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Fritter’s awful fortnight
Sasaki-sensei at Mare Animal Clinic let me take Fritter home for the night after bandaging him up last Sunday. Fritter had struggled hard to get home to us on that damaged foot; I wanted him to have a comfortable night with us before admitting him to the clinic for treatment. So we made sure he…
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Nama-con #2
Today the rest of the slab was poured. It went in over rebar that had been built over the course of the week. Frames on the side hold it in place until it dries. Each stage of the process makes the house feel more real – literally concrete instead of an abstraction. In addition to…
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Fritter’s back
3:15 this morning, there was a noisy meowing in the house. Not Maura’s squeak or Beryl’s bargle, this was loud and insistent. It was Fritter! He was eating hungrily and meowing in between bites. Unfortunately he has been badly injured. I think he got stuck in a trap. Whether he freed himself, or a weekend…
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Glass house
I sort of don’t want a house at all. I want this beautiful open space where I can look in all directions at my surroundings. Like Hitomi and I did yesterday when we laid down in the future bedroom. I am glad Kengo snapped that photo of us. When the house goes up, I lose…
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Lighting design
I have put off a big part of the 555 planning, and that is lighting. Included in our quote is a basic lighting setup but even as I agreed to it, I knew it was inadequate. I like lights and this house has potential for interesting lighting inside and out. Friends recommended that I look…
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Where is Fritter?
On Thursday night, Fritter slept on the bed and as usual, he stepped outside in the pre-dawn. But it’s Tuesday now and he hasn’t come back. Fritter is our adventurer. He has gone off for extended walkabouts and missed a day’s worth of meals, but he’s never been gone five days in a row. I…
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Tile Mines, phase 3
Trick? Treat? I’m not sure yet. My Halloween was spent moving all of the tiles I sorted last year from Hangar eight up to 555. There are seven pallets, a dozen trays, at least 8 bags, and a wheelbarrow. They occupy the spot where the old outhouse used to stand. It is literally tons of…
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Nama-con #1
Yesterday was the first pour of concrete. This is just a few centimeters deep to form a base for the rebar and the 2nd pour of the pad. Those will be done at the end of next week. From now until Friday, the concrete sets and there’s not much else to see. This first pour…
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Shades of boxwood
As I go through the process myself, I get flashes of memories from when my parents built their house in the Valley of Lakes. Yesterday, I recalled the boxwood. Their lot was wooded with a variety of deciduous trees. One of them was a boxwood. It wasn’t a small shrub, this was a 10′ tree…
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Foundational
Yesterday morning, work began on the foundations. It started with a lot of neon pink string, checking and rechecking measurements at ground level, then building a fence, moving the strings to waist level and rechecking to make sure everything was square and tidy. By midday, trenching had begun. Maru-chan dug the ground down to the…
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