey. It's the place to be in the late fall and winter.

It's also time to begin planning for the holiday. Not just where to go and what to do, but also to begin baking. Cindy and I both work, I often on weekends, and we bake bread and cinnamon buns so we have to pick our time in advance. Cindy, first sister Karen, and first Aunt Kathie will no doubt have their annual cookie baking/vodka drinking party. I show up in time to be the designated driver, and designated broken cookie eater. We also need to chose a weekend to cut down and decorate our tree, a full two day task at least.

A full cord of firewood has been delivered and stacked, but I still must fine time to double check the furnace, and do a preliminary start up of the snow blower. But the days are still sunny and warm, so I don't feel the urgency. But winter can arrive in New York suddenly though, so I cannot let the benign weather fool me.

More windows and a door

The ugly door. Note the gap filled with
foam insulation on the left side.

The new door clamped to
the saw horses.

First, the door. When we first bought our home, we had this nasty old door to our back porch/pantry that wouldn't properly close, or even be locked. My temporary solution, was to use wood screws to secure the door from intruders. Well, here we are nearly 2 years later and we still have the same door, screwed shut. It's ugly. So, the obvious solution is to replace the door. I got my hands on a nice replacement door from a friend that no longer needed it. It was to big for the opening (better than too small) so it needed to be cut to fit. I called upon my handy Uncle Ed to help. He has more tools, better tools, and frankly more common sense and experience than I do and is good to have around when making critical cuts and decisions on things that really matter. After much consideration, including a phone-a-friend to a professional carpenter, we determined how much we needed to cut off the new door to make it fit, while allowing for a threshold and weatherstripping. After several careful measurements, we cut the door. We test fit it in the frame and it just needed to be planed then the door fit perfectly, despite the crooked frame. One problem: I forgot to take into consideration the thickness of the door. Essentially, the door was thicker than the previous door and when properly standing in the frame, it stuck out a bout a quarter of an inch. This necessitates a complete rebuild of the frame and door jam. So, I screwed the new door in place and considered my options.

The pretty door.

After discussion with Cindy, and weighing the amount of reconstruction needed, we decided to refurbish the old door, then add a screen door to increase security and air flow through the kitchen. So, a couple days later I took down the "new" door, and rescued the old ugly door from the side of the garage and screwed it back into place. Oof.  I went ahead and sanded, repaired and repainted the outside of the old door and frame. The outside frame was off by about a quarter inch so I needed to add a piece of molding to cover the gap. It actually looks pretty good now and it awaits new door hardware and return to operation.

Windows. Back in February I wrote a blog about out new storm windows. They were needed on many of the first floor windows. Before installing them, I scraped and repainted the window frames, which were in really bad shape, especially on the south and west side of the house. The second floor already had storm windows, but that didn't mean that the window frames were in any better shape. In fact, they were worse. I was able to do the attic windows, essentially on the third floor, by leaning out one and working on the other. The second floor, needed a longer ladder than I owned. After some shopping around, I purchased a 28 foot ladder from Home Depot and then had no choice then to climb, scrape and paint.

It's higher than it looks. Finished window
below. Second floor looks tired. 

My experience as a volunteer firefighter has given me both respect and a good working knowledge of ladders. This makes me confident in climbing them, and I have no real fear of heights, but is still tiresome and a bit nerve racking at times. Plus. I have no idea how much the ladder weighs, but moving it multiple times, to different windows, is exhausting. Of course, there's the climbing and descending the ladder multiple times as your bring tools and paint up and down. One of the bigger issues was painting around the already installed windows without smearing the paint. Bees were an issue, as the warm fall days seem to bring out the honey bees and they seemed very interested in my work. It's not pleasant to deal with bees when you're up a 28 foot ladder with tools, paint, and bees buzzing you.  Anyway, it took almost two full days of ladder work, scraping, and painting to get the window work "done". Done is in quotes because I actually did not get to the two front bedroom windows. It was just too hot and standing on the porch roof in that heat was just not an appealing thought. I will wait for a cloudy and cool day to finish the job. In any event I'm really happy with the work and how the windows came out.

Upcoming work: Chimney inspection, glazing windows, a huge pile of firewood, and plants where they shouldn't be.

Rains, trains, and automobiles

I miss my blog. More importantly, I hope someone else has. I find writing the blog to be relaxing and a good way to chart and stimulate progress, and I'm gratified when people read it. Anyway, a couple of weeks after I wrote my last blog, we went on vacation and I just haven't found the time to write, and I miss it.  That does not mean I've gotten a lot of work done on the house, but we have been busy.

