With a moan of anguished anticipation

After building a little frame out of quarter-round, I put gobs of black caulking all around the perimeter, stuck the stained glass window in and stepped back to admire the look. It looked so great! Happy. Happy. Then it flopped forward and I could hear the glass breaking.

If you have ever read Nabokov's Pnin,** I felt Pnin's pain when he thought he had broken a cherished bowl while washing it. Only this really did break. After moping around a little bit, I decided to finish installing it anyway. You can't see the cracks in the glass but I think I'll cut some window glass to help support it.

Part of the lore.

**Pnin is washing up, after a party. Lovingly, he places an aquamarine bowl in the water. This bowl is a gift from his young son. It is Pnin's most precious object. It slips out of his hand and drops into the suds-filled sink.

He almost caught it--his fingertips actually came into contact with it in mid-air, but this only helped to propel it into the treasure-concealing foam of the sink, where an excruciating crack of broken glass followed upon the plunge.

Then something wonderful happens: "With a moan of anguished anticipation, he went back to the sink and, bracing himself, dipped his hand deep into the foam. A jagger of glass stung him. Gently he removed a broken goblet. The beautiful bowl was intact. He took a fresh dish towel and went on with his household work."

Spar varnish on door to tiny cabin

Shiny thing alert. I really like marine spar varnish - because it reminds me of boats (durr), and Honduras. It doesn't smell as bad as polyurethane during application and it will last longer than I probably will. It will protect the wooden door despite what weather can throw at it. Eventually the wooden walls will turn a brown-gray and set off the door and the little red window nicely.

Le moderne tick picking equipment

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You may not think much about getting ticks or chiggers when you are out in nature but this is a reality in much of the tropical and temperate world. Definitely in the southern US.

Here we have embodied the ideal device - it even has a little built in seat - where a person can inspect hisorherownself before slipping blissfully into hot bubbling whirling tick- and chigger-defying water.

Rusticity has its limits.

This tub will be installed about 1.5 feet up from the floor so that I can contemplate nature while bathing.

Tarr gets all important with a deer leg

Tarr gets a leg, originally uploaded by bouteloua.

Tarr got this special cocky prance when he was carrying around a dead deer leg. Like he thinks he has reclaimed his inner vicious beast.

We watched him futz around with this for a little while - he was feeling so, so self important. Then he dug a little hole with his paws, gently placed the leg in the hole, then used his nose to push dirt over it to completely cover it. It took him quite a while to do it to his own satisfaction. But he got it done.

We were fascinated: we had never seen a dog use his nose for a burial tool. But Tarr does things his own way.

Young of the year road-killed fawn

Young of the year road kill fawn, originally uploaded by bouteloua.

Deer season doesn't open for several more weeks. However, vehicular smashing of deer happens all the time. We didn't see the crash, but this one was fresh - its mother was still hanging around waiting for the dead fawn to recover.

It was not going to recover - the good doctor determined that it had multiple broken bones and an exploded liver. And was already dead.

So he tossed the fawn in the bathtub he was hauling in the back of his pickup. Fortunately he had a state wildlife biologist along if an explanation to game wardens was called for.

He recovered what meat there was.

Pex Plumbing For Idiots

Pex Plumbing For Idiots, originally uploaded by bouteloua.

This is so simple that I think that plumbers have been keeping big (and expensive) secrets from us. Here you can see the water entering the cabin (at left from the floor) being routed through a big blue household water filter.

Next it splits off to provide either cold water or is sent through the electric tankless water heater (Steibel Eltron silver colored box) for hot water.

I had to have a special tool and have not completed all of the crimps at each juncture, but how hard can it be?

Yes, I did this myself. Most plumbing projects require multiple trips to the store for supplies and this took two. It is over 100 miles round trip through very very windy roads in the remote hills to get pex supplies and back.

Not supposed to be scairt of this but

This is a copperhead snake that is more afraid of me that I am of it and is rapidly leaving. There won't be any getting down on the ground and playing with it because its a SNAKE.

You people who get all cuddly with snakes? Good for you. There is something hardwired in me to not want to be friendly with venomous snakes.

The weather has started to moderate and more Tiny Cabin projects will commence in a couple of weeks. My friends would like to stay there while the elk bugle.

Lofty thoughts

I plan to install the sleeping loft floor this weekend.

How hard could it be? Just laying massive boards (2.5 inches thick by 12 inches wide by 14 feet) side by side, then screwing them down.

This will mean one less pile of lumber to trip over.

One plumbing part shy of a warm shower

Well pump installer has an interesting history as an aerospace engineer in the Air Force and is now installing pumps in wells in the wilds of the Boston Mountains (southern part of the Ozark Mountains). Click pictures to view.

Wellhead on left, pressure tank on right. It was thoughtful that they swapped out the well cap to match the blue of the well tank. Sundry pressure gizmos between the two.

