July 23-25,2010

Doug and I worked on several projects this weekend. In what seems to be an unending effort to control the effects of heavy rainfall on our place, we built a block retaining wall to hold back the soil on the north/road side of the cabin. Both of us prefer the look of a boulder wall, but found that those are difficult to build totally vertically. Thus, the need for block that can be stacked one on top of another, perfectly vertical. However, we were able to incorporate the look we love by adding some of the boulders we had previously had delivered. Ivan the Excavator sold us 11 tons of lovely boulders of all sizes. Sandy has been eager to play with them!



Here is what the area looked like, but with more erosion occurring every week.

And here is our semi-finished wall! Pretty pretty, huh? The stair treads are from Lauren and Adam's house.


We'll match the angle and style to some degree on the other side (the south/lake side) of the cabin.

We moved on to adding hurricane straps on the porch roof trusses...

and finishing up on the porch roof decking.

Doug has become a monkey! It's amazing how he can maneuver through trusses and on steep surfaces with heavy objects! His guardian angels are doing a fantastic job! We're thankful for the prayers for safety on this project!

At the end of a long, hot day of work...

Until at last...

Make your way to the lake, if you can...

grab the wash bucket

soap up and dive in!

Maddie is negotiating her bath. It doesn't seem to matter if we wash her up though. As soon as she gets out of the water she finds a dirty or smelly or sandy place to roll in. What the what?!?

We always enjoy the warm evening sunshine.












And the pretty flowers on the shore line.

Spencer has at last named the final loon family member. He shall henceforth be called Charleston. When asked what the inspiration was for the name, he stated that he's named after the candy called Charleston Chew, obviously!

It was a good day at the cabin!

This picture seems to sum it all up.

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