Uncle Ted

The chicks are here! They got here at 6:30am a day early! It was chaotic but I managed to pick them up and all 19 chicks survived so far. We got 8 sex linked pullets, 2 buff rocks (they were supposed to be brahma's but oh well), and 2 NH reds. The company put some "extras" in the box for warmth which I am eh ok with but the extra's are Barred Rock Roosters. After some discussion Harry and I have decided to go ahead and give the little Roo a try. This means that we have to pick ONE and the rest have to find homes for. Its easy to spot the little Roo's as they are black and all the rest of the chicks are the yellow/gold fluffy chick color. After watching the chickens (all day long) we have already noted some personality differences.

But there is also something else I have noticed. See this great and beautiful picture of this little girl getting herself a nice drink of water? Do you NOTICE anything odd about this picture? Perhaps you notice a chick that is looking at the camera beak first? As if it is going to attack at any moment?





How about this picture, where all the other little chickies are running away from the camera crowding into a corner?
There is that one chicken looking in the attach direction... as if to tempt you to mess with him. Cool and calculating.
He is the chicken that takes the treats and runs away from all the other chickens. He is smart, calculating and downright onery.









Of course it is the little Roo that we are going to keep (marked with a blue marker so we know who he is.) His name....

why its Uncle Ted of course.

Fat and Delicious

Shmoopywood update is that there is still too much snow to get up there. I am aiming for a mid-late april weekend up there. It appears as though this was the problem last year as well but admittedly I have blocked that from my brain. Its like swoodnesia. At this point my heart and body long to be working hard up there. I want to chop wood! (note: i never want to chop wood). I love hearing the critters in the woods and the birds. The stars up there are amazing and I love my neighbors, they are so much fun.

I love how tired I am when I go to sleep and how deep we both sleep. I even love how early morning's I get up because Django wants me to, and he and I set out on the front porch and watch the bunnies and turkeys scurry about on the driveway, completely unaware of our presence.

I love how we completely leave behind our jobs and our "real" life and focus on one thing only and that is the construction of a dream home.

Today we are running to Lowes to get some supplies for coopywood. The chicks arrive in a few days (they will be here by Wednesday) I will probably post a picture then.


Dave was bored last night and attempted more Bread (at my hip's expense)
This was his best bread yet!! I just had to share pictures with you all. Definitely flavorful and moist. We really feel like making our own food from scratch is going to be a very important part of the shmoopywood process. I know this is less about building the house and more about the entire package but I promise, once the summer starts you are probably going to want less about building the house again ;)


Anadama Bread
(says that it yeilds 2 loaves but clearly it could have been 3 more normal size loaves)

Ingredients:
7-3/4 to 8 1/ all-purpose flour, divided
2 packages 1/4 ounce active dry yeast
1-1/2 tsp salt
2- 3/4 cups water
3/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1-1/4 cups yellow cornmeal

1. Combine 4 cups flour, yeast and salt in large bowl. Combine water, molasses and butter in 2-qut saucepan. heat over low heat until mixture is 120-130 degree. (butter does not need to completely melt.
2. Gradually beat water mixture into flour mixture with electric mixer at low speed. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes. Beat in cornmeal and 2 cups flour at low speed. increase speed to medium;beat 2 minutes.
3. Stir in enough additional flour, about 1-3/4 cups to make soft dough. Turn out dough onto floured surface; flatten slightly. Kneed dough 8-10 minutes or until smooth and elastic, adding remaining 1/2 cup flour to prevent sticking, if necessary.
4. Shape dough into a ball; place in large greased bowl. Turn dough over so that the top is greased. Cover with towel' let rise in warm place about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.
5. Punch down dough. Knead dough on well-floured surface 1 minute. Cut dough into halves. Cover with towel; let rest 10 minutes.
6. Grease 2(1-1/2 quart) souffle or casserole dishes or 2 (9x5-inch) loaf pans. For souffle dishes, shape each half of dough into ball; place in prepared pans. For loaf pans, roll out one half of dough into 12x8 inch rectangle with well-floured rolling pin. Starting with one 8 inch side, roll up dough jelly roll style. Pinch seam and ends to seal. Place laof, seam side down, in prepared pan, tucking ends under. Repeat with remaining dough. Cover and let rise in warm place for another 40 minutes or until doubled.
7. Preheat to 375 degrees. Bake 35-40 minutes or until loaves are browned and sound hollow when tapped. Immediately remove from dishes and cool on wire racks.

