home improvement – The Hermits' Rest

Three Weeks of Retirement Left

I’ll try to get as much horse riding and swimming pool lounging in as I can for the rest of the month, because I accepted the offer on the job I was debating and it starts June 30.

The Pacific Time hours will be a bit of a challenge, because I’ve never worked in a time zone later than mine, but since it’s relatively cooler in the mornings in the hot months here, I may find doing horse stuff and other ranch chores more pleasant. I can adjust!

I’ll still have time to look for birds at my birding station, which was sited today.

Theoretically, I’ll retire again in 6 months or so. I did like the main interviewer a lot, so I think I’ll enjoy making a few more handouts and answering a lot more questions about project and portfolio management software. I’m sure glad I didn’t entirely flush that knowledge from my brain in March.

Looks like plenty of space for rainwater capture here.

In the meantime, Lee and I are taking a short drive around our area, first to close on a property sale in no-longer-scenic Cedar Park, then spending the night in Waco and going to the zoo we didn’t get to go to when storms came after Lee’s canceled jury duty. Just some couple time.

I may be a little slower, but I get there.

It’s a nice reward for making it through all the interviews and paperwork. I’d suspected they’d choose someone young and energetic. Well, my friends keep telling me I’m energetic, so I’m passing as the elder statesman energy bunny.

Home Improvement Again

We haven’t been able to do much fixing up around here lately, but the construction team made time for us to start an upgrade. We’re fulfilling Lee’s dream of turning an awkward space in our house into a screened porch.

The little “outdoor room” on the other side of the family room has its own fireplace, and seemed like it would be a great place to hang out. Little did we know that the prevailing winds would create a vortex that sent every piece of debris into the narrow space. And when you have an Alfred, that means piles and piles of dog hair. Add in grass clippings, bird poop from the many Barn Swallow nests, and dust…well it was always awful except about a week after its quarterly cleaning.

My hope is that by screening in the room, we will get breezes but not so much hair. And the birds will have plenty of other nesting spots (they have the entire front and back porches to duel with House Sparrows over).

After emptying the game equipment and power washing the space, the guys got it all framed in today. They did something special with where the wood meets the concrete to prevent rot, but I’m not sure what.

It’s all planned out how it’s going to blend in with the trim and siding on the rest of the house, so it will look like the porch was always there.

I hope we can get the fireplace set up for cool evenings. In any case, the mosquito barrier will be nice!

Renovation in Progress

I’d intended to update y’all on the progress my amazing family and team are making on the current renovation project in Cameron. At this point, I’m ready to move in! (But I won’t.) sorry for two posts today, but I couldn’t fit the two topics together.

I finally got a picture of the whole house. It’s wide.

I dropped by earlier in the week and saw all the insulation that got put in. Wow. It’s so much quieter in there now! Even the attic is insulated. I imagine the utility bills will be better, too, especially since the new heat pump is very efficient.

It’s cool to see how much is changing.

New rear entrance through laundry/utility room

Today Anita, Lee, and I all visited. I told my son to dig up violets and grape hyacinth to plant at his cabin. Then I looked around. Most of the insulation is now covered with sheet rock. They’ve made good progress. I got a demo of taping and floating, which was educational to me. It looks fun, and my drywall application pro child agreed.

The house is so light now. But the most light comes from the two new windows that have transformed the formerly dark and tunnel-like hall leading to the main bedroom. It’s awesome from the inside and out.

There will be really nice siding here, which will break up the width a bit.

More painting happens next week, and cabinets are getting worked on. The team will keep the mid-century charm while making the house comfortable and modern at the same time. I’m glad I get to help a little! But major kudos to our team and the excellent subcontractors!

I Am Elsewhere

Look at me! I’m doing an activity! For fun! In a different place. Alone. I’m going to a conference I attended Before COVID and really enjoyed, sponsored by the Bennett Trust and Texas Parks and Wildlife. So I’ll get Master Naturalist credits.

The hotel in Kerrville (YO Ranch) is old but charming, and I have good memories of staying here during the Kerrville Folk Festival. I like the quaintness and quiet. I hope it’s fun tomorrow.

Things are still moving along at the ole ranch. With Anita’s house done, we can get some things we’ve been waiting on. First, we’re going to put the gutters on our house, at last. Lee wanted rain chains, but the wind killed them. So, the gutters have come out of the storage container!

First, we needed to make the water drain away from the pool. I feel really bad for the team, because they had to dig this trench with a pick axe on the hottest day of the year so far.

Hey, there’s a house in the back yard. And a trench.

A big drain hose will go in the trench. I am, however, hoping at least my son feels better today, when he got to drive the backhoe around and destroy stuff.

They were taking down the fence we used to use to keep the dogs in. Now that we have a larger fenced area and the pool is done, we don’t need that fence, even though it’s pretty. I’m assuming the crew will re-use the components.

I was proud of how well the guys did without any supervision. They’re a good team.

I have saddled poor Lee with horse feeding for the time I’m gone (until Saturday). I prepared buckets of food for Apache and Drew. I’m hoping he can hold down the fort until his helpers return! Secretly, he is doing much better with the horses and has been helping a lot! Yay for my spouse.

More tomorrow. Now I must post about knitting.

Visiting and Tinkering

Ah, darn. I had an entire post written on the phone yesterday, went to add a photo to it, and somehow discarded the whole post rather than just a photo I wanted to replace. I declared it a sign that I should just concentrate on doing rather than writing for a little while. So, for the past three days I’ve been doing stuff like crazy! I feel quite accomplished.

This picture of hour much the dogs love their giant puddle will distract you from being sad that I lost all my work, painstakingly typed on the phone.

A lot of this doing occurred because Chris and Kathleen came up on Friday and stayed until after lunch on Sunday. You see, Chris likes to work with his hands and is a great problem solver, so he did a bunch of things to help us around the office and the Hermits’ Rest house.

And because of that, I was inspired to do my own set of tasks, with Kathleen there to lend some muscle and brain power, too. We’re pretty lucky to have Lee’s clever relatives working with us on our projects!

On Friday, after Mandi and I worked like good employees, Chris assembled Kathleen’s lovely new office furniture, straight from the box. It’s probably the first “new” stuff we have in the Hermits’ Rest building. It’s all white and brass, and cutely modern. She brought lamps, which enabled us to really see the former storeroom, which turns out to be pretty cute (and clean, thanks to Melissa’ cleaning it last week).