The Snowy driveway

My main goal of this trip was to add some more of the siding, In this case on the back wall.  I brought down (20) 12 foot lengths, some 1x for the closet wall end, and a few bits of the cove molding.  Another side project was the “speaker” shelf.  Here I joined some blue stain 1 x 6 into a shelf for holding the iPod speaker sound system in the dining / sleeping nook.

We got down to the cabin a bit after sunset and the cabin’s passive solar was once again doing its thing.  Temps were in the low teens, but it was a balmy 48 inside when we opened her up.

Sunsets at the ranch

Thursday morning I promptly got on the siding and was pretty pleased with my progress, Friday I combined some cove trim with the last of the siding and got a temporary shelf up on the new brackets I installed Thursday moring.  I was still adding some poly to the shelf so that did not get fully installed until just before we left.

Thursday morning...Maybelle resting in the truck

Siding start on the back wall

steady progress

Totally Cool Wood grain

We got a small hike in on Friday, despite the snow and Tasha’s crappy footwear, when will the Ex and a 12 year old learn that Fashion does not beat usability.

Taking a break hiking

Shoe drying in the middle of the night

Speaker Shelf taking shape

In addition to the siding and shelving and cove mold, I did cut in two more windows.  These are the pair that flank the chimney pipe and provide main level viewing to the north.  The blue tarp is still in place on the north wall, so the views are not quite there…but it looks better than storing all of my nails and bits in the old window  holes.  I have just one more window to instal in the loft.  To store the nails out of site and use up some of the small siding bits I boxed in the below the seating area  in the dining / sleeping nook.

Two new windows installed

seat bases boxed in

Miss Maybelle had a good time on our hike too.

Our sparkling snow dog

North Butte Mining Company Stock Certificate from 1914

What?  you say,  never heard of it.  I did not until a few years ago when my buddy passed away.  In the collection of stuff I recovered from his storage locker was some old papers and Mining Memorabilia.    After doing some research I discovered that Scripophily is the study and collection of stock and bond certificates,  a specialized field of  numismatics  Scripophily is an interesting area of collecting due to both the inherent beauty of some historical documents as well as the interesting historical context of each document. Some of these stock certificates are excellent examples of engraving.

I purchased some additional sets on ebay and was  thinking I would “get into it” …I bought a few hundred at various times and resold some others.  Yesterday, I was doing some deeper cleaning of my desk and dug out the stuff that I had squirreled away years ago.  As I am continuing to pare down my belongings, I spent some time yesterday and today putting some of these up for sale on Ebay as well as Esty.  The really fine examples I have listed on Etsy and a big lot of 75 on ebay. 

Railroad stock

If you looking for a new artistic hobby You should check it out.

One of the common themes in many of these engravings are half naked men (gods) with laurel head bands, industrial hammers, anvils, factories etc.  The one from ITT International Telephone and Telegraph features a dude holding a vacuum tube with “atomic” swirls around it, in the back ground building with Rockets launching from them…its so 60′s is it not?

Dawning of the atomic age?

1950′s era Steamship company Serving my old stomping grounds of the Great lakes.

Stock formerly owned by Goldman Sachs & CO

Rocky the Raccoon

A couple of days ago I was chopping some of the little branches off of our Christmas tree to feed the wood stove when I peeked up on the roof.  Hanging out in the spot he likes was Rocky Raccoon.  We had not heard any of his scratching that tipped us off last year.  Because he is not damaging anything, we let him spent the night.  The girls were cooing at how cute he is.  The next day he was still there so I lightly tossed a snow ball at him to let him know he is not welcome for any “long term lease”.  Today he was gone and hopefully burrowed in a nice hole in the ground somewhere.  I think he prefers the high ground as it keeps him out of Maybelle’s reach…and we all know what she can do to a much faster and elusive bunny.

Name in the newspaper...woo hoo

I got a message today from my brother that one of my articles was published in the Denver post. (Thanks Bro) …Not simply there but one of the cover stories in the Lifestyle section.

Here is the link for the online version

http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_19611482

I have not subscribed to a newspaper in about 8 years or so, and then is was mostly for the paper itself to be used as a fire starter for the wood stove. These days we use the little wax starter blocks. So with today news I actually purchased a hard copy…who knows it could be scrap booked for future generations.

For those that are not check back after the holidays for the HD version on YouTube.  In the mean time you can enjoy last year’s movie.

trade for housing?

