Vacation

Dear Reader,

As of today I will be on vacation until next Thursday.

If you speak to the Men please remind them that I would not like to find a giant pile of dishes in the sink when I come home.

Please also remind both the Men and the Boys that I expect everyone (including the dog) to be in one piece upon my return. This is Important.

They should not forget that William has a homework assignment due next Tuesday.

Please also tell them that I miss them.

Sincerely,

Me

The Store Is Clean

Ta-daa! So clean! So spacious! It is very sparsely decorated as there is still work to be done, but it needed to be cleaned up and made functional for the weekend.The men did an amazing job on the windows, siding, and trim. The store is now bright and fresh.I refurbished some old furniture and collected odds and ends from around the park to make it homey and comfortable. The wood stove is a wonderful addition. It doesn't exactly get warm in the store (especially not when it is 1 degree outside like it is now) but it does take the chill off the air. Plus, it just looks so rustic.Our old store desk where we will put the cash register once everything is finished:We have lots of wonderful lights courtesy of Gregg and Scott: We have floral arrangements and Botanical Aroma potpourri, almost like real civilized people:

And last but not least, the essentials - toilet paper, kleenex with lotion, and a doofy little frog all of which will move into the bathroom as soon as the polyurethane is done drying:

(Isn't he cute?)

Kitties

Often when we open our basement door this is what we find in the doorway:

Three kitties all twirled up together:Tigre at the bottom, Bakshi on the right, and Dean in the middle.So peaceful...until I accidentally step on their poor tails as I try to take my laundry into the basement. The laundry, the kitties, and I all go bumbling down the steps together and their nice nap is ruined.

Pine Box

The men have finished paneling the store bathroom. It is approximately 6 feet by 6 feet and now has pine walls, a pine ceiling, and a pine door. It has a plug-in electric heater.

Between the pine box effect and the heater the bathroom is like a cross between a coffin and a sauna. The men think this is very funny.

Since we put the heater in they have been spending more time hanging out in there than is strictly necessary. At least I know where to look for them when they go missing.

The Store Is A Mess

I know it is a construction zone, but PLEASE. This is rediculous. I am just itching to clean it but the men hate it when I move their stuff. Yesterday they decided that my first best skill is sweeping and my second best skill is moving their stuff so they can't find it - in other words, cleaning up. :)

Leveling

The Stonehouse is essentially two buildings in one - an exterior house built of stone and an interior wooden frame house. There is a 2 inch air gap between the two which was formerly used to help heat the house. Over the years the wooden frame house has sagged in spots. The floors are no longer level and there is quite a bit of bounce to them. There are cracks in the plaster and gaps under some of the walls as a result. When you walk through the hallway the pots and pans in the kitchen jump and rattle.

We have begun the process of bringing it back to level, with great results so far. The plan is to bring it up gradually over the course of 4-6 weeks so that too much stress is not put on the house all at once.

Diener the Wiener

A few weeks ago Ryan and Aaron came into the house looking for me. Aaron had something hidden in his coat. The last thing that came in the house tucked into someone's coat was a chicken that the men found in the woods, so I was momentarily horrified thinking of all the injured or juvenile creatures that might be in there. A squirrel? A coyote pup? A racoon?

Imagine my relief when it turned out to be just a kitten - albeit a skittish, skin-and-bones kitten. We didn't need another kitten as we already have two barns cats living in our basement, but this one was in pretty bad shape and I didn't have it in me to tell them to put it back outside. Apparently he had gotten trapped in a trailer and had been living on hot chocolate powder and baby wipes.

Aaron adopted the kitten and named him Dean. We tried to keep him in the basement with the other cats but he kept getting out and hiding in a hole in the wall (subsequently we have started calling him a wat, or wall cat). Once we got him out of the wall we gave him a collar and a leash and tied him to the kitchen table near his food and water and litter box, where he has been living while he gets used to being around people and dogs. Perhaps he will have to stay there until he gets too big to be a wat.

(Basement cats = bats?)

Music

We all have IPods here at SHP.

Here is Ryan's in silver, gray, and black (his favorite colors and also his swordfighting colors):

Aaron's in red, white and black (his swordfighting unit's colors):Mine in green (my favorite color) hanging out with my grocery list:Ryno's, which is old but jam-packed full of music and which gets the most use:The boys both have teeny tiny Shuffles:
We plug our Ipods into the ingenious contraption seen below, which was built by Ryan C.

We carry it from place to place in the park depending on where we are working. It plugs into an electrical outlet and has speakers, screens to keep construction debris out, and a handy handle for carrying. It has kept us entertained for many hours - a perfect example of technology at work in the wilderness out here at SHP. :)

Hoarfrost and Gorka the Tractor

Brrr

We used up all the wood that we chopped last summer, so we recently spent some time splitting and palletizing more to use in the wood stove in the store: The store now has new doors on the closet and the bathroom: And a new-to-us antique front door (which we got from an add on Craigslist):

Here is Aaron framing in the final window up in the West peak of the store:And here are Joe and Aaron installing the window: And here are the workers/lumberjacks/carpenters/Eskimos: