Onward Christian Soldier

The Jakester. The Jakeman. The Jakeappotamus. The Jakerama. The JakeMasterJam.

I'm building a very cool series of homes over on Tuthill Road, which is a Town maintained dirt road in the Town of Lumberland, the hamlet of Barryville, just a few miles from the Delaware River that runs from Canada to the Chesapeake.

So there's a lot of action over there every morning and Jake and I like to go over, park the car and walk around checking shit out. It's a pretty good walk, since we are building 4 houses, and they are all on 4+ acres. So Jake runs that way, and this way, and up the hill, and down the hill, and sprints there and sprints here. Anyway, being a 8 month old puppy that exertion of energy serves him well all day, keeping him even tempered and mostly dozing off in various positions and surfaces in the office. It's a great thing that he doesn't run off and play hard to get when he's off the leash - since that enables me to let him run.

A few fun things happening this morning in diverse directions. First, ole Hall from the reclaimed wood place down the road delivered our hand hewn fireplace mantle beams and mantle posts. Hand hewn means old, since hewn implies and is given away by the actual ax marks on the beam itself. It's true history incorporated, and a pretty cool accent. That's Mark and Henning getting ready to help unload, cut and install.


The Reclaimed Farmhouse which we are pimping out is currently on the market. I haven't showed it to many people, because until these homes reach a certain phase, the genius is a little hard to see to the layman or laywoman or laychild. But it's there, and it certainly becomes poignantly evident at some point, when the details, product choices, and construction techniques are visible. The duel brick chimney gives this house that Philadelphia federal-style look.

Richard the art gallery insurance expert's Barn house in the painting stage.

Steve the picture framer's house in the soy-based spray foam insulation phase.

John and Wendy's Shaker-style house in the trim phase.

And also, while subtle, is a big deal. See the little stone path going to the house. If the excavator was a little less intelligent, a little less thoughtful, a little less committed to seeing the big picture, he would have neglected putting this path in as he put the driveway in - leaving us tramping through some serious and job-stopping mud.

We just got our latest credit card statement and it was illuminating to see our life's patterns through the lens of our credit card activity - in line item/black and white narrative.

Target, Toys -r- us, various gas stations, Baby-r-Us, liqueur store, animal hospital, netflix, grocery store, repeat. The repeated liqueur store was a good one, I thought.

Well, I'm flying solo for 10 days as Lisa is down in Florida again (must be nice), watching and taking car of my faltering 73 yr old Dad. I mean there's young 73 and old 73, and he falls squarely in the latter description. So Lisa, a caregiver by instinct, loves the bond Lucas and Dawdy, have had from early on. And now she's got her new flip cam to capture all the slow-moving glory of Lucas and Dawdy, - though Lucas ain't that slow anymore.

Lucas is also fast friends with our neighbor Tanta, who is a young 73 - it's like a Harold and Maude relationship without the funeral fetishes and without the sex.

Sure, I agree, that's inappropriate for sure.