Black Cats, Socks and Stains

It is snowing in Idaho. Right now. In October. Weird for this Virginia boy! We woke up yesterday with a mountain view that was snow covered and it is a beautiful sight - unless you are trying to finish a roof.

Today I was out as soon as the roof was dry enough to walk on. While watching snow falling on other mountain ranges I spent the day finishing the shingling of the back half of the center section of our roof. This is the section that covers the cathedral ceiling. Karren came up when I was about half way finished and helped push the job forward. We finished by nailing on ridge cap shingles. Now all that is left is to strip and shingle the final third of the roof.

We have been dodging rain now for the past week and are having good luck with it so far. Now the cold is yet another factor. Shingles get brittle when it gets cold and they don't stick to one another well. What has me really worried is how we are going to clean up this mess. There are shingles for days all over the place. We are currently burning the cedar shakes in the stove and we should have a lifetime of kindling out of them. We've taken an 800 pound load to the dump and will need to take at least two more from the front. It's the segregating shake from asphalt shingle that really wears us out. Check out the rear of the place. Nails everywhere. Shingles three feet deep.

Throughout the entire ordeal of putting on this roof we have had a spectator. Kitty Kat came with the house and is our official barn cat. I feed him every morning and sometimes again in the evening if he is pitiful enough. This cat can fend for itself but prefers to be fed. I have lately been able to touch it and pet it, but Karren is still working on the relationship.

When it rains, like yesterday, there is enough inside to keep me busy. I stripped the guest bedroom back wall of old, nasty wallpaper and glue. An hour of getting the wallpaper down and two of fighting with the glue! Check out the pet urine stains on the subfloor.

It gets worse. Here is the master bed room with all the stains in their full glory.

Gee, wonder where the bed was? Moral of the story - don't let the dogs in the house! And keep 'em off the carpet. Super gross. Will need to do a lot of work to neutralize the stains before I can lay flooring.

Lastly, Karren wanted me to show everyone her new socks that a friend sent her from Goochland. These are her new favorite clothing item. Wonder why?

Well, that's the news from Idaho today. We are expecting a couple of inches of white stuff when we wake so it may be a interesting commute to town tomorrow. See y'all next time!

Karren on the Rampage!

Since we have a new stainless chimney for our wood stove we decided to remove the old cinderblock chimney in the back of the house. This old one was cracked and some of the mortar joints were displaced/shifted. We also wanted to open the basement window view that the chimney blocked. I had broken the block above the roof line and thrown it down, piece by piece earlier in the day. When Karren got home she was eager to participate in the destruction.

Here she is in action taking out her work frustrations on a poor, unsuspecting cinder block. BTW, the fire brick inside was fine except for one burn penetration above the roof line.

After spending a while with mini-Thor she switched to a baseball swing with the splitting maul. WHAM! Instant gratification.

On Sunday (we are sinners) we finished the stripping of the second of three sections of roof shingles. Yesterday I put down underlayment and installed a new roof vent and boot for plumbing vent. Karren arrived just in time to participate in scraping and priming the section of short wall above the roof line that didn't get painted last month. We will continue to finish the painting and will fix the flashing around the high windows before the shingle work begins. There will need to be some caulk work and some custom flashing before I'm happy with the ability of the windows to stay leak free.

The way roof flashing works is really gravity based. Simply imagine you are a rain drop and you want to find your way home to the ground. Gravity is the main mechanism but is sometimes altered by wind or capillary action. As long as you can prevent these actions from moving the water into the structure, or have a path for it to follow, you have solved the problem.

I ran out of nails. I was pretty sure that I would based on the knowledge that I would be nailing twice the density in order to prevent high winds from lifting materials, but was assured by the Lowe's staff that one bucket was enough. It is easy enough to pick up more on one of our many runs back into town. I am also running out of underlayment. That was unexpected. Either my roof dimensions and calculations are wrong or the Lowe's computer lied. No biggie! The extra roll was ordered yesterday.

