On Schedule

Nov 282012
 

The week of Thanksgiving gave me a break from work, so I took a little break from posting.  Apparently, so did most of the blogging world (unless they were super organized and wrote stuff weeks in advance and had it already in queue… show-offs).

The progress on my shed studio continued on schedule.

Next on the roster:  Insulation.

Who knew that this process was so complicated?  There are so many steps in order to do it properly.  I made the mistake of asking Rick about it and got the Insulation 101 lecture.

Note to self:  Don’t ask.

Actually, he was quite patient with me and I learned quite a bit.  So now if anyone wants to know about insulating your home, I’m your gal (not!).

It took 2 days (and some help from Willard) to get it completed, and I’ll be roasty toasty in my little building.

While Willard was working on the inside, Rick was hammering away on the steps.

Well, actually one step, because that’s all that was needed.  BUT, he did show his genius and wrapped it around the corner of the deck so there was access from more than one spot.

Up next:  the flooring.  We haven’t decided what to put down yet, and I told Rick to use whatever was cheapest.  This gives him a great opportunity to scour Craigslist for materials.

I’ve already nixed white carpet.  I think he was kidding.

He better have been kidding.

 

Covering the Blahs

Nov 232012
 

As was predicted, Old Man Winter let his presence be known and gave us a bit of the white stuff Thursday night.

There’s nothing quite like waking up to a fresh dusting of snow (or in this case about 3 inches), and there is always something super special about the first official snow fall of the season.

The high temps for the coming week are only supposed to be in the 20s and 30s, so I suspect that this new batch is going to stay around and be considered the base for the season.

Although this sets in the reality of what the next 5 months has in store for us (and we’ll all be a little snow crazy by February), at least it covers up the brown blahs I’ve been looking at for the last month.

It is this time of year that I look at the pros and cons of the impending winter season (pro:  bears will hibernate and I can put up my birdfeeders; con:  bone chilling cold), all of them weigh in to the same conclusion:  this is life in the Northwoods and we have no other choice but to embrace it.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t complain about it too.  Especially come February.

 

Remnants of the Storm

Nov 132012
 

Now that the roof is on the shed and the leaves are raked, we are almost ready for whatever Mother Nature has to throw at us in the form of precipitation.

It was just in the nick of time, too.

A few days after the last shingle was nailed in the roof, we had our first taste of winter.  Although the snow came down in big fluffy flakes, only about an inch stayed on the ground, and even that didn’t stay around for too long, which is a good thing since I still haven’t put away the furniture cushions on the deck yet.

I’m either procrastinating or testing how far I can push the weather gods on holding out on the white stuff.

Some from column A, and some from Column B.

And speaking of the white stuff, we had more of it on Saturday, but not in the form you would think.

This, my friends, is the remnants of the thunderstorm that we had Saturday morning (yes, it’s November in the Northwoods and it was warm enough for a thunderstorm.  No global warming here).  As I drove into town I came across areas that received so much hail that it looked like snow covering the road.

Let me just add a little public service announcement here:  Do not take pictures with your cell phone while you are traveling down the road at 45 miles per hour on a potentially icy surface that is covered with frozen droplets of water.

Don’t worry, I didn’t have an accident, but in hindsight it probably wasn’t one of the smartest things to do.  At least I wasn’t texting.  I waited until I was safely parked to do that.

 

Back on Duty

Nov 122012
 

I am happy to report that I am back to blogging duty!   Although I may not have recovered 100% from the back pain (there are still some small muscle spasms that let me know to take it easy), I can say that I am 99.999528 percent over the miserable head cold that plagued me for a week.

And I had some great help from Thor who had tissue duty every time the snot factory kicked into high gear.

OK, onto the “shed” progress update.

The rest of the shingles were installed on the roof *happy dance*.  Rick had just enough material to complete the project and now we can move onto more exciting things, like siding and interior walls.

And while Rick was doing his carpenter shtick, we had a young man come over and clear the yard of leaves.

This kid really worked his heart out!  For 2 days straight he hauled countless loads of dead leaves to any out-of-the-way-spot there was to dump them.  I especially liked his technique of using 2 rakes to scoop and dump.

Of course he was fed lots of good foodies to keep up his strength, and I later heard from his sister that he bragged about the roast beef sandwich he had with homemade bread (he was trying to make her jealous… gotta love siblings!).

And speaking of good foodies, I tried another new *gasp * muffin recipe the other day that I found on Pinterest.  I won’t go into all the details right now, but two of the ingredients were carrots and cream cheese.  If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you may be a little surprised when I make the grand reveal later this week.

Have a Happy Monday all!

 

Pre-Hibernation

Oct 252012
 

I’m not sure why, but I feel like we’re missing a whole of stuff that should be done before the nasty white stuff hits (which, by the way, we saw a few flakes of today).

Maybe it’s because the lawnmover has finally bit the dust and we’re having to attack the 14 billion leaves that cover our homestead by hand.

Or maybe I should say leaf blower.

We had a young kid over on Saturday to see if he could make any headway, and he got a good start, but there is still sooooo much more to do.

So Sunday Rick & I took the whole day and finished the front and south end of the property.  I let him have the power tool (aka leaf blower) and I went at it the old fashioned way.  What really sucks is that the remaining 2,679,410 leaves that were still on the trees came down the last couple of days and covered 2/3 of the area we cleared.

And what really, really sucks?  They’re all wet from the rain we got Tuesday and Wednesday, so I can’t even go out after work and evict them from the property.

ARGH!!

One good thing that was accomplished is that the last of our wood order for next winter has been delivered.  We have no place to stack it even if we started splitting it now, so we have all winter to rest up for that job.

And it looks like the woodland critters will have plenty of shelter this winter and they can Stay. Out. Of. My. House!

 

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