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.