August 7, Progress Update

Total darkness now falls about 10:15PM and the days are noticeably shorter than a month ago. Nighttime temps have fallen into the high 40’s. Soon the leaves will be turning. We have noticed geese flying south the last few days. They are leaving early compared to last year. This makes me wonder what instinct is telling them. We are sensing our time winding down as well. The calendar shows we only have about four weeks left here. Progress has been good. Wall insulation is complete, 50% of floor insulation, and about 20% of the roof insulation. 95% of the drywall is up (98 sheets) with only a few odd sizes to install here and there. I will need to procure two or three more sheets to complete everything. I suspect I’ll wait until next year to finish what drywall remains. Installing drywall 20 feet up in the gabled end was a challenge but I got it done by myself. The electrical is about 90% finished. I ran out of switches and receptacles so those will also wait until next summer. All rooms have power now, and all but the great room, loft lights, and loft bathroom are wired up to switches. Today I mostly worked on getting the water heater into the system, and cut an exhaust vent through the wall. Late afternoon I switched to the washer and dryer. The washer is now ready to go once we turn the water on. The gas dryer still needs an exhaust vent, another item which I don’t have… again a next year detail that can be done quickly. In the meantime we can run the exhaust under the house temporarily if we have to. Next I plan to finish off one of the showers and install a toilet. I wanted to get the stove LP gas hooked up. I bought a gas valve for the stove in California, and thought I brought it along, but cannot find it anywhere. If that doesn’t turn up it will be next summer too. With electric, appliances, and bathroom nearly functional we should be good to go to live in the cabin next year. Once the bathroom is working (though far from finished) I will probably switch back to roof insulation. I do not want to do roof insulation while we are living in the cabin, for obvious reasons. I tend to procrastinate on the overhead insulation because gravity rains the itchy stuff directly down on me. Unless we have to depart early the roof insulation should be about completed when we head south.

I have been blessed with ocean fishing six of the last eleven days. (I'll spare you the pix of more halibut, but did catch six of the seven we landed on the last day B-) The three of us averaged about 40 lbs of processed halibut per day (about 13 pounds per person.) As a result we had to plug in the chest freezer in the cabin a week ago to keep the filets frozen. We cleaned the fish in front of the neighbor’s porch, just up-river from our cabin. The first night two bears showed up, following the fish scent. The first was an adult black bear. About 20 minutes after that bear left a brown bear showed up. They took pictures and video of both bears through their cabin windows. The shoulder of the brown bear on the video is only a few inches below the top of the fish cleaning table, which is 38 inches high. We went to bed in a timely manner so didn’t see either bear. I’ll be glad when the fish smell is gone. One is always a bit on guard with bears foraging in the area.