Has it really been THAT long? Yeeeessssss....

Hard to believe that it's been since last summer that I posted here.

Indeed, winter DID come, and what a winter it's been!

Last summer it got so late and we were so far from breaking ground on the addition we decided to wait out the winter in our rental house. Considering we got about three feet of snow here, it was a good decision. Two people in a aluminum sausage in the snow would not be a good idea. Even NASA doesn't leave people alone in such a small space for that long. :)

Since I last posted the storage room is 99% done (still a little weather stripping to do around the doors, but it got us through the winter). It's about half full of junk from the house that needs protected storage, with more on the way.

We've given notice on our rental house and will be moving to the new place in about four weeks. So right now my focus is on getting things moved out of the old house and making sure there's enough storage room in the barn.

I learned last fall that the trees along the roadside are not maples but are some variety of elm. I'd love it if they were slippery bark (love that tea!) but haven't been able to fine tune it enough to figure it out yet.

The winter brought down parts of two of those trees, so now what's left can be brought down by the normal means we used last year. They're both pretty big, so that'll be a chore for a "group work day" sometime this spring. I still have several that are up between the wires and will take some climbing to take them down. These all may wait until next fall and the house is livable. If they survived the high winds and snow this winter, they'll survive the summer. :)

Gavin McLoad has been emptied of his metal junk, so he's free to be put to use for other purposes. Hope I can get him roadworthy this spring so he can haul building supplies. He has a nice new (used) tire for the flat one that I couldn't get off before. (Thanks Rick for the help with that!) He really only needs some work on the lights to get him inspected and licensed. I think. Unless Murphy shows up. :)

Current push is to finish up the office space in the barn loft so I've got a work room for plans and computers once we move into the trailer. Monday I plan to finish up the weather stripping and the electrical work on the storage room (lights in the north loft). Tuesday I want to lay part of the new subfloor and start framing some of the interior walls in the office area.

Still have to figure out some way to get Inet access to the property. Have been considering wireless or CATV links, not sure what to go with. Apparently DSL is not an option in our area. :( If you have preferences, experience or suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em.

Once that room is usable, Sal's office is the next point of attack, so we can store things in the house there. One hopes we'll be onsite soon after that and the pace can pick up.

The pool seems to have come through the winter pretty well, to my amazement. At one point this winter there was ice on it so thick I could walk on it. VERY odd. There's A LOT of water on top of the cover right now from all that snow and ice, but it's all clear and clean, not green and mean, so we may be able to just let it strain through the cover and stay put when we pull the cover off.

Saw two cardinals today as we took a walk around the place. Nice bright colors amidst the little hints of green here and there. Snow drops are up on the south side of the house, adding a bright white promise of warmer days ahead. On the front of the house it looks like some of the bulbs are JUST starting to awaken.

That's all for tonight! Hope your corner of the world is looking brighter too.