Yesterday I made lots of phone calls about details that have to be addressed before any real work can begin. I also spent about 5 hours scraping wall paper off the last 2 walls in the LR. That stuff was pasted on like it was going to hold the house up in a tornado! Geeze! I could just kick the person who put that up. Actually, I know who it is, because they signed their work--I guess they were proud of it.
It says "Papered and painted by Joe & Horace Clemmer 2/5-9/90 Very warm weather 50-60 degrees." Now here I am almost exactly 20 years later undoing all their lovely handiwork. In 50-60 degree weather.
I called Accurate Radon Control to ask about how to approach the radon mitigation. After getting 3 bids, we chose him to install the system in our house several years ago, and we were very happy with his work. In the existing basement there is a level of 9.7 (the cut-off is 4), and in the first floor it is 2.6. I wanted to know if there was anything we should do in the addition while it's being built that would make the system easier to install. He said we could either have the builders insert a 4" pipe or he could do it after the fact--it really doesn't make any difference. But, interestingly, he said that any construction with a crawl space rather than a basement is likely to have high levels of radon because the code requires a deep bed of stone under the structure, and granite is known to have uranium that emits radon gas. I think we'll just have him address the radon issue after the house is done.
I talked to John about the 2 pinoaks in the back yard. His tree person's bid was the same as Mark's, so I think we'll go with Rich's Tree Service. That extra money can be used later for landscaping. Keith, John and Charlie really hate to see the trees go, especially the one near the egg house. But the 2 tree experts both advise doing it now. As Mark said, we can plant the right trees in the right place and not have to worry about limbs falling on the new house. Also, it will be much easier now when they don't have to worry about the equipment marring the landscape and there's a more open space to work in. It's just a practical matter, although it's hard not to get emotional about these 2 beauties leaving this earth:
Andy, from the Penn State Extension in Creamery, and I had a nice discussion about how to proceed with the business end of the farm. He really likes the idea of a bakery, and maybe even growing our bread grains like wheat, rye, spelt and barley organically and having them milled locally. We could raise our own eggs, a hog for sausages (that then get smoked in that cute little round smokehouse we don't have yet), dairy goats for cheese. . . Of course we're not going to do all of these things, but the point is, the possibilities are limitless. It's just a matter of deciding what we want to do. I told him about the opportunity to apprentice with Nitya, and he of course encouraged me to pursue that. Obviously we can't just jump into a complicated enterprise like farming without any preparation or experience. He also said we should definitely go to the PASA conference in State College in February, and he is planning a 7-week introduction to farming course in Creamery next March.
No comments:
Post a Comment