Snowman Camera Link

One of my favorite Websites is called Snowman Cam.
It's a live Web Camera located in Gaylord, Michigan. That's about 25 miles north of our cabin.
I like to look at this site to see how much snow is on the ground. Plus it's really great to see live animals at various times of the day and night.
It's not uncommon to see Deer, Turkeys, tons of Squirrels, and an occasional Bear.
Give it a look and let me know how you like it site.
http://www.snowmancam.com/
Take Care,
Randy

Winter Fun

Sorry to all who have been watching for a new Post. I have been lazy.
We have kept busy with Holiday activities and travel. We spent Christmas here in Indiana and then right after Christmas we drove to Centralia Illinois to visit Sue Ann's parents. We had a nice visit there and enjoyed the trip.
We've been to our cabin for a mid November trip, a mid Dec. trip, and we were there for a very nice 4 day New Years vacation. We toasted the New Year in front of a roaring Wood Stove fire and a crisp 5 degrees outside. We have enjoyed Snowshoeing for the first time. It is really fun and great exercise. We also installed a new floor in the bathroom. That is the only work we have done for a few months. We will begin putting up the inside wall covering in the spring. Looking forward to that task.
We hope to have the cabin finished by July.
I have uploaded several photos taken this winter. Hope you enjoy them.
If you have any questions about them please reply with a comment.

That's all for now.

October 4th

Here is an update on our progress at the Cabin in MI. We have been up there for three weekends in a row, feverishly working on preparing for cold weather. That includes Insulation in the ceilings and walls, installing Electric Baseboard Heaters, and finally installing a Wood Burning Stove. It took 2/1/2 weekends of working all day Saturday and half days on Sunday to complete the Insulation. Sue Ann did most of the outside walls with R-19 batting insulation and I put up the R-38 batting insulation in the ceilings. The Cathedral ceiling was a real challenge. We put in over 3,000 staples by hand. I estimate that I climbed and 8 foot ladder 250 times, just for the ceiling in the great room. Talk about leg cramps at night, I sympathize with my Mom. She suffers from leg cramps and now I realize how painful they are. Anyway, we finished up the last section of ceiling this past Friday night. We did this after driving 5 hours. We arrived at 10pm and it was already 34 degrees outside. So the decision to close up the ceiling before we went to bed was easy to make. We used a kerosene heater that night, and it was quite warm inside. The next morning (Saturday) I wired up the baseboard electric heaters that we had purchased. They fired right up and brought the temperature inside to 72 degrees with ease. We are very happy about that. Next project, install a chimney through the roof and build a raised hearth to set the wood stove on. We had made a decision a week earlier to put the wood burner in the corner of the main room. This seems to be a nice fit that does not rob us of valuable floor space for furniture. Anyway, Saturday was a long day of planning and measuring and cutting holes and installing chimney sections and roof flashing. What an ordeal.  I got it finished at about 4pm in the afternoon. After a short nap it was on to the Hearth. I made it using 2 x 6 lumber, ¾” OSB board and ½” thick Concrete Board. The last material is for fireproofing under the stove itself. After nailing all this together we called it a night. While I was doing that chore, Sue Ann was laying out a very nice Natural Slate Tile arrangement on the floor. She did this in advance so that the actual setting of the tiles would go smoothly.Sunday morning and we did some last minute preparations to the hearth deck prior to mixing up a batch of floor adhesive. We stopped long enough to cook eggs ands cornbread on our new Electric Range! Yum.It took us 30 minutes to set the tiles and clean up the mess. We did great. At 2: oo we headed for Indiana. We are very excited about our next trip up in two weeks to finish the woodstove and fire it up.An update on my Dad: After 13 days in Intensive Care, he was released on Sunday afternoon. It was a very tough surgery for him and he is pretty weak, but he is looking forward to building energy up so that he can get down to Florida before it freezes here! 

Here are some photos taken in the last few weeks. Hope you enjoy reading this. (I think I am rambling too much.)

Bye,

Randy

 

Middle of September

Hi All!
Wow, the summer flew by didn’t it? We are into the cooler weather already, at least up north.
Sue Ann and I worked our rear ends off last weekend putting up insulation. We were able to do this because (smile) my electrical work passed Inspection. What a relief for me as I really worked hard at doing a good job. I’m happy. We are a little over half way done with insulation. I estimate that I have squeezed our staple gun over 2,000 times and I have a blister to show for it!
Here are photos of our small trailer loaded with Insulation, and what the walls look like now.

You know how I like guns!

After we finish up the insulation, I will be doing the Wood Stove installation. We have picked out a stove and the chimney components. Looking forward to that project. I dream of the day that we fire up the stove and feel that warmth coming off.
We have also chosen the Knotty Pine wall covering. We will purchase it locally and probably begin nailing it up in early spring.
I have one more thing to mention before I end. My dad is going to have Surgery next week to repair the same ailment that John Connaway suffered from. This is tough surgery as John can attest to. We are hoping and praying for a quick recovery for Harold and Mary Lou.