All aboard! Cindy is ready to go.

Relaxing in our roomette*.
 * - train speak for tiny room 

I had a bachelor party to attend in the Florida Keys, so we decided to combine that with our annual beach vacation. Flying would have been cheap and fast, but we wanted to spend a few nights in Myrtle Beach on the return trip, which would have been logistically difficult, so we decided to take the Amtrak Auto Train. The Auto Train runs from outside of Washington DC to near Orlando, 7 days a week. They load your car on train and you sit back, relax, and about 16 hours later, you're in Florida. They unload the cars and you are on your way. The real advantage is avoiding the traffic, frustration, and  general ugliness of 700 miles of I-95. The train leaves around 3 pm and arrives around 9 am so we opted for a sleeper, a nominal charge but gives you a private room for the entire trip, and a real bed in which to sleep.

After the train got going, we headed to the lounge car for a drink. We had a very attentive bartender and grabbed a table with a big picture window. They sold Amtrak playing cards (very cool) so we bought a pack and played for a couple hours. Dinner was at 5 (included in your ticket price) and was actually quite good. I had a filet mignon with veggies and a baked potato, Cindy a pork chop. After dinner,  we returned to our room to watch a movie on my laptop. By 10, we were tired enough to have the steward unfold the beds and we went to sleep. We arrived pretty much on time in Sanford the next morning.

A soggy yet beautiful pool area at Margaritaville Resort.

Then the rain started. As we headed south to the Margaritaville Beach Resort, we drove into a tropical wave which would plague us for the rest of the trip. The resort and immediate area of the beach front was beautiful, and rather empty since it was off season (go figure), but the weather was not conducive to relaxing by the pool. So, the next day we headed to the Aventura Mall, a monument to excess and where Macy's is considered low end shopping. The good news is that Cindy was able to find a dress she needed for an upcoming wedding, and I was able to find a Chili's hidden in a far flung parking lot. They were NOT selling $10 beers. The bigger takeaway though was the traffic. Horrific. Especially when you throw in the rain. Multiple lanes of traffic at speeds completely disregarding the posted limit, tailgating, and various other traffic laws. I just don't know how people put up with this day after day. It was far worse, in my opinion, than New York City.  I'm really spoiled living in a small town.

Lunch at the wharf in Islamorada.

On Saturday I headed down to the Keys to golf with the bachelor party while Cindy stayed back. If you've ever have the chance to drive the overseas highway, I highly recommend it. It is just spectacular and so different, even from the rest of Florida. I met the rest of the party for lunch that day, and then we went golfing on Sunday. I was actually surprised there is a golf course on the Keys. These are tiny islands, most of them and land is very expensive, but sure enough a 9 hole course is out there. While Cindy stayed in the rain, it was very hot and sunny on the course and by about the 15th hole I had enough.

I drove back to Hollywood and Cindy after the golf and the next morning we headed out on the full day of driving to Myrtle Beach and the North Beach Plantation. Unfortunately, the rain followed us. The wave was now a depression and there was a watch up for a tropical storm. Ugh. Luckily, the system started to pick up speed and moved out Wednesday leaving us a couple days of good weather before we headed home Friday.

As I write this now the entire area of Florida that we visited in threatened by Irma. I fear we are on the verge of a terrible tragedy. Settling and living in paradise does come with a price, and millions of people are about to have their lives completely changed, perhaps forever. I hope those who can, have listened to the authorities and evacuated and will wait out the storm in safe areas. Good luck to all in Irma's path. My thoughts will be with you.

I did manage to get some work done when we got home. I finished the electrical rewire of the garage, and I do keep thinking about when I might start to stack that huge pile of wood in the backyard. Then there's the saga of the replacement door, but that's a story for the next blog.

Stairs, a window, and plaster

Half painted stairs. They are completed now.