Oy With the Chickens Already!

*since I wrote this post yesterday, I have been asked to explain the Harry/Dave references. Simply put: They are indeed the same person. No my husband does not have multiple personalities. Dave is his given name and Harry is what I call him.

You are probably wondering why I am, once again, posting about chickens.

This blog is supposed to be about the house you are building... you know, the one that is off-grid?? That one??

I am sorry about that, really I am. Maybe some day I will have to branch off into another blog to cover the chickens, goats, whatever else we end up with. Really though, this is the great chicken experiment and it is meant to be tested and tried to see if we can hack the lifestyle we want. Also we are full of theories for S-wood but until we start testing this stuff out, well we just wont know will we. Like the corn theory... we are going to attempt to come up with a way to plant corn at Swood THIS SUMMER with its own self watering plan.

So you see, the chickens they are part of it.
SO now I talk about chickens because well S-wood is closed, under siege by many feet of snow and we just can't get up the mountain! SO i dont have anything else and I do so love the whole chicken thing and I am excited.

So anyway back to the whole point which is this: Harry made the little baby chicken brooder. Its bigger than it needs to be me thinks but thats Dave and I guess I should be thankful that it is not the entire laundry room right? It would be funny if I came home from work and he was like "hey shmoops, you have to do laundry in the garage" right? Because that would be very Harry.
But no, its perfect. Its made out of some wire, shavings, heat lamp and a Walmart bin. Dave then made a little screen with some scrap wood and used 2 saw horses and a piece of plywood and he secured the whole thing down with tie downs. (*note* Please remember we have 2 Great Danes which equal about 350 pounds so things need to be secured down and dog proof)

We had it all set up and stuff because the babies will be here in a week and we really needed to figure out the "95 degrees" thing with the heat lamp and such. We had to do a dry run in order to make sure the little chickies would survive!

(you don't see the coors light, you don't see the coors light)




You can see in this picture on the right what the inside of the little baby brooder chickie thing is going to look like. You can also see the freezer we have for our raw dog food. (really, my family should have seen this stuff coming a long time ago when we got the raw fed great dane puppy, it was only a matter of time before I would want chickens - working on Dave for the goats).

So for about $40 we made a brooder and the chickens were like a buck each so we are doing all right so far!

Really, I would pay anything and everything I had to be able to live the lifestyle that I crave.

Stay tuned for next week, I am sure, Dave is going to come up with some sort of critter cam rigging.

:)

Phase II - The Great Bread Experiment

Morning

I know that this blog is primarily about building S-wood and the steps we are taking to make it off-grid and green. Part of us becoming more self-sustained is the raising of chickens and learning to do things that we would not normally do. Dave and I are very eager and excited to get back to building at S-wood but the word is the snow is 6 feet deep on the driveway. Despite the 50 degree weather yesterday, it will take a while before we can get up there and begin again. In the mean time, we need to keep ourselves busy. i have been learning to jog, and Dave... well he is cooking (which makes my jogging more necessary).

I think baking bread is one of the hardest things on the planet. Dave is working hard to master the art of bread from scratch. So is born the "Great Bread Experiment".
Last weekend Dave began the process, there was some angst let me assure you it was not an easy process. He was using the Mother Earth News - Crusty Bread recipe and well it wasn't going very well at first. The results were 2 great HUNKS of weighty sour-dough type breads. Tarynn, Andrew and I, being great sports gobbled it up to help boost his ego. OK that was a lie, it was REALLY good so we ate it all. Now I need to jog more.

Today Dave baked the remainder of the sour-dough (shown left) and began a new experiment. Rosemary Garlic Focaccia. The results were very enthusiastically inhaled by all. I did get a picture prior to the dismantling of the bread.