The next installment will feature a blurb about the nascent flooring project, which is also tied to the interior painting. So get ready for "Nasty Carpet Removal" or "Paint Until Your Arms Fall Off!" See you then!

Monsters of Marsh Creek!

Get a load of this mule deer that was shot by a neighbor right across the street from our place. He said, "We only count the points on one side of the rack here in Idaho. Never heard of such a thing. In VA every good old boy is going to count every daggone hint of a point and add 'em all up.

Say AAHHH! Karren ought ot know better than to goof around while I have a camera out.

On the way back from Sun Valley I saw five herds of antelope. Here's one of them. Check out the rutting buck sniffing the evening air.

He's the one on the left. This place is full of wildlife. I just can't figure out what they eat around here. Or where they get water. I was talking to my neighbor and he was telling me that our property is situated right on the best part of Marsh Creek for duck hunting. I think he was giving me a hint.

This evening I set up my astro gear and shot some pictures of M33, Triangulum Galaxy. I think it will turn out well. The quatorial mount that has been giving me fits for the last two years is finally working well, and I am soooo glad.

It was so beautiful out tonight and the temps were perfect. Did I say there were NO MOSQUITOS? Eat your heart out VA!

The next update will more than likely be after I finally recover from staying out all night to photograph the sky. So stay tuned!

Chim-Chimminy

The chimney was installed on the roof yesterday. I just love cutting a gi-normous hole in a roof! This was possible because on Sunday Karren and I tore off all the shingles from the center section/front of the roof.

THe sheathing underneath was in pretty good shape for a house this old (1979), so we were happy not to have to cut any wood out. Except for the chimney hole of course. Here's a shot of Karren after the roof top chimney install. She can't get over that we did this ourselves. I don't have the heart to tell her that the homeowners probably will kill us on this if we ever have a fire! : (

So Monday I picked up the underlayment for the shingles, which had to be special ordered from Lowe's. Why does everything they order take so long to get to the store? I guess that's why Lowe's is known in the construction trades as "SLowe's." The under side of the chimney (inside) is framed in a black metal box to prevent contact with the combustibles and it serves as the chimney support in this cathedral ceiling application. Naturally these parts are sort of special as well. Lowe's sells ALMOST everything you need for this particular situation except a universal roof support, which I picked up in town after a day long search. Cal-Ranch stores had it, plus everything else you need for chimneys. Shoulda looked there first. There were several places that had the "additional"support but they wanted more than twice the price! It would be nice if Lowe's actually read the literature of the products they sell so they can stock the rest of the pieces that are REQUIRED for installation. Anyway, here's a look at the interior penetration:

It was a tight fit; I didn't want any air moving up past the box creating a draft. They drywall marks on the box just wiped off. Today I connected the rest of the stove pipe and the stove is ready for its initial burn. They are usually pretty stinky for 30 minutes or so, because of all the fresh metal having its surfaces heated and smoked up.

After fixing the stove in place I woke up Karren and we attacked the roof underlayment. We managed to get the stuff laid out square and completed the roof that was bare. It looks kind of cool. This stuff (Grace's Tri-flex synthetic) is very nice to work with and is really tough. It requires nails every four inches around the perimeter and every 24 in the field. Karren really liked it because they have little x's where you are supposed to nail. she likes that a lot! It sure does look better...

There is metal drip edge all the way around the roof. We noticed that the rake (angled edge to the right) had plywood edges that had weathered severely and I wanted to make sure that we never have to worry about that anymore. Here's the chimney after the storm collar was attached. Looks good!

We have to leave the lower part of the flashing loose because we'll slide shingles under it until half way past it, then they will ride over top of the flashing. This sheds the water correctly.

Stay tuned for the next installment: Critters that are in trouble or the Sky's the limit!

Sun Valley Chilled

Karren had a conference to attend in Sun Valley Resort, and she was able to get a king size bed in her room. Can you say, "Road Trip!" So we loaded up the Miata and we hit the road.

