You knew there would be more pictures, right?  I mean, really – 5 pictures?
It’s almost a compulsion with me. Taking picture of and around the cabin.
Can I find a new angle?

Get a good shot of those tiny wildflowers?

Capture the beautiful morning mist….

that I knew would break into beautiful crystal blue sky before I finished my last cup of coffee-
.
When I walked to the pond, would there be something different to photograph

or would I succumb to the classic cabin/pond shot

just a little off center.

Adding to the Cabin-picture-taking-addiction, I not only had my new “big girl” camera, but I also had a new iPad which not only takes a pretty fine picture, but also has some fun apps to make things a little more interesting. (And of course, I also had my Droid phone to further complicate the choices!). Here are some collages to help summarize the beautiful weekend we had.

That misty morning

A general collection of cabin sights

Maybe there’s a new angle in this group?

Then there’s the Shed Project. Gary started this last summer (actually the summer before if you count the improvements to the outdoor shower), and I have lots of pictures of the progress. When it’s all done I’ll probably do an official post, but for now here’s just a little summary of what got done THIS weekend.

(There will be double doors in the front – it does look a little weird right now!)
And finally, after the tools were put away and the lawn was mowed and the cabin all tidied up, it was time to say farewell -

Until the next time when we pack up the truck and head back to The Cabin!

(This is my other obsession – taking “windshield” pictures!)

Well, thanks for hanging in through all these pictures!  And if you’d like to see a couple more (and the full size ones from all the collages) here’s a link to the set in Flickr.  Cabin May 2013

(Disclaimer – Flickr just totally revamped their website, so if that link doesn’t work, let me know. It still has me a bit confused!)

Remember back in February when I challenged myself to do a post every day? I was surprised how much “work” that was, finding something interesting to say about each day. (And then doing it, even when I really wanted to just go to bed!) But at the same time I enjoyed the challenge, and with the help of a couple of birthdays and a holiday, I managed to fill up the days. AND, I never got behind and had to figure out just how to summarize the comings and goings of a week.
Which is just where my brain is now. I should have done a quick post for each day during our weekend at The Cabin. So here’s a little quick rewind – .
Today’s challenge – One Sentence. One Picture. (Lots of commas.)
Wednesday -
We got an early start, and arrived at the cabin in good time where we settled in to enjoy a lovely long weekend at the cabin.

Thursday
We were blessed with a perfect Vermont morning (starting with mist and breaking out into bright blue skies) and Gary got a good start on his continued rebuild of the shed.

Friday
Whether we were mowing or hammering, cleaning or weed whacking, reading or napping, or figuring out the new iPad (amazed again how we can pick up a bit of internet), it was another picture perfect day.

Saturday
I left Gary at the cabin, contentedly working on the shed project, and joined Elna and Henry on a day trip to Bethlehem, NH, where Henry was helping their daughter repair the John Deere while Elna and I sat in the sun and had a wonderful long visit.

Sunday
It didn’t seem quite so hard to leave this time since Gary will be back up in less than two weeks and I’ll be joining him after Girls’ Week, PA Edition, for a couple of days, so we got an early start back to our nest in Montrose.

Phew.  That was hard! Since you know that taking pictures of The Cabin (and its environs) is one of my favorite things to do, guess I’ll just have to do a separate post tonight!

Till then…..

Life here at the campground is pretty quiet.

(Those two older trailers are unoccupied right now.)
But we have been enjoying some seasonal visitors.
First came the Northern Flickers.


Don’t they have the most amazing coloring? They arrived just on the heels of the Robins (not that robins have heels, mind you), and sometimes there would be several of them searching for ants in the grass.
But soon Gary got the bird feeder up

and the neighborhood really began to get interesting!
Of course, our friend the Chipping Sparrow was the first to find the goodies -

but before too long the Dark-Eyed Junco arrived.

The nuthatch arrived

and soon after the chickadee made an appearance.

Of course, even though these aren’t the largest bird feeders going, those ol’ blue jays don’t seem to have any trouble at all getting their share of the birdseed (and some of the smaller birds’ share too, I’m sure!)

A pair of cardinals stops by almost every day – always a delight!

(even if I can’t seem to get very good pictures of them!)

But what I was really looking forward to was the return of the goldfinches!

First the girls came and hung around for a bit. And then the male – a brilliant flash of yellow! Man, I love these little birds!


Separate dining rooms?

Together at last! I really enjoy watching these beauties!
We had a Rose-breasted Grosbeak stop by – but sadly I wasn’t fast enough with the camera to get a good picture.

REALLY hope he/she comes back again for a longer visit.
And the little tufted titmouse darts in and out – talk about hard to get a good shot!

But finally he landed long enough for nice profile shot -

We have the bird feeders set up right in front of the RV so we’ve had a good time getting to know our feathered neighbors. But tonight we looked over to the left and thought we saw a woodpecker. He was already moving away from the rig, but I grabbed the camera and shot in the general direction, hoping to get a picture of him.

