Winter Break
This winter season seems like the sign in a local bar that reads... "Go on home, take a nap, get some more money, and come on back!" While we are settling in for a long winter's nap, we are working hard to save up a bit for next summer's construction season. Some ideas, like the spiral staircase to the studio, come out of nowhere and hit you at 3am like a thunderbolt. Others need lots of time to hash out with the significant other with whom we plan to share the space.
Starting in early June we raised up the first big log, and began raising the first-story frame. Just as we set the second log on the newly finished deck, the septic guy's schedule opened up and we had a full scale excavation underway. As the leaves turned to gold and rust, the second story began to take shape, and a kiln was fired.
As luck would have it, I came down with a rotten virus during the firing, and the weather turned cold quickly after that. With school in full swing and coaching afterwards to pick up a little extra cash, time has limited what we can do at NottaLottaWatta for now.
When the weather turns warmer and the thick clay around the studio dries out a bit, we'll be back at it. Projects for next spring, summer and fall include, cutting and barking more aspen for the walls, laying up the sill plates and the rafters, framing the "lighthouse" opening, framing the sauna and entryway, and moving lots of dirt around the foundation to close up our holes and prepare for a few necessary cement piers.
In the meantime, we take care of our chickens each week, and walk the woods, taking in all the signs of the season and the tracks of our neighbors. On my most recent walk it was evident the deer have found an easy and safe path through our woods from the lake to the highway, and the beaver on our neighboring lake has been a busy one.
There were no signs of coyote or fox, but no doubt they are in the area, keenly aware of the chickens who seem completely unaware, clucking in their finely wrought cage. A red-bellied woodpecker and a black-capped chickadee were the only birds I noticed, both busy as can be with all the newly infested pine trees that perished with the rising waters of last summer's big rains. Someday, we might fell those big white pines on the ice, so conveniently flat and free of entanglements, for feeding the pottery kiln's fire, but for a while longer they will stand, and dry, and feed the insects and birds.
Our neighborhood beaver has been a busy one this season!