The start of a new season.
Someone installed a squirrel on my camera stand.
Everything looks pretty good...
...no big trees down...
...and the electricity and water are working too.
I spoke too soon about the water.
I should fire the SOB that closed up last fall.
After a minor flood in the basement...
...all is now OK (I hope).
The local phone company says that I can have high speed Internet way out here. Color me skeptical.
Well, sort of ... if just under 1 Mbs is high speed. Certainly better than dial-up.
A full moon tonight.
Can you tell what this is? It's an oven without a heating element.
And this is the inside of an oven that still doesn't work even with a new heating element.
Working at last. If you own an old house in the woods you had better like maintenance.
For the first time in a week it's not raining. It's only in the 40s but dry and sunny for a change.
I planted the new bench out under the big pine north of the cabin.
Even a little glimpse of blue sky is a welcome change.
This isn't right.
Finally a warm, dry day.
I can waterproof the dock.
And turn on the water in the log cabin.
The place still look cozy and comfortable to me.
Now it looks more like spring.
Warm enough to plant flowers in the barrel.
I'll give flowers another shot by the boat house. We'll have to see if they get dug up again.
Chris arrives.
The old trolling motor was on it's last legs and, hey, I deserve a new toy.
Now we're ready to catch some fish.
A couple of sheets of plywood and a few clear pine boards - stay tuned.
New bass T-shirts from Dorothy. Now we have no excuses.
Perfectly good but tired old recliner...
... new recliner.
One sheet of plywood cut up into smaller pieces.
Resting after a hard days work.
Using the router to put a clean edge on some boards - kind of like a jointer.
Using the doweling jig.
Ready to glue two boards together to make one wider one.
An early dry fit just to see if I'm on the right track.
Made a jig and drilled the holes for the shelf pegs.
Chris' friend Linda arrives.
This is a Rube Goldberg contraption to cut an arc. It worked.
I'll need to duplicate this trim profile. That will take some thought.
Here are a couple of door frames.
Linda leaves. Just us guys again.
Making door panels.
Doors ready for sanding.
Two new ducks.
This is me trying to duplicate a piece of the top molding.
This poplar has been hanging 50' up over the road for over a month.
Classic over-think: We'll use the fishing pole to cast a lead weight up and over the tree.
Then we'll tie a rope to the fishing line and pull it over.
Then we use the jeep to pull the snag free.
Nothing to it.
Now we'll just cut it up and throw it back into the woods.
Whoever digs up the flowers has decided to leave about half of them alone.
The wild flowers survive just fine.
These are the router bits I ordered to complete the trim detail.
And this is the finished trim. The one on the left goes on the bottom and the one on the right goes on top.
Here is a jig to drill a hole through the center of a 2x2.
It worked!7/2/2010 It worked!
Another dead birch tree gone.
These are leveling feet. That's it for construction - now finishing.
It's not all work.
Finally, finished with the new bookcase.
Bill 97.6 (53)
Chris 50.6 (26)
Final score
Rob, Terri, Andrew and Brandon arrive.
Chris leaves. As always, thanks for all the help.
Big night fishing - the guys got over 30 pounds of bass in one evening. Alas, the last catch was, well ...
Jim, Taylor and Aubrey arrived tonight.
Trying out the new fire pit. It works.
Rob, Terri and the decking crew leave.
Dorothy arrives
OK. I'm going to try to fix this old 1920s era wicker chair.
Egad! This going to take a long time.
Dorothy leaves.
Jim & Angel arrive.
These are the new vertical reeds installed.
Jim and Angel leave.
I need to replace this horizontal weave.
Hmmm ... not so easy is it? I'll rip this out and try again.
I haven't seen a hummingbird in 5 days - depressing.
Here is a new gutter being made for the hill house.
And here we have Dick from D&S Seamless Siding installing the new gutters.
3 hours later it's done. This would have taken me 3 days.
Log cabin closed up for the winter.
Leaves gone.
Even though it's autumn ...
... it's in the 70's ...
... still, I'm going to take in the dock.
Dock and boats stored away.
Log cabin locked up.
Everything looks ...
... pretty much how it did six months ago.