A Photo Album of Late Summer and Fall in New Hampshire

Mom, as promised I remembered to post some pictures from the fall out here before I go to bed tonight. I went through all the photos I've taken out here and chose some of the best ones. Some are from pretty early in my time out here, when it was still late in the summer. Others are more recent and cover the fall. A few are from a couple trips out to the coast to the Atlantic Ocean. This is a beautiful part of the country and it's been very fun to shoot photos of the scenery! Enjoy.

This is from when I journeyed out to Rye, New Hampshire to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time since I came out here. It was very beautiful and reminded me of Lake Michigan.

The following pictures are from a place I hiked to called 'Pitcher Mountain', its a small mountain that boasts a beautiful view from the fire watchtower at the top. It was a pretty cool/welcoming sight in my first couple weeks out here.

The fire watchtower. 

These pictures are all from our 'Cell Tower' lookout. At the top of the property we have a cell phone tower which is frequently referred to as the "Cell Tower". It boasts a beautiful view that I like taking pictures of when I get the chance. Someone set up three crosses there some time ago, and it makes for a pretty moving and sentimental place. 

These are more pictures from the ocean.

A few weeks into my time here, I found a stray goat that had slipped out of its pasture. Me and a buddy pulled over and decided to help rescue it by putting it back into its field, and in the process posed for pictures with it. 

This is 'Old Hillsborough", located roughly 3-4 miles north of the current town of Hillsborough. It's a pretty classic, quaint New England town layout. 

"Senior Picture Portrait"

A river which I do not know the name of. 

Even though I'm not smiling here, you can see the fall colors behind me better than in the subsequent picture I did smile in, so I put up this one instead. 

This is the view from the property facing north. I like taking pictures of this valley. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from my time here. It gives you a taste of the vivid fall colors. 

Walls are being framed up

I've been building walls on the garage cement apron and Fred has been helping me carry them over and set them in place.  Hope to get the last wall up before taking the trip to New Hampshire Friday to take the Subaru to Daniel.  Today was rainy so the back wall had to be built in the garage out of the rain.

Cement blocks have been added

And now thanks to Fred, we have cement blocks to build the walls on.

Timothy Photos

He's a little over a week old and we've decided to keep him so here are some photos of baby Timothy.  

Less than one day old

Happy parents

Happy siblings

Timothy in the hat Ella made for him

One week old

A foundation is laid in Muskegon

I had help from Fred and Dan Fitt to put in a cement pad for my shed.  This is what it looks like only a few hours old.

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Cutting a Tree Down

I fell my first tree! I'm officially a lumberjack. 

The Naughty Audi Rides Again

Here's hoping she's good for a cross-country return to Minneapolis.

A House in Minneapolis Gets a New Roof

Well, to be strictly accurate, many houses in Minneapolis have gotten new roofs this past summer. But if I were being completely honest, I don't care about the vast majority of those houses. I care most about one little house—mine.

Here are a couple photos of the new-roof-putting-on process (I believe that's what professional roof installer technicians call this kind of project).

Every good new-roof-putting-on project calls for the right materials.

Dad starts to remove the old roof.

And this is what it looks like after the old rubber roof has been removed.

We added these 2x2s to the roof deck to provide clearance so the new roof could be ventilated. This should clear up some of my problems with icicles and ice dams.

On top of the 2x2s we installed a new roof deck of OSB.

Daniel demonstrates the strength that made him an award-winning member of the Wheaton Thunder football team. He's holding on his back a 200+ lb. roll of rubber roofing. I'm honestly not sure how we would have gotten this onto the roof without him.

And here's the new rubber roof being glued down to the new roof deck.

Now for the other side. This plane of the roof is pitched so it'll get shingles (after we add the new roof deck). Note the new OSB sheeting toward the bottom of the roof. That was a repair I made a few years back when I discovered that several years of ice dams had almost completely rotted away the roof boards and rafters.

After the new deck was installed, we started putting on the new shingles.

This fun little project is the side porch, and was supposed to be a quick part of the roof project. Instead, the existing roof was so rotted away that we had to remove it completely and rebuild the roof. I'm pleased to say that it's probably the most solid part of my entire house.

As you can see, I had excellent, dedicated help. These two were tireless on the project.

Here I am, trying to look impressive and rooferly.

"Build a little fire," I told Daniel. "Make sure it doesn't get out of control," I told him. "Don't take your eyes off it." I'm not sure why, but something about Daniel and fire makes me a little uneasy...

Now, I know what you're all thinking at this point. "Why didn't I get a chance to work on Ben's roof?" And never fear, there's more than enough roof to go around. I'll be working on the front roof (the side that faces the street) and the back roof (over the kitchen) this fall. I'm sure I'll need to establish a lottery system to deal with the intense clamor of wannabe professional roof installer technicians showing up at my door to work on this new-roof-putting-on project.

Caption This!

Let's bring back the photo caption posts, and kick it off with this one. Add your caption in the comments and the winning entry (judged by a very stringent, independent governing body) will be added to the post.

Four campers thinking this thought: "I've made the fire almost every time so far, I'm sick of making the fire. But I'm not saying a word about it. I'm just going to sit here and wait for one of the other three to make that fire even if it takes all day."

Congratulations to Dad for the winning caption here. I think that captures the look of extreme laziness and resignation on all our faces.

Runners-up were Lisa and Anonymous! Where's Edmund when you need him most? 

Kids Carpool

Levi - "There's no more room!"

Muskegon History

Found this and thought it was pretty cool. It's a history of Muskegon with a lot of pictures from when mom and dad were little kids growing up here, and even before. Check it out.

I was in the newspaper!

I forgot to tell anyone about this, but they ran an article in the Wheaton Record (school newspaper) that they quoted me in. Check it out!

Here it is

Finally, a house

After a lot of sweat and uncertainty, we were finally able to close on our house late last week! 

Conveniently, I had to head down to Atlanta this week for work, but I've been closely supervising the packing from afar. Andy has come out to do some painting, and he and Amber already have a bedroom painted.

We already had the inaugural house problems. With all the rain lately, we had some water starting to seep into the basement. We're planning to dig a giant trench around the house to alleviate the drainage issues. I've bought a spade shovel and I'm just waiting for Dad to pass back through the area. He's got a lot of practice hand-digging giant holes, I believe.

Hopefully we'll be mostly moved in by late July and will be ready to have some visitors!

Mountain Climber Jr.

Levi gets a brief lesson in climbing walls and mountains. One of the things he likes to do is stand up and hold himself on the backyard fence, watching cars go by. I fashioned a harness for him out of my belt, and he told me that he's planning on scaling Mt. Everest next weekend.

A Sampling of Colorado

I traveled out to Colorado after the Chicago to New York cycling trip to attend my good friend Hunter's wedding. He and his wife Lindsay had a beautiful ceremony and reception up on Keystone Mountain that we had to take three different gondolas up the mountain to get to, where the ceremony was around 10 or 11 thousand feet. These pictures are from the day of the wedding, during which Sam and I had some time to do some exploring, when Sam and I traveled up an old road to a mining town that was abandoned and did some hiking and sightseeing. 

A note about the moose: I didn't know they were dangerous and tried walking up to it. Luckily it was really docile, but even then they can charge without any warning. I got within probably 10-15 feet and it looked up at me and started walking toward me slowly, while I instinctively raised my hands making myself bigger and backed away. The moose stopped walking after that and turned away. But now I know...don't get close to mooses. 

The end of the road map

Added the last leg of the journey to the kitchen wall map