Building Update...

The roof is on and the electrician is roughing in the wiring. The garage door has been ordered. The hole for the cellar stairs has been cut and the exterior cellar door is in place. All the windows and doors are now in and we are getting close to a complete button up.

There is 30 inches of snow there right now and snowmobile season began last Sunday.

There is a neighbor 100 yards directly behind our place that has a web weather cam. His camera actually points in the direction of our place. We can always see how much snow we have and what the current conditions are like... also some great shots of birds... the link to the Coles Pond webcam is embedded above and also in the column on the right.


Have a great day!

The basement is finished...framing starts next week

This is the view from the road...

Standing in the drive looking out to the pond.

Isn't it beautiful?

This is the upper level of the basement floor. It had to be poured high because of the ledge under it. We opted not to blast the ledge away in order to protect our well and the neighbor's.

Lower level and upper level - doorway out to the pond.

Those orange pipes sticking up are for the radiant heating in the basement floor. Warm water will run through the floor keeping the temperature constant throughout the year. We will have radiant heat on the first floor of the house as well.

This is the view out the basement doors. See the swimming raft on the right in the distance?

I had them pour a pad outside the basement doors. There will be a small deck above this and I did not want a mud hole just outside the basement.

Next week they will start building the floor over the basement and then framing the first floor. The only concrete work left is pour the pad for the garage.

Pouring the floor

The truck coming up the lane...

Pouring the basement floor...

The crawl space under the downstairs bedrooms is finished...
Look at the wet cement...Smoothing it out...
This is looking good...

These were taken yesterday...

These pictures show the basement and crawl space under the camp...

the subfloor will go on top of these walls.

Looking Due North

Looking from the "garage" through the house to the front "porch"

Looking at what will some day be the entrance to the breakfast room

camp pictures....

The view from the drive prior to tear down - the well head is right of center above


The view from the drive after the tear down - only a little more to the right. Well head at the center - Malibu is the blonde who is right of center in the picture

Digging the foundation and basement - looking out on the pond

My neighbor Bob keeping a watchful eye on the goings on - thanks Bob!

Returned from Vermont

Well the old camp is down and hauled away and after a day of excavation we now have a hole in the ground.

By the end of next week the concrete guys should be there and we should have a secure foundation attached to a significant ridge of bedrock that stretches like a humpback whale right through the middle of our property. The ledge is only about 2 or 3 feet below the surface any where on our lot.

I will drop some pictures in this posting later today.

On Saturday, while in New England, I was able to attend a retirement party for my friend Decker Clark who has been preaching and teaching for the Leominster church since the early sixties.

On Sunday I went with friends to the Vermont Mozart Festival and heard the orchestra play four pieces by American composers :

Leonard Bernstein- Overture to Candide
Aaron Copland- Appalachian Spring
Samuel Barber- Adagio for Strings
George Gershwin- Concerto in F Major for Piano and Orchestra

It was a really wonderful night on the lawn on top of the Von Trapp mountain - surrounded by the Green Mountains. Appalachian Spring and Adagio for Strings are two of my favorite pieces and it was just magic.

Yesterday was spent staking out the property and watching a very large backhoe dig it up. The earth smelled rich and as work was beginning, I did not want to leave.

It was a good and productive weekend.

This Is Why My Soul Is Still There...

My Body Is Back But My Soul Is Still There

We returned from Vermont on Sunday afternoon. Leaving the pond this time was the hardest it’s ever been.

We spent the first part of the week packing up all our belongings and memories in our old camp and moving them into storage.

The later half of the week was spent removing some tongue and groove pine paneling that we will use as wainscoting in the new camp eventually.

I am a sentimentalist - I can’t help it - I always have been. As I said goodbye to the old place when we left, I remembered all the good times around the dining room table - all the games of Scrabble, the card games and the puzzles that were put together.

All the meals shared with friends and family. The mornings, well spent, sipping coffee and looking out on the pond at either the ducks or the loons. All the afternoons of watching Sandy dog sun herself on the deck.

Watching the sun rise each day and the long twilights as the sun went down behind the mountain.

By next summer we should be able to do that all again. But it will be in a new place and there will be new memories to be made.

We are taking along some of the old camp…the tongue and groove paneling, an old sink, and all the old “art work” that was in the camp when we purchased it…to use in the new camp.

The next time I go to Vermont our old place will be gone but the memories of the last seven years I carry with me to make me smile.

Pictures From The Pond