Man Camp Week

It's "Man Camp Week" in the Methow Valley.
Oh yes...deer hunting season.
Where 99% of the hunters make the other 1% look bad.
Every year it's the same story. We're working on our property, we cross paths with a hunter, we tell the hunter he's on private property.
Hunter tells us he's on state owned land.
He has a map in his truck.
He's been hunting here for years.
We don't know where our property lines are.
He has permission from the owner.
Those fence wires were cut when he got here.
The gate was open.
There aren't any No Trespassing No Hunting signs.

I'm curious.
Are all these corny excuses printed in the Hunters Manual?
Because every cornball camo wearing beer guzzling binocular peering doofus in a pickup truck going 30 mph in a 50 and shootin' from the side of the road seems to spew the same drivel.

There...I feel better.
Thanks.

Dead Salmon on the Wall?

My little vice is magazines...always has been. Last week I was cruising through a shelter mag and I saw an article on paint colors. Oh dear, I found a color that I really liked...Farrow and Ball "Dead Salmon".
What the ????
No way.
Sorry Farrow and Ball.
I just can't.
Paint names matter to me, call me a sissy-girl.
My house is Edelweiss with Stonewall trim.
The studio is Sunshine, office / Buckskin, cabin cupboards / Heartsmere, dining room / Providence Olive...I gotta love the name to buy the paint.
Even though I love the color...I just can't smear dead salmon on my walls.
Ewwwww!

Crazy Recycle Lady

That's how I feel.
Like the crazy recycle lady.
The tiki bar is slowly taking shape...of course the lumber is recycled.
I don't know the story of the support posts or the rafters, I bought them from somebody else who had a lot of used lumber they needed a home for.
But the 2x12's that we used for the bar top...this is the third time I've built something out of the same boards, and I'm pretty sure this is where they'll stay.
It looks unusual, maybe a little goofy...
Goofy works for me.
Next step is sanding and sealing...so I can do some sitting and sipping!

Have a great weekend, be sure to enjoy your views ;)

The Deer Hunter

Quietly... she approaches.

She is walking very slowly, something is off. She doesn't usually walk, she lopes...or gallops.
She appears to be carrying something in her mouth. She almost appears to be shy...she's acting like she does when she's in trouble.
Oh dear, what is that in your mouth Bergie?

She finally gets up the nerve to come close, she sits...now that I've convinced her she's not in trouble...she's almost proud.

Oh. My. It's a deer tail.
Oh puppy...
Where have you been and where is the rest of the deer?

Would you look at the grin?
It's kinda creepy.

From Creepy to Tiki

When we bought the property where our cabin stands we considered hiring a bulldozer and taking down the existing structure...it was pretty gross. The funky structure was solid, but nobody had ever lived in it... unless you count rodents and gophers. We decided to put on our masks and gloves, clean it, strip it down to the studs...new windows, doors, siding, the works - we're still running wires for the solar system and we should have running water by the end of summer. Yippieeeee!
The picture is of the shed in the back yard, we talked about demolishing it as well but it has come in handy for storage so we're doing a little work to it...trying to make it a little less ugly.
Today we put up rafters to extend the roof line, tied in the support posts and - yiiikes - I helped put up the 18 foot 6x6 header!
It's starting to look a whole lot better, I wasn't sure that was even possible.

I'm back home tonight cruising blogland for tiki bar ideas.
Fire up the generator honey...we're makin' pina coladas!

Good Morning Ladies

Spring has sprung at the cabin.
The balsam root plants are blooming.
The cows are out on our lower range before they
move up to the high country for a few months.
I feel like I'm on a speeding train headed straight
for summer.
I need to remember to take the time to look out the window and enjoy the ride.

No to frescoe, no to faux

I took this picture while I was sitting on the couch at the cabin, a really crooked snap - no thought to what was in the frame, no getting junk out of the way. I've been looking at it trying to decide on paint colors.
The views are one of the things I love about the place. I think the only answer when it comes to paint colors is white, I want the emphasis to be on the beauty outside...don't really want to detract from it.
I'm not really a white paint girl, well...except for barns - I like white barns - and farmhouses. But inside? I'm all over the color..fearless as a matter of fact. I've painted rooms moss green, chocolate, oxblood red...you name it.
But right now, the only answer that I come up with that doesn't compete with my views is white...boring old white.
Ideas anyone?

