After Christmas

We had a nice Christmas day together at home. Here's Annie on Christmas morning in the debris field of gifts and cast-aside wrapping stuff. She got earphones, Japanese language learning software and a Borders gift certificate - oh boy!

For a number of years we have been deemphasizing the "stuff" giving component of Christmas. We stopped exchanging with my mom, sister Karyn and in-laws Lee and Yvonne and instead do charitable donations to Ronald McDonald House, Highlands Sanctuary and Cincinnati Freestore Foodbank in their names. Lee Ann and I are giving each other a shared B & B getaway weekend to be named later.

Jackson Christmas Visit

On Saturday Lee Ann, Annie and I started out bright and early and made the five hour drive to Jackson, arriving about noon. We had a nice visit at Mom's, and then at Brian's. It was nice to see the 8 inches of fresh snow that Jackson got in the last storm - we had rain in Cincinnati, which is typical.

On the way home we passed though a band of northern Ohio that fell between the snow and the rain and got ice. Luckily the sun was out for us and trees, fences and everything ice-covered were glittering like crystal - beautiful. This is always easier to appreciate when you're not having to deal with downed power lines and fallen limbs in your own yard. Here is Annie posing in front of an ice-coated tree just north of Van Wert.

Here is an action shot from the Tower House kitchen project, which is in its very early stages. This room was the kitchen originally but at some point previous owners moved the kitchen to another room and screwed up the floorplan of the house. We are moving it back. This photo shows the floor after I removed carpet and padding and began putting a new plywood underlayment in place. I will be buying tile pretty soon.

Post-Thanksgiving Festivities

My brother Brian and his family traditionally visit us the Saturday after Thanksgiving, on their way back to Michigan from Terre Haute, where they spend Turkey Day. Here is the group - Brian, Lorrie, and girls Lindsay and Megan (and Mom, of course), mixed in with us.

Along with the people, we had a reunion of dogs - and when they get together they always play cards. At the table you see (from l to r) Danny "Dangling Ace" McAlpine, Oscar "I'll See You And Raise You " McAlpine, and Barkley "What Are These Things On The Table?" McAlpine. We really were trying to recreate the famous "Dogs Playing Poker" picture, but our dogs are not that high-functioning - they kept dropping the cards.

The last photo shows Oscar, mom's dog, with his nifty haircut. Brian and sister Karyn bought Oscar for Mom for Christmas a few years ago. Oscar is a Giant Miniature Schnauzer - a very rare breed.

Saturday was the City of Lebanon's annual carriage parade. This is a wonderful event with Christmas-themed horse-drawn carriages and nothing but. The parade runs twice - the first time as a daylight parade, and then after dark when the carriages are lit up with everything from antique lanterns to strings of Christmas lights.

We have a party every year coinciding with the parade. This is a chance for Lee Ann to invite her "horsey" friends over to talk about the horse world and then to walk the few blocks from our house to the parade route for the night version of the parade. I didn't get any pictures, but here are some I stole from the City's website.

Georgetown Building - More Photos

I got the rest of the old frame addition removed from the back of our commercial building. These pictures are about two weeks old now. Since then the gas meter has been relocated and the low spot filled in with gravel.

Fat And Happy

On Tuesday I (Scott) drove to Jackson MI and stayed at Brian's house - and on Wednesday Mom and I drove back to Lebanon. She will be here for a few days helping us celebrate Thanksgiving and catching up on our lives. Brian and family should arrive on Saturday and will head back home on Sunday with Mom in tow.

For Thanksgiving dinner yesterday it was the four of us - Lee Ann, Annie, Mom and me - versus a huge feast of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie (plus a bunch of other stuff). We gave a good account of ourselves and have been laying around in a collective stupor ever since. Annie thought the table was so impressive that she had to take a picture - then commented that it looked better in real life. There is a larger truth in that somewhere, and I am still thinking about how to wrap it into a neat phrase.

Re-Wilding

On Sunday Lee Ann, Annie and I, along with 30 other people, tore down a house. This was on land obtained by Highlands Sanctuary for wilderness preservation. They call this "re-wilding" - a new word for me. It was a pretty cold day and we worked hard, but it was fun.

