My friends you have probably been concerned at my obvious lack of posting, and my appalling lack of email replies is beyond reproach. I think I have a good excuse, so to that end I created a little Q&A photo blog. This is kinda how I imagine the dialog would unfold if you ran into me and we were doing the getting caught up chit chat. I will pretend you are the person in Bold and tell you what’s been going on in my life. But since I am too tired right now to type it all up I am going to let my photos do the talking for me. Here we go –
How are Jasper and Opal?
*Cue “ We’re Going To Be Friends,” The White Stripes for the soundtrack to this answer
Freaking awesome!!! Not sure who is more happy to have a full time playmate, but it is great for both of them. They play constantly! Jasper is learning to sit, and play with toys. They are adorable together romping around the yard. Jasper has been going out with Opal supervised off lead. He has gotten comfortable here and knows this is his home, and really it was a terribly unfair advantage for only Opal to be free. So now they both are running around* and our yard is an endless game of tag / keep-a-way.
*Jasper still wears a light leash since he is still a bugger to catch sometimes. Clever dog has learned to’sit’ faster then ‘come’.
So how are things at home?
Funny you should ask…
We no longer have an entryway, but on the plus side we have a new straw shed for the dog yard.
Wow, big change…
Oh wait, this is just the beginning! Or the end, depending on how you look at it. Either way this is a long overdue project that we are super excited about.
OMG you destroyed your house!!!
Not the Whole house
And I want to go on record and say that the electric, plumbing, phone and Wifi are all hooked up and working in the kitchen addition that we left standing.
You realize it’s almost Sept?
Yes, why do you ask?
No reason really, I mean, besides the kitchen and the woodshed where are you living?
The garage, we have a nice upstairs loft set up, and the people, house dogs, and plants sleep downstairs.
But wait if you are in the garage where will the handler live?
Didn’t I mention we are also building a handlers cabin. yeah at Dew Claw we make up for the crappy wages with great food and housing.
It has a great view of the dog yard from the front porch.
And at this point I should probably explain that it is not just me and Dan, our friend Paul came and spent 10 days working here with us, and Dan has an awesome guy working with him.
You got a lot going on, who is running the show?
Dan thinks he is, Opal thinks she is, you decide.
Lets back up a little… what actually happened to the house???
We pulled as much as we could to reuse. The siding will go on the new straw barn, shelves will go into the handlers cabin, that kind of thing. Some got hauled away to the trash. But a whole lot of the house was wood… and nothing burns like wood, so
Well like I said, we took it apart first, recycled what we could and threw out what wouldn’t burn, but yeah. And it was liberating really. Once I realized we were really going to do it I stopped cleaning the house. Why bother when you are just going to burn it right?
Looks like fun
Thanks, yeah it has been good. And you know how much fun Dan has with equipment, boys and their toys
So at this point I assume you did all this with a plan in mind, I hope so. You do have a plan right?
Of course!
We have wanted to build a home since we first bought this property in 1997. But the Boundary Fire changed those plans. And it really has taken us a long time to bounce back and get to a point where we can build our own house. The old place was the first we ever owned. As much as it was a horrible house (and it was – seriously the construction was beyond bad, the more we tore it open and saw the more amazed I was we managed to heat it!) it was a great home. But now we have worked to be in a place where we can build a new home. One without squirrels building condos and running a nightclub in the roof, one where all the switches are actually wired to something, and the lights all work. Most importantly a tight solid house with good insulation, on a solid foundation. (after the demolition we could see clearly the worst case scenario was true, they basically build the floor on the ground, seriously how did we ever heat that place?)
So a new home for the humans and pets of Dew Claw is in the works.
Been playing with a neat little program, I highly recommend, called Room Sketcher*. And came up with some tentative plans. Of course Dan is the builder, so now it is his job to make my plans a reality. The kitchen is going to stay as is, and will be attached to the house – the opening to the kitchen is the white opening in the right hand side wall.
*seriously this program is too cool, and easy to use. I had way too much fun and came up with about 6 different options before this one.
Downstairs:
Upstairs:
Cool, good luck.
Thanks!
So that is kinda how I figure it would go if we ran into each other and were trying to get caught up. Of course there are still race plans and dog training to talk about, but I am running late, no surprise there. So for now we hug and say, “let’s do this again soon”. And we will, I promise, as soon as I have the time….
“He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