Behold the great bread experiment!



































I do believe once he has this mastered, I need to shake it up a bit and have him do it in our "Someday soon" cob oven at Swood... don't you?

Coopy-wood

Come on, that's funny! I can't take the credit for the title but I still chuckle over it every time I think about it. Ah yes, the point of my story. When I posted earlier I was fretting over the possibility of the new chicken coop being 800s.f. I am here to tell you however, that this is not going to be an issue. Dave and I were discussing today all the necessities of the coop, electricity for light and possible heat, perches, nesting boxes, etc. You name it and we were talking about it. I think all this enthusiasm over raising animals stems partly from learning to take care of ourselves and being more self sustained, but part also goes to boredom.

Funny thing about all this conversation today is that this whole time that we have been trying to design the coop, there was actually an already made (but needs work) coop in our back yard that we are already paying taxes on! Oh sure, it isn't technically a coop but it could be and much faster than building from scratch!! It needs repair work and rearranging and it desperately needs airing out, although I doubt that the chickens will care much, but its a good size and its already here. Its Dave's playhouse that he used to play in as a child.

All of our research was not made in vain mind you... we have to build a Coopywood at Shmoopywood.... *couldn't resist.

So here she is... Coopywood




(where would we be without a gratuitous "Lisa" shot :)

bawk bawk balk

Eager... Thats the only word that describes Dave and Me. We want to get this party started. As if we did not already have enough to do, we have also thrown ourselves an interesting curve ball.

I am not sure if this has come out of complete boredom of winter or just insanity, but we decided to get... chickens. Please keep in mind, we know nothing of it. We tossed the idea around a little. I got a chicken keeping 101 book and then we took the leap.
They aren't here yet, they are coming via mail order from Ideal Poultry and our due date for our little miracles is 3/18. In the mean time, we scramble to prepare. Dave has a coop to build and me, well I am in charge of research and making lists of things we need.

Here is what we have coming:

2 Buff Brahma's - they are just so darned cute
2 New Hampshire Red's - how could I not?
8 Gold Sex linked pullets - these are not all for us, I split the order.
3 dreaded "filler" roosters - gah!

I have a little brooder and we are making a tub for when the babies get too big for my little brooder. Dave is working diligently on a coop that will hold 10 birds. Well thats not true, we have not gotten beyond the design step. Remember folks, S-wood was supposed to be 800 square feet tops. When my beloved got done with his design's and we put it out there for the builder, it inflated significantly to 2,200 sf.

I just hope we don't end up with an 800 s.f. chicken coop.

Stay tuned!

2009 wish list!

So many exciting things are starting to happen and I cannot wait! We did NOT get up to the cabin as hoped this weekend. Sometimes life gets in the way I'll tell ya! Anyway I did promise to give you a glimpse into the spring though with what our plans for 2009 are. We have so many hopes and wishes for this year!
One of the more exciting things is that we will be planting a 'trial' garden up there. Dave is working (in his head rmember) on a way to automatically irrigate the garden and "critter proof" it as best as he can.

We are also planning on adding onto the driveway so that we can get there in teh winter. All we would need is to hire someone to push the snow away so we can put our cars/trucks off the road.

I would like to complete the bathroom. Last year we ran out of time (and wood btw) before we put walls up and connected the pipes. Basically the sink and tub dont hold water yet.

We will be planting fruit bushes in addition to our already extremely plentiful blackberry bushes. I put in a few "trial" blueberry shrubs to see if they can make the winter (heavy snow load), actually produce fruit, survive deer/bear/others etc. We will have more info about that in the summer months but so far so good!

Personally we had goals regarding health and we are currently tackling the cigarette thing. I am also trying to run. I think being in better shape will help with the great shmoopywood experiment!

Wood, we have to cut split stack and store more wood. I mean we need an unbelievable holy crap amount of wood stacked and ready to go.

