Making comments and more great progress!

A number of people have emailed me to say that they don't know how to leave comments on the blog. My friend Cheryl (who gave me the idea to blog) has instructions on her blog that came from her cousin. I'll pass them along once more!

1. Under this post you will see small writing. On the right side you will see "# comments" for example "0 comments." Click on that.

2. A new screen will open with the post and then comments already written underneath. Scroll down.

3. You can type a comment in the white box. Write your name in the white box after your comment.

4. In the small white box under the comment box it will say "comment as." The easiest way to do this is to scroll down and choose "anonymous." If you remember to write your name in the comment box I'll know who you are.

5. Then just click Publish Comment and your comment will be posted.

Lots of news this week! First, I suppose I ought to cheer you all with the news that we have snow! There, bet you feel better about the terrible weather you're having! Hahaha!!! Actually, it is a LOT prettier today than it was earlier in the week when I had no heat in my sleeping quarters (the camper). Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself!

I'm going to snatch bits and pieces of emails I wrote this week just so you can really get the flavor of the ups and downs we've been through this week. Here's Wednesday's:

The guys were working on our cabin today but couldn't get the well working. They hope to try again tomorrow and have some ideas for getting it to go. It looks like the spring will be a better bet to start but we do need the well too if we're going to have water through the coldest parts of winter. I think they will get the equipment in soon to work on an ATV trail to the house. They also plan to build a better utility room on the back. The current one is just an uninsulated dirt hole with an uninsulated shed over the top built with untreated lumber supports. They want to put in a bigger one with an insulated basement and insulated room above it. That will house all the incoming and outgoing water lines, hot water heaters, 1,000 gal water holding tank (needed because you're running off a generator at times and it is easier to fill the tank occasionally rather than running the generator constantly for water). It's exciting to see things finally moving on the house!

Then Thursday: I suppose I ought to make another blog post but I'm too tired. Not sleeping real well. It has turned rather cold (ice on the puddles) and there was no heat in my camper so I didn't sleep well at first because of that. Rodney filled the propane tank so now I have heat, but either the carbon monoxide detector is too sensitive or the propane heater isn't working quite right because the detector goes off for the first couple seconds every time the heater runs, which is about every half hour, which wakes me up about every half hour. Ugh! I think we may try an elec heater and see how that goes.

They plan to start work on the ATV trail to the cabin soon - maybe next week? They'll also dig out the pit where the water lines are under the cabin and rebuild that as a small basement, putting ALL the utilities in there. That ought to make things easier to access than the crawl space, cleaner, remove another source of mold AND make it easier to keep that space heated so the pipes don't freeze. They'll put the hot water heaters in there which will provide some of the heat needed to keep that warm. They figure it will take about 3 weeks of work to do that.

Meanwhile we need to cut firewood for heat, but Rodney is working until dark most days as it is, including Saturdays (they have Mondays off). That makes it a bit challenging to cut wood without the kids there. The logistics of getting things together in the next month is a bit crazy.

The well out there didn't work either. It ran dry in 5 minutes and didn't recover after an hour. They are probably going to run a line from camp through the lake out to there. That shouldn't take too much time and can be done while they're putting in the ATV trail. They're going to rebuild the camp's water collection system next year anyway, and we can tap into the spring out there during the summer so the water part is relatively easy.

The generator is reasonably efficient so that shouldn't be too bad to use when the spring isn't running (about 3-4 months of the year). So there's progress, but still a lot to do before we can really move out there. Actually, since I'm already camping now, I might end up camping out there for a little while as the work is being done. We'll see!

We ran a couple of pieces of wood through the wood stove earlier this week and it got plenty cozy in there pretty quickly. We do need to re-insulate under the floor, but we'd prefer to do it with foam if possible. We need to look into the logistics of that, which reminds me to email my cousin's wife and get some contacts from her. They're preparing to do that in their house this fall.

Friday: Good news on the house out here! Rodney was able to get the pelton wheel running making elec with 120 lb of pressure so there's plenty of power! The batteries came in last night or this morning - they are here and I even touched them ;) so we ought to have power out there very soon. Rodney plans to work on that today. Everyone is very supportive of getting us out there NOW which helps a TON!!! The kids have been splitting wood and we got the go-ahead from the DEC to take water from the lake during the winter (no restrictions on a single family dwelling) so we don't even need to run the line from the camp! LOTS of progress yesterday! The Lord was running ahead of me yesterday clearing the paths as I was getting frustrated about all that needed to be done! He also provided an electric heater for the camper which I ran last night and slept VERY well! I still need a couple more good nights of sleep to catch up but I feel a lot better already today!

News on the NY house sale - things are progressing well. We've come to an agreement on asbestos removal that I think makes everyone happy. The septic has passed inspection (FINALLY! Thanks, Jake!). Now we're waiting for the buyers to get financing ok-ed. The house is being appraised today and the buyers need it to appraise at a certain value so we're waiting to hear about that. Our realtor is fairly confident that it will work, but that is definitely a prayer request. I'll make a quick post as soon as we find out the answer on that one! I'll also let you know when we start moving in to the cabin!