Feb. 26th

Cabin was a bracing 20 degrees when we arrived. We delivered our woodstove and made tea on the gas stove. Refilled the squirrel feeder and sat around figuring out the stove for about an hour. We need a 45 degree pipe to connect to the outdoor chimney.

No snow on the roof, the 12 inches we got missed the area I guess.

Remodelling season is getting close!!!!

Feb. 13th play in the snow

Playing in the snow this weekend. Funny how going up north causes tension headaches.... or maybe it's something else triggering them. Who knows!!!

Hank helped decorate the snowman for the kids once they finished making him. We all took a nap/lunch break while the clothes dried out on the "close line".

Snow pile was about 4 feet deep and Hank was playing king of the hill. We had about 8 squirrels at the feeder and spent a bit of time just watching them fool around on the feeder.

Snowmeggeddon...

We made the trip up to make sure the cabin was ok after snowmegeddon 2011. After cleaning the roof at the in-laws we went over to work on the roof. About 24 inches of snow at the peak and tapered down to about 8 inches at the eaves. Scraped most of that off and went in for a hot tea.

Driveway is no longer 4x4 accessible, snow is piled up over 3 feet and packed in pretty good.

Jan. 29th

Well winter blues hit hard and no matter what the weather we headed up to work on the cabin. Spent about 4 hours there and was able to get the thermometer to register 42 degrees it was still kinda cool in the place.

We have been trying to straighten the walls as there is a slight pushout at the top of the southern wall. Anyways we got a turnbuckle and cable and installed it to try and pull the wall back inwards. Only need a half inch.

Well it creaked a bit then stopped as the turnbuckle can only tighten up so much. SO thinking there must be a better way we went and bought a come-along and tried that. Well,,,,,,,, it did move some but the wall also started to break. In the end we pulled the new rim joist out of the 2x4 stud and then broke the stud. Oh well, we left it in place as it will keep the pressure on to not want to spread and more till we tie in the newloft pieces.

There was about 2 feet of snow outt back and even the 4x4 ford had to rev into the driveway!!! Not a bad day, refilled the squirrel feeders, they were a running to go eat once I did that.

I'll add a pic or two asap.

Happy New Year

Well a quick break in the weather and temps got into the 40's. We headed up and worked on the southern wall, getting the 2x6 rim installed and the joist hangers put in place for the next 8 floor joists.

No pictures this trip.

Weather changed by time we left, cold air blast from the north and we went home.

We should have more time to work on the place, Emily's house is almost done which took up most of the free time we had for projects.

Dec. 4th End of year

It was cold today but we decided to work on the cabin. Temps when we arrived were 32 degrees. We fired up the kerosene heater and kept moving around to keep from freezing up. We cleaned up the mess from past work sessions and removed the old wall that was still hanging around. We also bolted the loft wall on the north side. The pic shows green trees but we hung it back in October. We have not been up here much due to working on Emily's house.

Next project will be more work on the loft. Once that is framed in a bit, we will build the wall for the bathroom to help make it more "private".

vision into reality- October 3rd

Well, time has passed and now we are ready to make the rear windows appear. From concept to reality, what a project!!!

The first picture shows all three windows cut out and getting ready to be framed. Yes it looks quite junky, lot of stuff to be done getting in the way.

We started storing wood up in the loft area since we are buying as we can budget wise.

The whole process took a day to install and next day we were able to finish the caulk and insulation around the windows. Temps were in the 50's but dropped into the 40's while the windows were still not in the frames so whole time was pretty chilly. We bought a kerosene heater and that helped keep the place warm. Woodstove will have to wait till funds can be made available.

This was other window popped into the new frame we built. It replaced the rotted in place window that was removed and boarded up back in July/August. On this wall you can visualize two new windows, one for kitchen sink area and other for living room. The old black window will be pulled out and boarded up. All the freezable stuff was pulled from the cabin and RV anti-freeze poured into the toilet, temps for Sunday night are 29 degrees. We still have 4 windows to install downstairs and 2 windows upstairs.

And sitting in front of the new window "wall" is a treat, hard to get up and do stuff, easy to let time drift by.