Organization, we have a ton of stuff but its everywhere. Dave is a one man tool tornado and we are both pilers. Inevitably he puts a tool down and I will pile stuff on top of it. Its really frustrating for both of us because he can't find something he needs and makes a mess while looking and I am picking up the new mess and piling it on top of something else!! Can we say counterproductive?

Oven: we are working on building a cob/adobe outside oven. Ok wait... we are working on mental plans for said oven.. and yes thats right it will be a "test".

Construction will be happening as well. We would both like to finish the walls under the stairs and put the door in for the basement. That leads me to the next thing which is walls in the "guest" room. We have yet to finish the railing as well.
although we both would love the kitchen work to start, it really is lower on the list I think. We are not sure yet what we need in there so it would be sad to put thins to gether only to have to move them in order to accommodate the new plan.

Finally (or at least the last thing I can think of) we are working on the solar (yay)

so thats it so far. Any tips?
:)

I've been such a bad blogger. I am sorry. We are keeping up with all of you though, I am paying attention to goats with their shirts on and pretty red toenails. Obviously part of the reason I have not posted is because we have not been to our beloved shmoopywood. We do hope to get up there next weekend possibly and have a good look around to make sure things are okay. Perhaps Friday the 13th because we have taken that day off, but maybe that isnt such a good idea all things considered. The truth is, I just haven't felt funny lately. Dave and I have taken the plunge and started Chantix. This is a smoking cessation drug that really is a miracle worker however, nothing in life is free and there are several side effects both physical and mental. Fortunately, we have both been off the smoke for 3 weeks tomorrow but unfortunately, there have been no shortage of symptoms in our house. I am plagued with most of the psychological symptoms: sad, depressed, forked dreams... and Dave suffers from the physical: nausea, sleeplessness... Add to that 2 great danes and 2 teenagers and you can imagine our household at any given time ;) I promise though, if we get up there to check things out next weekend, i will take lots of pictures and give you a good update. I will also be posting this year's wish list and we can see how much Dave and I can get done!

Incidentally - this is going to put a damper on my camp-life beer drinking...
sigh ;)

Seriously though

Hey everyone. I do hope everyone had a happy holiday season. Unfortunately we have not been up to s-wood in about 2 months due to weather, holidays and now we can't get up the driveway with the many feet of snow!!

So my many apologies to you all for not updating. I have been reading you all though.
thanks

(happy chris?)

bugs

Hi :)

Last time I updated we had the skeeter disaster that we fondly call Armageddon. Well We attempted to go back up and believe it or not, the skeeters cleared out. We figured when we heated up the house they would come back in droves but fortunately they did not so we never had to worry about toxic chemicals in our house.

With the bug "thing" behind him, Dave continued to move on the chimney pipe for the new wood fired furnace in the basement.
Here you see the famous HOLE in the foundation he chipped away at so patiently.

Once that was done, Dave carefully assembled the new pipe out of the hole and fastened it to the side of the house and the roof. Remember, the reasoning behind this was simple. here we have a three level (2.5 actually) house that has head only on the top 2 levels. During the night, as our wood stove on level 2 burned down, the cold from the 1st level crept up. When the temps are in the 20's-30's this isnt a bad thing as the stove we have is extremely warm and efficient. When the temps are well below freezing however, the temperature in the basement dips dangerously low and comfort is tossed out the window. So, he then moved inside to complete the installation. Here we have a picture of Dave (looking Nordic as he checks out the fire that we had finally been able to start in the basement)

Now please forgive the picture quality. This was taken the next morning after a nice and toasty warm evening with our new fire in place. Unfortunately, the temperature as taken here was only 12 degrees and *I* the amazing photographer decided to take these pictures in my pajamas without a coat. Do i need to mention the 20mph wind gusts and SNOW that was falling. (incidentally despite the beauty of the snow itself, I was less than pleased to see it considering I just got my freaking motorcycle license and a brandy spanking new Triumph with less than 20 miles on it).

But I digress... and give you a "tah dahhhh"


I don't think we will be going up much until after the holiday or perhaps the first of the year. Hopefully the snow will not fall heavily and we will still have access to our love grotto via the very steep and crazy driveway but if not, we will persevere until our beloved spring.