During my drive to go pick up the girls today, I was listening to NPR…not that uncommon but it has been a little while since I listened regularly.   Today my Ipod battery was a bit low so I picked up some news updates…aside from the typical BS about Cain, Newt and the band of “good ol boys” there was a story about canceling some second type of engine for the air force F35 fighter plane.  They pegged the per plane cost at about 135 million….this got me thinking about the post I put on Facebook the other day about students building and selling Tumbleweed houses in Missouri.

A tumbleweed house is a “basic” housing unit that could in ideal situations house two people….with a tumbleweed home costing about 25,000 (Which is a bit on the high side for the amount of space you get).     1 plane = 5400 tumbleweeds,  if these homes were built on basic block foundations instead of multi thousand dollar trailers to get around BS building codes…then that number could be as high as 6750.

Trading in just one fighter jet could in practice house over 10,000 people… the governments plan to buy 2443  planes then equals some pretty good-sized towns, or whole states of towns.   Think most of California.

2443 planes  = 16,490,250 Tumbleweed houses at 20 k ea.  or roughly housing for 32 million from just this one type of aircraft.  My small cabin at twice the size of a Tumbleweed sleeps 4, not super huge but doable.   Homelessness in the US would be eradicated by this single event.

All of the other planes, helicopters, guns, bombers etc would still be available to bomb and kill our fellow earthlings.

Not to mention the all of the jobs to build so many homes.  Just some food for thought.

Our version of Black Friday

As many of you may have known Tori and I had planned a trip to the cabin for Thanksgiving. Our original plan was to head out Wednesday after Tori got off work (with me running errands and packing on Wednesday afternoon).  Tori was not so keen on the 6 extra hours added on to a long day, and the fact that all of that drive would have been in the dark…as the driver I could have gone either way.  Considering the fact that the views on the way there are pretty darn nice and a good chunk of the country (most actually) would probably sell their grannies to the devil for the views we experience on a typical drive there.  We otp’d for leaving Thursday, on Thanksgiving itself.  Its been a few years since I have traveled ON Turkey day and was very pleased to see not much traffic at all.  We had our our “family” Thanksgiving on Sat. ( brothers, kids, cousins etc) and a “Mini”version with just Tori and my girls on Sunday of last.  With those obligations out of the way we were refugees to the open road…and open it was.

We  hoped to grab a bite to eat at the Subway in Leadville but they were closed as were a lot of places…we hit another one further down the road in Buena Vista ( they were open until 4).  The weather was dry and clear and we made some good time.

When we got to the cabin it was a just a bit past sunset, temps were chilly and dropping.  My digital temp gun was reading 26 on the surface of the deck, but INSIDE the cabin, the tile floor and granite wall behind the wood stove was reading 65.  The completely passive Solar Design of the cabin was functioning perfectly.  Last year we brought a “fire bag” (Newspaper and kindling in brown paper bag) for a quick start to the wood stove.  This year we did not bring one or need one.  I had brought the temp gun along just to do some evaluations on how the cabin was performing now that we have some siding on two walls and have “tightened” up the thermal envelope a bit.

In the past we have tended to fire up the wood stove prematurely and create a bit of a sauna in there.  Temp control was obtained by opening a few windows.  This time we used restraint and only had to do that a couple of times.  A couple of sticks burned around 9 and then again at 4 or 5 am was ideal.  In one of the early morning burns I used a lot a kindling and it got pretty hot…in the near complete darkness of a moonless weekend the exit elbow of the wood stove was glowing red.  When I saw that I cut back the inlet and fully damped the flue.  It’s nice to know that IF we did need the extra BTU’s the little Scandia 150 can go the distance with plenty of power to spare.

By the time Sunday rolled by we had our routine down pretty good ( Saturday Night we had -5) and our complete fire wood use for the weekend was about one” mail tub” worth.  We can go through that amount in 3 or 4 hours with the big wood stove back home.

