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Showing posts with label hurricane Sandy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hurricane Sandy. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Crash! Thud! Bang! Is That Santa On Our Roof?


By 7 this morning, the roof at That Old House
was crawling with men who are far, far braver
than I . . . that roof is high! . . . as the first stage of
Operation Roof Replacement gets underway.

Thank you, Superstorm Sandy,
for stepping up our timetable for this project.

While our roof was certainly old, it was still keeping us dry.

June 2011

After Sandy, not so much.

October 2012

Howard snapped a few pictures from the cul-de-sac as
he was leaving for work this morning.


That is one big dropcloth.
I could paint a lot of old furniture on that dropcloth.


If you look at the front of the house, on the right of this picture,
you can see the old wood roofing shingles, the brown cedar shingles
that are believed to be the house's original roof.


That makes them 180 years old.  Not bad.
I wish we could have somehow preserved
and repaired that old wooden roof.

Much of the roof will need new sheathing, and we therefore
will go down in history as the first homeowners to put
any plywood into That Old House.
(Not something I want in my obituary, if anyone's making notes.)


What looks like plywood on the rear of the house, above, on the left, is not plywood.
It is wide boards, or -- late 19th century sheathing; it was done in the 1880s.
Some of that may be still useable.  Fingers crossed.
Have you seen what plywood costs these days?  Sheesh!

******************************
In our Dylan Dog's little world,
the advent of strangers on the roof is quite exhilarating,
and good reason for barking and making nose prints on the 
window panes, and being told to get OFF the windowsills . . . .

One of Dylan's issues is leash-biting, and we've made
really good progress in extinguishing this behavior (as the
trainers say), but it still surfaces now and then.

Like yesterday.
Anne got a picture of Bratticus Finch, AKA Dylan,
with his lead firmly in his teeth, trying to initiate a tug-of-war.

Of course, like a 3-year old child who defies a parent,
Dylan has no idea how cute he is when he does this,
or why we are not completely intimidated by his power.

Sorry, Dylan, we don't do tug-of-war with bratty boys.
We ignore bratty boys!
And then, they give up, cause then it's not fun anymore.

It really is so rewarding, and such fun, to watch Dylan blossom.
Even when he's still an occasional brat.

I hope your Tuesday is bright, as I'm sure our gray and damp
day will be, eventually; I'm seeing bright sky in the distance!  -- Cass



Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Not A Banner Day . . . .


Some days you eat the bear.
Some days the bear eats you.
Image from Karen at The Graphics Fairy.

Today?  Not the best day.  The bear seems to be winning.
Election results?  No comment.
Weather?  It's snowing!  Just what New Jersey and New York need.
Driving?  My minivan is rear ended by a Saturn.
Our roof?  Turns out it will need to be replaced and the
starting estimate is more than my first job's annual salary.


But you know what?
We're still lucky, and that bear won't keep winning.


My sister sent more pictures of what
Sandy did at our beach house out on Long Island.


 Side yard -- full of debris from our neighbor's broken down
bulkhead that was destroyed in Hurricane Irene and should
have been repaired, but was not.  Oh well.
Now that neighbor can play Pick-Up-Sticks with what's left.




The dock, minus its steps, and looking as tipsy as a certain blonde
ABC anchorwoman appeared on election night.


Third floor, some fascia board missing its trim.


And the crawl space, flooded.


All in all, not bad.  Fixable.  Yes, lucky.

Those who need our consideration and prayers are the tens of 
thousands of people in NY and NJ who are without homes.
And the hundreds of thousands who are in their homes,
but still without power or heat. 

Some coastal people are evacuating because of
Winter Storm Athena, dropping rain and snow and quite possibly
another storm surge in the region.  Just ten days after Sandy.

Athena is a Nor'easter.
That's one very nasty kind of storm.

Why is it that every summer I totally forget what winter is like?
-- Cass



Sunday, October 28, 2012

Sandy


Hurricane Sandy has already messed up my
weekend plans.  Anne and my sister Peggy and I
were supposed to be enjoying a road trip to 
Virginia, coming home on Monday.


A look at Sandy's own plans for Monday, and we decided to
stay put, right here in good ol' New Jersey.

That Old House has weathered many storms since 1832.
This is one more notch on her bedpost.

Peggy and Bill are battening down the hatches at our
beach house today.  Fingers crossed! 



To all who are in the path of what might turn out to be one
doozy of a storm . . . good luck, and let's use the good sense
God gave us to stay out of harm's way!  :-)




We are getting in our own car right now, though.
We have a date, with the little fella in the picture, above.
He's interviewing us.

Stay dry, East Coast Peeps!  -- Cass