A decent amount has been accomplished since my last post, mainly due to a week off work and a decision to not to travel but to devote the time to projects. First on the list was to complete the stairwell painting. I had two readers suggest that I paint half the stairs (side to side) allowing access to the basement by us and the cats, kind of like a construction zone reduced to one lane (normal summer driving in Pennsylvania). I liked that advice and moved ahead. Now, I expected that Cindy and I would not walk through the wet paint, and for the most part , this was a correct assumption. It was however, a leap of faith to depend on Katia and Natasha to use their kitty smarts and stay off the wet paint, with a bit of guidance in the form of large objects placed blocking the "closed" section. Katia, whom I alternately call "smarty pants" and "Klutzia" because she is both smart and clumsy, turned out to be both. As I was working, she started down the stairs, carefully avoiding the wet paint (smart). As she passed me she cut over to the wet side, prompting me to yell her name. She stopped (smart), then sat in the wet paint awaiting further instructions (clumsy). I followed her down to the basement and she allowed me to inspect her feet, which were remarkably dry. Her cat butt, however, was a bit gray, so she was confined to the basement for a few hours, which she really didn't seem to mind. Natasha decided to simply avoid the staircase altogether and slept through the process, demonstrating her ability to "hold it" for several hours.

I finally installed (with Cindy's help of course), the final window on the first floor. In this blog I wrote about installing the windows, while also somehow forgetting to order one for the kitchen. I ordered the forgotten window back in the Spring and we installed it last week. If you remember, or re-read the blog, I was very proud of myself for measuring every window correctly, even allowing for "slop" since none of the old windows were perfectly square. Heh heh. Well, confidence is a dangerous thing and I ordered one window to complete the job, and it was wrong. Technically, I measured correctly but forgot to allow for a window frame that was off by a quarter inch. Rather than re-order and have a useless window, I decided to "fix" the old window. Cindy was notably impressed as I shaved down the inside of the crooked frame, smoothed and filled my work, and repainted. This essentially "squared" the frame and allowed the window to fit.

The offending wall.

Cindy proclaimed herself to be tired of looking at our ugly upstairs hallway and so that has become the next interior "room" to be repaired. Unfortunately, there are some special issues that need to be addressed in the hallway. First, on one wall, the plaster has pulled away from the lathe.  This gives the wall a spongy feel as the plaster moves. If left like this, the plaster will eventually crack and fall away. The thought of removing around 9 square feet of plaster was not comforting, so I did some research. I found a video detailing repair of such a wall at the This Old House website. Essentially, you drill multiple holes through the plaster (not into the lathe), inject plaster bonder, followed by construction adhesive. Then, you install several dry wall screws with large washers through the plaster into the lathe to pull the plaster back to the lathe. After 24 hours, you remove the dry wall screws, fill the holes, and remove the excess glue that has oozed from the holes. Then sand, skim, and sand the wall and your done. Sounds easy, right? Wish me luck.

Ugly, poorly installed molding. I plan to replace it with
prettier, poorly installed molding.

The other problem is common through the house. There is a large gap between the wall and the ceiling that had been covered by cheap molding. I removed the molding and will fill the gap with spray foam insulation and replace with a better quality molding. That is rather tedious and although I'm getting better at mitering and installing molding, the additional difficulty of nailing the molding to exterior walls, which are masonry, will cause me to take more time. I will not be installing the fancy crown molding that we have downstairs, perhaps something closer to what I installed in the vestibule.

One step at a time...

So the title of this blog is the answer to a question. The question is: How do you paint stairs? I've never actually done this before and it requires thought, especially if it is a stairwell that provides the sole access to an important part of the house, in this case, the basement. To go back to the beginning, in my previous blog I wrote about painting the stairwell walls. Well that was done and it came out nicely. I expected to paint the stairs all along, so I allowed my self to drip everywhere on the old stairs. Now it was time to think about painting the stairs. First, color. My initial thought was a standard grey, which would match the kitchen. Cindy was more interested in keeping a brown shade of some kind, better matching the theme in the rest of the house. So, we went out and purchased a sample, then another, then another, then...well you get the idea. We couldn't find a shade of brown or tan that we liked, and thought it would hide dirt being dragged in from the side door. Cindy then agreed and we tried a shade of grey and we liked it. Nice being right for a change!

Exciting photo of the underside of our basement stairs. 

