Ta Da!

In case you were wondering.... no, we did not finish the house this summer. But I think we did pretty well. Here are a couple of the trillions of photos I have of the fully framed building, beckoning us to just move right in! The hard work and steady pace of summer building came to halt with start of the school year and a return to work for Scott. We are in this project for the long haul, and at the end of our third summer in the Sierra, we now have a nicely framed structure to look at and dream about a future of wood floors, windows, heat and a proper shower. But we are very accustomed now, to the feel of living half out of doors- lunch on the porch, snacks on the hay bales, trekking out under the stars to relieve ourselves in the middle of the night. And I have a feeling we will miss this connection to the sky and the forest once we do move into the house.

The building has been made into a nice little package for winter, wrapped in the ubiquitous white Tyvek of a new subdivision. And this is how it will likely look for the foreseeable future. We've been pricing windows and doors, discussing how and when to finish grading and graveling the driveway, and considering the corrugated metal for the roof and siding. But available time and resources seem to be in agreement... now is the time to wait. Again.

Our plans for the winter remain the same.... to stay in our little encampment. But with the experience of one winter in a tent under our belt, we have been busy as squirrels preparing our lair. All of the leftover cutoffs from the building frame have been turned into kindling and stacked four feet high behind the wood burning stove. Wood has been chopped and stacked on both sides of the tent doors for easy, snow-free access. Last weekend, Scott was on top of the camper, caulking and repairing the roof and shower stall to curb the humidity issues that arise during the long stretches of winter rain.
I will be honest... I'm not looking forward to the cold or the rain or the snow. But it is November 13th, and we have had none of the above yet. So this Thanksgiving, I am grateful to be undertaking this experiment in sunny California.