For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;

The weather continues to hold and we have wasted little time continuing to prepare for putting the roof timbers in place. We finished rebuilding the prow ready for its cross beam and we have built two gables, one for the kitchen wall and one to support the roof beam in the room above the garage at the intersection with the main cabin. To complete this work I also put in the solid blocking between the flooring and the beam below, supporting the garage ceiling, to ensure there is solid wood from ground to roof beam.

We have also built (partially in some cases) the side walls for the dormers. These will support the beams and SIPs for the dormer roofs. They have given a much better feel for how big all the upstairs rooms will be which, is much smaller than they have appeared up until now. With each step we get a little closer to being able to put the posts and beams in place but for this we are dependant on the availability of the crane to do the lifting. It would be nice to have the crane come this week and to get the framing in place. Then we can do the final measurements for the SIPs and get them ordered.

I have also been busy rubbing down the posts that will support the roof beams, before they are put in place.  I have done four and there is one more to do. They normally take about and hour and half each to finish and one sand belt should be enough for about four posts - depending on whether or not there is any sap in the wood. Sap quickly renders the sand belt useless and at $3.00 a belt it can be an expensive exercise. Put together, this week's work brings the roof a little closer.

I am continuing to press for more human resources to contribute towards getting all the work done that is needed to achieve lockup. There is still much to do and the weeks are slipping by. It would be nice to have the place in a condition to receive guests in the summer, even if it is not totally finished. The winter, even the mild one we are having at the moment, still slows things down considerably and also imposes limitations on what can achieved on a limited budget. With an unlimited budget virtually all the challenges of winter can be overcome but, of course, I don't have that luxury. There may yet also be a sting in the tail of this winter and that is a nagging worry that lurks in the background, waiting to pounce unexpectedly and unwanted.

We are all also feeling the strains of working long hours through the winter.  Muscles and joints are sore, cuts and bruises are taking longer to heal, cold injures are beginning to take their toll and outside pressures chipping away at morale. But a grim determination has also set in and each fall of snow or small setback is met with a hardening resolve to face every challenge with a positive attitude that there is always a way to achieve what we want to achieve and to overcome any hurdle. I don't dwell on what has happened, only why and how it can be overcome.

Last week I promised you a close up of these bad boys. They are monsters but will look magnificent when they are in place.

The dormer stud walls in place, here for the en suite bathroom for the main bedroom.

The kitchen and garage gables in place - all my own work.

A view of the south wing of the top floor with the dormer stud walls.

And finally, the prow finished ready for the beam. I think this feature is going to exceed my expectations of it. It already has a really impressive feel to it and it is not hard to imagine the finished room within.

With a town nearby, a road to it and car to drive there, it is easy to forget that a natural and wild world exists all around me and, living here in the fringes of the wilderness sometimes allows an opportunity to witness nature in its rawest and cruelest state. It reminds me that I am in the midst of an environment that in many ways is hardly touched by man's intrusion through it. The natural order of things in this wilderness is barely interrupted by man. The daily ritual between predator and prey that has existed here for millennia is still played out without emotion in the struggle to survive. The cougar, the wolf, the coyote, the lynx and bobcat still have to hunt to survive and their prey, the deer, the moose, the elk, the caribou still live in more mortal fear of them than they do of man. Even the seemingly heavy toll of the hunting season barely interrupts this natural order of things and the winter serves only to make it more difficult for both and to bring it closer to where I can see it.

Over the last few weeks I have been privileged to witness some of this nature in action. I had the rare and unexpected pleasure of witnessing the pair of eagles, on whose territory I live, mating to produce this year's offspring. There have been huge herds of two to three hundred elk down from the mountains to feed on the valley pastures. Wild turkeys by the dozen, now grown to full size lurk around the field edges and the barking of coyotes reaches through the still and frosty morning air as they wait patiently behind the eagles for their turn to feed on the dead carcass of an elk out on the ice of the frozen lake beneath my cabin. The warm periods have seen the chipmunks and other squirrels emerge from their winter dens, where they have been hibernating, in search of food buried in the autumn. The occasional growl of an unseen animal at the cabin, when I am there alone, makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I pause for a moment to think how far it is to my car and my rifle and whether I can get there before whatever it is gets to me. With the mild weather it won't be long before the bears come out of hibernation, some may even get up now and go back to sleep if it gets cold again. Either way, they will stay at lower altitudes until the snow on the mountain tops melts and the high pastures offer an abundance of food for them and their new cubs.

And along side this, man's social rituals must also go on. I went to a garage party last night with a few of my new mates for beer and wings. I wore my best (cleanest) jeans and a denim shirt, slightly worried that I might be under-dressed - silly me.