Cabin Blog

I have so many days to catch up on, but luckily I wrote each night I was at the cabin last time-and took pictures!  However, this will make the next couple of entries wonky because I wrote them in present tense, and I am just going to transcribe them, with the date at the top of course.  So without further ado…

3/11/2012

It is spring break, I left KC about 11:00 (since the time moved magically forward during the night) and after a few stops made it down by 1:30.  This is the sight that greeted me; the pergola down:

But it is actually okay-I wasn’t exactly happy with how it was going together and thought I was going to have to climb back on the ladder and take it down-this way mother nature did the work for me.

I moved the generator out of the cabin, as I think it is probably a bad idea to burn the stove with a generator full of gas inside, and immediately set about putting together the doors for the shed.  I assembled them in about an hour.  I put them on but found that they would not slide well on the track, especially the left one.  As it was pouring rain I decided to fight this battle tomorrow, when it is supposed to be 75 and sunny (before St. Pat’s-what is up with this crazy weather?!). 

I went inside, built a fire and started to move things out of the tool room.  I had purchased some linoleum flooring and really wanted to get it down, but-since all the tool moving was making Ursula VERY nervous, and I was about out of wood, I took a break to split some.  I do not have my brother’s splitter with me this time, so it was by hand in the rain.  Ursula refused to come inside and stayed under the trees, still getting pretty wet, so I went back to clearing out the back room.  I shop vac’ed the floor and cleaned it as well as I could.  Then I spread the glue-first on one half of the floor, laying down the linoleum then hopping over to do the other side.  It is a bit hard to handle sheet flooring by ones’ self but I managed (using a tub filled with hand-tools as my “roller.”  It is not perfect, but better and cleaner than OSB. 

I set the cot up on it, snuggled in and started reading the “Eragon” series, though after all the work, I fell asleep pretty quickly. and like the iris, garlic and wild cherries that have started popping up, I feel like I am sort of starting again.

This is Payton, he has nothing to do with this post, but was angry that I hadn’t mentioned him recently since he has started going down south with me almost every time now.  He is around 13, has no tail, and growls like a Balrog (or at least what I would imagine one sounding like) at other people.  However, he love, love, loves me and having someone like that around is always good for the self-esteem, so I thought I would give him a cameo. 

What this post IS about is the upcoming time that I get to spend at the property during spring break.  I keep waking up in the middle of the night trying to decide what I want to get done.  Fantasizing about finished floors and tool storage has made my mind wander from already over-neglected grading.  So I thought that maybe if I just sat down and made a list that would help.  I am feeling fairly energized (we’ll see how I feel when I get down there:)) after getting the shed mostly done, the floor structure had been mocking me for far too long.

So here goes:

* I obviously need to finish the door on the shed, that way I can store things in there and open up space in the cabin.  That makes it sound like I have a bunch of knick-knacks and such laying around, but most of it is construction supplies, or tools, or things to help finish a future project…if you don’t count the books.  This will help me make room to actually start getting those things done, and hopefully even a place to work.

*I did (as mentioned in the less than lyrical last post) leave in a hurry last time.  It was getting dark and cold and I had to be at work the next day, so I didn’t have time to do my normal cleaning.  Therefore, before I start on any big new projects it will be organizing the shed, and cleaning and organizing (oh and cleaning again) the cabin so that I can start to get at some of those things that need to be done. 

*I do need to figure out the mouse issue.  I thought I had found where they were coming in and dealt with it, but there was evidence again last time, therefore I want to do what I can to seal it up.  This leads to the next big project.  I want to put down vinyl flooring.  I will eventually cover this with something else (I already have a few ideas for alternative flooring materials) but I want to be able to mop, and sweep well.  Plus I think this will be a good way to cover any of the places that sheets of OSB meet.  I don’t really know that the mice can get in there as it is caulked, but for the now it will be better than walking on a floor made out of splinters and glue.

*I also want, once and for all, to finish the cork floor.

*I would like to start finishing some of the walls, starting with the backsplash in the kitchen.  I have been “weathering” (read: throwing around in the firepit and leaving out in the rain) some pieces of corrugated tin for the express purpose of covering them in a clear coat to bring out the colors in the metal and rust.  I plan to use this as my backsplash and I can’t wait to see how it will come out.

*If I seal inside, I also need to start working on the outside, so I am hoping to be able to bring down a few more sheets of siding and put it up.  I acquired some really good paint, in a totally non-offensive color even, for 5.00 per gallon (there were two) off of the “oops we messed up the match” shelf at the hardware store.  It is actually very close to another gallon I had purchased off the same rack a while ago.  I plan on putting up the siding, then mixing the three gallons together to get a standard color and finally covering up some of that lovely housewrap.

There are other little things and I will have almost 8 days to work, which will be WONDERFUL. Mostly, I am just ready to start finishing some things and for the cabin to begin turning into the kind of place that Josh and I envisioned.

