I Blame Jane (AISSBH)

Last Thursday evening I attended my first Jane Austen Society meeting. The Jane Austen Society of North America is a society of people that love to get together and discuss all things Jane Austen. Her books, her biography and any academic nuance that someone can think of and research. I was the recipient of a membership because my DS bought one this summer. It was a pleasant surprise when I received my handwritten membership letter from the society secretary and she told me the local chapter would be in touch. Mostly, the local chapter is comprised of English profs and retired English profs. The meeting was at a member's house on the NW Arm off Purcell's Cove and just finding it was an adventure, but we arrived in good time despite traffic delays and a useless google map.
Some of the regular members had just returned from the national AGM in Philadelphia, and they reported on what they saw before we listened to a paper that one of them had presented there. It was research on a brother of Jane Austen who as a Captain in the Royal Navy was stationed here in Halifax. She drew parallels between his life and his wife and the characters of Capt. Wentworth and Mrs Croft in Pursuasion.
It was an interesting evening, with great food to boot, and I'm looking forward to December 16, when we all meet again for Jane's Birthday lunch. (She probably won't be there, unless she's a Zombie.)
I Blame Jane (AISSBH)

Fun Field Day

I spent the day in Halifax today at a workshop information session about carpet bedding. The HRM gardeners were nice enough to invite us to attend when we expressed an interest in trying some out next year in Wolfville. Carpet bedding is something I have never had the opportunity to try, but I love the idea of creating pictures in plants and the folks at the Halifax Public Gardens and the Halifax Bridge Commission are pretty good at it.
Carpet bedding fell out of favour decades ago when the more natural looking (and way less time consuming) styles became popular but it was still all the rage when the public gardens were first designed, and they have stuck with the Victorian/Edwardian style throughout. Larger cities have often done carpet bedding designs but recently the Montreal Mosaiculture festival began in 2000, has really given this old fashioned style a popularity boost, not to mention a third dimention. I think we will start much smaller and more simple if we are to attempt this next season, but it is fun to look at the pictures for inspiration anyway.

And About Time

That back door installation that we started the weekend before Thanksgiving is nearly complete. I guess my subtle hints about the cold draughts coming from the huge holes around the temporary plywood cover finally spurred the Other One into action yesterday. We removed the plywood and rebuilt the wall properly where the old door frame had been. So now there is actual structure holding up the roof of the porch (wow, what a concept) and also insulation stopping those draughts.
Renovating an old house sometimes means you have to go with the flow when meshing the old with the new, and we had put down the second layer of sub floor to put the new door on long before we built the wall that replaced the old door. (We have a double layer of sub floor so that the height of the finished floor will match the original floors in the adjoining room.) We left a space to put the sill plate for the new wall on the first layer of sub floor, but the porch isn't exactly square and the space we left was too narrow for the 2 x 4. We ended up cutting a groove in the sill plate to accommodate the edge of the second layer of sub floor at one corner. In years to come, when the next renovators tear that wall out (probably to put a door there) they will wonder what those idiots were thinking when they built this wall.
This is something that I think about a lot. We constantly roll our eyes at the stupid things we find hidden in the walls of our old house. Scary electrical, holes drilled through support beams for plumbing, rotting sills just covered over instead of replaced, the list is endless. But I have no doubt that future owners will do the same with our attempts. I'm thinking about this today because my Dear Sister sent me a link to Yarn Harlot who is having renovation nightmares of her own.
Just a little foil vapour barrier and strapping and the porch will resemble the rest of the house. It's important to have a overall interior design concept that flows. Our only negative to new porch wall is poor Atticus can't figure out what happened to that door that used to be right there. This morning he was pondering the new wall and seemed to want to attack the fibreglass blocking his egress when the Other One demonstrated the new door. I wonder if his cat brain equates the moving doors in this house withthe moving staircases at Hogwarts.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Day 6 of unemployment. Well sort of. The Community College did not go on strike so I still have classes to prep for and teach. Which means that today seems to be the first free time day in nearly a week where I get to do what I want.
As always I have a list of things to do that include cleaning up and organizing the studio and the greenhouse after months of ignoring those chores. There are still garden remains to deal with too. I'm not even going to think about the disaster zone in the garage.
Willow is settling in nicely, she is still a little reserved and we are trying hard to make her more out going and silly. Unlike Jake, she is very difficult to wind up, almost impossible in the house. Which I know is a good thing but we like our dog to be the zany entertainment and so far she continues to be a calm well mannered young lady. WTF?
We were warned that she didn't get along with the other dog at her other home, but she has met three friend's dogs so far and acted very well. We did a Sunday walk with friends and their dog, and we all got along fine until the end. They got into a scuffle but it was probably more traumatizing for the people than it was for the dogs who seemed fine moments later. We were also warned she can sometimes be incontinent as a result of her being spayed. She did have an accident yesterday and seemed mortified when she realized, so we are researching ways to help this.
Atticus has the tendency to eat too quickly and then barf up his food. So we have a barfing cat and a peeing dog. (Atticus, however, never appears embarrassed by his accidents, and the problem is mostly solved by putting a ping pong ball in his food to stop him gobbling it so fast.)
Perversely I like Willow more for this flaw than when I though she was a perfect well behaved dog. Let's face it, a well behaved Golden Retriever is just too suburban middle class for me. It also appears I am allergic to her, so this of course adds to her appeal.