Even a perfect plan is subject to Armageddon

We had it all worked out perfectly. Dave was going to grab Frankenstein and head up to S-wood early, unload some things, fire up the stove and warm up the house so that we could have a longer weekend. Rather than going up on Saturday morning when the sun was out and having the entire day to warm up the house. It takes a good 5 hours to warm up the house via wood stove to a comfortable level and you really do not want to do that overnight. I got my phone call at 4pm stating that he was getting off the highway and will be there shortly (we do not have cell connection nearer to the cabin).
All was planned and going as scheduled...
until...

My phone rings again at 4:40pm
"We have a problem"
My first instinct is that something happened to the house, or the dog, or dave. I soon find out, I am somewhat correct about the house.
Apparently the house is infested, i mean infested with Mosquitoes. Now keep in mind, we were up there for the day 2 weeks ago but we have since had some unseasonably warm weather. Hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes INSIDE our house that has no electricity or running water for that matter.

We are baffled but mostly we are concerned about how to handle this situation.
Nature may take its course and the skeeters may die off, but what does that mean for the spring? We could use a toxic bug bomb but what repercussions are there for our "green" house as well as the family and the dogs?

So Shmoopywood is now quarantined until we can figure out... what to do with the end of the world infestation.

A Boy and The Big Hole

First, my apologies to you all for not being diligent in my posting. Truth is, we have not been up there too often in the last few weeks, in fact, just once in the last 30 days. I did however pass my motorcycle test in case you were wondering.
That being said, I have a little story!


The long and sometimes frightening driveway to our love shack ;)

2 weeks ago we headed up to S-wood for my favorite trip of the year. It was 100% peak foliage up there! We also had things we had to accomplish. A few blog posts ago, Dave mentioned the wood fired furnace that we purchased for the cabin. Well most of you know, with a wood stove/furnace comes a chimney. Dave tortured himself for weeks, heck, months about where this furnace would go to live. To be honest, I think he has been chewing on this since before we even HAD a wood fired furnace! Eventually he came to the conclusion that it needed to go through the foundation. Unfortunately, we hadnt thought we needed additional heating when we poured said foundation so we had no knock out. Now comes our weekend... Dave, armed with a chisel and a sledgehammer with 9 hours of work time, chipping away like a crazy person in jail with a spoon digging his way out. Seriously, for a while there it was so Shawshank Redemption it was almost frightening.


The Good news is, after 2 days and 9 solid hours of clinking and clanking away, Dave managed to break through the foundation and chip away a beautiful although unphotographed hole in our very thick and very expensive foundation. The bad news is, by the time it was done, we had to pack up and high-tail it out of there to go get the kids at their father's house and therefore left the above hole in the wall.

Sure we stuffed some fiberglass into it to keep out the rodents.

This weekend we will be returning and shoving some stove pipe into that hole. Our hope is to finish securing it and possibly even attach it to something, like a furnace.

I worked hard too that weekend - ok i didnt really... but I did enjoy one of the best fall displays I have seen in my life.

Oh and Django enjoyed it too.



The view at the dam which is about 900 feet from our house in an open field.


Django having some "me" time ;)

We are still here

We have not been to S-wood in the last few weeks. Battling colds (grr), learning how to ride my motorcycle, and doing Dane Rescue events has prevented us from having the time but we are going up on Friday and I can't wait!!! Its sadly almost time to batten down the hatches, and get ready for teh winter season up there. Last year we got caught unprepared and could not get up to the house from December-March!
:)

Dave- Battleship!

More big plans ahead for SW or should I replace big with "HEAVY"... About a month and a half ago, we were searching through Craigslist and came across someone selling un-used 8" insulated chimney pipe, the exterior stainless steel variety. Knowing that our eventual plan was to put an additional heat source in the basement of SW, we jumped on the deal. So then the search was on for "what" we would put in the basement. After weighing all the options, it seemed like the best possible solution for us was some kind of forced hot air furnace that was wood fired. Reasoning was as follows

Requirements/Challenges:

o Camp isn't always occupied in winter, so draining a hydronic system was not ideal, radiant floor isn't really an option either due to risk of freezing as well as cost.
o No pellet stoves, yes they are easier to vent but require constant electrical power and the fuel is very specific.
o No fossil fuels
o Keep the cost down.

