This past weekend we started raising our blog cabin walls! Friday night P & I arrived at the blog cabin and found a big blog cabin surprise! It was dark when we got there so we ran inside, grabbed a flash light and made our way around the back of the cabin to take a peek. I took the flash light, clicked it on and pointed away! Gadzooks!!! To our surprise, the blog cabin decking for the kitchen and bathroom floor was already done! What a grand surprise! THANKS DAD!! :) With the decking already all set by "Our Wayne", we dedicated both Saturday and Sunday to building, Raising and Bracing our very first wall! We started by making a lumber list. I love lists **sigh** Once the list was made, off to the lumber yard we went! "Our Wayne" hand picked every 2x8 we bought to make sure each board was perfectly straight. I watched him carefully as he did this. He would carefully look at the pile of 2x8's for a nice clean board. He would then select the 2x8 he thought looked best and pull it out of the lumber pile. Then, leaving the end that was farthest away from him tilted on the ground on the 2" side, he would lift the end closest to him up to his eye. Next he would close his left eye and look down the 2" side of the board with his right eye. He explained to P & I, if the board was warped you could see the curve in the board and know it's no good. I tried this technique and he was exactly right! You could see the warped wood vs. the perfect wood. All the warped pieces he discarded and the nice straight pieces we purchased for the blog cabin addition.
Forsaken Again!! Hmpffffff!!!....
- It was now Saturday morning @ 10am and the doors were locked, lights were off and nuttin' was cookin'! P & I & gang were FORSAKEN AGAIN!!!! It all began as we crammed ourselves into my 2000 Jeep Cherokee. It was a little tight, but we all managed to fit :)
It was Gracie on the left, Koda (my sisters dog) in the middle, I was squeezed in the corner in the passenger seat (lower right,) Buddy...P and my other little dog was sooo smooshed that he didn't make it in the shot:( and P was behind the camera in the drivers seat.
We drove for about and hour and saw a bull and a donkey...
An old country wagon...
A beautiful sky...
A rolling pasture...
A gorgeous country road...
And the babbling brook it sits on :)
BLOG CABIN BREAKING NEWS!!!
I did it! Yes ladies and gentlemen...after 2 years I have finally conjured up enough courage to cross the brook! This past weekend the brook was lower than usual so, I seized the opportunity, braved the whitewater and across I went!...Not alone of course... I took P with me;) I mentioned I was feeling brave, but I was certainly not going at this alone! Seriously, if I were to go solo, who would fish me out if were to fall in? I needed some back up and after some coaxing P agreed to make the trip with me and off we went on another blog cabin adventure! First we were afraid to cross, fearful that we may fall in and get swept away by the current but, then valiantly, like 2 knights on a mission to storm a castle, we bull dozed through our fear and began our journey across the brook. We almost turned back once or twice, but we thought "how would we ever be taken seriously as blog cabin bloggers if we let this brook get the best of us?" So, thanks to the support of our devoted fans we persevered - after all, we need to keep you all informed of all blog cabin news and views no matter how dangerous it may be for us. This isn't the first time we have put ourselves in harms way for the good of the blog cabin and it certainly won't be the last! We needed to take new pictures for you all from a different angle and a new perspective so really, it wasn't a choice...we had to cross. we thought to ourselves - "selves...we can't let our readers down." And we didn't! We made it to the the other side with our little blog cabin camera and snapped up a storm for all to enjoy!
I called it "The Extender." There were a few areas on the brook where the rocks were too far apart to reach...so, I took one of the planks we used for the cement forms and used it bridge the gap between those rocks for us to cross. P clearly demonstrates this in the picture to the right. What you do not see in the picture to the right is 3 seconds after that wonderful pose, P looses her balance on that little rock next to the one "The Extender" is on and takes a short yet relaxing swim in the ice cold mountain water - Ahhh...refreshing! One good thing that came from her little dip in the brook was this beautiful picture below that she snapped just before our blog cabin camera died. Cause of death...water damage:( So, P's fall wasn't in vain - YAY! She took one for the team and produced some very beautiful photography for us as well. We thank you P for your commitment to this project :)
So tell me...what is the difference between a river, a brook, a stream, or a creek? Is it a case of the old Tomāto Tomäto or is there a sincere difference between them all? At first I thought perhaps it's determined by the swiftness of the flow - maybe if it was just a trickle after heavy rain then it would be a creek...but what would differentiate a creek from a stream?? They both sound a lot like little tricklers to me. Then I thought, maybe it's not about the flow at all, but instead, maybe it's about the sound...If it roars it's a river, if it babbles it's a brook? Hmmm...I dunno. It seems confusing to me. Why are there so many variations? Then I thought, perhaps it's not about sound or flow at all, but instead about structure and dimension - if it's more than 15 feet across from bank to bank then it's a river - anything smaller than 15 feet is a brook, anything smaller than 10 feet is a stream and anything smaller than that...a creek?
This past Saturday and Sunday we were all jacked up!! ...the blog cabin that is:) We literally jacked up the back left corner of the blog cabin using 1 hydraulic jack, 1 bottle jack and a few pieces of scrap wood for some extra support. I have to admit there was a very large part of me that was concerned that our little blog cabin may give way and roll off the cliff into the river behind it, but much to my surprise, that did not happen and it was a huge success! Once the cabin was all jacked up, we removed the old crumbling cinder block that was supporting it and dug out the back corner. We needed to dig out that corner so that we could pour a nice level cement floor. We decided to add a floor to the interior to our foundation so that we can keep our water heater under our house rather than keeping it inside the cabin in a closet or taking up unnecessary space in our bathroom. So, we spent a little extra time for a little extra space:) We hand dug the corner with pick axes and shovels, leveled the ground, built a form, mixed the cement and poured half the floor (the other half will be dug, mixed, and poured next weekend.) It doesn't look like much, but if you take a look at the before and after pictures below, you can see it's quite a difference for 2 days work. Once we build the block up we will add an access door to enter and exit the crawl space to service our pipes & water heater when needed. If we are lucky we will have a little extra space for bike and kayak storage. Our last project on Sunday before packing up and returning to the city was replacing the support and removing the jacks. For this we borrowed and old column from my sisters house that was no longer in use and cut it to the current height of the blog cabin floor. once it was placed, we sloooowly released the jacks to lower the house onto the much more solid post. In about 2 more weeks we will have the other half of our floor poured and the rest of the cinder block stacked!.... And then...DEMOLITION BEGINS Grrrrr! Time to rip the entire back end off the blog cabin!
