The Guest Who Stayed

No shortage of things to write about his week. On the current ops side of things it was busy and with the help of good weather we managed to get quite a lot done. We almost got all the last remaining heavy timbers in place for the roof; we poured concrete in the foundations holes in the garage and for the decking, and; I built three stud walls on the top floor.

We started on the final phase of the heavy timber work on Wednesday. The first valley over the prow (see above) went in very well and I was particularly pleased with the joints which were all a snug fit.

Although not yet complete, it has already transformed the appearance of the great room from the inside as well as from out. All was going swimmingly well until we started to cut the second valley when, a brief lapse in concentration meant that, it was cut on the wrong side and hence would not fit and could not be used. It wasn't just the fault of the person doing the cutting. We all stood around and watched but nobody noticed, including myself who should have spotted it. The wood will be used elsewhere so it is not necessarily an expensive error but, it is another delay, which is frustrating for me and the contractors.

On Monday I built a stud wall between the master bedroom and the en suite bathroom but, I forgot to take a photograph so you will have to wait until next week to see it. Friday and Saturday however, I put up stud walls in both the upstairs bedrooms, on the great room side of each, and I did take a photo of these. I framed in space for a window in each wall which, with less scaffolding to obscure the view, is more clearly seen …...

… from the second bedroom. The primary purpose of this is to aid the circulation of air through the cabin. I have designed it so air can pass all the way through it from one side to the other. In the summer this will help to keep it cool and in the winter these internal windows will draw air warmed by the wood burning stove in the great room. They also have the advantage of offering a view of the great room from the bedrooms, which will be a neat (if not unique) feature of the house. We also built a post into this wall to support the beam coming in from the garage and with it in place we were able to remove the temporary support. With that gone, it has opened up this part of the upper floor and I can now more clearly plan the layout of the second bedroom, second bathroom and passage way into the bonus room above the garage.

On Tuesday, while I was down in Kalispell to meet Owen coming in from Missouri, in order to do a bit of future ops planning in Home Depot down there, Kevin and Dexter got on with pouring concrete. First up was the post foundations in the garage (two out of the three shown above).

Then outside for the deck foundations - the front (west side of the cabin seen here).

Then down the south side, ….

… and then out towards the prow. The wooden blocks are for protection from the rebars in the concrete that are a hazard if you should fall or stumble.

Then, across the prow over to the kitchen side of the house. The red tape you can see here and ...

… here is the limit of exploitation beyond which I cannot place any foundations in the ground. This is to preserve the integrity of the slope down to the lake.

The last foundations for the deck outside the bonus room which, when it is in place, will give me a nice semi-covered area outside the kitchen door for stacking wood.

Still with current ops. On Monday, while I was building the stud wall between the master bedroom and the en suite, Kevin, Dexter and Tex were busy making spindles and we now have about 280. The bad news is that we now estimate we will probably need over 500 and so there is still a bit of work to do yet. Anyway, they decided to break early and go for a spot of fishing and realising that, if you can't beat them, you might as well join them, so I decided to go along. I bought a fishing licence (at last) and we went up to this lake (above), where the steeleye trout are. If you look closely enough, you can just make out Tex in his little yellow kayak and ...

… on the other side of the lake, Kevin in his self paddler dinghy. Dexter and I were in his metal boat and when we rowed out a few yards into the lake I noticed it was taking on water. Dexter had forgotten the plug for the drain in the stern of the boat. So, while I put my finger in the hole, Dexter rowed us back to shore where we quickly rigged up a plug with a stick and some plastic sheeting. We were only permitted to bring away five fish each, so Kevin and Tex had to throw most of their catch back and as Dexter caught only three I was able to keep all seven of the ones I caught.

Fish are not the only inhabitants of the water here and we must have seen between 50 and 100 of these turtles, who allowed us to approach quite close before slipping off the wood (where they were soaking up a few rays) into the warm water.

When we got back we had a delicious supper of barbarque'd fish and chips, the latter cooked by Tex.

I guess most of you will have gathered that when I came here the last thing on my mind was finding another female, let alone starting another family. Well, last week I had a guest, a native of North America who arrived uninvited and despite some pretty frank and brutal dissuasion she didn't seem to take the hint. The meaner I treated her, the keener she became although, when I packed up on Monday evening to go fishing with the boys I thought I had seen the last of her. And so it probably would have been if I had been there on Tuesday.

When I arrived at the cabin on Wednesday however, she was still there and more to the point she had made herself well at home and was not only sitting in her nest but, ... 

… I quickly discovered she was sitting on three beautiful blue eggs.  She doesn't seem to be disturbed by the comings and goings of all the workers, or, by all the noise that we make around her. While she was away foraging, I was able to take this picture from a hole in the floor above where she has built her nest. So 'Robyn', the guest who stayed, is here at least until her babes have flown the nest and my eye has been turned, for awhile, from eagles' nests to a robin's.

I have since covered the area above the nest with the board you can see above to the right of the pales.

Dinner with friends yesterday evening was a pleasant end to the week and I hope next week will be just as productive as this week was. Kevin is due to bring back from Lethbridge the posts to go in the garage and I hope it won't be too long before we can get a replacement timber for the last valley for the prow. In the meantime there are plenty of spindles to cut and stud walls to put in. My wood salvage licence has been approved and I have noted with interest that they have not put a limit on the size of the timbers that I can extract, only on the volume. It is going to cost me $2.50, not bad.