We unpacked and tested out the wheelchair ramps today (ish, as we have no actual wheelchair to test with). This is to support some wheelchair bound guest at our upcoming gaming party. These are temporary ramps, which have the advantage of not requiring an exemption from the NRC and town. Should one of us get wheelchair bound for a long time, we can get an ADA exemption for a more permanent solution.
And here is bonus picture of foliage taken from my living room window.
Meanwhile, we spend another 2 hours pulling out invasive plants today. This is a never ending chore.
Conantum, the neighborhood to which our new house is a part of, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. The Concord library has a Conantum exhibit and last week Henry Moss gave a talk about the founding of Conantum, with special focus on its architecture.
This talk has been posted online, so I am linking it below for your enjoyment.
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.
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.
Even though we have moved into the house, we have still been busy finishing up turning the house into a home.
Lets start outside. They still need to landscape the front yard and put another layer of pavement on the driveway; for now, they have taken the next step by installing our walkway.
Here are two pictures of the walkway, one from each direction. The first picture was taken while the stones were wet and the second taken a day later when they were dry, which is why they look different. The paving stones are blue mist granite, the same as the front stoop.
Do you see that lonely rock along the path. We will actually have six rocks placed next to the path. In fact, earlier in the week, Daphne visited the landscaping company’s rock pile to pick out the rocks she wanted.
Also outside, Daphne has been doing more planting. Here is the area around the backup generator (which has still not turned on for its weekly lubrication run).
To the left is a coral honeysuckle, near the red flag are wild strawberries, around the soaker hose are winterberries, and way in the back are some sedge.
Last week we have the construction team address some things on the punch list. We finally got the screens installed on the porch. Here is a picture of them, although the screens are intentionally almost invisible (even if I was able to get the camera to focus on them).
We also got door stops installed everywhere. Here is an example from the guest bathroom.
The master bathroom door no longer squeaks and the master shower no longer leaks in the basement. The latter was because the plumber over tightened the plug in the trap and it was cracked.
Lots of furniture has arrived and been assembled and placed. Here is the south side of the game room, which is now a reading corner.
On the second floor, we just got the table for the family room delivered. I call this the “Space Alert” table. Space Alert is a cooperative board game that is quite loud when it is played, so we force the players to use the second floor.
Here is another angle on the second floor family room. The couch is now usable. When the movers moved the couch from our old home, they removed the center leg and when they carried it upstairs, they did not reattach that leg. After a few phone calls, they found the leg (it was not in our house), brought it over and installed it so now the couch is usable (although its is far enough from the window that you do not really get a good view when you sit down).
The guest bedroom has been set up. All of the furniture is from our old house, except for the bed frames. That chair does have a great view.
And that’s my update. We are still hanging pictures on the wall. And I still need to finish unpacking and sorting the tool bench in the basement. We are still waiting for the coffee table for the living room, and we are about to order some blinds for the bathroom windows.
