Trip to the Cabin

Ruth

Trip to the Cabin

Submitted by Ruth on Sat, 11/19/2011 - 00:21

Well we took one last trip to the cabin for the winter. We bought a propane heater you attach to your wall and presto! You have heat! Well it didn't work quite as well as we had hoped.

First We get up there and realize there is power to the big cabin but not to our littler one, so Dan goes on a quest to find the problem. An hour later it's established there was a fuse that was not working properly, but now we have power.

So Dan gets to work installing the heater which involves drilling a hole through the cabins logs to the outside. Not an easy feat. He broke the drill chuck! So he then proceeded to drill a number of tiny holes with a spare dill found in the garage and chisel out the rest of the hole. Took an extra 1 1/2 hours to complete. All in all it was a very long day and Dan was quite exhausted.

The smaller cabin is only a couple hundred yards from the big one but there is a foot and a half of snow and pitch dark, so we decided to load the kids up into the pickup and drive to the smaller cabin. We get there and it's been warming up slowly, so we get the kids to bed. Sophia is super excited to be sleeping in the bunk for the first time and we have Tristan in the playpen. The kids seemed to sleep warmly but Dan and I about froze. We noticed a lot of the warm are was escaping through the window and door and the roof. Needless to say the cabin is not airtight and we need to work on that, so after a night of shivering and little sleep we decided to head home the next morning.

We got all packed up and loaded in the pickup and were backing through the snow when we were jerked to the side and got rather stuck. Come to find out a tree we had cut down this summer had hindered our ability to back out with so much snow and little traction. So the kids and I walk the very short distance to the large cabin, where Dan had built a fire for warmth while we had our breakfast and then where going to head home.

Dan worked on getting that pickup unstuck for 6 hours and still did was not able to get it out. He chainsawed the log in several places. The front passenger tire was behind the log and the drivers side tire was in front of the log. It was stuck at an angle and not budging. We finally decided enough was enough and called a neighbor to pull us out. I guess I should be completely honest and say Dan was so exhausted and after being completely and utterly stubborn about not wanting help so far, I decided to call the neighbor! The kindly neighbor came and he tried to with his pickup and could not budge it. So he them went and got his tractor. He plowed and plowed to get a run at the pull and after a few tries got the back tires out only to get the front stuck in the same ruts. More plowing and finally we were free. So 7 1/2 hours later and a very exhausted husband we were on our way.

I am pretty sure those logs will be cut and stacked next summer and the cabin winterized a bit more before we attempt a winter stay again. I was the lucky one staying in the warm cabin with the wood stove, cooking the meals, making cocoa, feeding Tristan, playing games with Sophia and making miniature cupcakes. Sophia had a wonderful time playing in the snow and making snow angles for the first time. It won't be a trip we forget anytime soon... ;-)

Sophia all excited to be at the cabin and see snow.