Howell Cabin

Let's just start this entry out with a moonlit view of the cabin from last night: This weekend's trip was primarily for Eliot to work on shooting scenes for the film he's making for class. We got here yesterday to prepare. In the evening, I took the shot above, and a couple of the night sky, including the lunar eclipse. Eliot shot this sunset time lapse. A first for this trip was that I brought up a folding bed. I slept better! We woke up to a gorgeous sunrise. While he is out adventuring on snowmobiles, I installed new receptacles in the attic. That lets me move the WiFi router and printer up and out of the way. The main motivation, though, was to run power through the gable to supply the webcam, so I can enjoy the views while I'm at work. I got the branch circuit done, drilled the hole in the gable, routed the wire, installed the camera mount, and then, on the way out the door to install the camera, I fumbled it onto a cinder block and...

We stopped by the cabin to grab a few tools to take with us to Calvin's Eagle Scout project. On the way back we stopped by to drop off the tools. The fog was neat (top photo), and we brought light bulbs for the porch. Lovely!

Sunrise, snow capped mountains.  Snowcicles sliding off the roof. Sunrise. Mud and tape! We got most of the seams taped up today. A small disaster distraction: a couple gallons of water spilled out of a bucket all over our subfloor. Midday scenery break! We got a few other errands done, like installing a bank of light switches, lights in the attic, and the front door lights. I put some flag tape around the foundation pit, so it'll be easier to avoid when things are snowy. So here's our tape work. We still need to tape the ceiling corners and do the second and third coats.

Well, we've got a roof, insulation, and electricity to run a heater, so we stayed our overnight in the shop.  Snow and moonlight:     Calvin and Eliot vacuumed the floor and rolled out our mats and sleeping bags.

We hung about seven sheets of drywall today, finishing up the hanging.  Siggy came along and did a lot of helping. His main job was banging the drywall to make the cuts (that Eliot and I scored). His auxillary job was making monster shadows. Here's the south end of the building with the drywall complete. Eliot is installing the second circuit of receptacles. And here are a bunch of the receptacles, installed and working. Last job: demolish a milkshake at the turtle cafe!

First stop this morning was completing the outside power receptacle and the generator inlet circuit. Here Eliot is testing the completed, powered-up receptacle. No more generator for us!   The whole family came up. We went on a walk, and kids drove shovels and the wheelbarrow. Eliot organized the tools, again.  We made a smidgeon of progress on the drywall. And Eliot installed one of our electric heaters! Dinner at Cottage Cafe!

I arrived early this morning to meet the crew with the wood chipper to clean up the many brush piles we've made in the last year. They straggled in at 11am. Once they got going, they were feeding brush -- and small trees! -- into their huge chipper. Yeah, that machine from Harbor Freight just wasn't going to do the job. After I gave them the plan, I got back to working on the stairs. I finished installing all the plastic treads, and I got the handrails stained and installed. All that's left are balusters.