Postponed

Still looks mighty wet.  Let's postpone until next Monday, July 2, 5:00-8:00.

Weather alert

Hi all,

NOAA.gov forecasts 100% chance of "heavy rain and thunderstorms" through this evening.  It doesn't look good for hewing tonight.  I'll post again today at 3:30 PM to either confirm or postpone.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Also, almost no one ever comments on these posts, so I'm not even sure that function works.  Anyone want to test this for me?!  Thanks.

Jay

Hewing, June 25!

Ailsa inspires at Baccalaureate, June 9, 2012.  (She's always craved amplification and five microphones...!)



Hi all,

I'm just back from a second Monhegan sojourn -- this time to replace windows in the cottages with my daughter Athalia and other friends and family.  Since I dashed from a final day of Pingree meetings to Markham Lumber, to Port Clyde and the Laura B out to the (blessedly computer-less) island, it's been a while since I last posted.

I want to let folks know that we'll be resuming work at the hewing site this coming week, and I'm hoping to gather at least once a week all summer.  I'm still trying to get a handle on various summer league schedules that occupy my family's attention, so I'll post a longer-term schedule by the end of this weekend.  Meantime, know that I'll be working this Monday, June 25, from 5:00-8:00.  I'll bring tools, sunscreen, bug dope, and a few pairs of work gloves, but you'll want to bring sturdy shoes and a water bottle.  If you're a newcomer, our work site is on the right-hand side of the Pingree exit driveway, about a hundred yards west of Johnson Rink.  There'll be jobs for builders of all ages.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions/concerns.  My email's jesty@pingree.org.  All are welcome.


See you at the hewing site!

Jay

Ailsa's Big Monhegan Adventure!

     Back from Monhegan last Saturday and it's been a Pingree sprint since...  Our island group was terrific, made so by both the seniors who composed it and Alex Tinari and first-ever alumna intern Meaghan Souza.  For the first time in the roughly fifteen years Ailsa and I have been running these courses, we incorporated a service element, this year helping Monhegan Museum curators Jen Pye and Emily Grey prepare for the late-June opening of the museum.  Photos below of our gang pitching in.  After we'd cleaned, transported, cleared, etc., Emily and Jen brought us up the newly de-leaded lighthouse and into the museum's art vault -- fabulously fun island haunts!

Ailsa and Alex de-mildew the gallery doors.

Meaghan and Shelby DiFiore clean out the fish house.

Keith Morency hauls exhibit materials.

Charlie Parker delivers pizza...  (??!!)

Amanda Monteforte clears the cemetery trail.

The view from the lighthouse!

And, at the end of the day, the group enjoys a well-earned meal.

     This weekend (June 8-10) at Pingree is filled with the rituals of year's end.  Awards Ceremony tonight, Baccalaureate Saturday, and Commencement Sunday.  Ailsa's speaking at Baccalaureate and is sure to bring the extraordinary perspective of her nearly half-century's work at school.  Please join us if you're nearby.

     I'll post a summer work schedule here on the blog as soon as I get my act together (and cross-reference the Esty family calendar.)  I'm hoping to establish a weekly evening or two, starting the last week in June, during which any and all can come to our work site for a few hours and keep Ailsa's house project moving.  Lots have expressed interest, so it should be lively!  Keep checking here for more info.

Happy Birthday, Ralph!

"Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."  RWE, Nature

Happy 209th Birthday to Ralph Waldo Emerson, transcendentalist, journal-ist, "sage of Concord," and HDT's erstwhile landlord at Walden Pond.

Ailsa and I head to Monhegan Island, Maine, on Sunday, with twelve Pingree seniors, former Pingree English teacher Alex Tinari, and alumna teaching intern Meaghan Souza.  It's our Landscape and Narrative senior project trip.  Stay tuned for photos and the tale of the trip after June 2.

The last two weeks

It's been a rainy couple of weeks since my last post, but we pushed through wet weather and end-of-year scheduling challenges to produce some good work.  We're just about done hewing all four floor joists and a corner post.  We've got two sill pieces and a wall plate under way, and we're about to finish up our second set of hewing horses.

This past Friday, Dave Carpenter '87 delivered a trailer-load of white pine lengths to replenish our log stock (see photos below) and stayed to hew with us for the afternoon.  Yesterday, I enjoyed a too-short visit (with my daughter Athalia and our friend Jenna Roncarati) to the replica of Thoreau's house at Walden Pond.  We took photos, measurements, and scribbled notes and sketches.  Athalia couldn't believe how uncomfortable Hank's bed was.

 
Kiera Parece, Michaela Byrne, Karly Cohen (all Pingree '13), and I rolling Dave Carpenter's logs onto nylon slings for transport onto our work site.

Gravity's our friend as we roll the logs down the hill.

Dave Carpenter '87 hews a sill plate.  The sill dimensions are marked on the log end.  After we flatten one face, we'll turn the log on the horses to hew successive sides.  The plates need to finish at 6" x 8".

Dave knows what he's doing with a broadaxe.  He and I first met in 2009 when he was a vital member of the crew that hewed and constructed a replica 1634 Settlement House frame in Ipswich.  (see ipswichcbc.wordpress.com)  Dave's a practiced hand (and eye) at hewing to the line.  Please note (admire!) our custom-built hewing horse supporting the log.

A seldom-photographed view of the rear gable end of Thoreau's house.  I wanted to get details of the woodshed and chimney construction (more info to follow in later post.)  That's Athalia on the left, and the Thoreau statue in the right background.

Photographer Athalia captures Jenna's spectral reflection in the window.  Note that Thoreau's cabin sits directly on the ground.  On our Pingree house, we'll need to decide how to balance historical accuracy with building for longevity.  We're considering a dry-stacked fieldstone foundation, so the sills aren't rotting away on the grade.  There's a reason that, eighty years after Thoreau built his house, no one in Concord even knew where it had stood...  (It wasn't until after World War II that amateur archaeologist Roland Wells Robbins excavated and discovered the actual location.)

There I was, minding my own business, when Hank challenged me to an arm-wrestling smackdown.  As I was no match for his transcendental powers, he made short work of me...

Another harbinger of the Apocalypse...

The end is near... :

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/30/thoreaus-walden-the-video-game/