Potpourri

• Here are a selection of snapshots of our last week's adventures and accomplishments.
  The first photo is of our new yard light. We put this in at the end of the walk that goes to our parking area at the back of our lot. The post is an old wood porch post that had been broken off near the top, which made it perfect for this use. I had to run 100 feet of direct bury electric cable down the hill from the house to this spot. Now when you turn the back porch light on, this light comes on too.
  The second photo is of the new skirting I am building for the back porch. I am making this out of 3" wide cedar planks that I got with all that other lumber several weeks ago. I spent most of today making these two sections.
  The third photo is an action shot of me at our pharmacy building on Monday. We have now torn off all of the shed addition that we can until the gas meter, which is attached to it, gets relocated. Hopefully that will happen next week.
  The last photo is of me in front of the largest horseshoe crab in Ohio (and maybe the world). We have seen this several times while driving thru Blanchester OH on our way to Georgetown, and finally stopped to check it out. Originally it was built for an aquarium on the east coast, but somehow it ended up in front of a little church that uses it as a shelter for weddings and parties - the entrance is underneath the tail.
  
  
  
  

Halloween Costumes

Here we are in our Halloween costumes - Lee Ann as a Gypsy, Danny as a pumpkin, and me as The Invisible Man. Despite the fact that we live on Main Street in Lebanon, we only got one Trick-Or Treater this year, and that was our neighbor's kid.

Pharmacy Building - Georgetown

We own a commercial building in Georgetown, rented by a pharmacist for many years. Since we bought it three years ago I have been thinking about fixing or tearing off a shed addition to the back of the building whose roof had failed and caved in. On Friday I spent the day emptying the contents and pulling down the rotting wood. I hauled three pickup truck loads to the dump - a hard-working day. Tomorrow (Monday) Lee Ann and I are going back to figure out if we should rebuild or just remove the whole thing.

Highlands Sanctuary Visit

We had a fun day at the Highlands Sanctuary in Highland County (about a 60-mile drive) on Saturday. This is an organization we have donated to for several years, and this year we attended their "Donor Gathering." It was an all-day event, with music, hiking on the cave trails and presentations from various folks on saving the eastern forests.

I like this organization because it relies on individuals (like me) giving money to buy and protect woodlands into the future. The Highlands group builds trails, eradicates invasive non-native species and holds educational seminars on forestry and ecology-related topics. Annie is applying to be an intern there next summer. Photos show the opening music by Stephen Free and the hiking trail led by an intern in character as Edward Sullivant, 19th Century naturalist.

Auction Success!

Lee Ann and I spent a cool but sunny day today at an estate auction here in Lebanon. Among a (few) other things, we got the pine stepback cabinet and metal plant stand pictured.

A Recycling Project Disguised As A Porch

A few more weeks have gone by, and there is a bit more progress to show. I have been framing for windows, making the door latch and painting as I go.

I am using six old window sashes to "glass in" the porch. Originally these were halves of very large double-hung windows in the train depot at Hillsdale, Michigan, which was built in the 1870's. I got a big stack of these when we were living in Hillsdale in 1993 (most with the glass still in them) as the depot was being remodeled into a tae-kwon-do studio. A remodeling contractor was removing all the original building elements and tossing them into giant dumpsters, but we were able to save these sashes and have been dragging them around with us ever since, looking for a new use for them.

I already posted that the door came with a stack of old lumber I got at a barn auction a month ago. A lot of the trim molding from that auction is going into the porch too.

The flooring is that 1 inch oak left over from the big project we did at our last house, where I replaced termite eaten floorboards in two downstairs parlor rooms. The cedar siding is also a leftover, from the lovely garden shed I built in Georgetown five years ago.

We move pretty often and a big part of the move is relocating the huge collection of old house parts and miscellaneous building materials we always have. Lee Ann jokes (well, she is sorta joking) that we need our own warehouse.

And Now - In The Center Ring...

I am afraid of heights. This is not a big problem in life, but occasionally it does cause trouble.

When we bought the Tower House, I was glad that it had a fairly new shingle roof. The house is tall, and the roof angles are steep, so it would be scary for me to work on. But I was comforted to think that the roof was probably good for the next fifteen years. Then two weeks ago we had that windstorm and some shingles blew off.

I tried to be a coward. Lee Ann called a roofer for me, so I wouldn't have to do the repair. She called four times. The last time, when she pressed him, the roofer admitted that we were at the bottom of a list two months long. So I had to do it.

The photo shows my little green extension ladder sitting on a stand I built which is attached to the front porch roof. The missing shingles were at the bottom front corner of the high roof - on my right hand side from the top of the ladder. The stand was necessary because the ladder had to sit on the sideslope of the porch roof, and to keep the feet firmly in place. I spent four hours building the stand, fastening it to the roof and positioning the ladder on it. I also roped the ladder bottom to a screw eye in the siding to keep it from sliding out, and strapped the ladder top in place to make sure it could not fall over sideways. Still, I was terrified to go up that ladder. The base seemed solid, but what if it gave way? Were ten screws enough to keep it from sliding down the porch roof once I was on the ladder? (Fixing all those screw holes is my next task.) What if the whole porch chose that moment to collapse? Or could a gust of wind cause me to lose my balance and plunge to the ground? I was only 20 feet up, but it felt like a hundred.

But it all went fine once I went up the ladder, and the actual repair took only a half hour. I avoided looking down from my somewhat awkward perch. Lee Ann was right there, handing my tools up and helpfully clutching my pantleg.

Good Porch Fixing Weather

I know, it seems all I post about is this neverending porch project. This has gotten most of my project time for the last several weeks, but now the hard work is done and you can see what the finished product will look like. Check out the new antique storm/screen door, which came along with that big load of lumber from a couple of weeks ago - those things are hard to find, especially with the screen AND glass inserts.

Lumber Day

My task for today was to move as much of this lumber (which I bought for $10 at auction yesterday) as possible from a barn near Xenia to our farm near Wilmington, about 25 miles away. I collected two very full truckloads today and got them stashed in our barn, which took about 8 hours all told. Most of this stuff is 16 feet long, so I had to cut it into 10' pieces before I put it in my little pickup. And I had to fish it out of the barn loft, by myself, before cutting and loading. Still, I got a lot of high-value trim molding, a lot of oak lumber and (not pictured) more antique cabinet doors, drawers and frames that match the ones I bought at auction yesterday. The former owner, Dr. Gruber, has been great to work with and gave me the extra stuff, and extra time to pick out the lumber beyond the auction company's standard two-hour window.

I was going to make a third trip late this afternoon but a fierce windstorm blew through the area. Trees and electric wires were draped across roads, and the last load of lumber I hauled felt unstable as the gusts reached (I heard later) 78 m.p.h. So I called it a day. Lee Ann and I plan one last load tomorrow after work, and that will be enough.

Greatest Auction Ever

Today Lee Ann and I spent most of the day at an auction close to Xenia, Ohio. A doctor had sold his 1827 farm house and was auctioning things that he could not take as he retires to North Carolina. It was the perfect auction in terms of contents since he had collected a lot of interesting old stuff - and because there was a small crowd and things were going cheap! Here is a list of what we bought:

• An antique wall phone (see picture) stealthily converted with modern internals (there is a number keypad under the little note shelf) - $50
• A box of six porcelain door knob and shaft sets, complete - $15
• A copper and brass riveted-shell fire extinguisher (the big size) - $15
• A box of brownware, including a classic brownware pitcher - $3
• A room-sized oriental carpet - $17.50
• Two old porch posts, five antique cabinet doors, a cabinet frame and some pieces of house gingerbread - $26

The best deal came at the end. When the auctioneer finished, I asked about a giant stash of oak lumber and trim molding stashed in the barn loft. (The material is left over from the owner's hobby of building cabinets, plus material he used in restoring his old house.) For $10 he is letting me take all I want. I don't know how much I will get - there must be 10 pickup truckloads of material - but with trim molding going for $1 a foot or more at Home Despot and a single oak 1" x 4" x 8' board worth probably $10 retail I will get my money's worth in the first 30 seconds when I start loading it up tomorrow. My mind is reeling - I keep pinching myself and hoping it was not all a dream.

Meet Cat Number Three (Rated Most Adoptable!)

So there we were, fully burdened with two cats and a dog, when powers beyond our understanding sensed a soft spot in the cat universe and sent this fluffball our way.

Earlier this summer, we began noticing a pathetic, scrawny ghost of a cat hanging out near an abandoned house a few blocks from our house. Lee Ann is way too empathetic to not react in such a situation, so we began dropping off food at the curb. After a few weeks of this, Annie brought the cat home. Several hundred dollars in vet care later, we had a new roomie.

For the present this cat has two names. Annie calls her Maya, a pleasant enough moniker. Lee Ann and I call her CC, which is short for Curb Cat - a bit edgier, in a satisfying way. She joins our other two cats, Stitches and Maybelline, who also were rehab projects from the strayosphere.

Any takers? She really is a delightful cat who would love to live with YOU. She is glamorous too, with half-Siamese coloring and a dramatic feathery tail. Admit it - you CAN'T RESIST!

Porch Progress

Here is the east wall of our porch, reconstructed. I am just finishing the siding today (Tuesday) after framing and sheathing it this weekend. This wall used to have a large screen above a knee wall but we need storage space so are rebuilding it as a solid wall. This will allow space to build a storage cabinet inside the porch. The other two walls will have windows where the screens used to be, sunroom-style.