Solution:

o Forced hot air... minimal or no electricity required and the possible replacement of motors with DC
o Wood fired. Lowest tech and most readily available fuel.

We looked at some of the new units and found them to be VERY expensive 5K+ as well as the most common type being simply a relatively small add-on wood furnace made to augment existing gas systems.

Craigslist and some internet scrounging comes through again.



This unit was barely used, in super shape and was MASSIVE. Once we contacted the seller, we discovered that it had another huge and unexpected advantage.... There is a coil attached to the firebox which will heat water. The firebox is the "black section" and is surrounded by the orange outer case which is hollow and allows for air to circulate around the entire furnace.

I don't have any specs yet on the approx BTU output of this unit but its firebox is the size of a dump truck and I doubt they come any bigger. Seller was GREAT and helped me dismantle all parts and get it moved out of his basement and onto our small flat bed trailer, no small feat!


Given the intended location of the furnace at SW, pretty sure we can run the small amount of duct work required to heat both the bathroom and the spare bedroom on the first floor. We may even be able to use some flexible duct to run behind the (future) cabinets in the Kitchen. Going to start some research on a gravity/thermal hot water setup for a storage tank. The limited reading so far seems to show that with proper safety precautions we could put in a hot water storage tank nearby and allow the thermal properties of the heated water to circulate through that tank without the use of an electrical circulator pump. We will put a bypass and circulator pump on it anyway, so its available should electricity be plentiful OR have the option of running without. The research will also include replacement of the blower fan as well as any duct fans with DC units.

SO, basically couldn't be happier with the find. The addition of this furnace to SW should allow us to really get the camp up to a comfortable temperature quicker, provide heat in areas we don't currently have it, as well as regulate the heat during the evening. One thing we've learned with the large wood stove is that it does struggle to get the large mass of the camp up to temp (when arriving) but once there you really have to keep it burning hot to maintain the temp downstairs. While doing that the unintended consequence is that the loft is about 150 degrees.

There may be some slightly greener options (radiant floor or a wood burning gasification type furnace which may be more efficient) however... Given the off grid nature of our Cabin, the cost and complexity of those options and our desire to not use any fossil fuel, this was the best we could come up with. I guess we were able to stay somewhat green by finding the perfect unit used, vs. having to buy one new.

Next big challenge, other than moving this battleship into its permanent home will be to get a 12" hole in the concrete foundation wall for the chimney pipe. THAT should be fun!

*publisher's note (Lisa) I am so not making the whole in the almighty foundation. That is going to be all on D :)

The door that didn't fit

It has been a while, I know. Sometimes life gets hectic but I assure you, S-wood is always on my mind and I am always full of posts, just a matter of sitting down and writing them out!

It was a gloomy weekend up there weather-wise and it poured yesterday but we still had a great time, great food, and great work time. It was also a “no kid” weekend which basically means that the children are at their dad’s for the weekend so we were all alone and able to work at our own pace and not worry about other people. Dave and I are usually pretty in tune that way and work pretty straight.

Bathroom: Dave finished installing the vent pipe to the roof (of course he had to paint it so it wouldn’t stick out) but I didn’t get any pictures of it. We have still not been able to get the rest of the wood for the top of the bathroom walls. We have the wainscoting but we are waiting for the rough sawn top halves so I can paint them all at one time. We did however get a door… well actually w had a door for the bathroom, we just hadn’t installed it. We had to make a few “modifications” (we cut it we cut it) but eventually we got ‘er up and now we have some privacy with our new indoor plumbing. *I say some because we haven’t found the “used” doorknob yet. I would like to find 3 matching because right in that area are ALL 3 of our interior doorways and it wouldn’t stink to have them all match!

