Work! for the daylight flies;

Work! for the night is coming; 

Under the sunset skies, 

While their bright tints are glowing, 

Work! for the daylight flies; 

Work! till the last beam fadeth, 

Fadeth to shine no more; 

Work! while the night is darkening,-- 

Night, when man's work is o'er.

- from The Night Cometh written by Anne Louisa Walker, 1861

Work! before the weekend is over, when we have to go back to Work!  We enjoyed working at the farm house last Saturday, when Brandon installed our first junction box as we redesigned some light locations, and I completed a much needed construction site clean up.  Our work was frequently interrupted by the lovely snow outside, and the sunset in the photo at the top.  There were no clouds, but the sky was layers of pinks and the sun was a perfect circle of vibrant orange, falling so fast we could see it's motion as it sank behind the neighbors barn and hay field.  

The focus of our work shifted from the upstairs ceiling, to the pantry off the kitchen.  Prepping the pantry ceiling led us to rethink the location of one of our lights, which we moved from inside the pantry to the living room ceiling.  This meant cutting a hole in our newly installed ceiling boards, which made us a little nervous.  

I don't know why we were worried - we can cut holes in things like pros these days.  If you can see in the picture above, we installed a small can light to the right of the chimney, to make a display nook on the chimney for a piece of sculpture.  We also ran a wire to make a second nook on the other side, but then decided in favor of asymmetry, and are not going to expose both sides of the chimney, which left the wire in the pantry.  We really didn't need a second light in the pantry on the same switch as the nook light, so Brandon installed a junction box so we could move the second light out into the living room and make a reading light for the corner.  In the photo, Brandon is practicing sitting under the light and holding a book, you know, to make sure it works.   He gives it two thumbs up for imaginary book illumination.  

The melting snow provided a good opportunity for observing how our new gutters are functioning.  We had to hire someone to re-morter (tuck point?) and seal the portion of the chimney that sticks out of the house, because water was seeping into the bricks and wicking down the chimney to the upstairs wood floor.  I'm pretty sure we could have done the job ourselves if the work had been anywhere besides the top of a two story house.  Ladders are scary.  While the guys were there working on the chimney, we hired them to put up some gutters too.  We now have gutters, but we need to do some drainage work around the house foundation, or put some pipes on the ends of the gutters to direct the water away from the foundation.  At least that work will be on the ground.   

This the view from our door.  On evenings with sunsets like this, I wish the entire west side our our house was made of glass.