This morning Lee Ann and I drove to Hamilton, Ohio (about 25 miles) to check out a place that sells garden architectural items, but when we got there we found out all their good stuff is in a warehouse across town and you can only buy it via Ebay. Sheesh. Yesterday we went to a Labor Day picnic with Lee Ann's Ebner relatives-by-marriage at a pretty riverfront park where the Licking river meets the Ohio.

McAlpine Clan's Best Friend

You've been wondering; what kind of dog would THEY have? Well, now you know that our pup is a long-legged Jack Russell Terrier named Danny. This is a young breed and has a lot of variation. Danny's littermates were mostly the common, short-leg variety, but his ranginess harkens to the English branch of the breed - and the combination of long legs and manic Jack Russell energy makes him quite a runner. Danny's coat is a combination of wiry (on his back) and smooth (everywhere else). Lee Ann wanted to name him Kramer, after the Seinfeld character with similarly unruly hair, but he already had his name and it stuck.

Danny is now four years old, weighs 20 pounds, and enjoys long walks on the beach, sunsets, and fleeing in terror from our three cats, who like to beat him up. It's a good thing he is fast.

Back Porch - At Long Last

I put off repairs to the back porch here at our Lebanon house as long as I possibly could, but now work finally is underway. Last Friday I propped up the roof, then tore out the rotten decking and disintegrating deck frame beneath that. By yesterday (Tuesday) I had the framing back together and new floorboards in place and finished. I used some 1" thick tongue and groove white oak flooring that I had left over from a previous project, so this is probably the stoutest porch floor in a three county area (excluding the concrete ones). It sure is nice to work with good materials.

The porch had been enclosed with half-height walls and screens above that, but we are planning a more weathertight arrangement with actual windows. I'll post pictures when we get that far.

Here's Where I Work (Scott)

I work for a great company (The David J. Joseph Company)! They allow me to work part-time, which now is three days a week. And when I am not traveling to scrap yards I go to my office in beautiful downtown Cincinnati, Ohio.

Today I took my camera to work and got a couple of shots of The American Book Building, where we have our offices. The building was built in 1904 and housed (no surprise here) The American Book Company for many years. These are the folks who published and printed McGuffy's Readers, the famous textbooks that your great-grandparents probably used in school. Because it originally housed big printing presses and stacks of books, the structure is very stout - there are support columns spaced at 12 feet on center throughout the building.

I also took a photo of the park where I walk on nice office days, which runs for maybe three miles along the Ohio River. Across the river is Kentucky. I can walk from my office building to the park in about three minutes.

Cincinnati has a sort of bad reputation among people who live someplace else. In fact, there are a lot of dangerous and run-down neighborhoods. But the central business district is really nice.

Getting In On the Ground Floor

This is the front parlor floor, the object of my current efforts at the Tower House. All the original floorboards were covered decades ago with the thin strip oak flooring you see a few remaining sections of in this photo - then termites moved in. Now that I am removing the damaged oak boards we can see the original floors for the first time in a couple of generations. Next we will try to restore the original surface. Surprisingly, the termites did more damage to the oak than to the older underlying boards. But they also did damage to the joists below, so I have placed a header on jackposts below to resupport them and will reinforce the weakened joists as the project unfolds.

Lee Ann's Pond - After Pictures

What a difference a few weeks make! Lee Ann finished digging, put in a heavy-duty liner, worked her magic with some rocks and plants, and voila - the pond is "done." There are still things to do, but the water is in and wildlife has flocked to our little wetland - water insects, cool dragonflies, and lots of thirsty birds.

Birth Of An Ocean

Today Lee Ann and I spent about four hours at the Tower House. I mowed and bagged up trash, and Lee Ann mostly dug in her pond. The previous owners had a little pond in the same place, about three feet in diameter and long defunct. Well, Lee Ann wanted a BIGGER pond - and the more she has worked on it, the bigger it has gotten. Of course it is not nearly ocean sized - that would be an exaggeration - but the Great Lakes are starting to worry a little bit. The pond doesn't look like much now, but the liner is on order and once we get that things will really start to take shape.

Lebanon Garden Tour

On Sunday Lee Ann and I visited several nice gardens on the Lebanon Garden Tour. The weather was just right, not too hot.

Basement Stair Cover - Almost Done

I started this project a couple of weeks ago and am nearly finished. This is a classic old-house basement entrance with external stairwell. Since we bought the house we have been using the old rotting wood cover - not really a door, just a four foot wide panel made out of boards fastened together that we had to lift off and set aside to use the stairs. The panel finally fell apart and even with a tarp draped over it was letting a lot of rainwater into the basement, which forced my hand.

This was a fun project to do and the best part is that I got the lumber for free. Lee Ann brought it back from the barn where they had no use for it. The boards are nice tongue and groove material. One more coat of paint and I'm done.