A very cold day. Scott made progress on the porch roof and still had energy to enjoy the sunset.

Another cold day. Scott spent it finishing the floor of the porch (ripping and setting that one last floor board and doing the facing boards) and taking apart the front of the house where the roof of the porch will attach.

Another very cold day Scott spend outside working on the porch. He finished the floor (save the very last board; it had to be ripped and there wasn't enough light to see clearly.)

He took more pictures of the eagles, which he said are numerous and very active and noisy.

I think the temperature was 28 degrees. Scott worked outside all day, and he got half the floor installed.

​It took longer than usual because originally he thought he was going to use Trex, which need to be inset behind the lower facing board because they're ugly on the ends when you cut them. In the end, he decided to use wood, but the facing board was already in, so he had to cut the floor boards carefully and fit them in, rather than simply nailing them on top of the joists and then running his saw across to cut them evenly.

He said he saw bald eagles all day long. And the sun sets over the river in the winter giving him a nice view. But yikes that's ice in the river.

Day 3 of porch work was Scott putting in the joists.

We had more snow come down, and it's pretty cold, but Scott spent the whole day outside doing some more work on the porch. 

He decided not to anchor the back end to the house but instead add more posts to that side and build on top of those. But he discovered an old concrete sidewalk under the dirt that he had to bust out with a sledgehammer first.

When he did that, he dug holes and put in the back posts. Then he put on those 2x8 planks, whatever they're called.

Scott spent the day at the river starting the front porch. He got 4 6x6 posts, 12 feet long, from Home Depot. Then he dug holes by hand, set the posts, and filled them with  2 80-pound bags of concrete.

Remember we moved the window in the kitchen so that it would be centered on the front exterior of the house. Scott had already done the plumbing for the sink that would have gone where the original window was. But he had to remove it when he moved the window.

Today he reinstalled the kitchen plumbing.

Too much snow is on the ground and Scott couldn't work. So he went to the river and spent the day reinstalling the plumbing from the cistern to the pump house and burying it.

Scott is very busy with work, but he found a day to go pick up the riser that had finally come in and go out to the river to do some work. He put the riser on and then shoveled dirt on top of the cistern for 5 hours straight. He said it was super heavy clay, and it would stick to the shovel and he'd have to pry it off. He still has a bit more work to do to protect the opening, maybe including building a little shed over it, but first he'll reconnect the plumbing and test the system when he gets time.