National Grid

National Grid called (at 7PM!) and said "You need to get easements from your neighbors plus copies of deeds plus copies of tax maps. If you can not get easements, you will not get power." I am half-hoping we don't get it, since I have some goofball ideas about 12V power and PV panels that I might get to try, although realistically the budget is long gone already.

I met neighbor Harry Ostrander the other week (other side of Thisse camp) and he wants power too and he is out next to Terry Thisse. If NG (did no one in marketing notice the initials?) brings power to more than one person, the 7.6 kV primary line is free, residents just pay for the secondary line. So I need to call all these people and chase things down, and see what happens.

Notes from Thanksgiving Work (2/2)

The "after pictures" of the bedrock are shown here, plus I wander down by the lake mumbling about the dock.

Thanksgiving work - Dirt

Did not get very far on my do list when I realized that item 2 should be "dig out bedrock completely." Stayed with Tim and Cathy Buckingham in town who let me take showers and fed me as well (very nice!). Despite wearing the natty rain pants shown in the video to keep mud off my pants, I brought quite a bit of that mud into their house. This short video just shows me doing work (drill hole and dig), so not terribly interesting, but gives you an idea of what I did for 3 or 4 days.

Plans

Latest set of plans are in the documents section of the web site.

Packing

It takes awhile to get all loaded up, and I live in terror I will arrive having left something important 400 miles due south. Darn near forgot my rotary hammer and that would have been very, very bad. Hoping snow does not stop me (note the one non-Virginia tool in the pile), and likely staying in Lowville this time at the invitation of Tim Buckingham, or TimBuck2 as Gerry says. Do list this time might be:

1) Drill holes in rock (with rotary hammer) for batter boards
2) Set Batter boards and cross pieces
3) Set string and layout foundation - square it up
4) Use pressure washer to clear dirt from area of 24" diameter foundation piers.
5) Measure spot for each pier per structural plans
6) Use drill and chisels to level rock in area of each pier per structural plan (max slope of 3 in 12).

Might see if I can pick up my green lumber from the O'Brien sawmill made from our trees. Needs to be stacked up and covered with a tarp. And there is always more clearing to do, this time down towards the lake.

Batter boards - 4 per corner

Made batter boards Sunday from 2x4's and rebar. Cut 24" rebar into 8" pieces, drilled 5" deep holes (1/2" round) into ends of 2x4's and then hammered the rebar into the 2x4's. On site, I will drill 4" deep holes in bedrock and drop rebar'd boards into hole.

Not very straight despite actually trying to be straight, but in theory that is ok since I will use builder's level to identify point to level the crosspiece and attach string. Think I will use the 4 boards per corner pattern (see image from www.cedarshed.com below), not the 3 board pattern shown in a prior post.

Adirondack Lake Survey

Anyone know if lake pH is checked regularly by a scientists (not that I don't trust my pool strips - guess I could try those!)? I found a 1986 survey of fish, shoreline, geography, etc: http://www.adirondacklakessurvey.org/alscrpt.php?alscpond=040617. Chasing links, I see USGS has some 1955 photos from 12,000 feet, but quality is about the same as they used for bombing German factories ten years prior to that, so hard to read any details.