Now, the logistics of painting stairs. Keep in mind the walls were done last month, so this is just the steps themselves. At least two things must be considered: How to paint them and in what order. For starters, when the painting is complete, we must keep off the stairs for at least a day and have no access to anything in the basement (including litter boxes). Then there's the how. I decided to paint all the "trim" areas, like the undersides of the steps, the risers and stringers, along with the railings first. For the undersides and other trim work near the bottom, I used my crawler which is normally used for under car repairs. There's also the issue of painting the underside of the stairs at all. I don't know if the stairs were original to the house, but clearly they had never been painted and looked to be in pretty good shape. No one is likely to see them, so I was inclined not to paint the bottom of the steps, but one raised eyebrow from Cindy changed my thinking. Anyway, all the sides, bottoms, and rails have now been painted twice and I await a time when I can close off the stairwell and paint the surface of the stairs. They will need two coats so at least a couple days to paint and properly dry.

Very professional looking installation,
don't you think? 

The issue of security continues to come up and I am dragging my feet on a decision of what to do. The immediate area around our home is good, with good neighbors, but frankly, there are some pretty shady areas and people in Binghamton these days and I work a lot of nights, leaving Cindy and the cats alone. In fact, we have some squatters living in a home down the street that have had the police called on them at least 50 times this year already. In any event, I think I have settled in on a security solution, but haven't decided on which (self installed) package of equipment suits us best. More on that in a later blog. In the meantime, I went ahead and changed out one of our (broken) interior cameras for an exterior grade camera. Nest gave me a nice discount on the camera since the other had broken. I decided to mount the camera on the garage, facing the driveway and the backyard, mainly because we already had a car broken into, and our garage is not secure (I know, I know). The camera itself is interesting. You screw a metal plate onto the mounting surface, then stick a cup shaped magnet to the plate. The metal, rounded back of the camera holds it to the mount and is infinitely adjustable as it slides around in the magnetic cup.

The view from our new security camera. Anyone steals
our garbage, I got'em. 

The camera is set to find your WiFi network so before mounting you use the camera, and your smart phone or tablet, to find out if the signal at your chosen spot is strong enough to be useful. That's a bit tricky while standing on a ladder. The camera does have to be plugged into AC power, which we have in the garage. Unfortunately, like so many other things in our home, the electric is not properly installed so I have yet another job to do re-wiring the lights and installing proper outlets on the second floor. In the meantime, I have an extension cord running to the camera's plug. So far, the camera has been working great. I look forward to keeping an eye on things when I am away from home.

What's next? Well, it's not on the list...

A beautiful late Spring sky. 

I almost named this blog Miscellaneous Part 4, but decided to be a bit more clever. I'm not sure I succeeded. In any event, this edition has no particular subject, mainly since I've not worked on any projects that would fill a blog. That's not to say that we haven't made progress.

Fixing up this house sometime feels like I'm trying to bail out the ocean. Long range projects compete with short term repairs and on going maintenance. Also, there's that pesky work thing in which they expect me to show up at least 5 days a week and perform tasks for them, if I expect to be paid. Considering all this, Cindy and I are discussing which major project we need to take on next. The two in the running are the kitchen and the bathroom. I'm pretty comfortable that I have finally fixed the chronic tub leak, so the kitchen ceiling below needs a repair and paint job, as do the walls. In the bathroom, a major renovation is somewhere in the future, but in the meantime a paint job and tile repair is in order. Cindy preferred to do the bathroom first and I didn't feel strongly either way so the choice was made. The decision having been made, naturally I went on and did something else.

Cindy kind of surprised me with her utter disdain for the stairwell going to the basement. On the list of things to do, this stairwell was not even on my radar but when she pointed out how dirty and dingy it was, I realized she made a good point. The cream colored walls were smeared with hand prints and general dirt. Whoever had painted it, had used a flat wall paint making it look even uglier and better at catching grime. I already had a gallon or so of pure white satin finish paint so this should be an easy and quick job, right? Oh you optimistic fool!  It turned out taking two full days of difficult work.

This stuff is the best.

First, I took the handrail down. Easy enough. I put it in the basement and assigned Cindy the task of cleaning nearly a hundred years of hand grime and grease off the railing. It turned her wash bucket water black. Yuck. I began to look at the walls and quickly realized two things: There were a lot dents and holes in the walls, and, I had several different surfaces to work with. For the holes, it was a fairly simple matter to get out the patch repair stuff and fill them in. The surfaces, and general poor condition of them, required more thought and work. The wall types were standard plaster on lathe, our famous exterior wall finished block, poured concrete, and finally a wooden wainscoting type surface on the lower interior section. All were stained in one way or another, but the concrete especially had water and rust stains that would never be covered by regular paint. So, I decided to go with BIN. The stuff smells bad, is a pain to work with, and it destroys any paint brush you use with it, but it really does a good job sealing and covering stains. It's not cheap either, but I decided to do the entire block wall and the poured concrete with BIN before painting. Luckily, it dries quickly and I was able to get the first finish coat on before the end of the day. The next day I did a second coat to even out the job. It looks great.

