Jeanine opted to attend Easter Mass this morning, I joined the adults to hike Sheffield Pike (2000 ft. climb, 6.5 miles), and the kids tackled the very challenging Helvellyn via Striding Edge (2660 ft., 9.5 miles). Hard to say who had the most fun but I can claim the company of the best dog, Pemberry (Pembi, for short). UPDATE: Maya, who has been proclaimed the BogWench by her mates felt it would be appropriate to honor her new title by taking a plunge in the ice-cold Red Tarn during her ascent of Helvellyn. Kyle suggested I was to blame for this questionable choice of bathing location because of the “Brave Maya” training I put her through as a small child.
We were treated to lovely weather for our first proper hike in the Lake District where we are staying in the small town of Patterdale with the MacKenzie family. Fiona MacKenzie is a close high school friend of Maya’s and current flatmate. Alex MacKenzie is one of my former soccer teammates. Also in the photo is Alex’s brother, Charles, and his family as well as Fiona’s brother and his friend from childhood. The MacKenzie’s have been holding family reunions in Patterdale for more than 50 years and today we did their traditional first-day’s climb of Place Fell. The views were outstanding and well worth the rugged 7 mile hike. On the way up Maya escorted Kyle through an underground cave/tunnel and I caught them as they emerged.
The family arrived in the UK this morning. We all flew together to Dublin and then the boys continued to Manchester while Jeanine, Maya, and I flew to Edinburgh. This unusual arrangement is due to our different return plans. After renting a defective car (steering wheel on the wrong side) we stopped for breakfast at a local bakery before driving to the Lake District. There we stopped at the Aira Force Waterfall for a short hike before checking into the nearby lodge where we will be staying for the next week..
Using leftover scraps from the plywood I used to build the stair treads, I completed the drawer fronts and doors on my shop sink cabinet today. I know I declared I was done with cabinetry the other day but I did not include my shop as part of the official house. The fact is, a shop is never really DONE. It is merely in a suboptimal state of completion. I also built some drawer dividers for the walk-in closet and finished the partitions for Jeanine’s spice drawer. The work was a nice distraction from the passage of another kidney stone that started this morning. I am hoping it will move through me before I start our vacation later this week.
Nico traveled to Florida this weekend to attend the wedding of one of his high school buddies. Pictured above is the Concord Carlisle High School cohort in attendance. Below, he is seen with his high school prom date who lives in California now. Unable to attend his 10th high school reunion because he was gravely ill, I am sure he enjoyed this opportunity to reconnect with his former classmates.
I returned to the soccer pitch for my first match in 9 months. I am now playing in the over-62 league and our opponents were from the over-55 division. We secured a 2-0 victory in this friendly tune-up game. I played for 45 minutes and the only thing that can be said of my performance is that I did not get injured. Fortunately, this complied with the directive issued to me by Jeanine as I left this morning in advance of our approaching two-week vacation in the UK. I am hopeful that all the hiking we have planned will have me return substantially more prepared for all the running my wing-midfielder position demands.
Finally, I have completed the built-in cabinetry and essential woodworking projects for our new house. I started last July and have been working on it almost every day since. The last items to be completed were the upper cabinets in the mudroom. Eight months may seem like a long time but not when you consider the scope of the work. I am including the list below for my future reference.
Kitchen Island with 12 drawers, 6 shelves, and a seating nook.
Kitchen Counter with 25 drawers, 2 slide-out trash bins, dishwasher nook, and 2 undersink doors.
Flush mount refrigerator cabinet.
Flush mount double oven cabinet with lower drawer and 2 door upper cabinet.
Two wall mount 2 door cabinets with 3 shelves each.
Wall mount 2 door cabinet, with microwave nook, and 3 shelves.
Pantry counter with 6 drawers
Wall mount 4 door cabinets with 4 shelves.
Flush mount freezer cabinet with adjacent 5 section hutch.
Pantry wall shelving with 15 sections.
Bench seat in entry and 4 in-wall nooks.
Living room six door, 4 shelf, shallow counter.
