Who are we? We are our stories.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

1410 Chaos and Birds


Our old house grew piecemeal around a 1907 12x16 hunting cabin. Five additions later the "new" foundation dates from the late 1920s or 30s. The ground level blocks are crumbling on the two lakeside corners. Modern builders no longer build concrete block basements. It took me a couple of years to find an old block layer with the skillset, equipment and crew to repair our home. I eventually got a bid and commitment from Steve Hamberg. This will involve beams to support the house and removing all the blocks from the top plate down to 5' below grade. Then pouring new footings and laying up new block walls. The thought of all this was a little scary when it is a quirky old home you love. One year later, this week our name finally came up on his list.

Front loader, backhoe, workers holling over jack hammers ... all on the same day as the first of Fall Warbler migration. I ran away, down the street to John Chesterman's to split, sample and critique a few IPAs as we regularly do. After the workers left and work day's dust settled, I returned, turned the water on. Lorna and I sat down on the Growlery bench to talk and wait for the birds. Damn surprising, a few actually showed up. 



Game on ! -Gunnar

1 comment:

Nancy Wolf said...

You two are working too hard! It's going to be great though when you get it done. That's amazing that the birds still came with all the noise. Beautiful bird photos!