Labour day weekend

When we got home from the cabin, the first picture Brianne sent me was this beautiful evening shot from our deck...  It looks so calming and serene... the epitome of relaxation.  Thank you Brianne.,.,

Up first this week- guess what got installed?????   Jim and Ben worked feverishly on Thursday and most of Friday trying to get the  water heater and shower put together before Brianne and her family showed up on Friday evening... They didn't quite make the deadline, but by Saturday evening, it was up and running.. I couldn't find where we put the shower curtain rod, but we made due with a regular curtain rod.  I'll be purchasing one this next week... But, what we improvised worked perfectly!

Although Brianne was the first to try out the shower, I was the first to have my picture taken in it... giggle..  

It's still a little rudimentary, but it works amazingly well!  I am absolutely thrilled.  I sent a picture to my brother Eldon and he says the shower head looks like something from NASA.. Giggle.  It actually has six jets that spray water on your body, a regular faucet to fill the tub, a regular shower head thing and a waterfall up top... It's amazing...

And, here's two days work in the basement... between setting up the hot water heater, programming it  and getting the propane lit, and then the water lines, and a structure around the bathroom for a little bit of privacy, it took a while...Soooo well worth it... 
And, all this is going to be hidden inside a wall.... sad...

When Jim went to take a shower, he took this picture, and when he showed it to me he said, "I think she moved in...."  Giggle..  The surround is a temporary fix right now, - it's eventually going to be tiled, but until then, this will do... And, I purposefully bought a surround with a ledge to put all the "stuff" on..  Apparently, Brianne appreciated it!  

I don't know when the sink is going into this bathroom, and quite frankly, I don't care... a shower with hot water is celestial...

And, our security cameras are now totally set up and recording.  We have eight cameras around the house, including the doorbell...so, I am quite sure we will be able to stop any burgulars... I hope.  

These next picture are how they show on Jim's cell phone...

And, this picture shows how they look on the monitor upstairs...  I think we're covered..

The next HUGE project was getting the jacuzzi filled and working... We started by getting a 275 gallon cube of water... We have only a certain number of gallons we can use each month according to our HOA... and that's another story...  So, we started with a 275 gallon cube of ice cold water.... And, I mean, ice cold...

And, we dumped it into the jacuzzi, and then filled the rest of it up with the hose at the cabin..

And, we have some very anxious and impatient patrons waiting....  Giggle.  As the jacuzzi filled up, Coy got out because the water was extremely cold.  Brianne stayed in, until she couldn't feel her legs any longer.  It was over 100 degrees outside, so I am sure the cold water was a relief...

We ran into a little problem trying to connect the jacuzzi to the electrical system on the house... Every time we connected, it threw a breaker; the power was completely out in the whole cabin and we couldn't figure out why... I think between Jim and Lowell, the problem has been solved and will be corrected this next weekend... Apparently, a jacuzzi is not wired the same way as the house is... We'll figure it out!

Jim and Ben pulled out the four wheelers for the kids and they had a kick driving around the mountain.  They told me they saw lots of deer and turkeys...  

And, putting a 15 year old on a four wheeler and letting him loose on his is a little bit of bliss apparently.  Chance seemed to like it...

And, family get togethers always involve, of course, lots of food...  Our 12' table has always been in the corner of the room... Usually, it's just Jim and I, and we eat dinner in the living room, or at the island, but with the extra people, Brianne cleared off the table and picked up all the construction stuff in the living room, and made it more of a home.  I so appreciate it, more than she knows.  Such a help...  And, it was fantastic to have family at our table.  Mississippi pot roast was especially delicious and the company was just as fantastic.

Here's the living room after Brianne worked her magic.. Yes, there is still scaffolding in the living room but, just ignore that!!... There's also a dishwasher in the living room, but we'll just move forward on that one..

On Monday, Jim and Ben were working on the deck, and they needed Ben to go up in the bucket truck to work on the railings and balusters.  Jim got Ben about 30 feet up in the air, and the bucket truck ran out of gas... Giggle.. Ben was suspended in the air. I think he was thinking about rappelling down, but thank goodness, Jim found a little bit of gas and got the truck started back up, and the bucket back down to earth... giggle.  Ben was a good sport about it, even though I was laughing...

And, before I forget, we found another little visitor in the cushions of the couch...  I showed Coy and Chance and they thought he was cute.  We couldn't seem to catch him, so we put out some live traps so see if he could be relocated.  Before we left, he still wasn't caught, so, we'll have to see what happens during the next week...  This guy actually had a tail so I know it's not the original chipmunk we had.

And, Chance is proving to be an amazing worker.  He an Lowell put in so many hours working on the brickwork around the jacuzzi...  And, it looks amazing.  He pays a lot of attention to detail and does beautiful work.

This is how it looked just before we filled it with water... It's looking amazing.  I had this idea what I wanted the area brick to look like, and with the antique bricks, it's exactly what I wanted..... very old world antique....

Here's Lowell flattening the ground so that the bricks lay flat next to each other.  

Coy loaded the wheel barrow with bricks and Chance pushed them over to the where the jacuzzi is.  Coy isn't quite strong enough yet to push it, but he does a decent job loading it.

and, Lowell, working to flatten out the ground.  It was 103 degrees... so hot...but, the guys worked hard and tirelessly to get the job done.

And, this is what it looked like at the end of the day... It's beautiful.  Thank you, guys... You are amazing.

These hangers are for the railing balusters on the deck.  We bought them, and then I told Jim that I would prefer that they are black instead of silver... So, he powder coated all of them black... I like them a whole lot more...

And, here's our Coy Boy... He loves wearing my leather gloves to work on the bricks.  This picture cracks me up.. Coy is looking so cute on the deck, and Chance is in the background holding up a shovel like he's going to throw it at Coy.  Giggle...

And, here's Lowell and Bri.  I love this picture... such a cute couple... they can accomplish anything together...  We are so glad they found each other... I am not going to go as far as saying "they complete each other" because I hate that saying... But, they are good together...  This mama's heart is happy..

And, as always, the adventure continues.

Love, Jim and Cheri

 

Pain is Temporary; The Cabin Is Forever......

When I start putting this blog together each week, I always follow a pattern... I start by adding all the pictures to a blank page, then I start adding the print, and then I send it to Jim to add the more technical details and his final approval.  This week, he sent me this first picture with the caption that "pain is temporary, the cabin is forever"...  I about had a stroke.  He explained that he caught his arm on a Simpson hanger when he was working on the deck, and this is what ensued... I think you can tell he was leaning against the wall, and didn't realize he was bleeding...  Poor thing... much worse than little cuts that I get from stained glass....

Our week started out, as usual, at the Home Depot, picking out redwood for the deck.  We are really picky with the wood we choose - too much of it has tons of knots, or the boards are cracked and split or they are warped.  Sometimes, they are just ugly pieces of redwood. But, the price goes up, and it takes us forever to pick out wood... And, each time we get a load of lumber, it costs right around $400.00... sigh... All this for a beautiful cabin... I think it's worth it.

And, here's what the deck looks like at this point.  We had some redwood in the Conex from last year, and the quality of that wood as compared to this year, is vastly different.  

Here's a shot from the underside...

The big news this week is the main level furnace, the basement furnace and the water heater are one step closer to being functional.  Jim and Ben installed them, and then built the propane pipes in the basement to connect to them.  We have to have Garkane Propane come out and inspect the lines before we turn turn on the gas, but it's close.  soooo close...

It rained on Sunday, so this full day was dedicated to working in the basement.

There was a whole lot of overhead work completed with a pipe to each furnace and the water heater, AND a pipe thru the building out to the BBQ, and finally a pipe to the kitchen cooktop.

The vertical line in this picture goes to the BBQ, and the horizontal line is the main line coming thru the cabin.

And, this is the pipe out where the propane comes into the house.  There's a safety shutoff valve on every pipe.  Garkane will inspect on Monday and give us approval to move forward...

Before we were leaving, we were unloading another load of brick from the back of the pickup... Because I've been waiting for the rain to stop and the road base to be smoothed out, Jim took the time to smooth out a little bit of the road base around the jacuzzi.....

...and then, arrange a few of the bricks around the jacuzzi just so I can see how it will look.. Hopefully, it's going to stop raining, and we'll be able to get some brick laid this coming weekend..  This is how it's going to look around the jacuzzi and in the patio area.  I love this design...

The design is very straight forward, but, it's a pattern that I really love... I believe the area is going to look beautiful.

And, if you remember from last week, the story of the chipmunk who had surgery by my hand... Well, we found out this week, that he had a roommate that still resides with us.  Jim and Ben saw him running up the loft stairs... We put a trap out, with an apple and peanut butter inside, BUT, no chipmunk caught... So, we don't know if he has found a way in AND a way out, but he is gone.  I purchased a smaller trap and we'll put them out this week and see if he is tempted.  I was reading there is a problem with mice and chipmunks up in Duck Creek this year, which is pretty close to us.  We don't have a mouse problem, but the chipmunks are driving me crazy!

And, the 2021 Me and Manzanita blog book has been put into book form!!  It took a little longer than usual this time, but this is our 10th edition, I believe.  It's nice working for a printing company - they have the ability to print dreams!  I was talking to a friend at work a couple of weeks ago and explained that these books are going to give future generations insight into the building of the cabin... if anything goes wrong, it's all documented!