Of course, there's the stairs themselves. The paint on them is worn, plus now there's a bit of white wall paint on them as well. It looks like the last time they were painted they used standard semi gloss wall paint in a deep brown. I already have the light chocolate floor paint I used on the porch, but that may actually be a bit too light for the stairs. We still haven't chosen a color yet so that job remains open.

Elsewhere, I did manage to plant some flowers in two huge pots we had sitting around. I did a red, white, and blue theme in flowers and they actually look pretty good. They sit in the yard at the front corners of the porch. Around back, I did some more weeding in the "flower" beds and added some fresh while marble stone after spaying some weed killer on the edges. The weed barrier I laid down last year apparently lasts only one year. Rats. Next year I may have to remove the stone, double down on the weed barrier, and put the stone back.

I've been carefully avoiding the tree roots with the lawnmower so I've had no more problems. We've had a pretty wet year and the grass is really growing, so naturally I'm quite pleased with the new mower. Instead of pretty much using up a day, I can finish the entire thing in less than an hour, and not be tired. In fact, I can do it easily after work now.

I like being surprised, most of the time

Most of us enjoy movies and/or books of one kind or another. They generally fall into a certain category or genre, like a western, horror flick, or a comedy. They also, unfortunately, tend to fall into a standard form, and if you think about it, you can usually figure out exactly what will happen in the movie, almost from the opening credits. So, the trick for the director and writer is to entertain you along the way. Titanic is a good example of this. You know the damn boat is going to sink, so it's what happens before that unfortunate event is what is important. How did James Cameron attempt to do this? Well, I was not really a big fan of the film but for me, it was with fascinating CGI of the ship and it's engines, and just the general day to day operation of the ship. For many others, it was the love story. Forbidden love that is, between a First Class aristocrat, and a Third Class poker player. But this is where the movie lost me, because not only did I know the ship was going to sink, I knew the romance was doomed as well. Wouldn't it have been a better story if they surprised us and Jack survived? Think for a moment where the story could have gone then.

Random house photo. It was flag day and Cindy got a
bunch of little flags.

I don't mind a good romantic comedy. I sure have seen plenty of them with my Cindy. I just like to be surprised. Unfortunately, most rom-com's are just the worst offenders of this rickety standard plot fault. They meet cute, they fall for each other despite barriers put in their way, there's a big misunderstanding, they break up, but then something forces them back together at the end and TA DA! they live happily ever after. Still, it can work, and be worth your time, if the director and writer keep you entertained along the way. Examples of rickety plot but entertaining rom-coms include the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan films and the classic, When Harry Met Sally. There are two, however, that threw the standard plot out the window, and really came up with something special.. Both are kind of sleepers. The first, Definitely, Maybe, turns the romance into a mystery. In the film, Will (Ryan Reynolds) is going through a divorce, his distraught daughter insists on hearing the story of how her parents met, perhaps in hope that the telling of the story will rekindle the romance and head off the divorce. Will tells her the story in a series of flashbacks and you are there with the daughter trying to figure out which of his romantic partners is her mother. There are plenty of big laughs and twists, along with some really heart tugging moments.

The best, however, is a more obscure Hanks-Ryan picture called Joe vs. the Volcano. In the very beginning, Joe is told by a doctor that he is dying. But this isn't a death sentence for him, it is a release from his mundane life, and horrific job (he sells rectal probes). I'll say no more about the film and just let you discover what happens as Joe meets his inevitable(?) fate.

Random cat photo. Natasha keeping Cindy warm at night.

Horror films follow a formula as well. Slasher films are generally not scary to me. They can startle me, make me jump, but they rarely scare me. An exception is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That movie was so unsettling, I'll never watch it again. Same goes with The Exorcist. Got me once, good for you. Not again. Probably the most unsettling and scary film I've ever seen is Pan's Labyrinth.  It includes vicious murders, large intelligent insects, a brutal war, and a young girl that escapes into an underground fantasy world. Talk about not following a formula! I highly recommend it, and will never see it again. You should see it at least once.

