Revealing the rot

A gorgeous summer day. It's Natal Day today so Sharon took Catherine to see the Natal Day parade in Halifax. I wasn't too interested in that so I stayed here and removed the west end of the deck to reveal the "foundation" of the south side of the house.

I dug around the southwest corner of the house to uncover the large cubic stone that supports that corner. It's about 18" on a side and appears to have been quarried. It's near the surface and unfortunately does not appear to be sitting on bedrock, just compacted soil.


The corner stone is the most substantial part of the original foundation I've seen. It think it was just large stones laid out in a row on the ground on the high side of the property and perhaps piled several stones high on the low side. Most of these stones have tumbled into the cellar over the years, replaced by a shockingly unstable pile of cinderblocks.

Mrs Bradley came by with some muffins and biscuits. The biscuits were still warm - saved me making lunch. Mrs Bradley told me that her husband sold the old homestead back in the 1950's to the Coxes. From the Coxes it went to the Binghams to the Pedals to the Grandys - and finally to the Hutts in 2007.

I spent the afternoon removing the bottom four rows of shingles from the west and south walls of the living room. There's a lot of rot in the sheathing under the shingles. I removed that too, revealing the posts.


I was amazed to see that the south sill is simply gone. It must have disintegrated. The corner post tenon hangs in the air, where it used to fit in the sill mortise.


At dusk I spotted a slinky brown creature weaving between the rocks on the shore. He was dark, chocolate brown with a white throat, small black ears, a fluffy tail about half the length of the main body - the tail had a white tip. I believe it was a martin.