Sunday, December 23, 2012

ACK! And apologies...

... for my delinquencies as a blogger.  I am sorry.  

Forgive me?

Truthfully, there hasn't been much action up at the logalicious home these past two months, but that's no excuse for not waffling on about this and that, as I usually do.  

So, what have we been up to?

Well, this:

Friend's wedding in Delaware


The Boy's annual Halloween party


The Girl carves her pumpkin


Church hayride {and agricultural lesson on soybeans}


Real-life Hunger Games
(or cousins at play during Maryland visit)


What we really went to Maryland for

Iron Man...er.. The Girl turned 6


 We're catching up now.... 


And POW!  Now we're up to current time.  
This is The Girl's game of "Bury the Brother" yesterday during our Lazy Family Saturday.


"Yeah, yeah, Anne," you say?   "We're here for LOGS, not all that family nonsense!"

Well then, feast your peepers on THIS:



The ACTUAL plans from our kitchen designer, who is ready to begin making our cabinets after Christmas!    {er, once Bob & I can agree on a countertop....}

So, now we need to get all the flooring in on that first floor where it's missing, bang in some real doors, and finish painting those rooms I should have gotten done before the end of summer.  Ahem.  


Thanks for not abandoning me during my hiatus, and I will endeavor to earn your readership, faithful log-lovers.   Plus, you wouldn't want to miss the KITCHEN installation, would you?!  EEEEEEK!


Sunday, October 28, 2012

October beauty

Even with all the colors gone, The Lake is still a vision of beauty and serenity.




Bob snapped this pic on Friday from our dock.      *bliss*

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Faceless

Here's the BEFORE:




But there's been a change of plan.  Bob found a simple fix for our moisture problem in the roof/soffit that doesn't require him to face the chimney with all that beautiful new stone this fall.  Which is good, since our handy-dandy personal stone mason has departed for Florida before Bob could get his lesson.  So, the stone will wait a while and our chimney will remain .... homely for a bit longer.  

Sorry.  The AFTER pictures will have to wait.  

But here's your daily picture of The Girl collecting rocks, just to tide you over:





In other news, we went up to The Lake today to have a lovely afternoon with my in-laws and The Girl mused:


"Where IS everyone?"

I don't think she has realized until now that the majority of camp owners on The Lake are not year-'round residents, like we'll be and like her grandparents are.

We went on a chilly boat ride to tour all of the decks, docks, bunkhouses and roofs that Bob and his father and the crew have built this summer, as the sky steadily darkened and we raced the storm back down The Lake.   The skies opened just as we reached the shelter of the first boathouse and we laughed and congratulated ourselves on our good luck.... and waited while the rain pounded down.




All in all:  a good Saturday.   How was yours?

Monday, October 8, 2012

See? A stony problem.

We went to a sweet little Harvest Festival in North Bangor, NY at Bonesteel's Gardening Center this afternoon, and did all kinds of fun things, like:








But The Girl clearly thought we were there to acquire MORE STONES.





Is there a 12-step program for gravel-gatherers?

Monday, October 1, 2012

Stone

We took a trip on Saturday to look at stone.


Wanna know why?  Huh?  Do ya do ya do ya?    It's SACAUSE (as The girl says) Bob is going to start facing the chimney!  Woo!   Not because it'll be super cool pretty, of course; mostly something about the chimney cap and the roof line and moisture...  I wasn't really listening, but I *did* hear chimney and stone facing!  That's good enough for me.  

We talked with the stone company owner/quarry dude and ogled the rock.






And The Girl misunderstood and thought we were there to fill our pockets with gravel.  





After she filled hers, she filled mine.  I'm a little worried now that all that gravel is now inside my house somewhere, since the Tupperware container I gave her to hold it all when we got home... is now empty.   I'm laying odds that it's all in the couch.  But I'm afraid to look.

 The moral of the story here is:   sit down gingerly at my house.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Last... few... veggies....

Doesn't Pop's garden know it's nearly OCTOBER?






Look:  *I* was cold out there today picking tomatoes and carrots and jalapenos, oh my!   Those poor wee cherry tomatoes were shivering on the vines --  and yet?  still growing.  Plenty of green ones, and every few days when I go out to steal some bounty from the garden, there are tons of new ripe cherry tomatoes.  On a related note, would anyone like a bunch of cherry tomatoes?   My, but they're prolific.

And The Boy, when he was done practicing the piano at Grandma & Grandpa's, discovered a lone little cantaloupe hiding in the leaves.  We haven't cracked it open yet, but I warned him it's a bit late for melon and it likely isn't edible.  He's gonna give it the ol' college try, though.   Brave lad.