Office 4 door counter and 4 door wall cabinet with 4 shelves.
Office desk
Side table for living room.
Coffee table stand.
Mudroom counter with 6 drawers, 2 doors, and a 6 door wall mount cabinet with 5 shelves.
Mudroom 6-section shelving unit with 9 coat hangers below.
Laundry counter with 6 drawers, 3 doors, and a sink.
Flush mount cabinet for stacking washer and dryer with 2-door upper cabinet.
Half-bath floating vanity with vessel sink.
Main bathroom vanity with double sink and 4 drawers.
Guest bathroom vanity with single sink and 4 drawers.
Third bathroom vanity with single sink and 4 drawers.
Main bedroom walk-in closet dresser with 15 drawers and 9 shelves.
Main bedroom walk-in closet high and low hanging rods with 16 shelves.
Guestroom walk-in closet dresser with 12 drawers and 6 shelves.
Guestroom walk-in closet high and low hanging rods with 16 shelves.
Spare bedroom closet high and low hanging rods with 12 shelves.
Two in-wall art nooks in the 1st and 2nd floor hallways.
Mechanical room workbench.
Shop miter saw station with 12 drawers and 6 shelves.
Not included here are all the non-woodworking projects that occupied me for at least half my time, a list of which will have to wait for another day.
Credit for all this work needs to be shared with the entire family. Jeanine was my gluing partner for all the drawer boxes, helped with most of the finishing work, and was often coerced into helping me move heavy things up and down stairs. Kyle helped move the really heavy stuff (sheets of plywood, machines, cabinet carcasses) every time he visited. Nico helped with the finishing, sanded and painted the stair stringers, and helped with their installation. Maya assisted with drawer slide installation, 3D printing, and water jetting. Even Jeanine’s sister Susan jumped onto the finishing assembly line while visiting for the holidays.
I have always dreamed of building a house. Although I did not pour the concrete or do the framing or drywalling or masonry or the numerous other tasks, I do feel I have realized my dream and feel a great sense of pride in the work. It is sobering to think that I will never again tackle a project of this magnitude and can only hope that it will stand the test of time for future generations (hopefully Calabrias) to enjoy.
For the last few days, we have enjoyed visits from the very healthy-looking fox pictured above. Today, I was able to run and grab my camera before he continued past the house on his morning hunt. I have decided to name him Frankie in honor of my father who was called the Silver Fox by his students. I am not sure if this is a male or female but I think the name works in either case. This photo was taken through triple pane glass so not quite as sharp as I would like. When I have a little more time on my hands, I may set up a small. outdoor blind so that I can get a better image.
I generally try not to post images of the same subject repeatedly but I had to make an exception for the tulips I photographed earlier this week. Because of the way our windows are situated in the River House great room, light was falling on both the interior and the underside of this flower. One can only marvel at the beauty of nature.
This evening, I returned to the soccer pitch for the first time in 9 months for an 8 pm practice under the lights. I skipped playing last fall for fear that an injury would keep me from working on the house project. I have lost quite a bit of muscle tone but managed to deliver a rather solid performance scoring a very nice goal during a scrimmage match. I have little doubt that tomorrow I will be nothing but a mass of aching muscles.
Jeanine has been invited to be a judge at this year’s Chopped for Charity, a fundraiser she established during her time as Executive Director at Open Table. I can’t think of a better way to honor her contributions to the organization than inviting her to be one of the judges, a job she was tailor-made for.
Initially, I was somewhat disappointed with the tulips that I purchased over the weekend. They immediately drooped over when I put them in a vase. Surprisingly, after a few days of hydration, they have started to “stand up” making for a rather interesting photographic composition. With spring just around the corner and cabinetmaking for the new house almost completed, I am looking forward to getting outside with my camera.
Maya sent this text to the family making good on my 15-year-old blog request to thank her brother for ferry services rendered. The photo was taken on a family vacation during which we rented an RV and toured the national parks of the West. The depicted adventure is of a hike we made to a remote slot canyon. I am looking forward to our next family vacation later this month. We are headed to the Lake District in the UK.