My favorite film of all time is a horror film, that really doesn't follow the formula. In Silence of the Lambs a student FBI agent is sent to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the it takes one to know one theory to get insight on another serial killer, Buffalo Bill. As Clarice (Jody Foster), interviews Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to gain that insight, a strange relationship grows between them. They are both fascinated, and competitive with each other. Most importantly, they respect each other and as Clarice finally reveals the tragic story of how she ended up in an orphanage, watch closely as tears fill Lecter's eyes as he realizes he is finally having a real relationship with a person, not another psychopathic episode. "Thank you Clarice, thank you", he says at the end. You know at this moment, Lecter would cut off his own arm, rather than harm Clarice, which he does, ironically, in the sequel. Most everyone has seen the film so I'm not really giving away a spoiler to write that Clarice does indeed catch Buffalo Bill, with Lecter's help, so in some way it does have the expected ending, but getting there was so much fun. Despite some of the gruesome scenes and twisted practices revealed in the movie, I can watch it endlessly and enjoy looking for the subtle clues and nuances as the brilliant Lecter toys with the investigators while giving Clarice what she needs to solve the case.

Random vacation photo.  Spring break in Wildwood

I could go on forever on movies, but considering that this blog is not even about movies, and this edition might be my longest so far, I should probably wrap this up. My ideas for this blog entry began as I thought about the novel I'm writing. Yes, you read that correctly. I've been working on a book on and off for many years and I just can't tell if it is any good. I am attempting to surprise readers, without employing a gratuitous plot twist. Hopefully, I can be clever enough and keep readers entertained without them realizing where the story is going. Perhaps some day I'll drop the opening paragraph here in the blog somewhere, if I have the nerve.

Lawnmower wars

I really thought I had the lawnmower thing figured out. I had gotten my old push mower back to running pretty well, thanks to repairs, using ethanol free gas, and clearing out the gunk using Sea Foam. Most importantly, I purchased my Cub Cadet riding mower which shrank a 2+ hour job down to about a half hour. But then, fate in the form of a tree root, interfered with my lawn mowing bliss, and turned a half hour job into a two day ordeal. I knew the root was there. I had mowed over it before, carefully raising my mower deck as I rode over it, as I did last week. Something was different this day, however, because as I rode over the root with the deck raised, there was a horrific bang, followed by a struggling mower, and finally a stall. I had just triggered a series of unfortunate events.

The tools are out. Game on. 

I turned off the PTO and restarted the mower and drove back to the garage. As I hit the driveway I heard something dragging against the pavement. Uh oh. I shut off the mower. climbed off and looked under the deck. One of the mower blades no longer looked like an airplane wing, it looked like a question mark. Wonderful.Well, replacing a blade is nothing you want to do on a brand new mower, but it's not all that difficult of a task. Right? Heh heh. A lawnmower blade is attached to the "drive" shaft by a single large nut. My first issue is that I did not have a socket or wrench large enough for the 1 inch nut. No problem, I do have a large adjustable wrench that is big enough for the job. Ha ha. Problem is that the thing that makes an adjustable wrench work is the same thing that makes it so maddening, especially when the thing you are trying to loosen is difficult to access and is very tight. You see, the wrench tends to loosen each time you try to use it, causing it to slip on the bolt.

Fine. I never need an excuse to buy more tools. My current set of wrenches date back to my teenage years and were a Christmas gift from my parents. A few have been lost over the years so I'll head to Sears and get a new set of Craftsman wrenches, including some larger sizes. That should do it. LOL. Nope. The largest wrench in my new set was STILL too small. Dummy. Time for plan C. Off to Home Depot for a larger socket and a breaker bar. Ta DA! The socket fits and I can put some serious torque on the nut now! Tee Hee. Uhmm...when you torque on that stuck nut, the blade simply spins. To overcome this, you need to jam the blade by using blocks of wood against the mower deck. Problem with that is with so much torque supplied by the breaker bar, the blocks slip and move. Time to re-think this. The shaft passes through the mower deck into a pulley and is secured by yet another nut, which is not easily accessible either due to protective shielding designed to keep some idiot like me from getting their pant leg caught in the machinery. Talk about initiating a series of unfortunate events! Anyway, at this point, I considered removing the mower deck from the tractor but found that I was able to get the nut on the bolt and loosen it. The shaft dropped out of the bottom of the deck and I had my first good look at what I had done.

Yeah, it;'s bent. Note the attached shaft and
nut. My new breaker bar is lying forlornly
nearby. 

