The weekend

I just spoke to Denise at the cabin. She is doing fine, she had the fire place going and it was 80 degrees in the cabin. She was watching TV and getting ready to go to bed. She will be on her way home on Friday and I will be on my up. We will pass each other on the freeway. She has to work and I am going up for a weekend of deer hunting. Momma wants some venision.

Been getting ready to go for the last couple days. So I look forward to heading out to hunt with the other 750,000 hunters that will be hitting the woods over the next two weeks. With any luck I'll be bringing home some venision. With my luck the only thing I'll be bringing home is a cold.

Take care eveyone.
Bill

Cabin Creepy Crawlies

I'm heading up north in the morning. I'll leave you with a couple of creepy pic's...and Bill. You'll be in good hands. This first one moves into the cabin every winter. It could possibly be a 'Western Conifer Seed bug', but we don't know for sure. It moves REALLY slow. We do know that it isn't a box elder. If you have another guess, let us know. :)

This second one really creeps me out. We've heard that it's a 'Toe Biter'. It's name alone sends chills up my spine. Hubby found 2 of these in his minnow trap when he pulled it up out of the water. You can tell by the adirondac chair arm, just how big this thing really is. It was about 2" long. Hubby put it on a hook and nabbed a little bass on the first cast. If you have a better ID, let us know. :) See you in a few days!

Cabin Corner Detail

We know that painting logs is a no-no. This was the style, 'back then'. Our paint color is 'Barn Red' and is still produced today. Behr makes barn paint in red and white.

We had wanted to completely strip the logs and stain them, but our log replacement contractor said that he would never be able to get all of the red out. He said maybe 90%, which didn't seem good to us either.

I really wish that I had a close-up of this. These corners had been cut off (gulp) with a chain saw! Probably due to rot. The smaller section of the cabin is our utility room. The window toward the left is the window over my kitchen sink.

Corner detail at the side door of the utility room after log replacement. They used car jacks to hold up the cabin while they cut out the bottom logs. I really wished that I could have been there to see it, but I had to work. When I arrived around 1am, I walked around the cabin...in awe...with a flashlight....shouting with glee! LOL The log guy left us a couple of the original iron pins that held the logs on top of each other. He replaced those with bolts.

Ta Da! Complete corners again! Ain't they purdy? These photo's were taken in April of '06, so there is no greenery to accent the beautiful work. We not only had to replace corners, but a couple of long logs had to be replaced.

Gardeny Things

This is our third day of fantastic weather. ...Nah, I decided not to bore you with after shots of my clean garden, downstate. But, I must say, they are lookin' mighty spring clean....until the snow begins to fly. Here are pics of a couple of my favorite gardeny things.

'Vintage' style spigot. I LOVE this cute little copper spigot and want Bill to make me a couple more of them.

Fence planter. Indeed, there are petunia's still hanging on this late time of year. In fact, they reseed themselves every year in this little planter. I originally bought this at Michael's, but I'd like a few more and don't know where to find them. If you know, let me know :)

70F+ today!

A day that started with a sweat suit, ended with a tank top and shorts. I'm doing my spring outdoor cleaning, downstate. I sure wish that I was up north at the cabin. My gardens up there certainly need cleaning up too. They will probably have to wait until spring, unless I get the urge to clean the gardens under cold weather conditions...which I have also been known to do. Anyway, with the weather being warm, I decided last night that I needed to do a good garden cleaning...the kind that I do in the springtime. My hosta's have to have several days of frost weather to kill them down enough so that I wouldn't be taking their last bit of food from their leaves. Several of my other plants could use a good cleaning to take on the winter weather. I've got Bill to promise that he will leaf blow tonight after he gets home from work, tee hee. Oh, and I'm working on a FANTASTIC recipe for dinner tonight, which I'm hoping will become part of my cabin repertoire. Here is what I started with today in the gardens, I'll show 'after' pics tomorrow:

Sargentina Crab Apple, which is 10+ years old, it needs pruned because some of the branches are hanging close to the ground. But, we don't dare prune it until spring, or we may kill it because it will work at healing itself. Too much stress for the winter yet to come.

Hosta garden, this area holds some very pricey and hard to find hosta. They have taken a few hits with frost which should make it pretty easy to clean up. I'll clean it up as best as possible.

Fence line, lots of things to be cleaned up and cut back here. I pay special attention to those plants that cannot handle cutting back at this time of year. I'll clean up anything that can.

Coved Ceilings....in a log cabin?

Who-da-thunk-it? Who would have ever thought to add such a beautiful detail in a log cabin. Well, someone did, 60 years ago. Those curtains don't exist anymore, well yeah, I have a couple of them put away in a drawer. They shredded when I washed them. My Mom (HI MOM!) made us new curtains for the entire cabin. Isn't she great? She found a pattern in Florida that she thought I'd like and sent me a swatch. I loved it too. I'll show pics of my new curtains at a later date.



PS Don't forget to vote today! :) I'm off to do my duty and get some Olga's Kitchen for lunch

Haven't used the furnace....yet

Every year, Bill and I like to see how long we can go without turning the furnace on 'downstate'. This year, we have made it to November 1st...so far...and counting. I think the end is near though.

It has been below freezing on a couple of nights, but we never touched that thermostat! Good thing that we have a warm down comforter...and a little space heater named Cleo.

Up north at the cabin, it's different. Bill lit the pilot light on our old propane furnace this weekend. We have to heat our utility room because our well head is located in there. It's no longer legal to have a well head inside of your home, but ours is the original well.

We also use a heatilator as our primary heat in the cabin. The heat from a heatilator is very dry. I have to run a humidifier constantly and that doesn't keep up with the humidity. Sometimes I heat water on the stove and let it steam.