For the past week, Nicolai has been in Rome, Georgia participating in the third annual Adapt and Thrive invitational and practicing with the U.S. National Amputee Soccer Team. He is pictured above with U.S. Soccer Federation CEO, JT Batson, President, Cindy Parlow Cone, and teammate, Jovan. I am hoping Nico has some photos to share that I will post later this week.
When I entered my shop this morning, I was surprised to find a large turkey at the outside door. It took me a while to figure out that it was attracted by its reflection in the glass. Should he visit again in the fall, just ahead of Thanksgiving, I will be tempted to put one of the many sharp tools at my disposal to good use.
Jeanine and I glued up 23 drawer boxes this afternoon and evening. We have developed a very nice rhythm and can complete a box in about seven minutes. Jeanine applies glue to the two side pieces and me to the front and back. I then assemble the box and each of us clamps one end. I then put 3 pin nails in each corner after which we remove our respective clamps and I check and adjust for square while Jeanine removes excess glue squeeze out from the box and work table. Tomorrow, we will complete the last 8 drawer boxes bringing the total for the house to 112, and will both be happy to have this work behind us. Originally, I thought I would simply order these boxes from one of the companies that sells custom-sized drawer boxes. At an average of $150 a pop, however, I thought it a good use of our time to take $15 worth of raw materials and do the fabrication ourselves.
Over the last few days, I have done a lot of chainsaw work made considerably more difficult by my inability to properly tension the chain. After opening up the saw I discovered the root cause of the problem. The threaded shaft used to set tension was fractured (see the top right of the photo; I removed the broken section of the shaft from the adjustment block for clarity). Studying the design for a few minutes led me to conclude that it is fundamentally flawed and destined to fail again even with a brand-new shaft. Still, I needed to get the saw working again and searched for a replacement part on the internet only to discover that the part I need is now obsolete. Fortunately, I also discovered that the entire mechanism had been redesigned and was available as an upgrade kit for just over ten bucks. My anger at the shit design was replaced with appreciation for the improved version. Even so, the new version is simply a beefier variation of the original design and does not address the fundamental design issue (the adjustment block puts a flexing force on the threaded section which will fatigue and fail over time). Only time will tell how much longer the new version will last.
I had to be in Somerville today and as I was returning home, I passed the pictured house and had to stop for a photo. Located on Main Street, this property is decorated with a huge, colorful variety of found objects. The blue bottle assemblage out front is “Sapphire City” and the animal collection on the roof is “Dance Party.” I have since learned that the home is owned by the artist, Martha Friend, who has lived there for over 40 years. Originally a professional photographer, later earning an MSW, she has always had an interest in assemblage art and collage. If you visit during the yearly Somerville Open Studios in April and May then you can also tour the inside of the house, which is just as visually rich and engaging as the exterior.
My sister-in-law, Lauren, while driving past it, texted a photo of the Indianapolis home that we sold 20 years ago when I took a job in Massachusetts. By any measure, it is a beautiful house but looking back now it is hard to imagine something further from the style of the home we chose to build for ourselves. A 7,400 square foot English Tutor with a magnificent park-like backyard located across the street from the Governor’s mansion in a prestigious historic neighborhood, it recently sold for $1.75M. We purchased it for $850K and sold it for $1.25M eight years later after a good bit of renovation work, much of which I did and where I honed many of the skills I am using today for the new house. It proved to be a good investment, but more importantly, a place where the kids made some very fond childhood memories. I grabbed these images from Zillow.
This final photo is one I took of my office when we lived there. It is now my preferred virtual background for Zoom calls.
Today, I finished machining parts for 27 drawer boxes. 15 will go into the main bedroom walk-in closet and 12 are destined for the guest bedroom walk-in closet. Each drawer box requires a front, back, 2 sides, and a bottom. I am using lock miter joints for the corners which have the advantage of self-alignment and require clamping in only one direction. The price for this is that all four corners must be glued together simultaneously and given the relatively short open time of the glue I am using, it is best done with an assistant. Jeanine has become a very proficient glue buddy and I will wait until she returns from her Midwest road trip before attempting assembly.
