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| The Dutch door leading out of the kitchen. |
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| Steve working on the display shelf. |
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| The hemlock soffit. |
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| Steve and Yoey under the gazebo playing Mexican Train. |
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| View from the Bridal Vail Falls trail. |
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| The snow drift that kept us from making it to Bridal Vail Falls. |
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| Steve working on the French doors leading from the living room. |
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| Steve and I working on one of the large front windows in the living room. |
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| Steve finishing work on the first window we installed. This one is in the kitchen and cranks open. |
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| Our wonderful Mt. Index on a nice spring day. |
NOTE: This was written almost two months ago but never posted. I thought I would post it before adding a new update.
Once again it has been quite some time since the last posting. This year there is not the urgency in getting the work done as we had last year. Why, you may be asking. Well, last year we were wanting to get the cabin enclosed before the winter came. Now that the cabin is enclosed, we can do things at a more leisurely pace.
Our first project for the year was putting in windows. We had placed the order for the windows and made plans to come to Index to install them. Lucky for us, our friends, Michael U. and Robert Wisdom said they wanted to come to Index and wanted to know if we needed any help. The windows were at the property waiting for us. Some of the smaller ones would not have been a problem to handle with just Steve and I, but the two large windows in the front of the cabin were a different story. Steve and I never would have been able to install them by ourselves. They were very heavy and difficult to handle. With Robert and Mike's help we were able to get them installed within a very short period of time. What saviors they were!!!!!
After the windows, came the doors. We only have two doors into the cabin, but both of them required a lot of extra work. The front doors are French doors and the side door is a Dutch door. Both of these type of doors need extra adjustments to make them align with each other. You would make an adjustment here and that would throw off the alignment for the rest of the door, so then you would make another adjustment, and another, and another... The Dutch doors were the hardest to get into alignment. After many trials and tribulations, the doors look great and work great.
Steve is always checking on different things we might use at the cabin. When he was visiting a certain lumber yard in Seattle, he saw some hemlock soffit t&g (tongue and groove) material which a customer had ordered and decided against. He asked me if that would be of interest. I have learned that Steve usually knows what is good and what isn't so naturally, we got the material. Installing the soffits was one of those wonderful back-breaking experiences. We only have the front of the cabin done and are very happy with the outcome, but getting there was a different story. Now if we were in our younger years, this would probably not be a problem, but when you are in your 60's, standing on a ladder backwards and holding a heavy nail gun behind your head, the body tends to ache a little more.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, our friends Robert and Mike came up to Index to visit again. This was pretty much a relaxing weekend. Steve and I had purchased a gazebo at the end of last summer, and Steve and Mike had assembled it near the fire pit. Our friends, Glenn Merchant and Rick Scoles, had given us a similar type of tent a few years back. We would use it if we were at the campfire and it would rain. The covering was very welcome. Well, the one that Rick and Glenn gave us blew away in a particularly harsh wind storm. We came up to the property and there were a couple of tie downs and that was it. The gazebo that we purchased has an opening at the top that will let the wind blow through. It is also a much heavier type of material and the supports are much stronger, so we hope this one will stay put. Anyway, this weekend we did not do any work on the cabin. Other than the gazebo, we putzed around the property...cleaning up, pulling weeds, etc. On Sunday morning we decided to take a short hike to Bridal Vail Falls...that is "short" according to Steve. We parked at the trail head and began our walk. Now you need to know that Steve grew up in Monroe, WA, about 20 miles to the West of Index and was somewhat familiar with this area. And maybe when he did this hike before, it was more of a short hike. I am not saying it was that long of a hike, but it was much longer than the rest of us had anticipated. The trail was a very busy trail with lots of hikers but it wasn't until we neared the Falls that someone told us the trail was blocked by a huge snow drift which was impassable. Since we were so far along, we had to check it out ourselves, and sure enough, the snow was in a ravine and it was over the top of our heads and angled at such a degree that it was impassable. We didn't get to see the Falls, but there was a nice outlook where you could take in some of the scenery. On the way back down, I would tell other hikers that the trail was not passable, but eventually quit saying anything as most people seemed to just be out hiking on such a beautiful day and they didn't really care...the fools...ha!
When I went back to Montana to visit my family in early June, Steve and our friend, Bob Gove, came up to Index and worked on the plumbing. With the higher foundation, Steve said it was pretty nice to have the space under the house to do the work. He said he was able to stand up to do much of the plumbing. Having Bob help him was great. Any time that Steve has someone help him with any knowledge of the work they are doing is a big advantage. I can ask some questions that might help in the process, but without any prior knowledge as to what we are doing, it is very hard for Steve to bounce ideas off me or to get my input as to how things are done. I have to keep repeating how thankful I am to have Steve as a partner in this process as I have no clue how things are done. My usual response when Steve asks me a question is, "Deer in a headlight, deer in a headlight".
The weekend after I returned from Montana, Steve, our friend Joe Radoslovich and myself came to Index for another relaxing weekend. We always do a little cleanup and weeding while we're around, but for the most part we sat around telling stories, drinking...this time we were imbibing a new drink introduced to us by our friend, Rich Holliday which consisted of Sweet Carolina Vodka and lemonade, and eating. On Sunday, after our morning ritual of bagels toasted on the campfire and many cups of coffee we decided to play the tile game of Mexican Train. This is where our gazebo came to our rescue. It was one of those days where the sun would shine and then the rain would come. Each time the rain happened, we would just move the table into the protection of the gazebo and continue with our game. All things changed when the lightning and thunder started coming closer however. We decided it wasn't too wise to be sitting under a structure with metal supports. We moved into the motor home to wait out the storm. Unfortunately the storm was going to outlast us and the sky seemed to open up and drop buckets of water. After about an hour of this, we decided maybe we should head back into Seattle as it would be too wet to enjoy our stay at The Drunken Bear.
Steve and Bob Gove came up during the next week and pretty much completed the plumbing work under the house. All we have to do now is hook the pump up to the well, install the water tank and a few other small things, get the electrical work done and we will have running water...yeah! It will be so nice to have a bathroom and a shower available! I feel very fortunate that we have had Steve's motor home available for our bathroom needs but it will be so nice to have a space bigger than a small closet!
Steve did have a funny story to tell about the plumbing. He said the first time he and Bob had laid out all the plans as to where all the cold water pipes would be located, laid out all the piping, drilled the holes for the pipes leading into the kitchen, the laundry room and the bathroom, connected it all and thought they were done. When they came up to do the hot water pipes, Steve realized they had made all the connections except for the most important connection...the water coming into the house.
And now we are at the end of June. I have taken another two weeks off of work...this time mostly as a relaxing time. The trip I made to Montana was more or less a working vacation...helping my parents around the house, taking my Dad to various doctor appointments, etc. It wasn't all work....there were many visits with members of the family, playing pinochle with my parents and brother, playing a card game we call 31 with other members of the family, etc. This vacation started with Steve and I attending the Pride Parade in Seattle on Sunday and having a great time. Monday evening we headed up to the cabin to put in at least a couple days of work. We had decided we wanted a small shelf running the length of the cabin above the rooms. Of course figuring out how we were going to do this once again fell on Steve's shoulders. He had to figure out how we would be able to run the electricity and how to actually build this structure. Steve has some good friends, Barbara and William...I like to call them my friends too although I rarely see them. Anyway Barbara and William are doing an addition to their home and they told Steve he could have any of the extra wood left over to use as firewood or whatever. As previously mentioned in this blog, Steve and I have had some very expensive fires at The Drunken Bear as we burned the very costly rotted and unusable Pan Abode wood. Well, thanks to Barbara and William, we can keep this tradition going. The trusses that were ordered for their addition were not built according to specs. The builder of the trusses did not want them back and the contractor had no use for them, so they were cut up into smaller sections and given to Steve. Our fires this trip and for a few more in the future will be made using this expensive wood. But, as the recently departed Billy Mays would have said, "Not only do you get the trusses, you get all the extra 2X4 wood making up the trusses". And this is where our shelf comes in. We used the 2X4's to create the shelf. We cut 16 inch lengths and placed them every 2 feet jutting them into the rooms on the stick wall. We then ran a 2X4 along the length of our cabin attaching it to our trusses (we actually bought these longer 2X4's). We then used more of the recycled truss' 2X4's to connect those 2X4's jutting into the rooms to the 2X4 running the length of the cabin. All of this was complements of the wood we received from Barbara and William...a real money savings...thanks Barbara and William! By the way, this shelf will be used for displaying some of our "treasures"...such as Steve's antique apple corer and a collectible dump truck that was from his childhood. And my friends reading this blog know that I have my "treasures" too...as a matter of fact, a few too many. From the overhang of the shelf jutting into the rooms, we will be able to add some storage cabinets underneath. This will be very helpful as there isn't a lot of storage we have planned.
We did a few other smaller projects around the property and then headed back to the city. The remainder of my vacation would be spent relaxing. Our friend, Ken Funk from Glendale, CA joined up with Steve and I as well as Bob, Doug and Joe for a 4th of July weekend camping and floating the Yakima River. Next, Steve, Ken and I headed south to visit our friends, Rod and Donn from Billings, MT at their vacation home in Depoe Bay, OR. They have a beautiful home overlooking this bay in the Pacific Ocean. And from there, Steve, Ken and I headed to Eugene, OR to visit friends and attend the Oregon Country Fair. It was very hard to go back to work after such a relaxingly time!
