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Entries made in May, 2014

May 2014, in Photos

Saturday, May 31st, 2014

Karina & Ivica's Wedding Party

Saturday, May 24th, 2014

A Very Special Wedding

Saturday, May 24th, 2014

Sometimes we are all witnesses of how life can be weird and magical… Ivica I've sat down to write this journal entry many times. Each time, the result of my effort falls frustratingly short of what I wish to express. Still, I have to try....

A Springtime Trip to Illinois

Wednesday, May 21st, 2014

The day after our SIP roof was installed, we hurriedly packed the car for a Memorial Day weekend trip to Illinois. I drove the entire way—15 hours with only bathroom, food, and gas breaks; Tyler worked non-stop for at least 12 of those hours, progr...

SIP Roof Delivery & Installation

Tuesday, May 20th, 2014

After months of planning our roof, today was the day we'd been waiting for—bright and early this morning, a crew showed up to deliver and install our SIPs! As with any big project, the challenges began immediately. First off, their boom truck had ...

The Fungus Among Us

Saturday, May 17th, 2014

I found morels in our woods! ...

Getting There

Friday, May 16th, 2014

When we first embarked upon this homesteading project, we were naively dreaming of an idyllic lifestyle in the woods. It's safe to say that after two and a half years of focused effort, barring the blessing that is our friends and neighbors, we hav...

A Good Arrangement

Thursday, May 15th, 2014

For the last few weeks, we've had some new company in our woods. Jonathan, who works at the local Stihl shop, has begun doing forestry work on our land. In exchange for keeping us stocked with split and stacked cordwood, he gets to sell whatever w...

Building Plaster Stops

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014

The next task in our building project is assembling plaster stops. These are pieces of plywood covered in tar paper and diamond lath (also called blood lath, for the razor sharp edges it leaves when cut). We'll be affixing them anywhere plaster mee...

Working in the Wee Hours

Tuesday, May 13th, 2014

"Tyler!" I hiss, roused in the middle of the night by an unmistakable plunk-plunk-plunking sound on our camper roof. "What is it?" he mumbles sleepily. "It's raining!" I reply, a touch of panic in my voice. We only tar-papered half the roof yesterd...

Cottage Roof Drywall Installation

Sunday, May 11th, 2014

For the past few days, Tara has been painting huge sheets of drywall for the roof of our house in the safety of our grindbygg workshop. I was really pleased that we had a place for her to do this—one of my original motivations for building a worksh...

Straw Bale Delivery!

Sunday, May 11th, 2014

The straw bales are here! ...

Cottage Roof Decking

Saturday, May 10th, 2014

It's amazing how much we can accomplish on a non-rainy weekend—with Tyler having two entire days to work with me on our house instead of his programming, we're able to make a ton of progress! Today, we focused on installing roof-decking, a task to ...

Building A Pony Wall

Thursday, May 8th, 2014

For the last few days, we have been framing a pony wall around the perimeter of our house. The main purpose of this framing is to raise our strawbales above grade so they can't get wet, but we're also going to use portions of it for storage. Every ...

Designing Our House: The Roof

Wednesday, May 7th, 2014

For the past few weeks, I've been doing loads of research about roofing. Our main goal for the cottage is to have something with substantial r-value. Living in a trailer for two winters has made the importance of insulation abundantly clear. Our se...

General Contractor

Monday, May 5th, 2014

Last summer, Tyler was the general contractor for our road building, foundation laying, and grindbygg timber framing efforts. It seemed like he was always on the phone, planning the next stage of our projects. This year, with his new job consuming...

Cinco de Cuatro

Sunday, May 4th, 2014

Well, we survived that horrible, awful afternoon, and eventually got the stupid tarp on the house without killing ourselves in the process. By the time all was said and done, we were soaked through and shaking with cold, numb to the awfulness that ...

Building a House is Hard

Sunday, May 4th, 2014

I am so tired of fighting to keep things dry on our land… It's a never ending battle, and we pretty much always lose. I have forgotten what it is like to see a forecast for rain and not be filled with dread. I know that everything...