The wedding will bring Nina, Charlie and Evie to visit, and we can hardly wait for that. We Skyped with them last night, and Evie seems to have changed so much in only the 8 days since I had last seen her! She's gaining weight like crazy.
This past week a chimney expert came out to inspect (and clean!) our chimney and two flues. While the living room flue has been used often over the years, the separate flue connected to the kitchen, which serviced a cook stove, has not been used since the 1940s. The expert recommended some repair work for the top of the chimney around the crown, and also to replace the terra cotta "thimble" (new term for me) which connects the kitchen stove pipe to its flue. This will be one of the last expenses directly related to the renovation, one of the last things we planned to do. There is still one more reno task: to install some kind of booster pump to improve the water pressure in the house.
Here's a shot (below) of the top of the chimney. Moss indicates water getting into cracks ---- freezing and expanding/contracting over time will cause problems.
The photo below shows cracks in the back half of the "thimble."
After these jobs, we will move into a new phase, the maintenance phase.
This morning we had the first fire in our kitchen woodstove. The dogs got real close and curled up on the floor nearby --- Faith in particular loves it. And tonight we have both fire sources running! It't time to start burning some of the wood Brad has been chopping and splitting!
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