Well, I destroyed the blade, that's what I and that maple tree root had done. Now, with the blade and nut easily accessible, my new socket and breaker bar, it will be a simple matter to remove the nut and install the new blade. BWAAA....HAHAHA. Wrong again lawnmower breath. I stood on the blade and tugged with the breaker bar. No luck. The neighbor stood on the blade while I put my considerable weight and strength on the nut. No luck. This damn nut job had me questioning I ever thought I knew about mechanics, physics, basic engine maintenance, and the origin of the universe. Researching the matter only made it worse because it turns out some blade nuts are reverse threaded to keep them from loosening as the blade spins. Careful inspection of the nut, and thoughtful consideration of the direction of rotation had me convinced that this was still a lefty-loosey situation but the damn thing still wouldn't come off.  Fine. That evening was monthly meeting night at the firehouse so I brought the blade and shaft there and let the men have at it. Well, this turned out to be the best decision I made. I locked the blade in the heavy duty bench vise and we hit the nut with Blaster, a penetrating lubricant made to release stuck parts. One of my fellow firefighters torqued on the breaker bar and the damn thing finally came off. WHEW!

The next morning the reassembly went well and I carefully tightened all the important parts. I then started the mower and drove to the center of the north forty. Sitting motionless I tentatively engaged the PTO to get the blades spinning, half expecting a tremendous bang and further destruction. Nope, perfect. Hardly believing my skill and luck I went on to finish the job that had ended so abruptly days before, carefully avoiding the root near the sidewalk.

I need to decide what to do about that root. It's a big one, about 4 inches in diameter and (obviously) close to and above the surface. My short term plan is simply to avoid it and cut that area with the push mower. My long term plan may be to attack it with the ax and chainsaw, but we'll see.

In other news, home improvement has slowed. I have finished the other window and screen to be installed in the attic window, I just have to get up there and do so. We are on the verge of out first "heat wave" so I need to do this soon. I also purchased some flowers and placed them in planters in the front of the house. They look really nice. The look of the house and area was further enhanced by trimming I did after resurrecting by old line trimmer. It had been is storage ever since the move and after finally finding the batteries and charger I was surprised to see them hold a charge.

Finishing up old tasks and moving on to new

Finished room. Finding the right curtains was tough.

Interior wall mirror. Hope it holds, 

I think I can finally say that the guest room is done. We decided on curtains...sorry...window treatments...so I installed new rods and hung them. I also hung an antique mirror that matched the furniture set. Hanging anything on the walls of "fort" Morford is tricky, since any exterior wall is solid cement, but the interior walls are plaster on lathe and no thrill either. Of course the spot where we wanted the mirror was nowhere near a wall stud so I ended up drilling a small hole just to get the nail through the springy lathe. This leaves me with a bit of concern about the quality and durability of the anchor in the wall. I plan to keep an eye on it and if it looks like it's loosening I'll have to go with plan B.

We're very pleased with the room. It's bright and airy, really just perfect for a guest room. I think it would be a bit much for us to look at every day in the master but it makes for an attractive guest room, The trick was to go with curtains that matched the brightly colored wall without clashing against them or the white woodwork. We ended up with a tan or almost cane colored curtain that has a basket type weave. They make the room a bit less stark and warm up the space without toning down the color.

Attic widow and frame. Not good.

Glazed and painted window. Some clean up
still to be done. 

In other news, I continue to work on the attic windows. I first removed the one attic window and frame last week. That has been glazed and painted, but before I could install the window, I had work to do on the frame. On our 2 story home, the attic is essentially a third story window, with two roofs in the way, the porch roof and part of the second story roof, making the attic windows kind of a dormer. In any event, other that renting a lift, there was no easy way to reach the outside of the window. This meant repairing and painting the windows had to be done from the inside. All in all it went pretty well. Scrapping and wire brushing the old paint was the most difficult part. I was able to reach parts of the window by leaning out the other window. I ended up with paint chips in my hair and down my shirt, plus I was rolling around on the attic floor as I tried to get to the correct position. Painting was tricky but a bit easier simply because it's less physical. I did end up with paint on my shirt and arms simply because it was impossible to lean out and not bump into the frame.

As I mentioned in the last blog, the windows and screens are worth saving as they are original to the house and have character. I might be less inclined on the 1st or 2nd floor but the attic is unheated and I'm not real interested in replacement windows or screens up there. Eventually I need to work on painting and re-glazing the 2nd floor windows which are more reachable, but behind installed aluminum storms. That will make the job a bit more difficult. So the attic windows are kind of glazing practice for lower windows that will be more visible.

