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.

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 ;)