A couple days ago Scott went to the river to clean up and get some tools. While there, he got some new ideas about additional windows. He looked at the "cheeks" of the dormer and thought he could squeeze a window in each one. When he measured, it turned out he could fit a 2' x 2' window.

Yesterday, he went back to the house and prepped the window openings, and while he was there, he took down some scrubby trees and trimmed a bunch of branches around the power lines.

The resulting brush pile.

Scott and Frank spent one weekend working on tying the cistern into the pump. They discovered the pump had a failing gasket and wasn't strong enough to work from the second floor. So they'll be moving it to the ground level next and making a new gasket.

The next weekend, Scott spent a day and a half moving dirt again. Everything that he'd dug out for the cistern hole was piled up around it, and the resultant grading would have sent rainwater streaming toward the cistern cap. 

This is a before picture, but it's hard to tell from it how much dirt there was. Think: a day and a half's worth of shoveling.

Two places where some of the dirt went are one, around the firepit, and, two, over the former patio of tiles on the side of the house. Scott moved all the limestone that was under the tiles as well.

The plywood contraption by the window is our shower stall. Scott needs help moving it into the house so it's there until he has someone there.

Somewhere in the last couple of weeks, Scott installed the upstairs potty. 

Here are all the pictures so any can be enlarged.

Scott was thinking of things that would need eventual demo and that could go in the dumpster while we had it, and he noted the deck. His brother offered to help out today, and so he set to dismantling the deck.

Meanwhile, Scott finished digging the cistern hole, and the brothers got the cistern into the hole.

The next day, Scott got the deck moved to the dumpster and the wood pile moved to the edge of the property.

Scott has moved a lot of rocks.

On Saturday, 9/14/2024, Scott and I went out the river house. While he continued to dig the cistern hole, I kept filling the dumpster. 

I started with the pile of roofing. OMG shingles are a PIA. I had to peel them off the ground and each other, put them in the wheelbarrow, take them back out of the wheelbarrow bits at a time, and throw them into the dumpster. Mind you, I was loading the dumpster strategically to minimize voids and maximize the volume we got in there. 

In addition to shingles, wood and metal were mixed throughout the pile. Any wood that didn't have shingles stuck to it I burned. Other bits had to be carted to the dumpster. 

Okay, then there were BRICKS in the pile. So those got carted into the dumpster, too. Once I was done with that pile, Scott said I "could" move any other red bricks, pavers, or stones if I "wanted to." Challenge accepted. That included about 100 pavers from a patio that had to be lifted up, a load of bricks and concrete pavers from a decorative well of some sort, a stash of bricks on the side of the house, and the bricks that lined the walkway going into the house. Whew.

Trash pile gone! Nice and tidy. The stones in the picture will go along the shoreline, I think. 

Comparison view: (1) Trash Pile, origin story; (2) Trash Pile, decline; (3) Trash Pile, demise; (4) Trash Pile, afterlife.

On Friday, 9/13/2024, we got a 30-yard dumpster delivered. I went out that day and got started moving the trash pile into it. Scott was home working his real job.

The dumpster was so close to the trash pile (actually on top of some of it), that the door would not open. Our neighbor helped me clear a path so we could open the door. I worked a long day. I finished everything but the pile of roofing materials from the garage roof fix. 

Here are before shots of the pile.

Here's how it looked at the end of the day.

Here's the dumpster at the end of the day.

I also had a fire going all day. Here are the coals at the end of the day.

Scott took a dead tree down and moved it with the help of his truck to the burn pile.

Scott and Thomas repaired the roof on the garage. A bigger job than Scott expected, but now it's nice and new.

In process

Another day Scott cleared brush from the river bank.