While the cat's away the mice will ...

install light fixtures? Yep. While I was visiting some family with the girls Mike was busy at home getting some pest-free, um, I mean uninterrupted work done. He ticked a lot of small jobs off of his list, but for me the most exciting one was light fixtures in the kitchen/dining area.

He also started digging a trench around our foundation. Remember I said we hadn't had any nasty surprises yet except for the lovely red shag? Well, I spoke too soon. The brainiac who re-sided the house last time actually put the lowest run of siding below grade, as in buried under the dirt. This is another of those "who does that?!!"s. Mike was aware of this when we bought the cottage and had always planned on digging out around the foundation wall, pulling off the lower pieces of siding and properly finishing the foundation with insulation and parging up to an appropriate height. Unfortunately when he was digging his trench in the front yard he discovered this:

That would be rot in the sill-plate, the piece of wood at the bottom of the exterior support walls that sits on the foundation. It's not a catastrophic find by any means, but it will be a tedious job to chisel out the rotten areas and replace them with new wood. Thank you idiot installer who did the siding improperly.