Photos from Connaway Anniversary and B-Day

Mid August Update

Wow, the summer has flown by rapidly! We are heading into cool weather here in Indiana already. It is getting down into the low 50’s at night. In Michigan the mercury is dipping into the high 30’s in early morning. When we are up at our cabin, we are using sleeping bags at night. They feel very toasty warm when you are in them, zipped up tight, especially if there happens to be a warm blooded Beagle in there with you, but when you wake up at 5:30 with an urge to go to the bathroom, it is a mental battle to unzip that bag and dash to the toilet. Our cabin has no insulation in it and it gets very cold inside at night. We are going up this weekend and one of the items I am packing in the Jeep is a Kerosene heater.
I am sure it will get fired up during that 5:30 am dash for relief! Since Sue Ann does not know how to operate the Kero Heaters, I am sure that I will be involved in the early morning dash, even if I don’t need to be.
John and Vivian Connaway celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary this month. Family and friends gathered for the event and Vivian’s 80th birthday was also celebrated. Sue Ann’s sister and niece traveled from California for the events. We enjoyed their visit especially while they were able to stay with us in Ossian. We enjoyed eating too much and watching the Olympics with them.
I will upload some photo highlights in the next posting, that were taken by Sue Ann. I did not go to Centralia with the girls. I was in Michigan trying to finish up the wiring on the cabin so that we can have an Inspection done. I was able to complete all the wiring except for a couple lights that need to be installed in the crawl space. The County Code requires that several safety features be in place and the crawl space lights are just one of them. I took Cooper, our 5 year old male Beagle with me. I violated Sue Ann’s rules for Dog safety by allowing Cooper to ride in the front seat of the Jeep during the drive up. It is a 5 hour trip and I enjoyed his company. He did fine. He also kept tabs on me while I worked alone in the cabin. I ran a line, about 75 feet long, from the cabin porch post to a tree out in the front yard. I attached his 15 foot leash to this line, giving him quite a bit of freedom to wander and hunt for Ground Squirrels. He had a nice time and was no trouble at all. And he did enjoy that warm sleeping bag at night.
This week my Dad is having tests run at one of the larger Hospitals in Fort Wayne. They will help to determine the best treatment for an Aneurysm very similar to the one that John Connaway had repaired earlier this summer. We are hoping and praying for a positive outcome and speedy recovery for Harold. He wants to get back to Florida with Mary Lou and their Pets as fast as possible!
We hope to do some relaxing this weekend at the cabin. I will celebrate my 56th Birthday on Friday. My gift is a big hammock! I can’t wait to find a couple stout trees to hang it from. I am sure Sue Ann will take a photo so that I can show you my gift. We also intend to get those Kayaks wet. We have worked so hard this summer that we have not had them out once. Should be fun.
That’s all I have for now. I’ll post more after this weekend.
Take Care!

Busy Summer

Hello to all.

It's been quite a while since I have done an update so here goes.
Right now I am sitting at the kitchen table with Vivian Connaway. She is asking me to tell her a joke! I will keep it clean! We are in Illinois for a long overdue visit. It's been fun to catch up on news, and see for ourselves how well John is doing after his surgery. He seems fine.
Next weekend we travel to Michigan for another weekend of Wiring. Hopefully the last one. I just need to run some lighting in the crawl space and tie up some loose ends here and there. Then we wait for an Inspector to come out to the cabin and look over my work. I hope he likes what he sees.
We took time to go to Cleveland last weekend to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Sue Ann's cousin Cathy and her family. I really enjoyed visiting the home in Euclid Ohio where I attended Grades 7 through 9. Is was really nice to see that my old school and house are still looking fine. It was a fun "overnight" for all of us. I have included a couple photos of the trip and also some photos taken in Michigan.
It's been a busy and quick summer so far.
Here are the photos. A self portrait by Sue Ann.This is our favorite place to go to dinner while we are at the cabin. This resturant overlooks a very nice lake.

Indoor Plumbing!!

Finally we are seeing the fruits of our labor on the cabin. Last weekend I was able to hook up the stool, shower and a utility sink. Plus we have hot water! We are moving ever closer to being able to stay inside the cabin on weekends. I am about a fourth of the way done on the wiring, and I hope to get most of it completed over the Fourth of July weekend as we will will be there for 4 full days. We will take the Kayaks along on the next trip also. Too much work and no play is not good, so we hope to do some exploring of one of the nearby lakes by Kayak.

We have been taking our dogs with us on the last few trips and they seem to enjoy being up there. Sue Ann has kept the dogs busy with walks and she has also taken several great photos. See the shots she has taken below.

Our neighbors on both side of us are really nice folks, and we enjoy seeing them and comparing notes on cabin construction. We have also visited several resturants in the area and we have found all the people up there to be very friendly and helpful.

We are very happy with the area we chose and now we live for the weekends in Michigan!