Can you find him? Here he is, all cropped down (and pretty darn fuzzy) -

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, I think!
So that’s the neighborhood, so far. If I’ve misidentified any birds, feel free to leave a comment with the correction. We’re still waiting for the hummingbirds to find our hummingbird feeder, but we’re hopeful!
Who know who else might show up for a meal!? We’ll keep you posted!

~~~~~
After Gary wraps up some work in the morning, we’re headed to the Cabin for a nice long weekend. Little Happy Dance happening here! Just thought I’d warn you that it will either be pretty quiet here for the rest of the week, or really chatty and full of cabin pictures. You just never know how these weekend go!

Maybe we’ll catch the pear trees in blossom again!

It’s been that kind of week.
Gary got a lot accomplished this week.

It’s looking pretty good, isn’t it?
See the connection between the black insulated duct and the long skinny square ductwork?

Well, those are the supply dampers and  home to the controls which will turn the A/C on and off as the room thermostat ‘calls for’ cool air. And anything that will be transporting cool air needs to be insulated. It’s a rule. We’d  insulated 22 of them up in the attic, but even though we only had 6 to do here in the crawlspace, it still presented quite a challenge.

As usual, Gary got the short end of the deal, by having to handle the inside while I worked on the carpeted side (although I did have to “fussy cut” around the controls and wiring).

OK, it’s not pretty, but it’s done!
Even after showers, we were still both itching!

These are the returns, and I’m happy to report that since they handle the air returning to the unit (and no longer cool) they do NOT have to be insulated. Ah, the goodness of it all!
After we got the insulation done we (he) moved to the copper piping. Suction lines, liquid lines – except for helping to smush the insulation onto the suction line, there wasn’t much for me to do.


Yeah, I don’t help much with this either!
But there was something we worked together on later in the week -

Can you guess what we’re doing here?
You got it – we’re running the thermostat wire into the last two rooms. Gary’s in the basement feeding up the wire fish thing-a-mig and I’m trying to grab it with a hook and a pair of needle nose pliers.  Then I’d pull it through the hole (trickier than you might think, doncha know) and tie a piece of string on the end. Then he’d pull it back down, attach the thermostat wire to the string, and I’d pull it back up. That’s pretty much where I’d leave it (though I’d make sure that the wire couldn’t slide back down the hole, honest!). I do go back and program the thermostats, but Gary’s the hooker-upper guy.
By the end of the week he pretty much had the crawlspace work wrapped up, tidied up the workspace and moved all his tools back to the truck. He did, however, leave the carpeting down. Such a class act. (I’ll try to get a pix of the crawlspace masterpiece, but I didn’t want to put off this post – gee, it’s been a week already!)
So while Gary was busy all week, there wasn’t all that much that he needed me for. A little thermostat wire pulling, a bit of insulating (ugh!) and some help with the copper piping. And no one needed me in the kitchen either. So I had many additional hours back at the house where I kept myself busy working on the SOWER newsletter and working on my quilt squares.

I must say, it was a good week for both of us!

You might think we’re just about done with the A/C, but I’ve been promised by my guy there is still lots to do! And judging by the parts run we made to Lowes last week

we’ll (he’ll) be busy for a while yet.

~~~~
Did you have a good Mother’s Day? Ours was quiet but sweet. We enjoyed a lovely buffet after church and then spend the afternoon just hanging out.  Missing my kids a bit extra today. And my Mom too.
Blessings, friends!

Installing the air conditioning into the first floor is coming right along.
The unit is in place, and the ductwork is just about done.

But don’t think it was without a couple of challenges.

Trust me, that’s a real head knocker he’s ducking under there….

And talk about working around the existing conditions…



In the ductwork department there is still a bit of insulation to do and some additional taping – that will largely be my job to “wrap-up”. But Gary has moved on to the wiring. Remember last summer when we were running wire from the first floor control board up to the attic where the 5 units were?

There was a lot of wire happening last summer.
This summer, with only one unit (6 rooms) to wire up, it was a much less intimidating task. And we even managed to do part of it outside!
Once Gary figured out the length he would need (from the unit to the pipe that ran to the first floor and then to the control board – almost 50 ft.) and the number of lengths he would need (15), we moved to the driveway, and started measuring them out.

After we had the 15, we marked each end with tape so he would know which one he was working on.

Then we stretched them out again

and Gary taped the end together and we headed to the crawlspace.

Gary taped that end to the rope that had been previously snaked through the pipe and we were good to go!

And up in the control room -

(It kinda looks like the baby brother of the big wad that came from the attic, doesn’t it? )
Final destination on this end -

That last panel on the left. It needs to look like it’s closest neighbor.
And down in the crawlspace – well, see that white board in the picture of the wire going into the tube?
Well, he spent Saturday working on that end of things!

A lot was accomplished this week (even though we did have to make a couple too many supply runs (but they usually involved a Dunkin Donuts coffee stop, so even that wasn’t all bad!)) but there is still plenty of job ahead.  Finishing up the wiring, doing all the piping, running the electric…yeah, we’ll be busy for a while yet.  Well, perhaps I should say that Gary will be busy for a while.  I’m not all that useful in the wiring/piping/electric department.  (And yet, he keeps me around!)

And I’m happy to report that it appears that Spring has finally arrived here in Montrose!  The trees are beginning to leaf out, the daffodils and forsythia are sharing their yellow cheer, and it was warm enough this morning to walk to church.

Hope that spring is happening in your world too!