Oh No!

Hi,
This is Gunnar.
Due to technical difficulties there will be no blog update this week.


We will return next week with our usual babble and photos.


Cheers!

Today was fantastico! (As the Italians say)

Hello from Mt. Ashland. 55 minutes and 34 miles from our door to the slopes. Gotta love it!

Today was a 10!




A pristine day. Lots of Southern Oregon sunshine. 26 degrees in a.m. and plenty of powder.
Gary's new found hobby. Pretty good for an old dude!

That's Mt. Shasta in the background.
More of Shasta.
















It is nice to see some different scenery.















Michelle making good tracks coming down the slopes. Great form!











Lots going on this week. We were wondering if those of you who read the blog would agree that pink would be a great color for the house?
Our framer has a preference for pink. Just kidding. The paper was installed to help keep the walls dry.

Thankfully, they finished the sub-roof before the snow happened.
We have been working on the exterior stone and stucco decisions. It has been a challenge.



How high should the door be?

There sure are lots of decisions to make.




















See you soon!

Dry at last! Blue skies are here to stay! We are in SO!

We have a roof or at least we are dried in. Today was a beautiful Southern Oregon day. We spent part of the day retrieving more nails and some wood scraps and sweeping sawdust. I keep telling M that she should build something with the scraps. Maybe a cat house for Gunnar and Karl!

Did you all know that sawdust doesn't sweep when it is wet? Now you do. It sticks to the floor like overcooked pasta. You have to wait for it to dry to get it moving.

While M was scrounging for nails using our big magnet she was going over every inch of ground within 30 ft of the house. Very meticulous women she is, especially with some direction from G. During her adventure she came across an earring today. It looked new so I said she should check with all 5 of the women who have been to the lot to see if it belonged to them. (I haven't seen our framers wearing any thing on their ears but that could also be a possibliility. ) Thank Bill G. for the internet. (Sorry Verl) M. took a picture of the earring and e-mailed it to all 5 women and it appears it belonged to our designer. Only thing was our designer lost both of her earrings so I guess M has to keep looking. Maybe we can get some or our fees back if she finds the other one. Everything helps when you are retired. She always had a sharp eye for good things. I guess that is how I figured we met.

Boy, I am glad we are here!

Contrary to appearance, this black plastic is not covering a dead body. Although there are times with our some folks we are working with...

Here is an inside view of the house. This will be the dining room. Not that we will have any money left to dine on. It may have to be a pot luck!













This is how big the fish are in the Rogue! You all need to come down to catch the big one.



There has been a lot of rain in the valley and a lot of snow in the mountains. We are anxious to get out for some cross country skiing. We are waiting for the perfect day when the sun is shining and we don't have a huge 'to do' list.





see you next week.

Blow Out - Time to buy a backhoe

After 4+ inches of rain the last week of December, the hillside down by our well couldn't hold the water any longer.

This mud slide was about 13 feet long and 3 feet wide and 6 feet deep at the back .....ugh!









Gary spent an afternoon building a retainer wall until it dried out enough to fill up the hole. Duct tape would not fix this problem but some leftover materials worked just fine for now. Instead of going to the gym Gary just went to the lot to throw some wet mud around. It was a pretty good workout.

The hole is about 3/4 full now.

Now we know what it feels like to be stuck in the mud!

The roof is FINALLY going on. It will be nice to have dry floors instead of mud puddles inside the house.














It's amazing the amount of wood that goes into a roof!














The roof guys follow right behind the framers with the black tar paper.










We hope to by 'dry' by the end of this week.







See you next week

Rain Rain - Go Away!

Like everywhere else in the NW, we were drenched with rain this week.
Last time around the water was on the outside, now it is on the inside. I think we need to talk to someone.

Dream on.










This lovely shot is looking down at the subfloor with the roof beams reflecting in the pool of water I am standing in. (We have to think positive and assume everything will dry out.) Great shoes! Huh? You otta see the legs! Wait for next week!

I think I will go for a run.






This cute little tool demonstrates yet another use for duck tape. It is made up of a large magnet fastened to a stick used to pick up the large quantity of nails that are laying around.

Objective: Keep the nails from finding their way into our tires and our tomatoes.








Here is the proud inventor of the useful nail magnet.

Maybe I should get a larger, more powerful magnet!









Here is a sample of my nail collection! This is great, they come in different sizes!
Now that I have collected all these nails I was thinking what should I do with them?
Build another house?
Create a nail sculpture?
Weld them to a fence to keep intruders out?
Shoot them out of a dart gun and kill the turkeys?
Give them to to Bob and Deb who are going to build a house next year.






Progress has slowed some due to the lousy weather, but we continue to plow ahead.

(or swim as was the case this week)


We are looking forward to having the roof put on so we can start to dry out.

See you next week.