Timber!

After the house was underway, we noticed that there was a nearby dead pine tree that had to come down and several other large pines that are too close for comfort.  Removing the dead tree was a no-brainer, but even live pines are fairly fragile and can break and fall on a house in high winds.  So vitually everyone here advises removing pine trees that could fall and hit your house.

We had been planning remove quite a few dead pines from out lot as well as several live ones on the lake side.  We had already lost several pines from a combination of drought, pine bark beetles and Hurricane Rita and had had the dead hulks removed.

Even though I think pines are pretty, they are an absolute pain to have in a yard.  The pine needles fall year round and have to be constantly raked and burned.  In addition, the needles are acidic, which kills grass directly under the tree.

The builder will do most of the removals, but he did not want to do the ones close to the house.  So we hired a guy who specializes in taking down trees near houses.  One of the trees, which was nearly 100 feet tall, had to be topped, leaving only a bare pole as shown in the nearby photo.  If you look closely, you will see the climber who donned a climbing belt and spikes and hauled a chain saw up the tree where he spent several hours lopping off all the limbs.  After that was complete, the sawyer used a chain and comealong to pull the tree away from the house while he sawed it down.  

Kitchen Countertops and Backsplash

There are things happening with the house but not much that makes for a good photo.  The major change on the interior is completion of the countertops and backsplash.  The photo at the left shows the granite countertops and backsplash.  The granite is called Shivakashi yellow, and the backsplash is a travertine called Jerusalem gold.  The tiles have black highlights every so often.  

The same countertops are used in the beverage bar and in the utility room.  However, the backsplash is repeated only on the beverage bar.  The same tile will be used on the fireplace but without the black highlights.  In the utility room the backsplash is lower and is made from the same granite as the countertops.

Fish Story

My friend Darrell, who is a patent attorney for the Navy in the Washington, D. C., area, was in town last week to handle his mother's estate, and he came by to see the progress on our house.  He was our first visitor after we arrived in January.  He brought his brother Bob, who lives in Groves, Texas, near Beaumont, and they invited me to go fishing with them.

So Friday morning about 5:30 AM I hit the road in my Jeep and drove the 140 miles to Groves.  We attempted to go offshore and fish near oil platforms about 6-12 miles out,  but the wind was too high.  So we stayed in Sabine Lake, which is a large salt water lake just inland from the Gulf of Mexico on the Sabine River.

As the photo shows it was a pretty good day for me.  I caught the largest fish of the day, a 28" redfish, which is the largest redfish you can legally keep.  I also caught a couple of nice sized gafftop saltwater catfish and a black drum.  We caught bunches of small catfish, but they all went back into the lake.  I had the most unusual catch of the day, a small hammerhead shark, which obviously was thrown back.

Bob fileted the fish when we arrived back at his home, and he sent me home with two large freezer bags of fish.  It was great fun.  Bob promised to bring his boat to Lake Livingston to see what we can catch here.

Nine Years

Nine years ago Thursday, Cec and I were married at Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii.  These have been the happiest years of my life.  It is wonderful to have someone who loves you and admires you despite all your obvious faults.

We celebrated with a dinner at La Evente, a very small Italian bistro in Trinity (Did you say Italian bistro, as in restaurant, in Trinity, Texas? Yes, I did.  We do have something other than barbecue and Tex-Mex, you know.)  It was decorated very nicely, and they played operatic solos for background music.  

The food was excellent and much better than many big city Italian restaurants I've been to.  The restaurant has space for only 7 tables, and reservations are recommended.  They served free wine by the glass since they do no yet have a liquor license. After the main course, they honored our anniversary with a complimentary frozen cheesecake dessert, which was very good.

Underground Utilities

The final stages of home construction are beginning.  While the tile is being laid and countertops being installed inside, the outside utility hookups are beginning.

Murph, the builder's son who does all the dirt work, began ditching and laying pipe and conduit for water, sewer and electric.  The water was connected and could be used if the sewer were completed.  That final step will be done by the plumber.

The electrical panel will be on the front of the barn to the left of the door in the adjacent photo.  It will go underground from the utility pole to the barn and from the barn to the house.  The electrical conduits are in place and covered.  All that is left is for the power company to install the panel and feed the wire through the conduit.  The electrical subcontractor will do the same between the barn and the house.  In addition to the electrical conduit, we also laid a conduit for my ham radio antenna cables.  

Very importantly, Murph's crew laid a sewer line to the future RV parking area in front of the barn and to the left of the door.  We will also lay a water line and electrical circuit for full hookups.  We are considering extending the barn in the form of a carport to cover the RV.

The builder says we may be in the house by June 1!

Floor Tiling Begins

The tiling contractor has begun laying the floor tile.  That's Jeremy fitting "tacos" (accent pieces) into the entryway tile.  Jeremy lives not far from us, and he is also a Jeeper.

The tiling has probably given us more agony than any other aspect of the house (well maybe paint colors come in a close second).  We have traveled to at least 5 flooring stores and warehouses in Conroe, Woodlands, and Houston looking at tile, some several times.  We obtaned free samles at some places and bought a few samples at a tile warehouse and brought them home.  Some did not look right, and back we went to find something else.

When we were on the road to Birmingham last week, Jeremy called to tell us that we had managed to pick the most expensive tile that Interceramic makes and that the travertine we had picked for the kitchen backsplash and fireplace was pretty expensive also.  But the actual cost difference was not enough to make a change that would have required another series of trips to the tile store, and we liked what we had already picked.

Bath Countertops

Things are moving along rapidly now.  The cultured marble contractors have installed the countertops and bathtubs.  The countertops are cultured granite and the tubs and sinks are cultured marble.  All the bathrooms (master, upstairs, and utility) use a different color cultured granite and marble.  The guest bath in the entryway hall will use a furniture-style sink cabinet and wall cabinet.  The sink cabinet comes with the sink already installed.

