While we love having friends & family come to our property ... we also have to work. There's so much to do: land clearing .... working on the cabin ..... riding the ATV's .... staring at the stars at night ... making bonfires. It's a rough life. :)
The first thing we (remember... Mike) worked on was putting the cedar wood on the back part of the cabin. All other sides were done except for the back. Where we walk into the cabin. It should be the front of the cabin, but Mike insists it's the back.... and since I jokingly say this is Mike's place, we're just visiting... the back it is. SO, the cedar had to be placed on the BACK of the cabin.
While he did this, Katie & I painted the bottom portion of the cabin. We had to dig all the dirt up around the bottom, squash a few hundred spiders (OK, in reality it was just 1 itsy bitsy spider, but it felt like 100, and it wasn't really itsy bitsy either.. it was the size of a nickel). Funny moment: I told Katie when we started "hey.. we should sing some songs to pass the time!" Then Mike started singing, or rather, I thought he was singing and I said "hey, I didn't know Dad could sing!" then the radio was cranked up even louder, and I got the evil look from both Mike and Katie.
We (meaning Mike & I this time) actually keep going back and forth on the stain and the color for the bottom part of the cabin. I think we're going w/ a dark red stain for the wood and a yellow'ish for the bottom (since we had it on hand). We can always change the bottom color out anytime....
So, Mike worked hard getting the cedar up on the BACK of the cabin. Some wasps had already made their home at the very top, so a handy can of wasp killer was nearby at all times.
The girls were getting pretty restless after a few days, and I gave them the brilliant idea of making a trail on our property for their ATV riding. They happily went out and started. Three days later, we finished... (OK, technically we only worked on it for a day and a half). While they were working on that, Mike and I were tackling a HUGE brush pile he made when he cleared the land to bury the electrical wired (aka service entrance). It was an eyesore, so I tackled that pile first while Mike finished up his project, and I made a huge bonfire ...{then danced around it and sang a whole bunch of stuff that made no sense.} OK, not really.. but the bonfire part was true! I also managed to clear out some of the dead logs that were next to the cabin full of fire ants. Raked the leaves, and now it's a beautiful area to walk through!
(seriously... we have like 10 billions fire ants on our property and everyone else's property around us. They're seriousy annoying!)
the girls are busy working on their trail...
I only cleared about 1/8 of the pile, and so the next night Mike helped me in clearing even more of the pile away. After watching Rattlesnake Republic Sunday night talking about how rattlesnakes are found in brush piles, I should be thanking my lucky stars I didn't see any snakes in that brush pile. :)
When the cedar was on the cabin completely, and trim work was done, then Mike and the girls (and I) managed to work even more on the little trail we made. What I did find was not fun. I found a thorny grapevine. I call it a grapevine b/c it was wrapping itself around the bushes and trees, and let me tell you.. they HURT! I took those thorny grapevines on as my own personal mission and managed to scratch my arms up pretty bad.
I would love to know what these are!! Anyone?
However, the end result of having this little ATV trail for the girls has been a lot of fun, and a lot of hard work that went into clearing all of this out for them to enjoy riding their four wheelers!
Mike placed the outdoor lights on the walls for both front and back. We had to change out the lightbulbs to the yellow ones due to the millions bugs we attracted from the entire county -- it only worked a little better. Thankfully we had a bug zapper that worked overtime for us.
Here is the cabin during sundown... ahhh... so nice to have it all done in cedar!
....to be continued!
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