The Shoemaker's Children

You know the old adage, right?  The shoemaker's children go without shoes?  -- then you can imagine what the lake waterfront of a dockbuilder looks like.

Ours has been a bit... sad looking for years.  When the whole building season (remember: we live in Northern NY, so it's about 2 days long) is a frantic race to complete docks and camp repairs for customers, it leaves precious little time to fix our own waterfront.  So, when it became an immediate problem last year, The Husband decided to undertake an infrastructure project in addition to shoring up the old waterfront.  He has been gradually building new docks and widening the boat launch and generally improving the shoreline.   Did I mention gradually?

Like work on The Log House, lakefront work happens in widely spaced fits and starts.  This week has been a huge leap forward, however!

Widening the boat launch

Fun fact:  we persuaded two nephews to stay as our own unofficial Fresh Air Kids after the rest of the family departed back to Merryland.  Guess what we're making them do?  Heh.

Chris, The Hubs, and John set a new crib

I can't promise decking on top of the bases any time soon, but it's getting there!

Ketchup

I'm still here!  Promise!

I realize that I never showed off the completed main staircase --   she still had a hockey smile when I last posted.  Well, she is mighty perty now.  See?

Of course, I've already managed to slip and dislocate a toe, but that's not the fault of the lovely stairs.  It was the ninjas that attacked me early in the morning before I was fully awake.  That's who I'm blaming.

Besides the stairs (which have been completed for months now), we've had a few new house-build developments, but they aren't as photogenic as those shiny new stairs.  The Bob relocated a copper water pipe that he'd inadvertently put in the way of a future wall in the basement, added an external faucet (he calls it a hydrant; whatever) for watering our nonexistent lawn or flowers, and he reinforced a support beam that had decided to twist a tiny bit.  Tots importante, but not photo-worthy, really.  Those basement bedrooms are on the horizon.  I can feel it.  And you can bet I'll photograph the flyin' heck out of that process.  It'll be just like the old days.

To tide you over until then, here's some spring/early summer photos of At Home In Logs Land:

The great rhubarb massacre of 2016. 

 My parents went on a 3 week (!) trip to the Canadian Maritimes and left me in charge of the garden.  Mostly, that just involved watering.  For. Hours.  But, asparagus & rhubarb were in season and I grabbed the ol' machete and went to town.  

I picked so much rhubarb that I ended up begging friends to take it off my hands.  They have three long beds of rhubarb, after all, and a girl can only freeze just so much.

ONE hacking -- er, picking -- yielded 24 cups of diced rhubarb.  THREE WEEKS OF THIS.

The Boy & The Girl enjoying the first full day of summer vacation 

June 30th shot of my father's garden.

4th of July revelry with the Utica cousins

I'm sure we have done other cool things...  actually, probably not.   Not YET.  I am still in the optimistic phase of summer when I think we'll follow through on planning and executing horizon-expanding trips and wacky memory-making fun.  This is the year!

It'll be great.  You'll see.

Sweet Sweet Syrup Season!

It's about that time!  Y'all ready for this?

*cue Jock Jams*

What?  I'm a 90s music kinda gal.

ANYWAY, I really just dropped by to say:

IT'S MAPLE TIME, BABY!

The Boy checks a sap bucket 

The Hubs inspects sap levels before church on Sunday

Yeah, that's about all the snow left, even in the sugar bush!

With such a weird-weather winter, we weren't sure we'd get a syrup season at all this year, but Bob et al tapped on Saturday and it ran a bunch right away.  We might have a sweet spring after all.


Although, there's plenty of sweetness around here anyway:

Oh! The cuteness!!   

My father's sheep cupcakes for his 71st birthday this week.  

Beauty!

It's a beautiful day here in the North Country!  Blue sky, colorful leaves, warm breezes...   it's our last hurrah before the cold blows in and settles down for 5 months. But today... we are in heaven.

But the real thing of beauty around here?   

The arctic entry floor!   

SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!    

We have a few pieces in the corner that still need to be laid down, but it's so so SO beautiful!  

Come on over and gaze upon our Arctic Entry in all its glorious beauty.  You know you want to.   

Summer 2015

It's a hot, hazy mid-summer day in Northern New York!  We don't get too many, comparatively speaking, and so we love to hate these days.  The Hubs has been picking away at this and that on The Log House, completing little tasks, but his father is intent on finishing that arctic entry! 