So here is the Before... where the door didnt fit...

And here is Frankenstein checking out the first interior door of the house! (incidentally, he continued to go in and out of the bathroom for the rest of the freaking day)

And just for the sake of showing you where we are at, this is the bathroom (wainscoting piled on the floor)

A Sewage Masterpiece

Fantastic weather, wonderful company, good hard honest work and indooooor plumbing. What more can a girl ask for? I got up there late friday night, Django and I took an alternate route to cabin due to traffic so there wasnt enough time to do anything but eat and drink and get some shut eye but saturday the great indoor plumbing challenge began! The end result is pictured on the left.



















Remember, we dont have running water as of now because the well is something like 800 feet and we dont have enough solar power to run a pump. So for now we will fill the tank manually as shown in the next photo.
The good thing in all this, of course, is no longer having to do the walk of shame and endure the heat, cold and rain on our heads, nor do we have to walk back up the mountain to get to the house. The 4am potty run's and the coyote are now a thing of the past. You can imagine how excited we all are.

Tarynn sanded the wainscoting and I painted all of the wood while dave plumbed the entire kit and kaboodle. He does not have a plumbers license, nor has he ever plumbed before but he does have a best friend with one to whom we have been sending photographic evidence and getting advice from. He did a fabulous job and it looks and works wonderfully!

It has been a long 3 years my friends and things just got considerably better!

Big Happenings

So much great stuff to update!
We left saturday for cabin, just got back today. We needed some time up there to get some stuff done so we took a few days off from work in order to do it. We arrived and went right to the lumber yard and got some rough saw wood for the bathroom. We had gotten the wainscoting months ago and just needed the top half of the walls in order to continue. I had this vision in my head of white wainscoting and white washed blue tops to the walls, thats why the tub is painted that color! SO we woke up early on sunday for this very reason. We put the kids to work, tarynn spent all day (i mean aaaaalll day) sanding the wainscoting and i primed them. Then I went out in the yard (I use that term loosely as there really is no yard at this point), watered down the paint and started to paint the top halves while dave STARTED THE PLUMBING for the bathroom. By the end of the first day we had roughly piped the toilet, and hung one wall of both top and bottom of the walls.


My yard set up for painting and drying.


























The finished product... ok well not finished, I have to still put the finish white paint on the wainscoting and we still have 2 more walls to do (the outside walls) but we have a space now, that is enclosed! Its our first "ROOM" at the cabin and let me tell you... its an important room! Oh imaging using the facilities INDOORS!
Dave and I really worked well together this weekend and had fun doing it. you can see on the top of the blue boards that we used antique nails for the look.

I am covered in blisters and we still have to put up baseboard and the chair rail (and 2 more walls worth) but really excited because once we finished the plumbing, we can pee indoors while we are working on the bathroom! LOL... ok not at the same time but you are following me here. Course, we have to find a door now...

Departure

I am going to depart from the normal update to just reflect for a moment. You can either read process and consider, or you can X out.

THe last 7 days my beautiful 15 year old daughter has spent countless hours on the creation of some rather beautiful (in my opinion) Hemp jewelry. Her purpose in this is to help the Great Dane Rescue that her mother spends so much time taking care of and working for. We have a meet and greet on 9/6 and we have been banging our heads against the wall trying to find something to give people when they make a donation. This is hopefully to inspire the donation but also to express our gratitude. I showed Tarynn how to create the jewelry and let her run with it. She has created beautiful pieces, so beautiful in fact that as a test run, I took some to work and left them in a ziplock bag in the kitchen. Ours is a company only of about 30 and much to my surprise, I have found later that 10 bracelets and 1 necklace to be replaced with $58. That may not seem like much to you, but with our limited budget and FOUR fosters in homes right now, it is huge. $58 can give a veterinarian exam, or a round of vaccinations, bag of food, a bed and toys for a dane that has lived its life in peril or outside its whole life. How sad to me that we have created a demand for these animals and then we treat them so poorly.

