Saturday, February 10, 2007

Three Years

January 5th marked the 3 year anniversary of ownership of Woodpecker Hollow. Unfortunately, I was sick for the third time this year. Twice, bad enough to bring on my Bronchitis. Plus, Dad was still recovering from his Fall and Winter-long illnesses first due to Shingles, then to Anemia brought-on by stress, diet and the medication he was taking for the shingles. Now, here it is February 10th, and finally we are both in decent enough condition to go up and see what we can do at camp.

Mom has moved into her new home in Blaine and has purchased some pre-made shelving kits for her library and craft room. Inside the kits the panels are padded with polystyrene (Styrofoam) blocks and sheets to protect the shelves. I got the idea and called Dad to see if we could use this to block off some of the holes in the cabin, at least until we can afford to get some real insulation. So we headed up north to pack in some Styrofoam and see if we can't get the cabin to heat up a bit.

When we set out, it was -18 degrees. By the time we returned home, it was 10 degrees above making the day swing a full 28 degrees in temperature. We had to buy some more Kerosene for the heater, but we still had troubles getting it started. So, we took it apart to see what was up and found that while it had been setting in the shed last winter, mice had managed to get in and build a nest up under it, hindering airflow and causing the unit to smoke very badly. Once we cleaned it out and put it back together, it worked just fine.

We built a fire out in the pit and did a little rifle shooting at which we both did fairly well. Dad tried the tractor, but it was plainly too cold for it to start. We managed to get the cabin to warm up inside so we decided to call it a day and head back. We found a nice quaint little hamburger shop in downtown Pine City that was fairly reasonably priced. Other than the cold, we had great weather and it was just great to get back out of doors again!