Progress!

Mickey has been working hard towards his next goal along the way of building the cabin: no more scaffolding! 

This has meant lots of ceiling and gable end work. 

 

On the scaffolding are ceiling panels that have been cut and stained. Once dry, Mickey will apply the initial coat of poly, then set and nail them into place. Then they will receive a final coat of poly.

We also did a lot of cleaning on Monday, so the construction site is now mostly in the loft (I think we could open a hardware store!). The great room is now much closer to a living room than it was before, and we rather like it that way. :)

We knocked out a lot of staining with my mom's help last week, including most of the gable paneling, the log walls in the kitchen, great room, and bathroom, and several of the posts and beams.

Meanwhile, my dad stained all of the remaining windows and window trim -- a very tedious job that we were grateful for!

Mickey has done a beautiful job with the trim. This picture doesn't do it justice! but live tours are always available by appointment... :)

Nell Matichak

"I don't want to run out of laying pellets."

Thus spoke Mickey when I asked him why he wanted to go to Tractor Supply last week. It seemed a little strange to me -- we had just opened a new bag of pellets -- but hey, any excuse to go to Tractor Supply! So he put a bag of laying pellets in the cart. And then he picked up a bag of chick starter feed.

Wait, WHAT?! Are you serious?!

Yup, that morning, he had spotted our mama hen off of the eggs she has been sitting on for a month. Instead of sitting on eggs, she was sitting on two chicks!

And while she hasn't completely abandoned the remaining eggs, she spends most of her day leading the chicks around and teaching them how to scratch for food -- she scratches, then steps back as they move in to look at and munch what she has scratched.

They move ridiculously fast! 

Soooo much better than us playing mama hen to chicks!

Lamb Update

We have spent a lot of time recently watching the sheep.

Mickey built a movable pen for them, 16 foot square, and they love the fresh lush pasture every time they move to a new spot!

The little ones don't have fully developed teeth yet, but they still try to eat everything, right along with the grown-ups, and are increasingly successful.

Fuggles and Lublin have been growing well, and Fearful and Lady have been great mothers.

Lady is certainly the noisiest of our sheep, particularly when she loses track of Lublin.

Both girls have been nursing well. We much prefer this method to bottle-feeding!

Fuggles is a beautiful dark brown, and her face is a lighter shade of brown.

Lublin is all black.

Meanwhile, their proud papa gets his horn stuck in the pen.

The lambs love to play and are becoming more independent of their mothers.

 

We are so glad we have two lambs to grow up together!

They are great friends with Roscoe too.

We certainly don't miss Netflix with our beautiful sheep to watch!

  

 

By the end of April...

...we wanted to have the bedroom done (mostly). 

Well, the evening of April 30th looked like:

We love the way the quilt looks in this room (thanks, Grandma Wint).  Mickey was so excited that the box spring and mattress actually fit in the bed frame -- a great credit to his careful and repeated measuring! :)  And Roscoe's favorite is the unfinished drawers: he can run straight under the bed from one side of the room to the other!

Mickey carefully worked around the quaking aspen posts for both the ceiling and the floor.

Cutting one of the last pieces of flooring:

A bit of a tour:

It is magical and a dream come true to sleep in such a beautiful room!

Next stop: plumbing.