Another month gone by

And can't say we've really done too much. Ed has been busy replacing the roof on the kitchen porch. It leaked badly whenever the rains pours down. He left the asphalt shingles in place, added flashing against the house wall, and prepared the surface for the tiles.

Then he carted lots of tiles up from the stack on the South Forty and laid them in place. See how much fun he had? (Taken through the screen on the bedroom window.)

It all looks lovely and survived the first small rain OK, but during a heavy rain, water was again coming down the side of the house, if not as much as previously. What a disappointment after all that work! With the help of a hose, Ed found the spots where the flashing was not adhering to the house. Now to fix that.

One of our projects is planting a tree for each of our parents. Here is Kaye with Dottie Dogwood. You might spy Martha Sweetgum further back at the left. Only one more tree left to plant.

The little water heater that provides hot water for the kitchen and the Tardis upstairs died. At lunch Ed heard drip, drip, drip, but couldn't find it. At dinner he finally located the sound, water dripping onto one row of mugs, spilling onto the next row, and onto the old sink below. After finishing up the dinner dishes, he turned off the water off, there being no valve to the hot water heater itself. That left us with no water at all in the kitchen or in the toilet above. Next day he hit up four shops before finding a suitable replacement, came home to do some preparatory work, went to choir practice, then came home to install it. We took ourselves out to dinner that evening. The new heater is "fatter" than the old one, so we lost space for four mugs.

Otherwise, we haven't been doing all that much. We've been to a couple of vides greniers (flea markets), but didn't buy anything. This last week one of Kaye's old colleagues from John Brown was in the area. We lunched, then Kaye and they hit up two local brocantes that we'd seen but not visited before. Victor and John came away with some goodies, but Kaye was strong and avoided any impulse buys. (But we'll go back in a week or so to see if anything is still waiting for us.)

A week ago we were having some serious summer weather again with a high of 30C/86F last Sunday. Fall arrived overnight as a cold wind cooled Monday to 17.5C/63.5 and Tuesday to 14.5C/58F. After a few days of serious gray rain, the sun has returned and we've had some beautiful fall weather. But it's time to get out more blankets for the bed.