Details Coming Together Nicely

All the test fitting before painting is now paying off,

re-assembly has been effortless and very rewarding as it starts to show it's final appearance.

Window and door trim to finish up along with fascia, soffit and steel roof installation.

The overall view.

(remember you can click on any photo in the blog to enlarge)

Paint, Trim, Computer Counter and Humming Birds

We've had some nicer weather lately

which has allowed us to get more done on both the observatory and cleaning up storm damage left over from last falls big storm.

We burned most of the tree that smashed my truck and we also did more cutting and dragging of downed trees to the fire pit so we're ready for our next big burn.

The frost is boiling out of the roads around here but getting better by the day,

we pulled tracks off of both trucks last week and I'm very happy with how they look after a winter of hard use.

We also have had humming birds in the feeders for about a week now, it's fun to have them back I know the cats missed them.

Observatory work

Trim along the floor was painted and installed,

the computer desk counter top was designed and built in place.

Applied two coats of the base yellow on the outside of the building.

Pats always painting,

trim, fence, fence corner posts, coating the large ABC blocks you name it she'll paint it.

Test fit of the blocks before they got plumbed up (front)

back side of blocks

Hoping to launch the pontoon boat and fix the dock this weekend, would love a pan of fresh walleyes, if not that then maybe some steelhead fishing.

Ice Off, Loons Calling and Dock Under Water

I woke up at 2:30 am this morning and noticed it was still 52 degrees

so I reached up and opened the bedroom window for some fresh air,

within seconds I could hear the loon calling and knew I would see an open lake at sunrise.

My 5:30 am cat alarm went off as it does every morning to reveal our end of the lake clear of ice, our dock completely under water and a pair of fornicating ducks taking advantage of the underwater platform

photo of dock less the ducks.

So now Pat has won the,

Last snow and

Ice off (She hit this one to the day)

and I won the

Snow off the road

I have the feeling she will take the rest. I'm going to pull the tracks off the truck this week and just run the wheeler till the road dries out

Observatory work is interior trim and installing the cable light system over the counter space.

Floor Installation and Squirrel Relocation Project

Well the floor is installed in the warm room,

with lots of measuring and lay out we cut the roll of flooring then loosely rolled it up and carried it inside the building.

Fitting the flooring took some time but once we were happy with the fit we smoothed it out and trimmed along the walls.

Looking into the large end of the room.

Small end of the room.

Now that the flooring is complete, I will start the design and construction of the computer countertop work station in the large end of the building and bunks in the small end.

With today's nice weather we also worked on outside details

finishing the fence and post layout along with more painting.

After the layout was complete the fence was removed for painting.

Along with observatory work I have been running a

Red Squirrel Relocation Project

Since we fed the birds all winter we are over run with red squirrels,

so out came the Have-A-heart live trap.

Every squirrel gets a 2 mile 4 wheeler ride to Bill's Branch of Murmur Creek,

I have made 7 of these trips so far.

Here is number 5 we will call him Bob and he is waiting for his wheeler ride.

If any locals around Grand Marais or Lutsen are looking for live red squirrels just email me and I'll save you some and deliver them for free!

Indoor Work Weather Spent Painting

Rain, windy and cold.

We did get a short break in the weather to set up our 1st fence layout.

Once happy with the layout the fence was removed as one panel, taken inside and painted. The long corner post will be shortened when we decide how they're going to be topped.

Once this 2nd coat is dry we are going to glue 1" yellow smiley face marbles in the top holes.

Here is one we just pushed into the wet paint to get a feel of how it will look.

Also painted the inside of the door.

More Wet Snow and Indoor Block Sign Work

Woke to 2 more inches of very wet snow. (Lucky us!)

Here is the view at the top of the driveway looking down the road.

So up to the warm room for some more indoor work on the ABC jumbo blocks.

Here they are in a split photo,

we reinstalled them on the temporary post so Pat could lay out the images on the open faces of the blocks.

We then pulled it back a part and started the decoupage.

We have applied 2 of 6 coats of glue over the art which will then get a final coat of poly.

Mud Season and Warm Room Detail Work

A 64 Degree sunny day,

the nicest day of spring so far which inspired us to do the 2 mile walk to retrieve the 4 wheeler from the storage building. The walk gave us a close look at the road and the frost boils squeezing up to the surface, it's going to be quite some time before it dries enough to drive on it with out rutting the crap out of it.

On Saturday the 23rd we woke to another 2" of wet show and there is more snow in the forecast this week, so it looks like Pat is going to win the snow prediction. There is some signs that spring might be here though, her daffodils are starting to poke up although some are pushing through snow.

Not the best photo but here is our 1st Daffodils.

We have also been working on some of the warm room details including hanging the celling fan and lights, installing electric switches, plugs and lighting.

Outer space celling fan.

Our building design has a very large roof cantilever that we temporarily supported against snow load with a 2X6. The ultimate plan was to support this corner of the roof with extra large custom made ABC kids wood blocks.

Well, thanks to North House Folks School for supplying the 6X6 inch wood timbers that were scrap ends from their timber framing course. They were even kind enough to cut them into the block shape.

We then loaded them up for a run down to Lutsen were a very helpful guy by the name of David Woerheide, owner of Border Designs Signs, did the carving of the letters on 2 sides of our blocks and he did an exceptional job, Thank You, Thank You, David.

After picking them up from David we started the layout and drilling the blocks to fit on a 3/4" steel rod that will support the roof.

Here is a temporary stand built to hold the blocks which help us see the design and insured the holes went in the right spots.

So one side has MURMUR CREEK on it and OBSERVATORY is on the other side. The entire stack is 6 feet tall.

After getting the stack back to the project site we pulled it apart and Pat primed and painted. There are 5 colors Yellow, Red, Green, Blue and Purple, they look great.

We are now looking for images that can be decoupaged onto the other 4 sides of the blocks. They will be finished with poly coating.

We also started the trim work both inside and out,

We're experimenting with crooked looking trim around the window and installing this self watering window flower box.

We started painting our huge steel flowers

This flower is 2 feet in dia.

Last but not least,

our article was in the April 16 Cook County News Herald, it was called Making tracks through the backwoods. A full page article about our tracked vehicles and our business dealing in tracked vehicle solutions for remote access to difficult properties. It's a fun read, our thanks to Jane Howard the writer of the piece (it was a fun afternoon) and also the Cook County News Herald for printing her work.

Clean Up, Interior Paint and We're Still Waiting for Spring

Finally done with the sheet rock work which left us with a day of wiping down walls, sweeping and vacuuming all that sanding dust followed by masking and taping everything we didn't want to paint.

We then sprayed 2 coats of primer, a total of 5 gallons, over the complete interior and turned up the heat. We let it dry for 2 days.

So on goes the paint,

pastel green covers everything but the back and one end wall that are a soft yellow.

The yellow doesn't show well in the photos but looks great in person and the purple vertical beam splits the back wall up beautifully.

Looking from the larger space into the smaller end, the end wall with the sun spot is also yellow.

It's a small and hard to photograph building but I think you get the idea.

We painted both colors in one day, then did a 2nd touch up coat the next day.

While the paint was drying, it was also time to clean up.

The fire ring had poked out of the snow along with a lot construction debris so we started a fire and burned all the wood scraps along with making a dump run for the non-burnables, the snow was dropping fast and it even smelled like spring.

This was the Rodeo parked right in front of the warm room Thursday covered in mud. The gravel driveway was just about clear of snow and things were looking good so we headed to the cities for the weekend.

Here's the road Sunday afternoon as I am heading back in, what a difference 2 days makes.

Sunday's view of the observatory and warm room.