The boys stopped by this afternoon to watch the Liverpool vs. Manchester United match. Maya dropped by at halftime and stayed for the remainder of the game even though the primary goal of her visit was to pick up tools for continuing repair work on her tiny house. I feel so lucky that the kids live close by and that we can gather like this at a moment’s notice. I did my best to channel my inner-Jeanine for the occasion. I chilled a couple of beers, put out peanuts (I found Jeanine’s hidden stash) and chips and made chicken with wild rice soup for Kyle. I contend that removing the lid from a can and heating its contents constitues making soup, an assertion that will no doubt be challenged by our resident soup gourmand.
Jeanine met her newest niece today for the first time and from the sound of things they have already bonded. For years now, Jeanine has been trying to schedule a visit to meet her but one thing or another (Covid, job, new house) has conspired to postpone this day.
I spent my day outdoors managing a second open burn in as many days. In light of yesterday’s visit from the fire department, I thought it best to minimize the amount of smoke I generated by limiting my burn to wood only (no pine needles). I also discovered that one of the trees that came down has encroached on our neighbors property, very nearly hitting their house. I reached out to let them know we would cover the cost of removal and any damage.
Conditions today were ideal for an open burn to get rid of all the trees that came down this winter. Air temperature was in the 50s and the sun was out for the first time in several days. Recent rains have left the ground cover very wet reducing the possibility of fire propagation. Unfortunately, the pine needles and limbs I was burning produced a great deal of smoke, enough to fill the entire river valley when the wind was in that direction. Reports of heavy smoke in Fairhaven Bay (about a mile upriver), resulted in a visit from the fire department to our address. Fortunately, my permit was in order, my same-day burn request had been approved, and my fire met all but one criterion; it was too close to the house. The requirement is 75 feet. The fire chief was very reasonable and suggested a different location near the top of the driveway for future fires. I was only able to take care of a third of the detritus and may look into buying a wood chipper to deal with the rest.
Jeanine shared this picture of Gandalf. He belongs to her sister who she is visiting in Indianapolis. With Jeanine away I have been eating unhealthy foods and binge watching Suits, one of my favorite TV shows.
Our bonsai tree has yet to find a permanent spot in our new house. In the meantime, it has found a temporary home atop my Djembe drum fitted with a circular tray to prevent water from damaging the head. For now, it is enjoying light from two windows in our bedroom.
I neglected to share a photo I took yesterday of this bottle of champagne we received to celebrate the completion of the River House. Although we have our Certificate of Occupancy and have moved in, I still have a few more built-ins to complete in the main and guest closets as well as the mudroom. I completed the later this morning. Jeanine left for a mid-west road trip with her sister Susan. They are headed to Indiana where they will visit with her other sister, Lauren. Then all three will travel to Kentucky to celebrate her niece’s 40th birthday.
Although we have had the kids over for family meals, this evening, we hosted our first proper dinner party in the new house. It was certainly the first of many more. When we designed the house, we did so understanding that the kitchen is where everyone likes to gather and that was certainly the case today. We used the island as a buffet table, the coffee klatch as a drink station, and the pantry counter as a staging area. Everything flowed smoothly and seating at the round dining table was very comfortable.
My aunt celebrated her 97th birthday yesterday and I was so happy to see that my sister Alissa was able to attend the party. Having just completed building the home where Jeanine and I will spend the rest of our lives, I can’t help but wonder how many birthdays we can look forward to. Jeanine’s 61st will be the first, coming up in April.
Based on a very favorable earnings report, the stock price of the company that Kyle works for increased by more than a third last week. Part of his compensation includes stock grants and I was pleased to learn that he decided to cash out 10% of his position. One of the painful financial lessons I have learned in my life is that it is far better to diversify a large position in any one company gradually over time rather than trying to time a peak event.
This website is dedicated to sharing, with family and friends, the day-to-day adventures of the Calabria family.