S.V. is 3-1/2 hours from McCammon. About two hours spent driving at highway speeds and the rest idling along at a snail's pace while completing the trip to "the land of the beautiful people." I guess the folks with that much money don't like to stress their lexus and beamers to much. Lots of old Mercedes clunking around with even older looking people behind the wheel. While Virginia had some areas of "old money," these folks are just old - with money.

The SunValley Lodge is a nice place and has a distinctly upscale look, very similar to the Colonial Williamsburg area. While the lodge, inn and its environs are not a particularly sizable piece of real estate they are situated in a manicured valley between the town of Ketchum and the mountain wilderness. There are lots of homes, mansions really, that are tucked away in the hills. I was informed that some very famous stars and VIP's have homes here. Whoop-te-do. Big Deal. Unless Abraham Lincoln walks in the room I'm not likely to be impressed. But that's just me.

Skiing is the big business of Sun Valley. Apparently the rest of the year there are conferences and other stuff they sell the place on, but it is the winter sport season that they depend on. There are slopes directly behind the lodge and there is a very nice skating rink nested immediately behind the building. In the photograph above, the conical peak in the background is the slope that the lodge actually operates, with at least two chair lifts. They are currently making snow since yesterday, as the temps at night are dropping into the twenties. This mountain looks like it would be perfect for the beginner to intermediate skier. However, there are other slopes available for the more advanced skiers. Check out this mountain below:

Photographed from about 4 miles away, this appears to be about two thousand feet of runs, which actually radiate down all sides of the mountain. I saw at least 4 lifts that leave several different locations, each of which must be driven to, and lots of parking available. Some of the lots are huge and some are free. No wonder this place has a great ski reputation. What I didn't take pictures of was the town of Ketchum. Still very upscale, it is a shopper's paradise of small boutiques and shops. Be prepared for the women in your party to want to stop and shop, and be prepared for the sticker shock of the grossly inflated tourist district prices. Ketchum is small but packs quite a lot into its footprint. Equally troubling to me is the price of fuel here. A full dollar or more than an hour south of here. Fill up on the way in!

Since I find no fascination in shops or skiing, I took a trip out the back end of Ketchum to explore.

There are real mountains in these parts! After a short chat with a ranger at the visitor center I proceded up the highway into the Sawtooth Range. I was very interested in how my body would respond to the elevation after having been here 7 weeks. Galena Pass was only 30 miles up the road and is listed as over 8000 feet, so that was my destination. After a few stops to search the mountain sides for goats I started up the slow incline. At the top I found this marker:

Feeling smug and secure with my new-found toleration altitude I thought I'd go over the top to the observation point a half mile down. MISTAKE! I felt the rapid heart beat begin about a minute after I left the summit, so I turned around and high tailed it back over the top and began a rapid descent to lower altitude. At about 500 feet below the top the symptoms disappeared so I stopped at another overlook and began documenting my slow trip back to Ketchum and Sun Valley.

Usually jet contrails make a disaster of nature scenics but this time it actually helps! Pay no attention to the seagull shaped blob in the sky - that's dust on my sensor and it remains throughout all of these pictures. Above? Looking into the forest road that ascends into Spring Valley.

It is strange to see highway signs that talk about "the old history of the west," when I'm used to seeing dates in VA that go all the way back to 1600's. But the gold rush and associated pioneer trails are still fascinating to explore. Here's a sign about the town of Galena that is (gone) just below the summit.

So today we leave to take a leisurely drive home. We'll probably go around the northern route through Arco and Craters of the Moon, which may draw us back in for a few moments. We never did get any decent pictures of the place when we attended the star party. When we get home it will be back to work on the house. First, firewood delivery, then a trip to Lowe's to pick up our roofing underlayment. So be sure to tune into the next segment of the blog:

Glad to Be Home or Swamped by the Frozen Plumbing...