12/17

Well winter has hit with a fury up here!!!! We got over a foot of snow and then we were hit with some brutally cold weather. One night it dipped below -30..... not taking windchill into account. We have been able to keep pretty cozy and the snow has made everything amazingly beautiful!! We have also had chickadees at our feeders everyday. They even come out when it is -25!! Those are some tough birds. We have finally insulated our roof and are close to finishing the 2nd level. Matt is very excited to have his music room finished. He has alot of new music written and I think he is even going to put some lyrics in. Other than that we are enjoying the great expanse of time and lack of any pressing scheduals.

12/11

The roof is done!!!!! Matt's dad and Ed came up last weekend to help wrap up that darn metal roof. (BIG THANKS TO ED AND BILL!!!!!) We rented some scaffolding and that really helped reduce the risk of bodily injury. Now that that is done we should be able to plug on with the 2nd level. We had some R value issues with the 2nd level insulation, but we have our game plan together and the material should be delivered tomorrow.

Life has started to shift for Matt and I. We have no electricity which means no TV, computer, Stereo etc. So the big events of most days are... 1- the weather. The coldest it has gotten is
-20. I check the thermometer 3 times more often than I check the time. We have had some snow and it really is breathtaking clinging to all the evergreens. Also, it is much easier to see the tracks of all the animals in our area. We continue to see very little wildlife. But the tracks don't lie and we have deer and moose all over and they seem to come very close to the house. 2-food because we are cooking everything from scratch on our woodburing stove much of the day is centered around meal time. We are eating like kings!!! Fresh baked bread, cookies, pumpkin bread, banana bread!!! We have also started making pizzas which turn out really good in the oven. We have done some amazing pork roasts and look forward to some wild game (maybe yet this winter??) Both Matt and I like to cook and trade off on who cooks and who cleans. Matt and I also fill our days reading . I'm currently reading Walden by Thoreau which obviously has some parallels to what we are doing. Matt is reading some books on American Indian cultures. We also borrowed a bunch of books from the library on animals in the area and their tracks. We also listen to the radio on Leslie's crank radio. We primarily listen to NPR or a classic rock station. Other than that most of the options are country (not my cup of tea). We are also playing chess. We are both new to the game so.... we are learning.

The rest of the day is chores and projects. The chores take up maybe 30 minuets. Bringing in wood and water. Cleaning the house, taking out the humanure buckets, walking the dogs etc. The projects are all building related and vary depending on what we are doing. We generally get 2-3 hours done a day.

We are really enjoying it up here and I hope to have pictures soon!

11/18

We keep working on the house. We are basically running on fumes now and cannot wait to be done!!!! We wrapped up the 1st level (not including trim) and should be pretty much done with the 2nd level in a day or two. The lay out has worked out great and we are very please with how it is all coming together. My Mom, sister and Cathy are coming up on Sat to see the place. Matt's dad Bill was up last Sat to wrap up the roof but it was way to slippery and dangerous. So he drove 10 hours to help us move a bed and freezer. It has been pretty cold the last couple of days, but the fireplace is working great. I hope to have some new pictures up after Denise comes up with her camera and takes some for me (hehe). So take a look in a week or two!

Moving on UP

I have really dropped the ball on this blog, but I'll bring it up to date. I'm having problems with photobucket but I hope to have new pictures up soon. The big news is I was laid off yesterday. So I'll be up north with Matt but I will be desperately looking for a new job up north. We still have some bills to pay off. The house has come a long way. 75% of the roof is up, thanks to the help of Matt's dad Bill..... thanks Bill!! The fireplace is in and we have moved our stuff up. This week Matt and I'll finish the insulation (as much as we can with only 75% of the roof up) and install the kitchen cabinets. But the main thing is we are able to stay warm, dry and cook all kinds of food. The cookstove has worked amazing and I'm very pleased. We are still working on getting a slow burn so we can wake up to a warm house. We will be ready for visitors in less than a month and hope people come up and see us. The area is really beautiful and there are a lot of things to do and see!!!

Sept 19-30 Update

So sorry I have neglected my Blog duties...... no new pictures but I promise some next Monday. We finally have the sub-roof up and the tar paper on! This week we are installing the last of the windows and doors and then we get to start the insulation and interior finish.

Blog changes

I edited the slide show and just made one with all the pictures including last week. I'll just keep adding to this slide show. If you want to look at them slower or if they take a long time to load just click the view all under the slide show

9/12-14 Roof and Rain

The weather the last 3 weeks has not been helping us make progress! But we did get 50% of the rafters up this weekend. Also the cookstove and solar was delivered and the well has been completed. I still do not know how much the well has set us back financially but I'll know in a day or two.

9/12 Well update/Matt moving up

Well I guess we ran out of luck this week. They began drilling our well. We were thinking it would be between 100 - 200 feet deep based on surrounding properties. On Thursday I received the call letting me know they got all the way to 325 feet and are barley getting a drop. WORST POSSIBLE NEWS (OK not "worst" but bad!) So they are going to go back on Monday with a Hydro driller and pump a bunch of water into the hole they drilled to create a fissure in the bedrock and get some water. They have told me they have never failed with the Hydro drill. But what was going to be a $4,000 - $7,000 well in now in the $13,000 area. OUCH!!! Looks like I'll keep working at my job in the cities until at least December.

