Ruth here:

“Close your eyes and you can hear it. The snow is melting. In the comfort of day a transformation takes place, solid becomes liquid, but in the silence of night every twig and leaf becomes incapsulated by ice.

Above us white, beneath our feet white, chattering white teeth and shattering white ice is our landscape.

Alas, a welcoming sight. The ingredients to make the night right. Hot buttered rum to warm our bellies. Who knew such an elixir existed? Brown sugar, nutmeg and cloves. Honey, cinnamon, and don’t forget that golden churned gift from a dairy goddess.

Starving for an outlet for this motivation that’s grown during the seasons forced hibernation!

Garrett unearthed the table saw. He was thinking about digging until he reached the lofting floor but the handle of the shovel broke so the saw was far enough. We’ve been making due with the smaller generator my folks leant us (3000 watt) but it just isn’t strong enough to run the table saw. So back to trying to fix our 5550 generator… We’ve run the poor thing for a hard 2 years, through two hot summers and two brutal winters (and let’s not forget the wee fire.) This may require an expert. For now we can move the table saw to our neighbors and cut from there.

Garrett’s next line of attack is getting the corner posts for the cabin in and the trim piece that lines the cabin walls near the ceiling. The trim piece at the top of the cabin walls is where the cabin top beams will connect in. We have some really nice 1×4 Western Red cedar (soft reddish hue) to use for the trim. This will give a really beautiful contrast in color from the cabin ceiling and corner posts which will be Port Orford cedar (light and yellow.) Once those two jobs are complete the cabin beams will be next. The beams are simple, laminated plywood which we’ll paint later for finish. Garrett’s pretty stoked to be diving into a little bit of finish work. It is, however, a little weird to set his mind to that mode when everything else is still so “ruffed in.”

I believe after the rest of the bulkheads are in we may move to putting in the cabin sole! Finally we’ll get to cut into the Black Locust we’ve been hoarding. That is if we can properly power the table saw, that stuff is tough!”