I left in a hurry, everything is a mess

I am sure that the mice will have quite a fest

The shed got all built, well, except for the door

But when spring break rolls ’round I’ll have time to do more

I’ll start by assembling the door on its track

The rest was achieved thanks to dear Brother Jack

I’ll have room for the things, stored in tight bins

with hope little nibblers can’t quite get in

moving the tools, bedding, and more

my hope is to, finally, see all the floor

I’ll plug up the holes and foam all the glitches

hopefully that will get rid of these…witches

then I’ll break out the bleach and I’ll wipe, scrub and clean

until all of the surfaces shine, sparkle, and gleam

and with detrius gone, and the home bathed in sun

I finally might get the rest of this done

I have walls to put up, and floors to put down

and fixtures and ceilings and trim all around

If I can just finish the things off the list

I’ll be one closer step to countryside bliss

As I have mentioned before, one of the perks of spending my weekday hours with 25-30 teenagers is the fact that I still get a Christmas Break.  This year (as I mentioned in the last post) it started on the day before the solstice, for which I went down to the woods and after which I came back.  I spent the majority of the holiday celebration days at my sister Tami’s, hanging out with her daughters, son-in-law, and the four dogs they added to her two, plus Ursula, yep, that makes seven.  None of these dogs is under 30 pounds by the way, and the majority of them are in the 65-125 range, so it looks like a dogbomb exploded in her front room when we are all there.

I spent Christmas with the fam, which was great, and then headed back down to the property.  I had received many gift certificates to the big box hardware store (I know, I know) and put them to use buying a shed kit to replace the one lost last summer.  I sometimes think that the fact my wish list consistantly displays the top two choices as : 1. Hardware store certificates and 2. Spa certificates, is just a little odd-but I guess that fits me. 

On the 27th, after acquiring said shed, and somehow getting it to fit in the back of an Explorer (seats down and a blanket on top for Ursula) I headed down to meet my lovely niece Diedre, who I had somehow convinced to help me build a shed.  She got there before me, and I drove up to the sight of her sitting on my porch playing her ukelele-seriously, my family is the most interesting bunch of people I have ever met.

Unfortunately, we did not get the shed built, what we did do was: use her phone’s night sky application to identify the constellations containing the gloriously bright stars around the cabin, read a lot of trivial pursuit cards to each other and try to guess the answers, finish fixing and sheathing the floor for the shed, discuss the musical merits of the ukelele, and consider whether she would ever want to build a cabin in my woods and help run a homestead.  Oh, and we did start to put together the grilling pergola, though my plan (as nearly aways at first) was flawed.  I think I will have to redo a portion of it, but sometimes I really just need to put a thing together to see how it is I should do it once I take it back apart again:).  Other than that we just did a lot of talking, singing, hiking in the woods and laughing.  All in all I would say it was time well spent.  I should probably mention to those of you who hear “niece” and think “toddler” or “tween,” that I am the youngest of 10, and many of my nieces and nephews are somewhere close to my own age (actually quite a few are closer than many of my siblings).  Here are some pictures of us almost hard at work:

I stayed at the property through the new year, Diedre had better offers.  However, I did not have to spend it alone, Josh’s dad came down on the 31st and hung out.  We burned a huge bonfire, reminisced a lot about Josh and listened to music.  We talked about my plans for the property and the fact that I can hardly wait until I am able to be down there full time. 

He left the next day to go to his own cabin at the in the Ozarks, and I headed back up to the city, thinking all the way about how ready I am to have a few chickens, a few goats, and a garden.

I haven’t posted in a while, and this time I do have a bit of an excuse.  My laptop is giving me fits.  First, the mousepad (or whatever you call the built in touchpad on a laptop) decided to quit working.  This was quite a while ago, and since then I have been using a mouse plugged into the usb port.  Well, a little over a month ago, I was at my sister’s house and left my computer, mouse still attached, sitting on the floor.  One of the dogs, mine, hers, I don’t know, stepped on the cord and broke out the port, and the one next to it quit working too-sigh.  So now the only way to navigate is to use the tab key, which does not work for much.  The biggest problem with that is that my computer for work doesn’t have a memory card reader, so I can’t post pictures; I lost the cord to my camera many eons ago:)  I have been searching for some sort of adaptor, but am almost resigned to the fact I am going to have to pull the hard drive and cut my losses.  So for the next couple of posts I may not have pictures, but I will try and go back to insert them once I get the issue worked out.

I have actually spent quite a bit of time (relatively speaking)  down at the cabin since the last time I posted.  The first of those visits was on the 22 of December, which was 2011’s winter solstice. 

I don’t know what your religious/spiritual beliefs are…heck half the time I would be hard pressed to fully explain my own, but I do feel like there are certain things we as a species should celebrate, or at least recognize.  Things like: first snowfalls, full moons, and other representations of the amazing complexity of nature and our world.  So I always try to make it down to the woods on the equinoxes and solstices.  The winter soltice has traditionally been a celebration of light over dark, from that point forward the days get longer and we get closer and closer to the rebirth of spring.   Some articles I have read say that this is where we got the idea of a yule log, because fires were lit to celebrate light and one log from the fire was brought into the house to represent the light of the renewing year filling the house.  That may just be a new age interpretation of lost traditions, but it seems like a good way to celebrate to me…I have always liked fire.

So, school ended for the semester on the 21st.  I packed up that night and left the next day for the property, packing a bottle of mead and plenty of kindling.  I started fires in each of the existing firepits and the woodstove, then I made a small new firepit in Josh’s bird garden, I figured he would like that.  I kept the fires going well into the night (though it got pretty chilly-I won’t even explain the get-up I was running around the woods in, I don’t want to embarrass my mother) and then Ursula and I headed to bed.  Of course that was not before I placed a log from one of the bonfires in the woodstove.  We got up and left the next day so I could finish my Christmas shopping-nothing like waiting until the last minute.  I went back down right after Christmas, and even had a couple of visitors, but I will save that until the next post.  One which will, hopefully, include pictures.