Meet Willow

This is Willow, our newest family member. She is a lovely three year old Golden retriever that we adopted this week from a family on the south shore, who happily for us could not keep her anymore.
She is very well behaved but I'm sure after a week or so with us she will learn many bad habits.
Atticus is not completely sure about this new addition, but so far they each seem ok with the other.

Have Tools, Will Travel

We are off to the parents abode this weekend for excessive turkey and cranberries. We are going early to be able to build a set of outside steps for them. The old steps were decommissioned early this spring as they were deemed unsafe I guess, due to their rotten nature. They were replaced by and old kitchen step stool, because a small, steep, tippy step stool is much better for a pair of 85 year olds to walk on than rotting steps. We tried to build steps in August when we were home but were not allowed because there was a handyman coming to do it. Or something. But the handyman never arrived, or something, so now we are allowed to build proper steps.
Not getting much of an early start today as a result of the excessive eating and drinking last night with friends. Looks like it is shaping up to be an excessive Thanksgiving.
Well, thank the gods for that.

Back Door Bonanza

We are both exhausted after a marathon weekend project. One task on our to do list for quite some time was to replace the back door, which has been rotting out the floor beneath for at least as long as we have been living here.
We suspected that once we had a look at the floor, we would have a big job to replace anything rotten. We had no idea of what was below the floor, but evidence from outside suggested it was once a squirrels nest. In addition, we wanted to move the location of the door from the south wall of the porch to the east wall. The south wall is directly below the roof valley, and the ice builds up on the step making it really treacherous in winter. This was also why the door would leak when it rained.

We began Saturday morning, tearing up several layers of linoleum, chip board, 50's era tile and oil cloth to get to the real sub floor. Once we tore out the door we could see the rot extended back a foot or so from the door and also affected the sill. We decided to take out both layers of floor. The top was 1x4 tongue and groove, below that was a dogs breakfast of boards scavenged from what looked like the chicken coop.
Happily the joists were good, and the other sills were still good so we replaced the sill under the old door, and used plywood to cover the hole in the wall where the old door came out. That wall will eventually be the coat closet.
This morning we dug out the rubble under the construction. In the midst of this, we found an old green bottle, similar to a 70's era 7up bottle but without any writing on it, and a child's shoe. We levelled out the dirt and put vapour barrier over it to help seal out the damp. Then we insulated between the joists with styrofoam and fibreglass and laid plywood on top for the sub floor.
Next came the task of making a new hole for the new door. Once we opened up the east wall and exposed the studs we could see that the original door was probably there to begin with. The gable wall of the porch is constructed with a double top plate so we can use that as a header for the new door. When we insulated the porch walls a few years ago, we added studs in the right place for the door opening that we knew would eventually be there. After measuring to make sure we knew what size we wanted we went out to buy the door. By this time it was raining, so we put a plastic tent over the outside and continued to plug away. A skill saw and a reciprocating saw makes short work of several layers of sheathing and shingles.
Finally, we slotted the new door into place. It is a temporary measure so the squirrels don't come in tonight. The rough opening is a bit tight, and needs a slight adjustment before we fix it there permanently.
There is still a lot to do on this project. We need to add a bottom plate and studs in the old door opening, and replace the outside house wrap and shingles to make it weather proof. We need to finish laying the sub floor and build a set of steps up to the new door. Oh yeah, and the door needs a doorknob too.