not much has been goin' on.

we've been interviewing arborists (for the tree work that needs doing) and we're also interviewing general contractors to get other estimates. the alder by the hottub looks pretty iffy, but we're going to give it a season to bounce back. if not, hey, it'll be firewood for the new wood burning fireplace! the bay in back and the 5-trunked bay tree are probably going to be ok, but will need to have the burned stuff trimmed off. we're also going to snip out that runty little redwood off the gazebo.

today we got the snail mail from the County of Santa Cruz that (i'm pretty sure) officially makes ours a 'remodel', not a 'replacement', which means we won't need expensive fire sprinklers and a bunch of other stuff! woohoo!

while we were at the house today we found the missing amethyst geode! it's covered in black soot but i bet it'll clean up.

once we decide on a general contractor, things will start happening faster. i expect demolition will be done by the end of the year, but i'm not expecting we'll have walls and a roof until after january or later.