We arrived Friday night and were able to get to work early Saturday morning after the obligatory trip to the flea market and Lisa (for coffee).
Saturday went perfectly (well, almost perfectly. See next paragraph). We finished the trim in a matter of minutes it seemed and the clapboards flew by as we were done by about 6:00. It would have been much sooner too, except we had a small incident with Birch.
Birch took off on us mid-morning and after a while of not seeing him we stopped and looked for him for a long time. Birch takes off every now and then but he always comes back. This time, he didn't come back and we couldn't find him. And we gave it a pretty intense look too. It was getting worrisome.
We drove the ATV up to the top of the road where some other people were to ask if they had seen him. No luck. They did however, let us borrow a small pocket of cell service they have. Chris had missed a call from a local. We managed to get in touch with them and luckily, they had Birch. He had basically run down the hill to their house. They loved him (obviously). It took a few calls back and forth between us all, but this story had a happy ending and we got Birch back safely. He went on the leash the rest of the weekend after that.
Sunday morning, we got up excited to finish the exterior, as all we had left to do was the shingles. We got our coffee (Ahab's) from Lisa and made our way to WW for some shingles. We even picked out colors to stain the clapboards (lighter) and shingles (darker) and then a color to paint the trim (Hunter Green). It was exciting. There was even talk of finishing the shingles so early we thought we were going to maybe have time to install a screen door.
We get back to land with the whole day ahead of us. I go to crank up the generator--nothing. I try again, nothing. The rip chord won't even pull. Chris gives it a try--nothing. Uh oh. This isn't good. In fact, it was awful. Our old faithful generator gave out on us. We had a good run but our luck ran out on the last day. What a slap in the face.
We pouted and fussed for a while and then regrouped and decided to just enjoy the day and have fun. We met with Todd about the work he's going to do for us next week so that was exciting and uplifting. The driveway will be finished, more trees taken down, and some water re-direction (it seems we're always trying to move water). We spent the rest of the day just relaxing at the lookout, talking, and drinking a few beers. All in all, not too shabby.