Bluebird of Happiness

Every spring these little guys are everywhere I look when I'm working at the cabin.
So cute, and sooo blue!
I wish I could get good pictures of them...they're so busy, snacking, fluttering, pecking at the bird seed I scatter for them. I don't have a snazzy camera so the odds of getting a good shot are pretty slim even if the little guys sat still for a photo-op.
I'll just enjoy them while I do my spring chores, I guess they're not the only ones who can't sit still for a good shot.
It's spring... the list of chores is long!
Things are growing and blooming.
Happy blogging garden girl ;)

Big Fat Ice Trucker Fakers

I'm not much into reality TV...so I wasn't aware that there was a show called "Ice Road Truckers"...or something like that. From what I gather it's a Discovery channel show about truckers driving on icy roads, okie dokie...not interesting to me but I guess there is somebody out there watching, and they think it's the real deal.
Well, last night I had the misfortune of watching them "fake it".
Driving home over the mountain pass from the cabin, the seventh car in line, the first ones through after the long winter closure...I was soooo happy not to have to drive the long way around.
And then.
We stopped.
Because this truck was hanging off the edge of the highway at the hairpin curve. The story is that the Ice Road Trucker people wanted to roll a big semi truck over the cliff and film it, but the truck got stuck...no tumbling, no rolling, no fire, no crash...no Big Faker Ice Trucker footage to suck people in...oooooing and ahhhing on cable TV.
Just one cranky lady who still had three hours to drive who really wanted to get her own show on the road...dang it!
Today I googled Ice Road Trucker just to see what all the fuss was about.
Hmmm....people watch this stuff.
Oh well....some people babble away on blogs ;)
Other people watch fake truck crashes on cable TV.

The show is supposed to air in May, I think I'm busy.

Perfect Planters

Oh my goodness...I want these planter boxes. This is the worst case of planter box-itis I have ever had. They remind me of the old whiskey barrel planters, only with attitude... sometimes a little attitude is such a good thing.

We're racing around handling a lot of deferred maintenance here at the farm. Lots of blackberry brambles are getting chopped and snipped, branches are getting sawed and hauled off to the wood shed. Yesterday we put together some new raised beds since my old ones are falling apart.

Today I'm off to the cabin to get a handle on the weed problem there...but ohhh boy...when I get back?
I wanna build some planters!

Honey? Did you say you have some old weathered lumber in the barn that I can use?

PBS...or Paperbackswap.com!

OK...so maybe everybody else knows about this and I'm the last girl to the party but this is making me happy. Paperbackswap.com is my new favorite site. Post a book, mail a book, get a book...no fees, just the price of postage to mail off the book - usually a little over two bucks. What a groovy way to recycle books.
I love books, always have...and I buy books, it's one of my guilty pleasures. I need to have at least two books in my "waiting to be read" stash. It's the law, if there aren't any "books in waiting" this farmgirl gets cranky. I'm sure you're thinking "hey girl, ever heard of the library?", yup... I use the library too ;)
I read more in the summer than I do in the winter. So I'm posting like crazy...getting ready for summer. At this rate I'll have a giant stash of books here at the farm, and more at the cabin! We read like crazy at the cabin, no TV and no computers there...it's great.

So far I've posted about 100 books, sent out over twenty, and have two in the stash.
I wish I had known about this years ago.

The Inspector

I'm speckled, streaked and smeared. It's a mad dash around the farm and at the cabin. Trying to get things sanded and painted before the weather changes and the paint brushes get put away ... who am I kidding - I never put my paint brushes away. I just move inside and paint inside the house, inside the barn, inside the cabin. The weather at the cabin hasn't been cooperating, I've loved the warm weather but it's not the best idea to paint when it's hot outside. Saturday I was prepping and painting the eaves at the cabin, the temp was almost perfect, the sun wasn't beating down on the area I was painting...when the wind kicked up - it was blowing the paint right off my brush! Ohh welll...there's always next week.Solid stain on the eaves, I'm a little sad to see the weathered eaves go by the wayside, we pulled off the old warped fascia board and decided not to replace them. The details of the open rafters gives just a little bit of pop to the exterior.

I had a visitor! It made my day to see this praying mantis. I never see them at the farm but this is the second one I've seen at the cabin...it even stayed put so I could get a photo. I guess it was inspecting my paint job, making sure I was doing things according to code.

This week? Moooorre painting. ;)