Another week! Man they are coming and going so fast. I feel like I’m running out of time to get things ready for the spring!

I was able to get a decent amount done this weekend! I was a little nervous because my septic designer said we needed to get the leach field trenches ready for winter.. and since Karianne and I are headed out on a cruise this next Friday (no updates for 2 weeks! Get out your box of tissues ) this weekend was pretty much it! 

I didn’t know what needed to be done next but my designer said he’d come up Friday after lunch to line me out. So Samuel, Andrew and I got up early Friday morning, stopped at a few stores and made our way out to the land. Since I didn’t know what needed to be done with the leach field I started finishing up the insulation in the shed. But before that.. in an attempt to make the shed a bit more fun for the kids… I put some carpet in the loft! 

Fun story about the carpet. I went to Wards Carpet at 7a.m. and found the store closed and dark. The internet and their answering machine said they’d open at 7a.m. .. after waiting 15 minutes I gave up and ran back to home depot. I loaded up my cart with the cheapest thinnest garbage carpet that they sold (about $80 worth) and another $90 worth of carpet pad.  I was getting ready to check out .. but didn’t feel good about it. So I put all the carpet back and on the way back out to my car I called Wards again in desperation and this time he answered! (“oh yeah, sorry I slept in……” lol) … And I asked him about cheap carpet for a shed. He said that they throw scraps out back on a pallet and that it’s all brand new but free if you want it. So I raced over and found two decently sized scraps that were both pretty decent carpet!  And with that, I had some sweet carpet for free and paid $80 for a roll of carpet pad. Score!  Anyhow, I installed the carpet and then worked all day on getting the insulation done.

Andrew and I were planning on staying the night in the shed for the first time.. and we didn’t want to freeze. And stay the night we did! It was fun, I have never seen a kid so excited to go to bed.

With a small electric heater the shed was a very comfortable 60+ degrees all night!  Karianne and the balance of the kiddos came up to see the progress and took Samuel home that night. Saturday morning brought our first attempt at cooking in the shed. It was all pretty fun. I am ready to move in! 🙂  

Saturday, my septic guy finally showed up around 11:30. He helped me install the distribution box and told me how to bury the pipe; 2″ of gravel on top followed by 4 oz fabric followed by dirt.  Luckily, that all went relatively fast!  And I was happy to bury all that miserable gravel! It is not easy to move around… not sure if I mentioned that yet 🙂 I still need to make the connection from the distribution box, which is in the upper trench, down to the lower trench. But that can wait till next spring. 

Since that didn’t take all that long, for the first time in awhile… I actually got to play a little bit!  I got to go do some pre excavation for the cottage!  I was hoping to do that the day the excavator chain broke so I’ve been anxiously waiting since then.  It was fun to see that start taking shape.

I now realized that I probably shouldn’t have had fun..  Since the ground had mostly dried out, I should have prepped the driveway for more gravel so that the property is more accessible in early spring when everything is still wet. I am hoping I may get one more window for that post the cruise but it’s not likely that I will. That may be the first hurdle come spring to start the cottage project.. sigh… always something.  

Anyhow, it was a busy weekend. Not sure how many more letters there will be this year… but I’ll definitely keep you in the loop when something happens! Bon voyage! 

Mark