Author Archives: Paul McDonald

Virus Lockdown

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Its been building and finally decided to bring my parents down to the farm for the foreseeable future. My Dad was having just too hard of a time caring for Mom and there is just no way to get additional help or consider an assisted living/memory care facility as they are all locked down not accepting new residents. This will be tough as Mom requires way more care than I ever imagined.

  • Breakfast
  • Fire pit with pops.

On an up-note, our daughter Emily is back from graduate school at Tufts (SMFA) due to the virus and will be staying here with us. She has converted the top of the barn into her art studio. Its refreshing to have her around with all of the energy and optimism she brings. Here is the beginnings of her studio.

  • Just the beginning of her studio.

Meet Ace

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Very excited to announce that we have a new member of the family, a Black Labrador puppy we’ve named Ace. Of course he is perfect! Expect to see many pictures of him here at the farm. Mirlo, our 10yr old poodle, wasn’t quite as happy to see this newcomer. The video below is the moment he met him.

  • Best pup ever
  • In the car at the breeder

It Started Small but Snowballed

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What started as the removal of a few pesky cedar trees to improve views and access has snowballed into a full blown landscape project where we even bought bulk landscape materials.

Below shows the beginning, Patty cut down these trees with her new Milwaukee battery powered pole saw, which is wonderful by the way. She is going to use the trunks of these trees to build a raised bed garden.

How it starts.

After we removed the trees we said hey, we need to grind these stumps out…and since we will need to rent a stump grinder and chain saw stump cutter, we might as well clear out some more of these trees and brush and open it up. Took me almost 15 trips with the tractor and grapple to get all of the trunks removed and disposed of.

Here comes the grinder!
Frontier wife was able to handle this easily.
Rented a landscape rake too.
Lots of smaller stumps
Clearing
Couldn’t even hardly see the field on the other side before we removed the trees.
Maddy joined us for a relaxing day. Of course a fire-pit for sunset was in order.

After cutting the trees down, disposing of the brush and grinding out the stumps I was left with one monster oak tree stump that was just too big to grind. Figured I could use the tractor, dig out around it, breaking roots and eventually I could pull it out. Well, no deal, dug at least three feet down and that thing would NOT budge. Project isn’t complete until I can get that stump out of there and then re-grade the area in preparation for seeding a ground cover.

Additionally, try reading this article regarding core drilling, a method used to remove tree stumps from the ground using a specialized machine called a stump grinder.

Monster
Trimmed it off
45hp tractor was no match.

Chimney Demolition Done

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Finished taking both chimneys down to the floor level and patched the roof. It was quite a bit bigger task than I had envisioned, but I’m sure glad its done. The house looks strange now…

Now to figure out how to best remove that load bearing wall…

  • Second chimney below roof line
  • Patched
  • Below the ceiling height finally.
  • Down to the floor level now.

Chimney Demolition Weekend

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The big task this weekend with the ongoing Gray House refurb project was to remove the chimney on the right side and patch the roof hole. Started on Friday with the above-roof portion, this took me until it was pretty much dark. I was rushing at the end to beat a pending rainstorm.

On Saturday me and my super-model wife rigged up a block and tackle to a roof joist and proceeded to deconstruct the chimney inside the house until it was roughly waist high. Was drenched in sweat by the time this was over. The back and shoulders will be sore tonight. See the progress and results below.

  • Here we go!
  • Not too bad to this point
  • Getting this one out was a real hassle.
  • Finally below the roof line, time to patch.
  • From the inside
  • Rubber patch, temporary (<2 months )
  • Block and tackle worked well
  • Super-model
  • She’s a keeper!
  • Result at the end of the day Saturday.