How to Begin Again....

Like an overgrown garden...not sure where to start, but the longer you leave it the worse it gets.  I've made a couple of failed attempts in the past 18 months or so to restart this, but...well like they say, sometimes life gets in the way....

So to those who may wish to see just what went down...

2011
When we last left Peter and the cabin it was Thanksgiving weekend 2011.  Insulation was the latest rage.   30 Rock was the #6 rated show,  the economy was still in the tank, Pope Benedict XVI was head of the church and Facebook was still a private company.

I'd been training for the California Marathon held in Sacramento in early December.  Training had been going well.  I had great expectations..as we all do going into these things.  The week before the race I'd been getting some significant pains in my left quad.  I wrote it off as tight IT band or sore quads..I'd trained pretty hard for this.  So off I went to catch a plane to San Francisco.
You know, it's not everything they say.  I saw no hippies, very few people with flowers in their hair and almost no Rice a Roni.

But long story short...tough race, leg bothered me the entire day only to find that I had a stress fracture the length of my femur.  Over the years I've had countless physio and massage appointments, not to mention chiropractic, homeopathic, acupuncture, etc..etc..  All these educated sources have always said to me "If you can still run on it, it isn't a stress fracture."  I guess they just know how dumb I am.

So 2011 is winding down and I'm still limping around, picking away at the cabin in anyway I can.  Then we get the phone call.  "Hi, Lara and Peter...you're baby is ready.  Can you come get him right away?"  It was really like that and we welcomed Patrick to our little home.

 Of course that put Ace at #2, a position that she has gladly accepted given the food that has since come her way.

So that basically wrapped up 2011.  I exited the year with a broken leg and a 2-week old kid.  I won't go into the other details of the final month of that year but we did say goodbye to Foolish, some deer on the highway just outside of Golden and the left marker light and grill of my truck.

Foolish Cat

2012
So bring on 2012...what is in store...I promise here to get back to more cabin-y stuff.
Not much I can remember about the first 6 months of 2012.  Lara had been trying to finish her masters, so she had school/work 2-3 days a week, I was working full time and we juggled Paddy between nanny, relatives, Lara's off days and my vacation days.  We did ok, but not much progress in Golden.  By now it was May and we were all just a bit burnt out.  The cabin had some small, but great advances in the few weekends I'd been there over the winter.
1. an indoor shower.  I've raved of the milestone of indoor plumbing in the past, but an indoor shower....now we're talking luxury.
2. Walls.  Walls are good, especially when you have a 6 month old.  The windows in the loft bedroom were a great addition.  Not a small task to install, but a great finish product and resulting view from our bedroom out through the front of the house.

That's about it.  I generally picked at stuff inside the place for 6 months until it was fit to generally go out there with a baby...so looking back at where we were in October '11, by the time May came about, we were actually in pretty good shape.  There was a fair number of baseboard heaters and more and more comforts of home with every visit.

I guess the next step change came in the fall of  2012 when Paddy started really crawling around.  At this point I realized that the plywood floors just weren't going to cut it.  Off to my favorite store (Kijiji) to round up some carpet.  New/used/roll ends...whatever I could scrape up.   I must admit it turned out pretty good for the sake of a couple of hundred bucks.

By the end of summer we were kinda cozy at the place.  I managed to pull of Ironman Canada and life seemed to be getting back to normal.

Of course the biggest move of the 2012 season was the purchase of the Kubota L2350.  25HP of Asian Orange.

Priceless piece of kit for the acreage owner.  Especially for plowing snow.

The fall came and went with minimal progress and we looked forward to spending our first Christmas out there with our cross country skis.  And ski we did, 8 of 10 days.  Awesome spot for that and the labor of the previous two years finally bears fruit.

Paddy has a certain fondness for XC skiing in the chariot.

 Not to mention the tractor....

2013
So here we are.. .the abbreviated version.
In March, we got proper cabinets.  The full place is insulated and vapor barrier around the windows and doors, the inside front wall is stained, the outside back of the cabin has been roughly landscaped and I promised myself that before the summer is out I'd have the front deck finished.

Back yard leveled

Started with the pillars

 Then some cedar posts to give it that log feel

Then my joists.

August long weekend and I'm still on track.  Just the decking to put up there, and it's beers on the deck.

Next up...the garage....

All the best.
Peter