Plugging Along

Made a lot of progress this week. Should be on track to have the surprises ready for the girls when they get back late on Thursday night. Can't wait! Got a bit more snow last night, so maybe the sledding hill will be in pretty good shape upon their return. 

They continue to have lots of fun. The girls are staying with their friend, Elin, for the weekend and they get to go to school with her tomorrow. What a great experience! They both made videos of their lives here to share with their former classmates. Very curious to see what they think about that.

Had a really nice dinner with some new friends Sarah and John who recently built an eco-house by the lake. Cool to get some ideas from them. Also enjoyed the final Friday dinner with our Lebanese friends. She cooked a special plant that you can't get here, known by some as West African Sorrel, and I hadn't had it since Mali, so it brought back memories. Special night. 

Chilly nights!

No more cheesecake. So sad.

Hempcrete Connections

It has been another busy and productive week. Made good progress on the surprises. My dad left on Wednesday and is down at a funeral in Rockford this weekend. My mom came up on Friday and she will head out this afternoon. We had a great dinner last night at Iron Bay! Beautiful snow as well. Shoveling today.

Had a really interesting meeting with Brad, my dad's former colleague, and a builder in town that he knew. We talked a lot about the possibilities for using hempcrete, and we have a zoom meeting with a couple businesses Monday night. Great new connection to have. Hopefully we can work together on some stuff. 

Also got in a bit of snowboarding with a new friend who is also renovating his house. Lots to talk about there. Can probably trade time with him. Brad came up with the idea of organizing a time bank, which I will look into. Seems like a good possibility. Looked through a book of abstract art that I borrowed from my dad. Got some ideas so I tried them out.

Delicious Mexican food right around the corner!

Quite the cut.

Camouflage.

Workshop art.

Tough to beat Iron Bay.

Fun with friends.

School reports on the train from Paris.

Adventures in Europe

Naomi and the girls made it to the Netherlands in one piece. Everything has gone well so far. They spent some time with Opa and Edith in Amsterdam and then went to stay with friends in Rotterdam. Their houses look like they came out of a magazine and Amélie was very impressed. One of them is a former client that became a friend. Last night, my parents and I had a different former client who became a friend over for dinner. Seems to be a bit of a pattern. The other (they are neighbors) are our old friends Clifton and Karmen. They are selling everything and moving to New Zealand in a couple months. What a transition! 

Been working hard around here trying to get messes cleaned up, new firewood sorted and stacked, and plugging away at some projects that never seem to go the way I would like them to. Nice to have my parents here for a couple days to help out with a few things and meet some friends. 

I got to meet a new friend in Escanaba who is an architect. He also works on his own projects. This project is so impressive. They are turning an old bank into a distillery. Really interesting to learn about how he is doing it and what it will become!

Checking in.

Sad goodbyes!

Lake Superior is making mounds of ice along the shore. No ice shanties here! The water around Escanaba is full of them.

Breaking Ice

Yesterday, Amélie and I hiked out to the waterfall to break ice. There is an enormous, leaky wooden tube that feeds the hydro plant downstream bridging the falls. Those leaks turn into impressive ice formations, so we managed to get across the slick, sloping patch of ice where if you fall, you will slide all the way into the river. After that it was a matter of finding a few chunks to break off more chunks to take down a wall of ice which gave us ammunition to break through some of the ice covering parts of the river. It was a lot of fun. 

The girls also had some sledding fun this week. It was so cold that school got canceled on Tuesday, but not too cold for sledding. Definitely too cold for the ski hill though. Still not much snow out there but at least it has been sticking around so it looks like winter. Lots of snow in other parts of the UP this year. Escanaba has even less than our sad amount. 

I have been working on the trim around the staircase. Lots of time for a meager looking result. Each piece needs to be fabricated, sanded, finished, and then attached. Slowly coming along. Not much fun to glue the cork to the wall. I think it was a good choice to use screws for the bigger panels, but we shall see. The cold seems to have sent the compost into hibernation. Temps are still above freezing, but not by much.

 

Chilly days. 

Sledding in the cold.

Ice covers most of the Dead River now.

Had it fallen the other way, lots of trail cleanup.

So much to break, so little time!

The Lights

The upstairs part of the staircase is finally done! Just a couple plugs to put in. The lights were pretty tricky, but they turned out nicely. Should be able to finish up the stair treads today. Then maybe the upstairs can be cleaned up a bit. That sure would be nice!

We have a cold spell starting today. Temps around zero for the next few days. Curious how the girls will respond. They are having a couple friends over for sledding today and want to go skiing tomorrow, so we shall see. 

On Wednesday there was a half day of school, so the I took the girls skiing. We had fun, but Amélie's ankle was hurting, so she spent a bit of time in the chalet. Saw a couple neighbors at the hill which is always nice. 

The compost temperature dropped down to 60, so I fed it. We shall see how it does through the cold snap!

Magic lights.

Had to track down a 12' oak board.

The problem is that now Tom's work looks even worse, haha.

Birthday Celebrations

Pretty special to be able to celebrate Grammie's birthday together! We have too much going on here, so she offered to bring her own birthday treat, which was delicious. Blueberry peach cobbler. Got to have some video chat time with Kalia and Claire yesterday and then a bit of playing and working in the snow. Then my parents went out to a fancy four course meal at a local Italian place. They said it was great! We watched a bit of the woodworking show we have been hooked on and this morning we will have some more time together.

The light fixture design required some tricky cuts on the table saw. Not the way it is supposed to be used, but after a bit of trial and scary error, I figured out a good method for making it work. I was hoping to finish the light fixtures this week, but didn't factor in dry times for glue and tung oil, so started on the staircase instead. Need to figure out what kind of adhesive to get for the cork. I have been looking forward to this job for a while! 

On the opposite spectrum of fun, I was trying to fix the bathroom fan that still works, but stopped talking to the controller. Turns out the wire box filled up with condensation. I took the lid off to let it dry. Hopefully it will start working again after a couple days. Also installed silencers and a backdraft damper to upgrade the wood stove circulation system - a different fan that brings warm air to our bathroom when the stove is lit. Luckily my dad was around to help bring in and stack up more firewood. The woodshed is starting to look a bit sad. Hopefully next month he can grab another load of blocks on his way up. 

Danger at the table saw.

Beautiful surprise of some lake effect snow.

The ugly steps will soon be transformed.

2024

What an amazing year! We got so much done. Naomi settled into her job although 40 hours a week is still a bit much. She even took on the extra task of teaching a class. The girls are really happy in school and all their extra activities. They are picking up on music and enjoying it! Even though everything took longer than I thought it would, I have made a lot of progress on the house. Really grateful for this time and space to get settled into life in Marquette. Wonderful to meet so many great people. Hopefully this winter will be enough time to get the big indoor stuff knocked out so that I can focus on building the sunken greenhouse this summer. 

Did some tiling this week. The weather was warm and Naomi was around to help, so it's good to get that unpleasant job out of the way. Making good progress on the staircase too. Seems like we should have gone skiing but a lot of pieces need to fit together for that to happen - weather, energy levels, car, etc. Maybe today. 

Naomi got a lot of food made this holiday. Even had another workshop with French Claire yesterday. Amélie has been using her cookbook - tried out some ravioli with Naomi and scones with me yesterday. The girls have had fun playing on the ice outside for the past couple days. Even got some sunshine yesterday - it has been a while. 

Amélie's scones.

Finished the floor. Now for some walls!

Ravioli time.

Compost is still cooking in spite of low temps!