This weeks news. It’s a mad house up here. Or what to do when the outhouse isn’t finished

It’s been another hectic week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven (slowly turning into a mad house).

Late again this week because I couldn’t find my laptop. It’s become a game of “Honey, where did I put thus and so?” Mostly because, while building my son a cabin, I am also trying to finish my kitchen which, as some of you may know, was the first room I added to the original cabin when I moved up to my little slice of heaven.  After all these years, one thing or another has kept me from getting it done; so, this summer, I am determined to finish it come hell or high water. I really want to move in the antique cook stove before it sits much longer on my porch and something dreadful happens to it.

So now, the Hoosier cupboard is sitting at the foot of our bed so I can easily access the front wall of the kitchen which, besides the ceiling, is the only wall left to finish.  This is much to the inconvenience of my lovely wife, who has taken over the cooking duties since I am busy pounding nails and cutting boards.  She has to haul everything she needs from the Hoosier into the kitchen and, using the way too small counter space which is cluttered with dishes (did I mention she is also doing the dishes?), somehow produce a meal. Add to that, our St. Bernard loves to use this particular time to take a nap right in the doorway, and my faithful dog Kiyo chooses to run under the stove and hide.  I swear, there’s been a few times I have caught her looking longingly at the door wondering if it’s too late to run screaming down the mountain. (Sorry, honey, you made it through the first winter up here, you’re trapped now!) So much for her summer break.  I will say this though, at least we aren’t having to hunt down firewood this year, so I call it an even trade.

Between rain and running to grab windows listed online, we have only managed to get two walls framed and up on my son’s cabin. Today, I was hoping to frame the other two walls and have the first floor all framed and up.  However, my daughter-in-law wanted us to do something about the outhouse.  A little back story on it before I go any further. I had had a new hole dug for the outhouse, since the old one was full; add to that, I wanted to build a much smaller one that was easier to move. So, I tore the old one down and commenced building. We no longer really need the outhouse, since we have a compost toilet inside, but we do need somewhere to dump the bucket when it’s full; also, when people come to visit, like her family is this summer, we need extra facilities for the crowd.  Before I could complete the construction of the new outhouse, we had a major wind storm come through and knock it on its side and tore off the door. We tried to lift it back up with the help of Allen but were not successful. It ended up staying on it’s side for the winter, with me going out and digging out around it so I could dump the bucket from the house. When my son arrived, we managed to get it upright and moved back over the hole, and even secured it from future wind storms.; but with the building of his cabin started, I had not finished the seating in it yet.  This morning, my daughter-in-law told my son she wanted it finished so they wouldn’t have to disturb us every time they needed to use the toilet.  Seating was built, and the door was rehung. By the time that was complete, it was too hot to do any framing on their cabin.  Tomorrow, we will start early and, hopefully, have the last two walls framed and up. From there, it’s on to the second floor.

I mentioned windows listed online. Yes, I hunt the online sites for bargains. I’ve been doing it since I moved up here and see no reason to stop now. The trouble is everything is so far away, when you do find something, you have to drop what you’re doing and run to grab it before it disappears. Most of the time I am successful but I have missed out on a few things by just minutes. We have been lucky so far, and, yesterday, were able to pick up six more windows for his cabin. Now I just need to find one more exterior door with a frame. Haven’t had any luck as of this writing but I am still hopeful. If nothing comes up in time, I will frame for one and we will board over it until one can be located.

We met some of the weekend neighbors today. The lovely wife found a phone lying in the road down near the bottom of the main logging road, Monarch; it had been run over in the gravel a few times, and as you all know, cell phones don’t stand up well to that kind of abuse. Well, we decided to see if we could find the owner and took a trip around to sites we know people have been building cabins on (the phone was locked so we could not get any identifying information from it). We eventually found them and it turn out to be the same folks who groomed the road last winter when they would come up for a weekend. Nice folks.  We chatted for a bit and then left to go back to finish up the outhouse. Later in the afternoon, we heard a 4-wheeler coming up the road. It was a couple of the weekenders in search of jumper cables.  One of the pickups didn’t want to start, and none of the other friends who had joined them for the weekend had any. I loaned them mine, and not long after, they returned them with many thanks. I hope next time they remember to bring some, as the mountain is pretty unforgiving at times. They also said they would be back again this winter and would be more than happy to groom our section of road. I might take them up on that, though they probably won’t be coming up often.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.