We woke up on Cinco de Mayo to a fat inch of snow covering everything.
Snow this time of year doesn't last long but it is always startling to see fat flakes flying around the sky.
This last week we finally saw temperatures more in the normal range for this time of year, and lots of flowers are starting to bloom on the hillsides. The hummingbirds are back in full force, going through three feeders of sugar water a day.
We have also embarked on our sunroom addition to the house.
All nice and neat around the front of the house.
Before we started tearing things apart, it was so peaceful and serene, and it will be again, in a couple of weeks.
This shows the dimensions of the room, as it will mirror the existing deck.
The long outside wall will have four windows, each three feet wide and five feet tall. The short walls will have either two windows four feet wide and five feet tall, or an exterior door and a window, also four feet wide and five feet tall. That was the largest window size we could fit into the space available. The sliding glass patio door is being replaced by a French door which will open up into the space from the living room. This whole room will greatly increase the airflow in the rest of the house as the living room, at this time, has only a small window on the east side of the house for ventilation.
So, the work begins. First thing we had to do was to prop up the roof and remove the deck. This exposed the crawlspace under the living room, and it was really worse than we expected.
For some unknown reason, the guy who built the house didn't put a full foundation on this wall, just piers, and he didn't protect it from rodent infestation. What a moron and a liar since he said that represented to us that the house had foundation walls all the way around.
There is no vapor barrier under the living room floor, and no way to get one under there. It would need a very small person crawling through years of rodent nests, etc. Horrifying thought. On the upside, exposing this crawlspace to air is drying things out significantly, and it will now also have ventilation from vents installed through the side of the sunroom foundation walls. We also discovered that the logs which had been supporting the roof previously had significant dry rot in them, and would have needed to be replaced soon, regardless. Timing is everything.
This large pile of dirt has been spread around on the yard, filling in some of the low spots and generally making things level. More top soil will need to be brought in to bring the yard up to the the level of the sidewalks.
The foundation footings are ready to be filled with cement, and we tried to get that accomplished on Friday. But the cement company sent out a truck with cement that was so incredibly soupy that the driver recommended it be rejected. Sigh. This puts us at least half a week behind already.
Awaiting cement.
Exterior wall footing, and the one supporting the center of the floor-to-be.
Hopefully, on Monday, the footings can be poured successfully, and also the front porch will be poured at the same time, which is replacing the existing untreated boards we have now with a solid concrete porch.
The other thing which is being started is construction of sidewalks from the front door, curving around to join with another sidewalk which will lead from the garage to the sunroom door. That will make shoveling snow next winter much easier! We’ll have to bring in more topsoil once the cement sidewalk is cured, and we’re also going to bring in some gravel to fill in a low spot from the end of the driveway to the garage.
We saw our first bear of the year, this morning. A very large bear, several hundred pounds. I showed Mishkin as he had never seen one before. He got very tense in my arms but was really much more interested in watching it and didn’t go run and hide. He didn’t know what it was. Terry didn’t see the bear as it was in the fenced area down the hill from the house, where she couldn’t see it. Thank goodness. She is very loud when she sees a bear.
This bear is doing his best imitation of a lawn mower. Or a sheep, yeah, that's the ticket. A bear in sheep's clothing.