Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Our c. 1860 House -
Overview & Plan
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Home Page - News & Info - Family - Vacations - Bios - House - Music & Studio - Science - Solar Systems - Pseudo Science - Site Map
Outside
Buildings
The house and barn are both wood framed and have wood siding, while the porch has wood shingles. On the main house, apart from the porch, the wood was covered with white vinyl siding at some point. The previous owner had painted this bright yellow. I have re-painted it white. The cost of replacing the siding is prohibitive; the cost of removing it and restoring the wood siding is unspeakable!
The original double-hung windows had deteriorated badly from age and neglect. We are replacing them with modern dual pane (double glazed) equivalents. It is a big job with 45 windows on the main house, and another 20 on the porch.
The roof is a very complex structure, which is not really apparent in the pictures. It rises to a central point, with four peaks; one on each side. This creates eight very vulnerable valleys, a few of which had failed and been patched. We had the entire roof replaced, and the valleys done in copper, so they should outlast the roof itself! We also replaced the barn and porch roofs.
The original double-hung windows had deteriorated badly from age and neglect. We are replacing them with modern dual pane (double glazed) equivalents. It is a big job with 45 windows on the main house, and another 20 on the porch.
The roof is a very complex structure, which is not really apparent in the pictures. It rises to a central point, with four peaks; one on each side. This creates eight very vulnerable valleys, a few of which had failed and been patched. We had the entire roof replaced, and the valleys done in copper, so they should outlast the roof itself! We also replaced the barn and porch roofs.
Land
We have just under an acre of land, about 0.375 hectares, a couple of minutes walk from the center of the village. There used to be much more land, but it was subdivided at some point in the past, we believe in the 1940s or 1950s. We receive visits from a variety of critters including chipmunks, squirrels, ground-hogs, foxes, rabbits, wild turkeys, deer, raccoons opossums and various birds of prey including, occasionally, eagles. In the summer of 2008, the deer ate the flowers from nearly half of my day-lilies, but did not repeat that trick in 2009. The ground hogs seem particularly to like tulips and lupins (US: lupines).
While charming in many ways, there are several health hazards from wild critters here. Ticks can carry Lyme disease, Mosquitoes can carry West Nile Virus and most animals can carry Rabies.
Most of the garden is left au naturelle, mainly because we do not have enough time to do extensive work. Thankfully, we inherited hundreds of Daylilies and Hostas that do not require loads of maintenance. On the other hand, we are plagued with Locust trees and Sumacs growing wild all over the place. The Garden page has lots more detail and pictures, and the Fauna page has details and pictures of the animals that visit the garden.
While charming in many ways, there are several health hazards from wild critters here. Ticks can carry Lyme disease, Mosquitoes can carry West Nile Virus and most animals can carry Rabies.
Most of the garden is left au naturelle, mainly because we do not have enough time to do extensive work. Thankfully, we inherited hundreds of Daylilies and Hostas that do not require loads of maintenance. On the other hand, we are plagued with Locust trees and Sumacs growing wild all over the place. The Garden page has lots more detail and pictures, and the Fauna page has details and pictures of the animals that visit the garden.
