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| (Photo taken from Sawbuck Acres) |
Jeff and I set a goal to move to Sawbuck Acres full time in 2007. Since it was now spring 2008, it was obvious we had not met our previous deadline. Not to be deterred, we set our new retiring date for spring of 2010 with a "ready or not, here we come" attitude. We had two years and two important goals to accomplish to prepare for our full-time arrival: finishing our water system and produce our own electricity.
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| ...the other side of the gate... |
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| Jeff skiing up to the gate... |
Our first visit to the property was not until April. Skiing the mile and a half to the property we realized we still had a lot of snow on the ground. This was great! After several years of low snow fall, we were very happy to see the snow pack yet to melt this spring.
Jeff and I hated to disturb the quiet and unmarked beauty before us but we had some shoveling to do. Digging a path to the outhouse and removing snow from the roof became our first priority. After accomplishing our tasks and enjoying our day, we settled in for the evening with a cup of hot chocolate and a warm crackling fire. As we sipped our coco and warmed our toes by the fire, a moment of realization came. Most years, during spring runoff, our little creek ran across our meadow carrying snow melt from the spring source. We had to dig our water line trench across the creek and last fall we had not finished filling in the 5 foot deep trench between the foundation and the creek. Hmmm.... where would the runoff water head but down the trench and right to our foundation!! WELL, we had our work cut out for us tomorrow.
The next morning, with 4 feet of snow and frozen ground we trudged up the hill, pick axe in hand. We made our way to the spot where the runoff crossed the trench and started digging and picking. Our goal was to fill in the trench were it crossed the creek and sandbag the sides to prevent water from making it's way to the foundation. Only spring thaw would tell if we were successful.
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The next day.... |
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This the is spot.... |
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| Yes, I am that tired! |
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| Spring runoff in May. |
We came back to check on our place in May and found we had averted a major disaster at the foundation but spring runoff had caved the walls of the unfilled trench, knocking shale and clay on our waterline. Because we ran out of time last fall and did not get our waterline trench filled and cistern installed, we had a big mess to clean up. Before we could finish bedding our waterline in sand and installing the cistern, we had to remove debris. The cistern hole was almost beyond repair. With hard work on perseverance and some help from our kids, we managed to finish our water system by the end of August.
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| Our cistern hole in May! |
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| The cistern hole in August! |
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| Burying the cistern. |
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| Finished spring area. |
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| Finishing the trench filling! |
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| Success! Water at the frost free! |
Through the summer we also worked on our garage. In June, we had foam insulation sprayed between the rafters in the garage and added drywall to the walls. In July, we started installing our solar system. By the end of the month we had 10 solar panels, 8 deep cycle batteries, and a inverter producing as much energy as the sun would provide. Our system was capable of storing 20 kilowatts of power.
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| Garage/Shop |
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| Starting our solar installation. |
Jodi, Mellie and Conner came to the property almost every weekend through the summer or at least every chance they could to help Granma and Papa. And such a big help they were....
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| Do I have enough safety equipment on Papa? |
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| What size brick did you need? |
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.jpg) There were moments of quiet..... |
and many moments of fun....
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| Hey, Papa stole my hat! |
In October, we started another addition to our cabin. We made boards on the mill with logs decked from our "clearing the mill site phase" to construct yet another bedroom on our little old cabin. The weather changed as we worked, with fall moving ever closer to winter. We were almost through for another year. Jeff and I decided to push the weather to finish our addition or at least make it weather proof.
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| Our tidy mill site... |
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| Addition floor and first snow! |
Toward the end of October, we had a late night visitor. We had worked hard that day and had the floor almost finished. Jeff, Skootz, and I were sound asleep when I woke up with a sound on our new addition floor. I thought that whatever made the noise sounded quite large for a rabbit or squirrel . I finally decided a deer had accidentally found it's way from the bank behind our cabin onto the front deck. The visitor scrambled around for a few seconds before leaving and I quickly went back to sleep. The next morning I told Jeff about the "deer" I thought had scrambled across our front porch in the night. Jeff and Skootz went to check for tracks. We had a fresh skiff of snow in the night and Jeff quickly discovered our visitor was a BEAR. After sweeping the porch we could see Skootz tract along side our night visitor. I was told the next time I hear a noise on the front porch Jeff would like me to wake him up.
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Skootz and the BEAR |
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| Bear and Jeff tracks. |
We worked into late November before we were weathered out but not before we got the roof on our new bedroom/sauna addition and some firewood on our front porch.
Another year comes to a close. We had another wonderful year and with water to the frost free and electricity in the garage and cabin. We are a few steps closer to moving to Sawbuck Acres in 2010.
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