Autumn colours

 That crisp cool feeling to the air. The smell of the neighbour's wood stove. The coziness of hoodies and sweaters. Anticipation of hot chocolate by the fire. The rows of canned fruit on the shelf. I love autumn!

Nine metric tonnes of gravel and one crazy woman

My husband and I moved two mountains of gravel on Saturday with the loan of a wheelbarrow from Fran, a kindly neighbour across the street. We laid it out on the left to cover the mud left by the foundation excavation, thinking we could use it as a parking spot during rainy weather.

The second pile, on the right, was not planned. Superior Propane said they wouldn't deliver unless there's a driveway they can back their truck into off the street, since they don't want to risk potentially getting mired in a wet lawn. My long-suffering husband has been doing most of the work so far on the church, and I thought this was one problem I could solve for him. So I ordered another pile of gravel to provide a driveway of sorts---thirty feet of crushed rock on the right, to mirror the rock on the left of the sidewalk. It was the only place to put it, because of the tree and water valve further over.

Halfway through moving the mess, I admitted to my patient husband that this was probably a big mistake. Not the look I was going for. Not pretty at all, though it's symmetrical. I hate losing my shady green lawn in front. It occurred to me that if Superior wants our business, they should figure out how to deliver the service without my having to completely rework my desired landscaping plans. I'm looking at all the neighbours who have propane tanks stuck out in the middle of their lawns and I'm wondering how they get their propane delivered. Do they levitate over the grass? 

I freely admit I made a snap decision and ran with it without thinking it completely through. But back at our city house, I've been in gravel-hauling mode all summer, so when I was faced with a problem, the only solution that leapt to mind---my automatic, knee-jerk, reflexive response---was to throw gravel at it. Gravel is apparently my fall-back solution. 

To his credit, my husband just helped me laugh about it and kept shovelling. Ah well. It's only rock. If we truly hate it, we can move it all again. Or put dirt and sod over it. Or stick potted plants and a bench on it and call it a minimalist garden. Meanwhile, the day was sunny and breezy, and the trees are turning lovely colours.

My husband took these photos and sent them to my mom, with the title "Nine metric tonnes and one crazy woman."

 

HVAC, Hayters, and Hate in General

We arrived at the church Friday night to find that the furnace installers from Hayters drilled the hole for the propane gas line in the wrong spot, not near the lovely ditch the Paul Davis crew dug for us. The propane line now runs right by the only outdoor electrical outlet on that side of the church AND the lightening rod base. So the electrician had to shut off the electrical outlet. And I have to dig another now-fifteen-foot trench by hand. We had put the trench where the propane company had told us to, Hayters was aware of it, and if they for some reason couldn't use it, they should have called us, not just drilled the hole willy-nilly somewhere else. 

On top of that, they unhooked the handy-dandy thermostat downstairs in our living area and installed the new one with humidistat upstairs in the sanctuary---the room we had told them we are not going to heat except for occasional functions. The way they have it now, we'll have to heat the whole building all the time to keep our pipes in the one downstairs room from freezing. Or we have to turn off the expensive furnace all together and heat the one downstairs room with an electric heater. Sigh. And to do this astounding thing, they ran a bright red electrical wire across the kitchen and living room ceilings, taped to the duct, like a big bloody gash against the white ceiling. As my husband put it, let's go to their house and tape a red wire across their living room and see what their wife has to say about it. 

And to top it all off, the $3000 dehumidifier unit ran all night and did not touch the humidity level at all. No water at all came out of the tube. So it's not functioning. I plugged in the $200 portable dehumidifer from Home Depot and it dropped the humidity from 69 to 52 within the hour. 

We are going to have them come back out and re-do the whole thing. Has to be done before the propane tank can be delivered. It delays everything for a couple of weeks. At least we haven't paid them yet! I am starting to rename their company "Hate'ems" in my head...

Gravel again

Anyone following my other blog (www.mydailyslogblog.blogspot.com) will know that gravel has been a recurring theme throughout the summer. I've hauled literally a mountain of rocks and gravel to form garden paths, top up the Japanese garden, and replace the front hedge. Well, today I've got five metric tonnes of 3/4" crushed gravel arriving at the church, which I will spread to cover the muddy, destroyed front lawn. We'll use it as a mud-free parking spot this winter, and maybe one day I'll turn it into another Japanese garden. My shovel and I are becoming close friends.

Altering the layout a little

Not of the church. Of this blog. I found having to expand each post a little annoying, so I'm trying a new format. Let me know what you think!

All put back together again

 They did a great job smoothing things out. I was expecting much worse!

Rethinking decisions, and an act of extraordinary kindness

 After some more thought, some price comparisons, further discussion with the heating expert, and several deep breaths, we have decided to go ahead and replace the oil furnace with a new propane furnace after all. There isn't much point putting significant money into making the current oil furnace limp along when we know it will need to be replaced in a while anyway, and by that time interest rates and prices will have risen. And I really do want to get oil off the property. I imagine it will also positively affect the cost of our insurance on the place. So we went ahead and ordered the new furnace, the dehumidifier, and the UV light to kill mold and viruses. Removing the old oil tank, which stands against the back wall of the church, will allow the Paul Davis crew to eventually wrap that part of the foundation, as well.

The propane company will rent us one of those long, sausage-shaped 500-gallon propane tanks, but they informed us they don't do the trenching for the gas line. That entails a trench running ten feet out from the house, a foot wide and eighteen inches deep. My husband called Scott from Paul Davis to ask if they still had the backhoe on the property, and we'd pay them to trench it for us. Otherwise, it's up to little old me and a shovel. Scott cheerfully informed us that the backhoe had already been taken away, but his guys would hand-dig the trench for us, no problem. And at no cost. We protested, but he said not to worry about it. It would be easier for his guys to do it than for me to do it. Isn't that the kindest thing ever? What a great group of people!

Another happy thing about all this trenching we've been doing -- we had been told that the whole area is clay, and I know when our neighbours B and T put in their septic system, they had to remove the soil and then truck in tons of sand. But apparently when the guys were trenching around the foundations of the church, they found lots of sand and not clay. So our drainage is good, and if we ever have to replace the septic system, there will likely be no need to truck in sand. Woohoo! 

My husband drove up last night to be on hand today for the environmental study people. Next domino!