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| At home in the snow |
Then: December 2008
Can't believe it is December already, and we are definitely going to have a white Christmas. Before we left Illinois, I had to downsize my Christmas decorations from eight large plastic totes and two wreath carriers, to 4 large plastic totes and two wreath carriers. I have several decorations from my childhood and I have been collecting them ever since. We have no room for a tree inside, but we do have three small trees in our yard, so I am going to decorate the one closest to the porch. I will just put out a garland and small cloth or plastic stockings. Hopefully the wind won't blow them all off. I will put the rest of the decorations inside around the house.
We have been working hard to finish putting up the insulation and finally finished it just two days before the temperature dipped to -10 degrees! But now we are toasty warm inside. I love just sitting and watching the snow fall. It is so very quiet out there. We got to take the big ladder out of the living room, so it's looking less and less like a construction zone. We still have the ladder we use to get up to the loft, but we plan to get stairs built next summer. We just have not figured out the kind or direction they will go.
Now that the insulation is done, we are just going to take a break and enjoy the holidays. Never had plastic walls before, but we hope to start putting up the tongue-in-groove pine walls as soon as we can get the wood up in the Spring. Meanwhile I am decorating for Christmas.
Dinga loves the snow and will make snow angels in order to cool off after all her running around. She has kept most of the large the wild life at bay, but the bears and snakes are sleeping now. The snow is great because we can so clearly see all the footprints of our visitors, such as deer, elk, rabbits, squirrels, and wild turkeys who come around when Dinga is inside.
JB isn't so thrilled about the snow as he has to use the snow blower to clear the paths. We just have a small one that we used on the sidewalks in Illinois. We will definitely have to get a bigger model for next winter! We do have a snow shovel, and that gets a lot of use also. After each snowfall, JB drives MAX two miles down to where our side road meets the main canyon road in order to clear and groom it. He doesn't need to go all the way down, as there is enough snowmobile "traffic" to keep that part fairly well clear. Most of the time Dinga and I go with him and really enjoy the ride.
At the end of the month we moved my Jeep down to Larry and Elsie's at their request. We had been renting a car to go to town. JB would drive MAX down to where our road meets the pavement, and someone from the rental agency would meet him there. At the end of the day, JB would turn the car in and they would drive him back up to our road. But Larry and Elsie insisted that was just too complicated and expensive, and that we should park our car at their place. What great neighbors! Silly me, we aren't on our own at all.
Now: June 24, 2011
That first winter certainly was an experience! Actually each winter is an experience, but we were much better prepared after the first one. I thought we had enough supplies other than perishables to last until Spring, but we didn't and JB ended up having to bring up a lot more than we had planned on. I spent the whole winter up on the mountain from December 2 until mid-March. And I didn't miss going to town at all. Larry and Elsie would often come up to visit, and I had my phone and computer to stay in touch with other friends and family. I stayed very busy with everything we had to do by hand, plus baking, eating, reading, eating, crafting, eating, etc, etc.
Yesterday I learned, not for the first time, that I could never make it as a carpenter. The deck would be a lot more simple if it were not also a roof to JB's shop. Each piece of decking has to be flush up against the next piece. And it is amazing that even though the joists are straight, we cannot put the screws into the decking in a straight line and expect them all to go into the joists! We only got four rows of decking in and at least three of the lines of screws are zig zag in order to hit the joists. Obviously, there is just something about this process that we do not understand. Thank goodness we can take a few days off now and enjoy our weekend company!
Can't believe it is December already, and we are definitely going to have a white Christmas. Before we left Illinois, I had to downsize my Christmas decorations from eight large plastic totes and two wreath carriers, to 4 large plastic totes and two wreath carriers. I have several decorations from my childhood and I have been collecting them ever since. We have no room for a tree inside, but we do have three small trees in our yard, so I am going to decorate the one closest to the porch. I will just put out a garland and small cloth or plastic stockings. Hopefully the wind won't blow them all off. I will put the rest of the decorations inside around the house.
We have been working hard to finish putting up the insulation and finally finished it just two days before the temperature dipped to -10 degrees! But now we are toasty warm inside. I love just sitting and watching the snow fall. It is so very quiet out there. We got to take the big ladder out of the living room, so it's looking less and less like a construction zone. We still have the ladder we use to get up to the loft, but we plan to get stairs built next summer. We just have not figured out the kind or direction they will go.
Now that the insulation is done, we are just going to take a break and enjoy the holidays. Never had plastic walls before, but we hope to start putting up the tongue-in-groove pine walls as soon as we can get the wood up in the Spring. Meanwhile I am decorating for Christmas.
Dinga loves the snow and will make snow angels in order to cool off after all her running around. She has kept most of the large the wild life at bay, but the bears and snakes are sleeping now. The snow is great because we can so clearly see all the footprints of our visitors, such as deer, elk, rabbits, squirrels, and wild turkeys who come around when Dinga is inside.
JB isn't so thrilled about the snow as he has to use the snow blower to clear the paths. We just have a small one that we used on the sidewalks in Illinois. We will definitely have to get a bigger model for next winter! We do have a snow shovel, and that gets a lot of use also. After each snowfall, JB drives MAX two miles down to where our side road meets the main canyon road in order to clear and groom it. He doesn't need to go all the way down, as there is enough snowmobile "traffic" to keep that part fairly well clear. Most of the time Dinga and I go with him and really enjoy the ride.
At the end of the month we moved my Jeep down to Larry and Elsie's at their request. We had been renting a car to go to town. JB would drive MAX down to where our road meets the pavement, and someone from the rental agency would meet him there. At the end of the day, JB would turn the car in and they would drive him back up to our road. But Larry and Elsie insisted that was just too complicated and expensive, and that we should park our car at their place. What great neighbors! Silly me, we aren't on our own at all.
Now: June 24, 2011
That first winter certainly was an experience! Actually each winter is an experience, but we were much better prepared after the first one. I thought we had enough supplies other than perishables to last until Spring, but we didn't and JB ended up having to bring up a lot more than we had planned on. I spent the whole winter up on the mountain from December 2 until mid-March. And I didn't miss going to town at all. Larry and Elsie would often come up to visit, and I had my phone and computer to stay in touch with other friends and family. I stayed very busy with everything we had to do by hand, plus baking, eating, reading, eating, crafting, eating, etc, etc.
Yesterday I learned, not for the first time, that I could never make it as a carpenter. The deck would be a lot more simple if it were not also a roof to JB's shop. Each piece of decking has to be flush up against the next piece. And it is amazing that even though the joists are straight, we cannot put the screws into the decking in a straight line and expect them all to go into the joists! We only got four rows of decking in and at least three of the lines of screws are zig zag in order to hit the joists. Obviously, there is just something about this process that we do not understand. Thank goodness we can take a few days off now and enjoy our weekend company!
Hi there! Just wanted to say that I found you through Backwoods Home magazine and I'm looking forward to reading your blog from start to present!
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