The adjacent photos show the jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom (countertop slightly visible) and the countertop in the upstairs bathroom.

Porch Flooring Done

To complement the country look of the metal roof, we decided to floor the porches with treated wood. We saw another house the builder had done with a wood porch, and it looked wonderful.

We are a bit of a guinea pig on the method used to install the porch boards.  Previously the builder drove nails into the underlying concrete.  On ours he embedded 2x4 boards in the concrete and used screws to attach the boards.

Note also that we selected square posts.  The builder wanted to use round, turned posts, but without a railing they looked naked.   We did not want a railing because it would obscure the rock siding.  We think it turned out nicely. 

Cabinets Finished and Painting

It has been a couple of weeks since I updated the status of the house.  We were in Birmingham, AL last week in the RV tending to a family matter.

The cabinets are now completed.  As the photo at the left shows, the doors and drawers have been added, and they have been stained and finished.  We are very pleased with the way the look.  You will have to ignore the painters clutter on the counter top.

The painters have also completed the walls.  Picking the paint color was quite a ride.  At the painter's suggestion we picked a color (rice grain) that when applied turned out to have a green cast.  It looked awful!  The bad part was that the painters had already done the upstairs and entry area.  After agonizing about it, we asked the painters to stop work and consider a new color.  They were not pleased, but they ultimately came over to our side.  We went to the Sherwin Williams store and picked a beige (realist beige).  It looks great!

The Mother Lode of Berries

I mentioned in a previous post that we stumbled upon a prolific dewberry patch.  I could not let that pass without posting a photo of a small section of the patch showing berries "as thick has hair on a dog's back."  On one pull I collected seven berries. We picked for several hours and filled 5 quart paint buckets several times.

Where is it?  You know I can't tell you that!  Tell you what I will do, though.  Come by for a visit and we'll serve some of our tasty dewberry jam.

Texas Opry

We have had several invitations to attend a country music show called the Texas Opry in Crockett, a small city about 35 miles north of us.  My Uncle Charles and Aunt Patsy dropped by last Thursday to see the new house construction, and they reminded us that the Opry would be held on Saturday.  So we decided to drive up to see what it was all about.  They met us at the door and took us to great seats in a reserved section near the stage.

The program had an announcer just like the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.  The program began with a prayer by the organizer, Dennis Ivey, and singing of the national anthem.  Then the music began with the entire band playing the Bob Wills classic "Steel Guitar Rag," featuring, of course, the steel guitarist.

I had heard the Opry was pretty good, but I did not expect it to be as good as it was.  The musicianship was excellent, and the quality of the vocals was very high.  It is difficult to understand how the musicians played together so well since they were from all over East Texas and one from Louisiana.  There were several really good singers, including Dennis Ivey.  They played a variety of styles from traditional country to modern country to a little pop and R&B.  The keyboard player brought the house down with his rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis' rock and roll hit, "Great Balls of Fire."  This being an "opry," there was, of course, the traditional rube comic, whose performance was no overly painful to watch.

We noticed in the program this morning that Ivey is a minister at a church in Crockett.  That probably explains why the songs were mostly on the positive side, and I don't recall a single drinking song.

It was a great show, and we will probably go again.

General Sam Houston Folk Festival

Some might argue that Texas is stuck in the past; but even if that is true, I like it.  Yesterday we went to the General Sam Houston Folk Festival in Huntsville.  I went to work a display tent for the Veterans Museum of Texas, but I got the chance to look around a bit.  The Festival featured music, food, and historical displays and demonstrations.

I talked at length to several people about Scottish heritage.  Three clans, Gunn, Cumming and MacKay had tents there.  Turns out that I am eligible for membership in Clan Gunn through my mother's Johnson family ancestry  and in MacKay through the Morgan family on my Dad's side.  I am also pretty sure that my Landrum ancestry would get me into Clan Cumming.  There are more people of Scots ancestry that any other cultural group in the South, and it affects, if not defines, the key aspects of Southern culture -- music, attitudes, outdoor pursuits, etc.

Costumes from the Texas Revolution Period were the order of the day.  Many women wore long dresses with full skirts and hats and others wore long every day dresses and bonnets. A few men were dressed as gentlemen with early Texas-style hats in the style of Sam Houston (nothing like modern "cowboy hats"), but most wore period common trousers and shirts topped with broad-brimmed straw or slouch hats.

There were several re-enactment groups, mainly representing the era of the Texas Revolution.  They camped out in period tents and cooked over open fires.  I watched a very interesting flintlock rifle demonstration by the Cane Island Volunteers.  Every so often another group fired a very loud cannon, but I never made it over to their display.

I talked to a couple of guys representing the Sons of the Republic of Texas.  The SRT is a heritage organization that requires an ancestor who lived in Texas prior to 1845 for membership.  I have three, including one of whom, Thomas H. W. Forsythe, fought in the Battle of Bexar, in which the Texian forces captured San Antonio several months prior to the battle of the Alamo.  Fortunately, shortly after the battle he had to travel to Mississippi to settle his father's estate, thereby missing the Battle of the Alamo.  Had he not left San Antonio...well, you get the picture.  I will probably apply for membership since I am a CHN (certified history nut).

Cec and her mother Joanne visited the "airing of the quilts" in downtown Huntsville.  All the quiltmakers in the area bring their quilts and hang them on balconies and racks around the courthouse square.  This simulates the old practice of hanging the quilts in the sun in the springtime to freshen them.  I heard that one of the quilts sold for $5000.

The music included folk, Gaelic, African-American, Scottish and Mexican.  I attended a performance by a three person Western swing band called Back at the Ranch.