Another Weekend of Good Work

After many weekends at home, we finally were able to escape to our cabin and do some of the work that we actually enjoy.


We have started to cut down some trees, to prepare for our wood storage for 2010. Here's my husband busy at work.

We only cut down one small tree this time, as we intend to come many weekends over the autumn, and perhaps even into the winter time.


So this is what it looked like when it was all loaded up into our trailer.

We also started digging down through the soil to find solid rock, in order to start making foundations for the last part of the balcony which will be built next summer. For those who have forgotten where we were to dig, here is a before picture.

Pretty steep, which made the digging quite difficult. And, as our bad luck would have it, we couldn't actually find solid rock. Just lots and lots of very large tree roots. Digging around in the basement we were able to find a rusty saw to cut them out of the ground with.

We're not quite finished with this job, but as one can see we've removed enough earth to make the ground even steeper than it was before. And making it that much easier to work with. But luckily we can't imagine it can be more than a couple of hours more of work.

Below is my super cool, race car driving, brother-in-law, now having fun with his new toy. He has purchased this excavator to help with a lot of the work he is doing on his cabin. However at this point he is doing a small favor for my parent-in-laws.

We intend to be on his good side for quite some time as we have some reconstruction of our pathway that needs to be done.... which will be a lot easier with one of these.

Finally, I got to spend 5 or 6 hours over 2 days walking over 10 acres looking for fun ideas to make soap with. What is left of the fruit is over ripe, but this is fine as I have gathered it for color purposes only.

Here is the last of the red currants that could be plucked.

And this is not a great picture of the rose hips that I have gathered. Once I take out the seeds, the color should be stunning.

I was also really suprised to see how many wild flowers there was left this late in the year. I think I must have picked a whole bread bag worth of the. All of them are now lying nicely between pieces of paper towel, squished between magazines. Here is a picture of the first collection of flowers done early Saturday morning.

I have also put on my rain pants, and kneed my way through the blueberry bushes, tittebær bushes (a cousin to the cranberry, it grows on tiny bushes just centimeters from the ground). I've got exciting ideas of mixing these with orange and lemon zests.

I was also able to start picking a little bit of juniper berries, even though they are not quite in season yet. Most of them are still green. This is what can be seen in the smallest bag at the bottom.

I must say that I am really excited about adding a bit of juniper extract to my soap, as juniper has a disinfectant quality that has been used by many peoples in the days before modern medicine. More info on this as I experiment.

Adding Surface Area to our Holidays....

So for those that have been have been following my blog, you'll know that my husband and I have been working on improving our sea side cabin for years. This year we're adding porches, replacing two windows and painting walls. For the work that we did last Easter, see this post:


http://plaskdesign.blogspot.com/2009/04/working-together-as-team.html


But now we're doing the fun stuff. The stuff that's easier to do, quicker to build. And looks impressive.


Everything started out well from the beginning. My husband purchased his materials when there was a sale at the lumber yard. I myself was stunned. I never even knew that lumber yards and building material stores had sales. The result was that we were able to get everything we needed instead of just half of it. And here it is:



You'll see that one piece of clear fiberglass/plastic on the top of the pile. We need that because last Easter my son did this:




While swinging way too high on this:

We haven't actually gotten to that part yet.... but we're working on it.

And so in addition to all the materials we bought we still have our previously purchased materials that will also be used:

Here's a reminder of where we last left you at Easter, having dug holes and made huge cement blocks, on which the vertical supporting beams will be placed.

And this is how far we came yesterday, just after lunch:

I was trying to get my husband to wave to me. His response was to become very irritated and told me to come down and help him (as opposed to vaccuuming the crumbs that kids had left all over the living room floor because they decided to take their breakfast down from the table so that they could play with all their little Bankugan toys).

I spent 45 minutes helping him put up the last vertical supporting post, as well as securing it to the cabin itself. I also got three big horsefly bites that I am still treating with aloe vera.

But all this was good - it would have taken him at least twice as long to complete the job himself. And soon after that he was able to complete the days work:

I am so looking forward eating dinner out here in a couple of days.