here is my kool a$$ outdoor bathroom

this is the view from the outside

the diagonal floor boards

my $5 toilet and the free (heavy) sink

the toilet was purchased at the longview ReStore http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx

the totally cool $5 (it was marked 10 but 1/2 price) door with destinys boobs. the door was purchased at the tyler ReStore http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx

Musical Dogs

We have three dogs Trixie, Mack, and Rocko. Normally they all get along great but a couple of weeks ago we had a huge dog fight. Trixie and Rocko were ganging up on poor Mack. Daniel and I could hardly get them apart. It took several tries for us to get it done. Everybody was bleeding - it was horrible. So since then we've been doing musical dogs and swapping who is outside every few hours.

Poor Mack is all alone now.

An upside for him is that he keeps getting to go travelling on the weekends with us now while Rocko and Trixie stay home in the backyard.

Neglected Cabin

the doors shown above (we have 2 sets of them) were purchased at the downtown Dallas ReStore http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx

I hope the cabin doesn't think we've totally abandoned it ~ we haven't, but it's been so hot lately and summer things are going on constantly. Also it's always close in our minds (and hearts) as we keep planning things for it.

This past weekend Daniels mom and grandmother moved and we helped them get the big stuff. They had mostly gotten the little stuff taken care of.

Next hopefully we'll get the roof completed. I think we've definitely decided we are doing a metal roof. What we looked at was less than $2 a linear foot and has a 25 year warranty which is awesome! The roof is going to be more than a weekend job so we'll have to plan week so we can be focused and get it done. And then once we get the roof accomplished we can start working on insulation and start focusing on one room at a time to get them completed (hopefully). ((Historically this has been our plan "let's start a project and not do anything else until we get it completed" but it never works out that way. We start a project and then we get excited about another project so we start it and next thing we have 10 started projects and no COMPLETED projects. I need a "DONE" stamp like they had on Monster House. Maybe that would help.))

We have started talking about planning the porches. I think our goal is to have a wrap around porch on the cabin but it will have to be done in phases. I know (pretty sure) phase 1 is going to be the front porch. I hope: it will be 10 - 12 feet deep and I want it to be a screened porch. Also I've been talking to Daniel about making some wood shingles to go on its roof. I have these great books called "foxfire" that teach you the "old way" of doing things and there is an article in them about shakes. I need a froe so if you have one or know of someone who does let me know. I've been watching them on ebay so hopefully i'll get one soon. Yeah I'm so excited!! (see now you got me all excited about the porch and I want to start it now and finish the roof later. shame on you)

Lastly, we've been getting to visit with the Hillhouses (Chris and Shawna) which are our neighbors up the hill to the cabin. Chris is 1 year older than Daniel and they grew up out there together. So it has been nice getting to visit with them the last couple of weekends.

Hot Hot Hot!

Took some time off to practice my beer pong and make jelly.

Robbie lost in a sea of plums---->

Took a side trip to Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula.

Rebuilding Murdocks peir ^

The only thing left of the Balinese Room was the entry way on the sidewalk.\/

We seriously have wood running out our ears. every you turn at the land there is a pile of wood or some sawhorses holding up wood or some big pallets of wood. Here are some pics of a few of the approximately 10 piles of lumber we have.

Buzzards

One little known fact about the buzzards mentioned in the first post (below) is that they had evidently made a nest in the house in Blueridge. The 1st time we went - we knew something was living in the house because we could hear it moving around in the attic but we couldn't figure out what it was. Of course the 2nd time you already know about. But they just kept coming back. Eventually Daniel found some eggs in the attic so we know for sure why they were hanging around.

EWW the eggs were all gross, and speckedly. There were lots of comments about omelets. We eventually just threw them in Mark's trashcan because we didn't want to break them (Well we did and we didn't) and Mark hoped his trashmen didn't think he was mad at them!!

Side Trip - Lumber and The Well

One side story to the cabin.

One week Daniel worked in Greenville. The highway to Greenville was being widened into a divided highway and he noticed that they were tearing down some houses to accomplish this.

That weekend we worked in Blue Ridge but after lunch we grabbed our tools and drove out that way.

Most of the houses that we passed were just piles of broken lumber, but on one we passed, the floor was pretty much intact just lying on top of the rest of the house. Of course, as we drove by, another man was already there poking around, so we went on by. As we neared Greenville, we could see smoke and as we got to the last house, there was a construction guy there burning it. Nothing else looked promising so we turned around and headed back. As we got near the one house we were interested in, we noticed the guy was gone, so we pulled over.

Daniel got out and started busting up the floorboards with his sledgehammer so we could salvage the beams. As he did that I walked to the next house (pile of rubble) and salvaged a couple of 2 X 4s. As I walked back to load them in the truck, I noticed the other man was back talking to Daniel. He was an older retired man, named James, and we visited with him a few minutes. He was very nice. ((the darker vertical boards in the picture are the salvaged boards))

He helped Daniel break up some of the floorboards, as I went back to the other house and picked up a few miscellaneous bricks. He noticed my bricks and pointed us to another house farther down and said it had lots of bricks laying around everywhere down there.

After he left Daniel and I loaded up the lumber. We got ten or eleven 2 X 8s in all and they were all 13 feet long. Really nice boards, however they stuck way out of the back of the truck. While Daniel was securing them with tiestraps I tied a bright orange glove to the end of them so people would notice they stuck out. (Daniel laughed)

On our way back to Blue Ridge, Daniel stopped at the "brickhouse" and I immediately began loading bricks into the back of the truck. Daniel (always thinkin) noticed a gaping hole in the ground and went to investigate.

There was a fairly deep brick lined well that the construction workers had evidently uncovered. And they just left it uncovered for anybody to wander up on! It was creepy because it wasn't just a straight column -- at the bottom it was bulbous (like a thermometer). Daniel and I took some pictures and got out of there before we tried to throw each other in.