Joyce and I bought a place right after I got out of the navy. It had an old rock house on the acreage that had a history. No one in the area knew how old it was, but the good old boys used to gather there by oil lamp lighting to play poker. The old house had no heating system other than a grand fireplace. One very cold winter night the old boys were playing poker and they stoked the fire up just a might too much and the roof caught on fire around the fireplace. There were no organized firefighters so it just burned itself out, leaving a five by five hole in the roof around the chimney. That hole went without repair for decades and the wooden floor below rotted out.
Fast forward to when we bought the place, I wanted my TV shop in there. We hired a contractor to do some repairs. Joyce went to get a job through the state employment office so I could concentrate on my TV business. She came home with a job for me with a local TV shop. That left her and the contractor to get the shop into ship shape. They did a good job getting it ready while I worked. It was ready when they finished putting all of the sheet rock up. Again that was on a cold winter day and as the contractor left, he said we needed to keep a fire going so the spackling didn't freeze or it would chip and fall out between the sheet rock panels. I got home from work as Joyce was hauling some wood up to burn in the fireplace. It happened that we were in the middle of a thunder snow. If some of you are not familiar with that term, it is when there is snow falling along with a thunder storm. We spent most of the night out in the weather to keep feeding the fireplace so the spackling didn't freeze.
I started working on my own the next spring and things went well for a time until the recession hit. That winter I had to gather wood every morning to stoke up the fireplace just to have some heat in the place. It was of course the coldest winter there in decades. Lucky for me the power lines went through the area just behind the rock house and the utility company had cleared about a 30 feet wide area through the woods so they could not have to worry about trees freezing and knocking down their power lines. I had all the wood I needed just a short distance away from the rock house.
Years after we sold the place and moved to California for a decade before coming back here another owner had made the rock house a livable place in the winter time. Someone added on a significant addition to the old house and it didn't look all that bad.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
Fast forward to when we bought the place, I wanted my TV shop in there. We hired a contractor to do some repairs. Joyce went to get a job through the state employment office so I could concentrate on my TV business. She came home with a job for me with a local TV shop. That left her and the contractor to get the shop into ship shape. They did a good job getting it ready while I worked. It was ready when they finished putting all of the sheet rock up. Again that was on a cold winter day and as the contractor left, he said we needed to keep a fire going so the spackling didn't freeze or it would chip and fall out between the sheet rock panels. I got home from work as Joyce was hauling some wood up to burn in the fireplace. It happened that we were in the middle of a thunder snow. If some of you are not familiar with that term, it is when there is snow falling along with a thunder storm. We spent most of the night out in the weather to keep feeding the fireplace so the spackling didn't freeze.
I started working on my own the next spring and things went well for a time until the recession hit. That winter I had to gather wood every morning to stoke up the fireplace just to have some heat in the place. It was of course the coldest winter there in decades. Lucky for me the power lines went through the area just behind the rock house and the utility company had cleared about a 30 feet wide area through the woods so they could not have to worry about trees freezing and knocking down their power lines. I had all the wood I needed just a short distance away from the rock house.
Years after we sold the place and moved to California for a decade before coming back here another owner had made the rock house a livable place in the winter time. Someone added on a significant addition to the old house and it didn't look all that bad.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment