Hello Again!

Hi friends, I hope you've been wondering about my progress! And sorry it took me so long to update you. In a sense, not much has happened because I have not been to Minnesota in over two years and have only hired out two steps of the building process since. On the other hand, I'm reeeally excited about what has been done and the progress has been very important and substantial! Though I have a roof sitting on the rafters, I neglected to cover the spaces between the rafters which left holes through which critters could (and did) enter the cabin. Birds came and nested all over the place. Here is the mess they made. Thank you birds for providing me with an opportunity to make some really wonderful improvements on my house spending virtually no money...

Photographs are art. I call this piece, Poop By the Stairwell. I think it says a lot about the duality of humans. Just kidding, it's only a pile of feces.

Don't think about how I will one day prepare you a delicious meal on this counter. Better yet, don't remember this photo when we eat.

This perch is where I will clean myself. In addition to birds moving in, some hornets established residence as well. You probably want to click the following picture to enlarge it so you can see the hive up under the gable eave.

To keep the house from descending further into squalor, I hired a local Becida neighbor, Don Walters, to install soffit and fascia. The soffit is the material which covers the underside of the eave and the fascia covers the boards all along the edge of the roof. I decided to go with a sheet metal material because it requires no painting or maintenance to speak of AND Uncle Ronnie gave me enough for the whole house for free!! Don did a most excellent job sealing up the holes and making it all look beautiful. He even did bee removal and weed reduction. Here are photos Don took of his work.

I wish I could have been there for this, yet I'm also really glad I didn't have to do this part. Invariably, when I hire people to help me, they remark about the height of my house. From soil to peak, the height is about 24 feet and I'm glad I didn't have to strain to do this work that far up a ladder!