4.23.2019

This was the official day that Jim turned off the furnace!  It only ran a few minutes yesterday.  He may have to put it back on - the temperatures are supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow.  But a definite sign of spring!

Jim continued to work on the microwave cabinet this morning.  He cut and rounded all the edges for the vent pipe at the top of the cabinet...

Next he had to use their drawing to transfer the opening dimensions for the microwave vent onto the bottom piece of the cabinet...

Using the bandsaw to cut the opening...

He does the finish work by hand - looks pretty!

After lunch, we headed back outside, working on the gravel first...

We got another good portion finished...

Then it was time to cut down another big tree at the back of the house.  But first, Jim had to cut the stump closer to the ground so it wouldn't be in the way...

 Cut through...

This tree is leaning slightly towards the carriage house - which is why it needs to come down.  Check out the size of this tree compared to the Bobcat!  Jim positioned the Bobcat behind the tree to brace it so that it couldn't fall backwards...

Then he brought the excavator back and did the same...

Making the first cut...

 
Starting to come down...

It got to this point and stopped...

By then, Jim knew that it was heading in the right direction, so he slipped in to just cut a few fibers hanging on.  If you look closely, you can see him underneath the bucket of the Bobcat.

Then down it came...

On the ground...

 But here's the amazing part - when we started talking through how Jim was going to take the tree down, he said that he would try to get it to come down between these pines but we were also okay with losing them if that happened.  Check out how the tree fell - just inches away from the small pines and right in the middle like he planned!

This picture doesn't do it justice, but the sap pouring out of this tree since it's early spring and waking up was amazing - it was just like water flowing.

Clean up time!

Making good progress...

All the small branches are all cut off...

I dragged all of them to a pile - we have lots of chipping in our future!

Finally, Jim started cutting the trunk into sections...

Trunks are all sectioned off - we'll move them tomorrow.

Another good day's work - time to sit down and relax with a glass of wine!

High 70/Low 44