Memorial Day was a full work weekend for us as I had a rare weekend off. In addition to the attic window work, we managed to get in some yard work including removing another large, overhanging branch leaning in from the abandoned mansion next door. Cindy caught up on some neglected housework. Early Memorial Day we went out for supplies and Cindy found some inexpensive flags so we decided to line our driveway and sidewalk with flags. I imagine our neighbors think we're a bit nutty but there's no shame in honoring those who have fallen, and those who serve and have served. So while Memorial Day is a holiday to be honored, there is no reason not to enjoy the freedom and liberty that has been paid for so dearly by our armed forces. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness provided for and protected by the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard.

A diamond in the rough

I'm happy. Really. 

So as I have written several times in this blog, my old lawn mower has given me fits since I began to use it to tackle my big yard. It did indeed run better last week but even so, a triple lot, old age, and a 22" push mower is an ugly combination. In any event,  I rarely make large purchases on a whim, and without careful research (except this house!). I've been pricing and researching riding mowers for over a year and had recently narrowed my choices down to John Deere, and Cub Cadet. I know that many people have a strong brand loyalty to things like tractors, especially John Deere, so I will tread carefully here. Entry level Deere lawn tractors are subcontracted to MTD, and, while well made, are not substantially different than most other small tractors despite being around 20% more expensive. Also, all parts and service must go through a John Deere dealer. Cub Cadet, well made and well reviewed are cheaper to buy and service, and even go on sale from time to time.

Last Saturday, I stopped into Tractor Supply since they sell Cub Cadet tractors and lo and behold they were on sale! The sale ended the next day so I left and stewed about it. In the end, I approached Home Depot and they agreed to match the price and honor a 10% coupon I had received in the mail. Done deal. I rented a flatbed from them for $20 bucks to get it home. It'a an XT1 Model with 22 horsepower and a 46" cut on the mower. My first run at cutting the grass, being slow and cautious, took 20 minutes. No more  telling Cindy I spent the day on the lawn! I still need to use the old push mower for trimming near the house and bushes and I was happy that it started on the first pull. I still plan to do some minor maintenance and keep my old buddy around for awhile.

Old glazing removed and wood scrapped.
 Ready to be glazed. Note the
diamond shaped glass 

A good friend gave us
 this sign. It hangs
on our porch. 

The other project I'm working on is the attic windows and screens. We've finally started to get some warm weather and the attic is heating up. We do have a roof vent but it really helps to put the screens in the two front windows to get the air circulating better. It helps keep the second floor cool as well.  One of my projects for this year is to continue painting the window frames on the house with the second floor on the agenda. I would like to do the attic windows as well but they are pretty much out of reach from any normal ladder. So, my plan is to paint the window frames from the attic. They are right next to each other so I will lean out the one window to scrape and paint the other frame. The windows themselves, and the screens, come out completely so they will be easy. However, the need to be repaired. The first set is on my work bench right now. The screen is destroyed so I removed the remains and the frame holding it in place. I scrapped the wood and filled the numerous holes and nicks. The window was in better shape, except that it needs to be completely re-glazed. I took all the old glazing off the window with a putty knife, and scraped and wire brushed the wood. I then re-glazed the window and am now waiting for the glazing to cure so it and the screen can be painted. Our nickname for the house is the diamond in the rough and this is at least partially because of the diamond pattern in the windows. This diamond pattern makes the window unique and worth saving, while at the same time makes the maintenance and repair a bit more difficult. We love these windows and have carried this diamond theme through the house with our window treatments and bed covers.

In other news, it's graduation weekend at Binghamton University which means the bed and breakfast across the street will be full with the families of the graduates, Something about this pleases me. I like seeing the people check in and enjoy the extra activity on our street. It reinforces my desire to maintain and improve our home simply because we have guests in the neighborhood. I like to sit on the porch and watch them come and go to dinners and ceremonies and feel a certain amount of pride in our town. With graduation weekend comes the annual bar crawl where students walk from the west side to downtown hitting the bars and celebrating. We are far enough removed from the festivities to have little affect from them, but we occasionally get a straggler on the sidewalk and an empty cup in the lawn. A small price to pay for having one of the top public universities in the nation located here.
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