As always, the adventure continues...

Love, Jim and Cheri

...Let's start with calm and relaxing trees....

 

When I was living in  Colorado, I was absolutely intrigued by Quaking Aspens and have always wanted them at the cabin..  those, along with blue spruce.  Well, I was at Home Depot last week and I saw the aspens, so I bought three of them!! It was raining so hard over the weekend that I couldn't plant them, but hopefully, next weekend, we'll see a little sunshine and that job can be realized... I'm still waiting for my Blue Spruce to come down in price, and I might make the investment... But, spending $199.00 on a single small tree, is not my idea of a smart purchase...  So, we wait!  Also, at Home Depot, they had pallets of flagstone on sale for $300.00.... Remember, a couple of weeks ago, I bought a pallet of flagstone from a guy in Payson... paid $80.00...  I think I did ok..

But, Jim and I did find a rock shop in Orderville (about 15 miles away from the cabin) and we stopped in.  I am looking for flagstone for the grotto in the outside shower.  We didn't find any flagstone, but I did find pieces of stone with fish fossils...  I think they'll look cool.  We are going to set them in cement to make them a little stronger.  I think they will be a welcome addition to the leaves!

There were all shapes and sized that totally intrigued me!

While we were in the rock shop, I saw these pieces of glass and I just had to get a couple of pieces for my grotto... Not quite sure where I am going to put them, but definitely on the waterfall side... It reminded me of the movie, "Shawshank Redemption" - one of my all time favourite movies...Andy and Red are the two main characters and Andy escapes, but tells Red about meeting him in Mexico... In their conversation, he is told to look for a long wall in the middle of a hayfield in Buxton... and in that wall, there is a piece of black volcanic glass and that piece of glass has no business being in that field or that wall... And, under that piece of glass, there is a box ... And, the message said, "And, if you've come this far, maybe you'd come a bit further".  I love that line... So, I told Jim that I wanted to get a piece of black glass like rock to also put into the grotto.. He told me that he has a piece of black obsidian that I could use... I am so stoked...  It is going to look amazing... and always remind me that just maybe, I can come a bit further... (If you haven't seen the movie, find it and check it out!)

Here's the two piece of glass I picked out from the rock shop... They are Japanese made glass, primarily used in making beer bottles...  I really love the vibrant colours...

And, I was all excited about getting the balusters started on the deck. We have half the deck completed but, I was dying to see how the balusters would look.  We had the dimensions that we had to follow, so Jim made little spacers to put between each piece just to make sure I was on track.  I got it all laid out on the island, put the little spacers in, and then realized that I needed to add two more pieces to have the correct width.  So, I added double knuckles one on each side of the "S" shape, and now it works perfectly.  BUT...

... it started to rain, so the baluster project was delayed.  We have had rain for the last couple of weekends and I am hoping that this next weekend, there will be no more rain.  Everyone keeps telling me that we need rain, but I need balusters and railings!

So here's the propane pipe that comes from the big white tank leaning up against our cabin with the regulator on the end.  But the big news is, next to it is the pipe that runs through our cabin to fuel up the barbeque, the cook top, the hot water heater, and the furnace!

Going out to the barbeque.

Headed over to the cooktop in the island.

And being distributed to the big furnace, the downstairs furnace and the hot water heater. 

And, the shut off valve for the barbeque in the basement.

And, here's the visitor we had on Friday and Saturday night.  We knew, from the week before, that we had a chipmunk in the house, but couldn't find him... He came in through the downstairs sliding doors and then was sleuth and we couldn't find him... So, Jim and I are sitting on the couch on Friday night, watching tv, and out pops this little body... looking at us like, "Hey, what are y'all doing here?" He didn't get the idea that we owned the place and he was a squatter.  It took us the next two nights to serve him eviction papers... we tried all kinds of different efforts... and, they all failed.  Until, Jim had the idea that if he squished the couch cushions together to stop his escape, we could block him in and then just reach in and pull him out... Well, in theory that works... While Jim blocked him in, and I reached in with gloved hand, I got educated on squirrels and chipmunks...  Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia..."TAILS DETACH TO ESCAPE PREDATORS".... I reached in, and pulled my gloved hand out, just holding his furry little tail... I about freaked... I have been called a lot of things in my lifetime, but never, ever predator... I think Alvin the Chipmunk was as freaked as I was and he just sat there shaking... I reached back in, and picked him up, and put him outside... far away outside...  Was disgusting.

Apparently, squirrels and chipmunks can regrow their tails... I don't want to stay in contact to see how the recovery is going... not happening in my world.

This chipmunk issue is not the kind of adventure I want to be a part of again.... But, the adventures continue....

Love, Jim and Cheri