He has started to put the hand-milled boards up on the walls:

 

It's hard to get a good angle for a picture

 

The FIL is itching to get the flooring down in there and for me to decide what I want to do with that end wall and whether to continue the boards all the way around.   Advice?  You know I'm not going to take it, what with being so contrary and all, but I do like to *hear* others' opinions.  Heh.

Since it's summer, and that means hosting many friends and family, not much work on The House gets done, but it's an embarrassment of riches of a kind, so we aren't upset!  We do, however, get the largess of my father's garden.  Which is getting largess-ter each year. 

The Girl wandering the garden looking for something to munch on in early July

Our little spinach thief

With the great blessing of living in the woods all hermit-style comes the trial of limited internet access.   *sigh*   SUCH a first-world problem, eh?   So, that has made my blogging even more haphazard.  And we all know it was straight-up iffy at the best of times.  

So, see you in...  what?  November?    

Heh.   You know I'm only half joking. 

And this:

After I let Dr. Dentist McDreamy work on my teeth this afternoon, I ran out to the lake to see this here progress with mine own two eyes.

I may have caressed the new wall and whimpered a bit.  But you can't prove it.

The Hubs and I also hashed over the configuration of the basement laundry room... again, lamented a poor choice on our part in the kitchen, and discussed what the shelves built into the half-wall between living and dining rooms will be like.  Even at this late stage, we're still designing the house!   I have a feeling we'll be making design decisions until we die.  

In that house.

Because:  once I move in, I am NEVER EVER moving out.  Of my own accord.  I may never even leave.  Consider this my two-week notice.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

Here's a shot of The Lake to distract you from my obvious lack of sanity:

And The House wanted to play peek-a-boo:

I see you!

Hello, beauty

Garden bounty

Today:

Pop's cup  --er, garden-- overfloweth

The Girl and GirlCousin pick sugar peas

My own Little Sal "guards" the day's vegetables.  By "guard" she clearly means EAT.

The day's haul. (After sharing with friends!)  Bounty, indeed.

The Rogue Pea-Eater

I thought I could pick a few early sugar snap peas from Pop's garden yesterday and add them to a salad or something....    but the dangerous Rogue Pea-Eater got to them first.

"What happened to all the peas?!!"

"I'm just sitting here talking to the peas.  Welllll....  to tell the truth:  I ate them."

I ended up with FIVE.

*sigh*  At least she's a good vegetable-eating thief.

Pop the Farmer, himself.

Oh heyyyy.  Looky here!

It's summery growing goodness!

More Summer!

It was a hard winter.  But this summer is making up for it!

 Pop's garden is bursting at the seams:

Pea plants as tall as The Boy

7-8-2014   

What?  Doesn't everyone have peas in their car console?

The Girl and my parents and I went for a hike on Friday.  It's one of our favorite hikes, back to a little rapids and waterfall.

And now we're overrun with cousins.

It's a great summer.

Mmmmmm

While we've been entertaining visiting family over the past week, Bob and his father and coworkers have feverishly been preparing (and repairing) camps and boats and docks for customers on The Lake.  So....  there hasn't been much work accomplished on the new house.   But, things are great on the eating front.  Aside from the pot-luck 4th o' July picnic that stretched the whole weekend, we've got home-grown food covered pretty well.

We are co-parenting some pigs -- Inky and Pinky -- with some friends.  We're more like the non-custodial parents, though.  We feed them when our friends are away.  Despite the fact that the kids have named them, they aren't pets; they're eatin' pigs.  Yummy, yummy eatin' pigs.

June 28, 2014

Please don't be disturbed by the fact that I said we're parenting something we're going to eat in four months.  It's just my way. 

Additionally, we are overflowing with leafy greens!  My parents went on a two-week trip to the midwest, leaving me in charge of eating everything from the garden.   It's a big job.  I've ...er.... blessed all the family I can find and a few unfortunate friends with buckets of kale, spinach and lettuce and, based on The Husband's reaction at dinner last night, I'd better not make any more spinach dishes for dinner here.  But, the sugar snap peas and beans are coming along nicely and next week we'll be short of lettuce and awash in beans.  

The message here is:  I will be flush with things to whine about all summer!

June 27, 2014

July 4, 2014   

Apparently, I think strawberries need to be photographed in my hand and nowhere else.

My father's strawberry plants were really productive this year!  And I ATE THEM ALL.   Except what Bob and The Girl ate straight off the plants before I could get to 'em.

Here's some non-food pictures from the past week or so, just to prove we don't only think about eating.     

Just mostly.

Yes, it was 80 degrees that day.  Artists are notoriously counter-culture.

Happy Summer!