My goals for the weekend were to install the Blue Stain T&G I brought down, install some of the tile trim, install Tyvek on the east and North sides of the cabin, some hardi trim and maybe a window or two…but in practice the weather was not 100% cooperative.  Friday we woke to fresh snow and a light breeze.  The weather did come around a little later so I did get the T&G up.  Keep in mind I’m cutting these 12′ lengths outside using the chop saw…which is run off the solar system.  When installing over dining area I had to tweak one of the wiring runs for the LED’s to get things lined up.  Tori and I were very pleased with this recent lot of wood. This batch was from a different supplier and I think it is a bit better…Not quite as “green” as the other stuff since it is kiln dried and coming from Montana ( the other wood was Colorado local and air dried)   I even had a few boards left to add some more to the upper parts of the South wall. What remains is 2/3 to 3/4 of the main ceiling…the wood part of the north wall and some minor bits in the loft and above the kitchen.  I just keep plugging away as money and time allow.  All of the corners will get some cove molding and the windows will continue to be trimmed in cedar.

New Blue Stain installed over "dinning / bed" area

The weather was even chillier and windy on Saturday so I I ended up just getting the tile boarder up around the black granite, the free border tiles were not suffcient to complete the “column” that would have mimicked the black stove pipe along the back wall. So plan “b” took over and I just outlined the main field.  I’ll have to cut away the excess backer board before the wood gets installed between the two un-installed window locations.

Border tile around black granite is new

On Sunday the weather was calm and clear and I got in some shooting too, I ran some rounds through the new Springfield Champion .45 Semi auto and got to run some longer distance shots with the Winchester 1873 rifle.  The GPS had the distance from in front of the cabin to the target log across the gully at about 220 feet.  With not much wind and the open steel sights I landed a good handful on paper.  That 1873 is still my favorite. Tori finally did a little herself and plinked a bit down in our canyon at our “mini range”.

The truck and woodshed Sunday Morning

Friday morning’s snow continued to melt through the weekend, with the result producing some nasty mud.  This was one of the messier trips at the cabin and a new “Punch list” item has been added to the list…and pushed up near the top.

Get Some Crushed Rock!

Our scraps of decking used as a walk way help but they come up far short in the “keep the mud out of the cabin department”.  Granted our tile floor is easy to sweep and our grout color was chosen to be the exact match of this mud on purpose…but the sticky messy shoes (with me forgetting my slippers was the pits).  I’ll look into getting some crushed rock delivered before my next trip…then we or should I say I, as if Tori and the girls will be man hauling  tons of rock,  can improve the paths and nearby areas out front.

More time and Money….as is always the case.  Progress is moving forward but a bit to slow for Tori…To that end she might kick in some funds to finance a “working trip just for me.  With no kids to care for and entertain, and with my simple solo needs…many things could happen in short order.

I was surprised today to see that my former record of “views” for the day was shattered.  A new record was set at 751 .

Wordpress Site stats

Last year I posted a blog about Boulderites and how selfish (arrogant , entitlement rich, etc) they are.  These were based on my direct observations during a somewhat minor snowfall ( 2″)  I referred to that post via the Rag of the Daily Camera,  It had 351 views…and some chert responses….oh those Boulder folks can be a bit on the testy side….

Tiny houses seem to outweigh low IQ Boulderites by a 2 to 1 margin.  No surprise in my book but nice to see none the less.  Don’t get me wrong some Boulder folks are great, and In fact I worked at a couple of my Boulder Clients home’s there today.  Its just the attitude of some that ruin it for the rest.

The track back data from here (530 views) on the cabin post came from Facebook.  I was surprised that Facebook has such a following. Tomorrow I have some minor errand s to run up here in the Mountains and then I need to run the Girls back to the Ex for Turkey Day.  Tori and I will be heading out  to the cabin for the longish weekend.  I hope to get some more T&G siding up inside, as well as some more tile work, and hopefully some tyvek on the rest of the cabin.  The tarpaper I installed on the original build did not last with out siding on top.  Getting more Hardiplank is not in the budget for this trip.

The bird came out looking just like last time as seen in this post.

I’ve spent the last few days tweaking the Bookcases I completed a couple of weeks ago.  It seems that the powder post beetles have been awakened by the warm temps in my clients home.  They never really came to life when I was working in the shop since it is so cold down there.  I think I have got the problem squared away with some borate treatments and some additional sealing with some CA.  I’ve got just a little touch up finishing to do.

Russian Olive Bookcase

Tori and I will be heading down to the cabin for the actual Thanksgiving break.  Life at the cabin will be thankful indeed.  I’ve got another dozen pieces of Blue Stain T&G and hope to get some tyvek up on the back of the cabin.  The front is looking pretty good since my painting over the 4th.  Has it really been that long?