9/6-7 Rained Out

Well the rain put a damper on our work plans for the weekend. We packed up the car Friday night and there was rain, so we waited and woke up Saturday morning and checked the weather....rain, with rain expected Saturday into Sunday. So we had a weekend at home. Matt and I went to the architectural salvage stores in the area and got a great front door for an awesome price! Other than that last week was a bust all around. The well never got dug (our well guys was delayed on another job), The fireplace never shipped (delayed) and no construction progress. The building process is not the smoothest thing.

Thank you!!!

Wanted to give a big thanks to my Mom who set us up with some fantastic culinary delights for the long week on the land!!!!! Thanks Mom!

The week up north

I have a new definition for the word "EXHAUSTED".... and "DIRTY"..... but we got a heck of a lot done!! We got the tyvek, siding, windows , loft joists, loft sub floor and roof started, but we did not get the roof up or waterproofed. We had a couple of delays because of rain and product being delivered 2 days late.... We also came home Sunday to have a bit of rest before heading back to the daily 9-5 grind. It was great being up on the land a bit longer, we finally had some squirrels and chipmunks hang around the camp site and we heard wolves howling back in the 1700 acres of county land behind our property. The wild raspberries and blueberries were plentiful and we ate all of them around the camp site. It did get pretty darn cold (Embarrass Minnesota is the coldest spot in the Continental US) 27 degrees on Sunday night!! Our well should be dug this week (everyone send a little good luck our way) and we will be on the edge of our seats to see how deep it has to be, and how much it will cost. That will dictate when I get to move up north, and Matt will be moving to the house with the dogs as soon as it is insulated . Our fireplace is being shipped this week and the solar is on order.

8/18 The walls are up!

Went up to the land on Saturday, Matt cut his hand up at work on Friday so we were unsure how much we would be able to do. But the rest of the walls only took about 2 hours. It is really amazing how easy the building part has been. The physical work of nailing the wood together, leveling it and putting it in place has been without confusion or problems (knock on wood) All the problems have been either the weather or the planning aspects. It continues to be very difficult to get the right amount of materials. I'm always making some changes on site and we are working from a plan of my own design so once I see it in real scale I can't help but change my mind. Next Saturday we will go up to the land and be there for 10 days straight! We hope to get the roof up, and the whole structure weather tight. Then we will be focusing on the interior and all the finishing work. It is getting more and more difficult to get Matt to come back to the cities at the end of the weekend. Our current timeline has Matt moving up as soon as it is insulated and me moving up once we have paid off the bills, hopefully by the end of winter. But we have to earn enough money not to work for a while so it is all about saving money!

8/12 Great weekend up north!

Great weekend up north!! The weather was great and things went very smoothly. We got the carriage bolts installed and started framing walls. I must say this weekend was very fun. The walls going up was really satisfying and being able to look out my future window and see the view made it all feel very real. I also drew the floor plan on the sub floor to see how it all lays out. I think I may tweak a few things, relocate a couple of windows for better views. I figure now is the time to second guess myself. The weather is getting very cold at night and Matt made ME get up and start the morning fire. It just shows who the tough one is! I also ordered the fireplace/cookstove. This is one area I really splurged and feel like we made a good selection. We chose a "bakers oven" by an Australian company. Mainly because 1) I can see and enjoy the fire 2) It has an oven to bake in and 3) it is a combustion heater. Isn't she a beauty!

8/6 Problems & Delays

As a city dweller I'm used to convenience.....ok, I have grown dependent on it! Every store and product I could ever want is basically within a 10 mile radius of me. So planning a construction project without the need for endless trips back to the local building supply store has proved difficult for me to achieve. This weekend we needed to put the carriage bolts through the beams and posts. I had bought the drill bit, confirmed with the "experts" at the store that it was correct for the carriage bolts, then drove the 4 hours north to install them only to discover the bit did not fit into the new drill. Late Saturday afternoon on the Iron Range is not the time to find a new one. So we were not able to start the walls as I had wanted. Another delay. We will have to learn to plan ahead in all aspects of our life soon enough. (I hope to enjoy that lesson more once I have a roof over my head!)

7/28 Off The Grid details

For those of you who are not familiar with the term "OFF THE GRID," it means not being connected to the power grid. We will be utilizing some very old methods and some new high tech methods for taking care of our needs.

Lights/radio/refrigeration will all be powered by the sun via solar panels.

Cooking and heating water will be done on a wood fired stove and wood fired hot tub.

Septic will handled by use of a "Humanure" toilet, which basically is just composting our "waste".

One may ask WHY we would ever want to live like that. There are many reasons that came into play when Matt and I made this decision. They range from childhood stories that really touched us (My Side of the Mountains, Swiss Family Robinson, Robin hood etc.) to the desire to be "Green." I hope through this blog I can explain our logic and you can see where the motivation and passion for this comes from.

7/28 Planning, Designing and Searching for land

On New Years Eve of 2008 Matt and I decided to give 100% to moving to the north woods and living off the grid. During the rest of the winter and spring we began designing our mini cabin, planning what we could live without, reading everything we could and searching for property. On June 5, 2008 we purchased 7 acres of land in northeastern Minnesota in a town called Embarrass. The property is heavily wooded and has a lot of bog and wetland. Our designs are complete and we are building a 288 sq ft heated structure with a sleeping loft and screened in porch. We will be able to sleep 6 comfortably. So we are hoping for visitors!!! In the up-coming posts we will add pictures and details of our progress. We appreciate all the support and encouragement we have received from friends and family!