Carl Calabria is a neighbor of ours, in the Conantum neighborhood of Concord, MA. He recently posted this video of a drone flyover of the Sudbury river.
The section of the river in this video pretty much matches our typical route up the river when we go kayaking or paddleboarding. The video starts in Fairhaven Bay, with Scout Island in the lower left (you can see a small beach where you can go ashore. It then follows the river downstream (north), and ends with Heath’s Bridge in the distance.
At 0:43, Martha’s Point is on the left bank in the center of the screen. At 1:00, the neighborhood dock is center-left. What you can’t see are all the canoes and kayaks that are stored on shore near the dock.
At 1:33, you can see a row boat on the left near the bottom, with a path leading to that boat. This is my neighbor’s house and that is the path we use to put our boats into the water (except when the water is high). If you follow the path onto shore, then near the edge of the screen you can see our row boat, with its cover on. We keep it near our neighbor’s path (with permission) for convenience, although in a week or two we will probably bring it into the basement for winter storage.
At 1:35, our property takes up the bottom half of the screen, on the left, including that inlet and the peninsular beyond it. You can not see our house, which is off screen to the left.
Now that we have a permit to remove invasive plants in the wetlands, we have continued our invasive pulling. There was a lot of buckthorn just over the wetlands boundary.
Daphne identifies the buckthorn and chops off the trees near the base, then I come in with the weed wrench and pull the stumps out the ground. When the tree is too thick, I chop it down using the chainsaw and I took down a bunch of clumps today.
Here are some of the remaining buckthorn stumps that I pulled out this afternoon.
And here is just one pile of pulled invasive plants. We will leave the piles in the wetlands to decompose, but hide them behind bushes so they are not an eye sore from the house.
This process will take many, many more days to complete.
Our house has two doors on the main level. The front door, which is in the center of the house, and the pantry door, which is on the North side and leads to the garage.
When you approach the house from the street, the pantry door is closer to the driveway, but we do not want guest to use that door. The front door leads to the front hall where people can take off their shoes and hang up their coats so that is where we want people to enter. On the other hand, the pantry door is better for packages because it is protected from rain by the breezeway.
To try to steer visitors correctly, we have added this sign to the walkway.
We just got our walkway lights installed. Here is an evening picture showing the lights when they are turned on.
Also, we got a few inches of rain over the last couple of days. This has significantly raised the water level in the river. Here is a picture showing the current water level.
And here is a picture from a few weeks ago showing the water level at that time.
To bring you up to speed. We picked out a propane range last year when we picked out all our other appliances. The brand was Kucht, and we checked that it was on the Massachusetts list of approved appliances and plumbing fixtures (which we did for everything that we planned on installing). The Kucht brand was not carried by the company that our builder used for all the other appliances, so I ended up ordering it from Lowes.
The range was ordered in the spring a few weeks before the cabinets came in. The builder wanted the range in hand to make sure he got the spacing correct when he installed the cabinets. We were still three months from completion at that point.
Fast forward to the process of getting an occupancy permit. This involves a series of inspections, safety, electrical, structural, plumbing (and others). Well, we failed the plumbing inspection. Specifically, the inspector was unable to find the Kucht range on the Massachusetts list, so it had to be removed and replaced with something on the list.
Needless to say, that was a surprise. We had checked a year earlier and it was on the list. But we had no choice at the time. We removed the range and scrambled to get an alternative that met our needs, could be installed with 2 days and was on the list. Meanwhile, the Kucht range was going to go back to Lowes for a refund.
Well, that’s when things got messy. First of all, Lowes does not accept appliance returns for refund after 48 hours of delivery. But the range is still unused and illegal to install in Massachusetts. Lowes does care, or better stated, Lowes associates do not even understand the issue.
The next step was to talk to the manufacturer. After finding the right person at Kucht (which took two calls), they admitted that they let their Massachusetts paperwork lapse and although they would be fixing that problem in the future, it was too late for us. Kucht told me to have Lowes send Kucht an email to get a return authorization.
I called Lowes and after they complained (“why didn’t I send the email,” they asked; “because Kucht needed it to come from Lowes,” I answered) Lowes sent the email and got the return authorization.
I knew this because, among other things, I got an email from Lowes informing me of the schedule pickup date for the range. To be more precise, Lowes email told me when they would be delivering my appliance — their scheduling system does not know how to differentiate between a delivery and a pickup. But the truck came on August 7 and picked up the range (we were storing it in the yard under a tarp). Lowes said that a refund would take up to 2 weeks and to be patient.
Three weeks later, I had heard nothing so I called Lowes. They were very polite and said that the would fix the problem and that I would hear back within 24 hours. As expected, I heard nothing.
Three days later I called them again. This time they said they reopen the case and send the information to the warehouse and I should hear back in 24 hours. I did not.
The next week, I called again. At this point it was a month after the range was picked up. They explained that Lowes did not know if the range was currently in the warehouse (in Franklin) or in the store (in Woburn). They needed to find it before they could issue the refund. Lowes said the issue had been escalated to a manager and I would hear back in (you guessed it) 24 hours.
Two more calls. Two more assurances that I would be contacted in 24 hours. Then just before I was going to call again, I got a email from their scheduling system that my range was going be be delivered in two days … to an address in Wilmington. Lowes never told me what was happening, but my guess was that the range was finally located at the warehouse and needed to be shipped to the store before a refund could be issues. It was a little strange to see the delivery to an address that is not my house, but at least there was action.
A few days later (we are now 7 weeks after the range was picked up), I got a notification that they had refunded my purchase. Finally.
The landscaping company installed hair cap moss along the south side of the house. This is in the low point where we want to prevent erosion from rain water. The hay bales are temporary until we can get more plants established.
I admit that the strip of moss is narrower than I was envisioning when we planned it, but hair cap moss sod is expensive. We are not sure what we will be planting on either side of this strip, but this strip does allow for people to walk from the front to the back, occasionally (its not a high traffic path).
Meanwhile, since the front yard was filled in with soil and then leaf mulch, it was time to finish the driveway.
In addition to this professional work, Daphne has been adding plants to the front yard near the house. Not much to look at yet (so no picture), but we hope they will fill in over time.
The landscaping crew has worked on the front yard. The walkway is done except for the lights. You can see it below, including the rocks and some plantings (including a tree).
And the rest of the front yard is now covered in leaf soil and leaf mulch. As soon as we get seeds, we can start planting. We want rhododendrons along the road, and we want a meadow in the yard. But we are struggling to find meadow seeds so we may be forced to put in a lawn, once the watering restrictions are lifted.
Next up for landscaping:
Final paving of the driveway
Planting of hair cap moss on the south side of the house
Lights along the walkway
We have also ordered some signs for that post along the walkway directing people and packages to their correct doors. The signs may be a few more weeks before they get show up.
Two weeks ago the game room was officially broken in by playing “The Captain is Dead”. Or almost. The game room has a set of shelves for board games on one side, and puzzles on the other. I’d been too busy to do any puzzles before, but I finally did today.
I always love puzzles that don’t have regular pieces where every piece is the same. I much prefer interesting shapes. Sunsout is one of my favorite brands even though it has the worst puzzles. The puzzles aren’t well cut. The paper rips from the back. There is cardboard dust everywhere. But their pieces are not square and much more fun to put together.
This puzzle was a decent compromise.
Though the shapes if this puzzle aren’t as interesting as some of the Sunsout pieces, they are at least fairly unique and the pieces don’t fit together in a square grid. They are also very well cut and very little cardboard dust.
