6/12/06

We've been here 1 1/2 wks and have had a chance to get to know the woods a bit. Picked up a turtle hunkered in its shell after the carpet installation guy passed over it on the road in his truck. I put him on the far side of the road near the swamp. His shell was plain green, but he had nice yellow + red markings on his face.

The carpet has made all the difference in the homey feel of the cabin. If we can keep the SE corner of the cabin from leaking and making the pad moldy, then we'll be happy. Dehumidifier hasn't been running constantly since humidity is down. Yesterday morning the old heater actually kicked on automatically!

The undercabinet wine racks are installed (courtesy of free scrap from Fingerle), plus we put a towel rack on the side of the shower, washed out the cabinets by the door and SCREENED in the PORCH! Now we will finally be able to enjoy the porch, bugfree (well once we clean + organize it). We also got a "new" toilet seat from the Reuse Center - wood + much nicer (towel racks from there, too).

Also saw a deer the other day. We went for a row around the lake last night. Didn't see any fish, but the lily pads on the edges are about to bloom! The tuliptrees on the north side of the lake are all in beautiful bloom and fragrant.

TD (lives in co-housing and former SNRE employee) said he's seen coyote and fox here and pileated woodpecker.

We've seen numerous blue heron - esp. at dusk - and the fireflies fill the yard.. A family of groundhogs lives in the woodpile near the barn. A robin made her nest in the porch, but her offspring learned to fly (we watched them) in the days just prior to the screening, luckily.

Lots of garlic mustard west of the front door, but lots of mayapple also. We mowed it all down, though the mayapple is coming back, happily. Lots of stinging nettles there and in front of the cabin.

I dug out the former little triangle of rocks just in front of the porch. Planted wildflower seeds - we'll see if they grow. I also hope to get some natives from A2 Native Plant Nursery.

June 4, 2006 - HT & LK

We moved in on June 1, although our work here started on May 31, when HT ripped out all of the carpet upstairs and down. THe upstairs carpet smelled of cat urine and mold - the downstairs carpet pad was soaked through and the floor was also soaking wet. The SE corner of the cabin wall was black with mold. There is a saint smoke (fire) smell when one enters the cabin.

The upstairs carpet was replacwed successfully. Downstairs was not, and will likely be done this week. After running the dehumidifier all night, the floor was dry. The plan is to leave the carpet loose in the wettest corner so we can monitor the floor situation. Ideally, a wood floor (plywood) should be raised up off the concerte and that should be carpeted.

RC did a nice job with the shower. It's still in good working order, albeit stained some do the the hard water.

We washed all of the walls, cabinets, etc. both upstairs and down. I washed much of the downstairs ceiling, esp. near the kitchen - it all had a healthy layer of brown dirt, most likely soot from the fires.

The light domes are new, installed by MR (previous caretaker). He also installed screens on most of the windows. The porch is lacking screens and we plan to replace them. A small family of birds is nesting on the east end of the porch - the first one left the nest today. When they are gon, we will screen it in.

Spent 2.5 hours on the lawn yesterday and today - it was 1.5 feet tall in spots! Also cleared brush around the sign in front of the lake. Will plant some flowers around the cabin.