Getting Stoned

Oh, how I wish I was..... If I am being honest, I did try it once...okay, maybe twice but I never inhaled, I swear!

Just one major project to be completed before we can call the house done. The stone on the outside. I have no idea how long that project will take. I am thinking a couple weeks. With almost 100' of stone to be laid it is overwhelming just looking down the porch. 

Barb has been helping by laying out stone along the edge of the porch. This is saving a bunch of time for me as it is very time consuming going through the pallets of stone to find the ones that fit along the bottom and next to each other. 

Day 1 went well. I got 30 or so stones up. The next day sucked. I don't know what was different, but I only got about a dozen up and those were a struggle as they just wouldn't stick. I guess I did not mix my mud right. 

I will go about 2-3 hours in the morning, take a break and go again after lunch. Barb is a huge help, picking and laying out stones and finding where they fit the best. By the end of day 3 we have about 1/2 of the largest section done. This is the 50' the length of the garage....

Today (Sunday), Kevin came over and we hit it really hard. He gets stoned a hell of a lot more than I do, so much so, he could do it in his sleep. He can get more done in a day than I can in 3-4 days. 

Kevin was the main stoner, Barb struck the excess mortar, I made mud and worked on the base stone layer on the south end of the house. 

Not only did we get 95% of the 50' garage section done, but we also got a good jump on the south end of the house as well!

North end almost done!

South end has a great start!

We had two rain days where we could not work on stone. Well, it wasn't raining but the stone was still wet from overnight rains. I worked on the lights outside the garage. I had to cut out a 7x17" section of the steel to fit in the wood panel. Not exactly easy since the steel is already up. Once that was cut out, I cut and fitted some J-Channel around the opening, then drill holes to run the wire though and then finally, install the lights. 

Light are up and working!

That same day I climbed up on the roof to clean the chimney. I do this once a year to prepare the upcoming fire season.

With all the rain, our pond went from totally dry to this in just a few days.....

The frogs and other pond creatures are making so much noise, it was hard to sleep the first few nights. Now, it is just background noise and we are used to it. 

Last, but not least, we got out a couple sections of the grain bin to see exactly where we wanted the gazebo. I told myself I am not going to work on this until the stonework is all done but we had a couple of down minutes, and we just couldn't help ourselves. This week instead of having a picture of "Find the Frenchie" I have a picture of "Find the Barbie". You may have to zoom in but there is a Barbie in that picture on the right somewhere!

Zoey found a new favorite spot to spy on the bunnies and squirrels. She now jumps up on the hearth and watches the little critters from an elevated perch. 

I will leave you with this picture, this rainbow made an appearance one evening. The rainbow led right to the base of our windmill, I ran down there looking for a pot of gold or perhaps a glimpse of a leprechaun. All I found a lot cow poop. If you look really closely, you can see another rainbow just to the right of the bright one. 

This coming week will more than likely be a repeat of last week, getting stoned each and every day!