Digger guy. Better him than me. I have learned to really dislike ditch digging in the heat. Once he covers up all the pipe, I get a road to the cabin as a free bonus. This means I no longer have to hike all my stuff in from the road. Good!





Since the electrician was already down in position to install the Steibel Eltron electric tankless water heater, Tarr takes advantage of the situation to sniff.










No matter. The tankless water heater worked great and I just showered under the pipe end that would have connected here if I'd a had the piece. The nearest plumbing supply store is over 2 hours away. This pvc plumbing is just temporary until I get a PEX system organized. The warm water out the pipe end was SHEER BLISS.
Photo: The economy outdoor shower is affixed to a cedar tree.

Giddy with the thought of water

One thing that is lots of no fun is the feeling of dried sweaty bug spray on one's skin. So the thought of having a bath (installed eventually) perks me right up.
But not Tarr. Baths are a torment to Tarr.

Investigations into well pumps have yielded the following:
1. The good old country girls at work say to get an electric pump.
2. The cost of wiring to get to the pump would be prohibitive and digging a trench to bury it reminds me of the misery involved in trenching in the electric line.
3. I don't need that much water.
4. I've found only 4 makers of hand pumps (that can pump from 55 feet): Bison, Oasis, Simple Pump, and Baker Monitor. Of these, only Oasis at $279 plus shipping costs less than $1000.
5. I don't know if this can be used with a pressure tank. More research to follow.

Hooray. We are bored!!

When I called to pester the well digger today as usual, his mom, or whatever female voice answered, said that he had hit water at 55 feet with 6 gallons per minute. Hoooray!

Of course I haven't gotten the bill yet but it can't be too bad.

Off to investigate well pumps. Hand pumps may be the way to go at first. Eventually I want to be able to either 1. swap my rustic cabin with someone's cabin in Tuscany for temporary experiential tourism or 2. survive the total annihilation of life as we know it. Real rusticity or lack of electricity amount to the same thing here.

I dream of a hot bath.

Hired He Man Helpers are such delicate flowers

The well digger didn't drill Thursday because he needed some more well pipe and had to go get it. Fair enough.

Then the well digger didn't drill Friday because it might rain. A mud-covered well digger might get wet. So he stayed home in Ozone. That's a town in Arkansas. Really.

grrrrrrrr.

Gnomes emerge from cave to help out

I was contemplating how I was going to drag the door and its frame into place by myself when I heard voices and quite literally, some gnome-like men emerged from the earth. They were wearing mud-encrusted overhauls that were cut off at the knee. One was wearing, this is true, what appeared to be rattlesnake tights underneath. The only other option was that he had actual rattlesnake scales on his legs. But I wasn't going to ask.

Well, hi. How youall doing? says I.

They were so nice and helped move the door and tie it up so it wouldn't bonk me on the head when I framed it in.
So Front Door is framed in. Little Red window installed. Yippee!

Homeward, I waved at The Devil Queen in Atkins. I hope they are doing ok.

There's a reason why stained glass is a lost art

Tarr might have been the dog who did a little scent marking on the table at the sweatshop where I was working on this stained glass but I'm not sure. I thought the decent thing to do would be to wipe it up, no matter which dog did it, and when I was down at floor level, I found bloodstains all over the floor. Yikes.

I have bled for this project myself but not enough to leave large stains on the floor. But add to that getting burned by the soldering iron, possibly poisoned by flux, getting a sore neck and butt, spending many otherwise beautiful days indoors and many dollars, I declare I will never make stained glass again.

Even so, I am pleased with the way it turned out and hope it will fit in the place that it was created to fit. (See red oval).

Every backyard should have one.

Tiny Cabin is located across the old field from a large and, presumably, old cave, second or third largest in the state. Every year, on the first Saturday of June, I open the cave so that cavers and their groupies can crawl, scoot, walk, duck-walk, push their prone bodies along with their toes and otherwise locomotate themselves through miles of muddy passages.

If this sounds like fun to you, have at it. I kind of get off on their having to ask me for permission. I do wonder how they have gotten this kink of a hobby. I tried it once and was put off by stopping to think about the millions of tons of rocks that loomed overhead.

I have heard that there is a room that you could fit a 10 story building in. I have seen the waterfall room. I do know that kindergartners make good cavers.

This year may have a little extry special weirdness if we get a cave diver to come and dive into a looong wet passage at the entrance.

Progress on Tiny Cabin is happening in the stained glass window front. More on that later.

Flashback to timberframe assembly day, part 2

Nothing to it really. Assembled in one day. Just Lincoln Logs on a different scale.

The pieces had been cut during a training workshop held by Goshen Timber Frames in North Carolina.

It is made of pine and has since been sealed to protect it from the elements.

Many thanks to Rick, Jack, Dave and all the others. You can quit your day jobs anytime and do this instead.