Tip Up Town

A few weeks ago I took my sister in law Debbie, niece Michelle and nephew Jimmy up to the cabin for Tip Up Town. They wanted to go see the polar bear dip. Temperature wise it was not to bad in the low 30's and no wind.

Here are the first two folks to go in. As you can see the fire department, paramedics and rescue divers are standing by.

There are some crazy people that take part in this event. The next picture is OH so wrong in so many ways. We were not sure why this guy dressed like this but it was both disturbing and funny all at the same time. Prepare yourself and scroll down.

What we wanted to know what the bet was and did he win or lose it.

Here is Michelle going down the ice slide.


Here we are in front of the Tip Up Town ice sculpture. It was the
the 60th anniversary of the event.


Back on Trout Lake a pic of my shanty as dusk falls.

Michelle all bundled up. This is the first time she has gone ice fishing.

Michelle' s first ice fishing fish. Go Michelle!!!

Here is were I was sitting, going after the crappies. Everything you need, a bucket to sit on, a rod and rod holder, a scooper, Coleman lantern and the most important thing a beer.


After a full day outside in the cold it is good to come inside and warm up by the fire.

This Old Cabin - Plumbing #2

In this episode, I will replace the old plumbing with PEX. If you have not worked with PEX, let me tell you it is very easy to work with. The fact that you can do a single run from the manifold to the fixture is awesome. The connections are easy.

What was left over after all the pipes had been cut out. Off to the scrap yard. Got 64 bucks, don't tell Denise.

The cold water manifold for the PEX pipe.

Main water line is hooked up.

Cold water feed going to the hot water tank.

The bathroom cold water feed coming from one side of the attic to the other. I pitched the pipes to help avoid standing water in the pipes when we drain them.

Cold water feed to bathroom

Pic of me in the attic over the utility room. Not a lot of room and lots of nails sticking up and down. Good thing the tetanus shot is up to date.

Here I am stretched out running the hot water feed to the kitchen sink. This was the hardest part of the whole job.

Dee just had to take this pic as I crawled towards the attic hatch.

The hot water manifold.

I pulled down the crown molding far enough down to move the PEX through, but couldn't get it to go back up correctly. So, I ended up pulling the whole piece down, Much to Dee's dismay.

It made a very big mess as the blown insulation got in and on everything.


Got all of the molding back up. Here I am vacuuming the insulation up. Did I mention I hate blown in insulation?

The job is done except for a few connections that I will do later. We also left room for expansion of the water system. I also have some touch up work to do on the moldings. We are also going to build a new cabinet around the pump and manifold.

All in all I had fun doing this project and hopefully no more frozen or burst pipes.