So today I make that departure from my normal blogging to thank beautiful Tarynn for the Danes and from her mother. We hope to continue selling these and creating more hope for the creatures to find their forever homes.

We stayed home this weekend so I fear, there will not be much of a Shmoopywood update. I have however, held back some updates from the last weeks and will keep you posted (ha get it? posted?)

Thank you for reading if you made it this far. I have so much to be thankful for these days I try to live my life in a way in which I pay it forward to the next in need.
Dave and I will be riding our (ha! i say OUR like I actually own it) Harley to benefit Liberty House, the homeless veteran shelter nearby.

Take a moment and think about how "green" you live and how you can possibly make a difference in someone's life with just a small offer of your time, energy or even a few dollars.

Lisa

"I Think I Can Handle It!"

Let me set this up for you.

We drove up in torrential downpours on friday evening so that we could make sure the cabin is okay. This part of new hampshire is under flood warnings and flash floods and despite the rain, we headed up to make sure everyone and everything was ok.
Saturday morning we woke up early so we could get started on the railing. I was going to be putting in the "spindly things" all by myself. After proving my worth on the screen, Dave felt almost confident that I could do it but he wanted to set it up to be fool proof. THe man made me a jig, so that i would be putting the screws in the back of the railing at the same level and they would be even. WHen we finish, we are going to plug them and stain it, but we are going to plug it with a different wood so the plugs will show. Now remember, Dave has been hand notching the beams and has put hours of work into them so really, neither of us wanted me to screw (PUN) it up. So he created this jig for the screws and a guide for the spacing. The only problem is, the jig he created had a third hole.




"Do you want me to put tape over the third hole?"
"I think I can handle it Dave"
*insert eye roll here*



I mean I am a grown up right? I know which holes to put the drill in for goodness sakes. I raised 2 kids as a single parent on limited funds. I got 37 years under my belt, how hard could drilling 2 holes, countersinking them, and then screwing in a screw be?








Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm



Well Okay. Folks, I did the walk of shame down the the basement. I asked him if he had tape. He laughed thankfully and said it was easy to fix.... He did this graciously but I still felt very very small.

I did tape up the hole and our marriage was not destroyed. I also admitted my smugness was unfounded being an amateur and all. All was not lost and we continued the weekend.

Imagine that, he still worked with me after all that!

We still have to put the "top" on to the railing but we are probably going to put it on hold for a while. We have a 4 day weekend up there over the twenty something and would like to start plumbing. Plumbing alone isnt enough, we also need walls lol...

Real People, Real Problems, Really Great place!

Off to cabin we go tomorrow (collective "yay"). The days are growing shorter and the nights are growing colder and our days are numbered. So now begins our crunchtime if we want to spend any time at all up there this winter. The wood stove is sufficient to keep us warm at night in the cold but it takes a good 6-8 hours to bring the cabin to a temperature that is comfortable. Then we have to deal with the driveway that is at a very steep incline. This driveway with 2 + inches of snow is impossible to pass and unfortunately with the street plow there is no where off the road to park and there is nowhere off our drive to stop and hike because the snow banks reach in excess of 5 feet!

But enough of my complaining, we hope to get some of the railing done this weekend and maybe even start the plumbing! (an additional collective yay).

One thing I did want to touch on was how happy we are up there. In our world the hard labor is worth the down time and the incredible neighbors we have met while up there. These people are the kindest and funniest people I have ever met. They are the type of people who will go out of their way to invite you to a party even though they know the host doesnt know you. Then they will sit by your side the entire evening and introduce you to your neighbors. They will check on your house in the long winter because they know you can't. They will go out of their way to do nice things for you and just get to know you. They are real people, they are who they are, there is no hidden agenda, no complaining and no grumpy. I have lived in our other neighborhood for 3 years and have yet to meet more than one of my closest neighbors yet up there in shmoopywood world, mi casa es su casa. Amazing.


Our dogs run free, we have turkeys, moose, deer, hawks, hummingbirds and all other kids of animals frolicking through our land (dont forget coyotes). My heart is there and i really hope that one day I will be able to be there full time. Django likes it there too ;)