Monday, September 17, 2012

Heckofa game

Bob says he's sorry for not doing anything blog-worthy on the house for months.  Well, except procure a twisty log post  ... and plant oak trees around the property ...    The slacker.   *eye-roll*

D'you want the real scoop as to what he's been doing?  Besides, you know, working for a living?

This:



That's right, baby:  we were at the Buffalo Bills home opener this weekend to watch them spank the KC Chiefs!   Wooo!




Thursday, September 6, 2012

First Day of School

Today is the first day of school for most schools in the North Country, including the one our kids go to.  And today was the first day of Kindergarten for The Girl.

Princess Cranks-a-lot not wanting her picture taken on the first day of school.


When I got home from work today I asked her how her first day went....   which, apparently was great except for a huge fit of crying over a newly loose tooth, since "IT BLEEDED!!"  

*sniff*

I was just starting to handle my baby going to Kindergarten, and now she's going to lose a tooth too?   I'm not cut out for this parenthood stuff.  It's too rough.  Let me off the bus.

In other news, they tell me The Boy is now a 6th grader.  At least that's what it sounds like with my head buried in the sand.  

WHAT??   I CAN'T REALLY HEAR YOU!  

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Planting for the future

The property at The Lake has been in my husband's family for 67 years, and before that had a developed history of about 60 years, if you don't count the construction of the dam and saw mill at the outlet of The Lake in the 1850s.  Initially, the land around The Lake was logged off, and then the bare slopes at the north end were sometimes farmed.  Once The Lake shore was divided into lots and began to have camps* built in the 1880s, our property became a launching place for those camp owners who could only access their property by water.... which was most of them.  Further development came at the hands of a local hotelier who purchased the property and created a 9-hole golf course and built one-room log cabins ca. 1930 to cater to The Lake's growing popularity.

Cabin 3 ca. 1947


After World War II, Bob's great-uncle built up the property into a fully-functioning marina and store with gas pumps and the family property came to be known as the "Main Dock."  The golf course went by the wayside, and then the store, although the cabins are still around.  In the intervening years, the trees have reclaimed nearly all the cleared land and there's a fairly mature forest on the property now.  However, a neglected woodland is not necessarily a useful woodland, and not even necessarily a healthy woodland.  So, rather than wait for a forest fire to clear the underbrush in the natural cycle of things, we try to keep up with managing the wooded land of which we are stewards.  (And by "we" I mean the menfolk.  My mother-in-law and I do not wield chainsaws.)  This also allows Bob to fell mature trees for use in the building of our log house before the trees get mangled in ice storms or blown over during blizzards.

Since the trees are tall and most are nearly 80 years old, we are looking to the future of the wooded portions of the property now and planning....  for oak!    With the help of a friend's father, Bob and my father have been tending and growing little oak saplings for several years.  Since the time has come to transplant them, we've been scouring the lake property for the most desirable places to have oak trees.  It's trickier than you might think, since we not only have to think of where there are already cleared places where we'll want oak trees in 20 years - places with enough sunlight now and where the saplings won't be in danger of being trampled - but also where there are mature trees now that might be nearing the end of their lives.  Because, if we want to keep some areas wooded, we need to replace those trees that we will fell either for the use of their wood or so that they aren't a danger to lives and property when they get too old.   So, we wander and stare into the woods, and ponder what an area will look like in 15-20-30 years and how we want to shape it.


In some places, it means Bob has some brush clearing to do and/or mature trees to fell before we can plant our wee oaks.  But Sunday and yesterday, we got 11 of the suckers into the ground.  And by "we" I actually mean all of us this time.


 Rocks.....


 Roots....

Me with a pickax.  Stop laughing.   


The Boy, The Girl and my mother water the transplants.


Bob, The Girl and my father dig another hole. 
 Some of the 1930s cabins (with renovations) can be seen in the background.


The Hubs tucks the sapling in and reads it a bedtime story.


If they all survive, the oaks will add a nice bit of hardwood to the property.  And we'll be able to stand under them and say we knew them "when."

I love the way The Husband loves this property and is planning (and planting) for its future.

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* Canadian Translation:   camp = cottage

Monday, August 20, 2012

Fire Pit, Year Two

It's been a while since I posted pix of the Fire Pit of Epic Proportions at my parents' house, and since it seems to be of general interest, I took some photos of the space in use last night:







After a full afternoon of planting oak trees (which I'll blog about separately) and a foiled attempt to pick blueberries from bare bushes, we retired to my parents' house for hamburgers, home-grown grilled veggies, and s'mores.   It was a beautiful day and a beautiful night... the kind that makes me glad to live in the North Country.