the White Cabin

As mentioned in the last post, we only have rainwater and most of the barrels are near our bathhouse because that's the only building with gutters. Russ had to move water from those full barrels to an almost empty barrel near the cottage to have a water source for the bleaching and power washing planned for this weekend.

Solution: He took a shallow tray, siphoned water into it til the level got too low then poured it. He used a small generator to run a submersible pump in the tray, sending the water through several hundred feet of garden hose to the big barrel near the cottage. See last post for that whole setup!

Here's the dramatic before and after on the north end of the cottage.

If you don't like to camp and you want to come and visit, here is the place: The Settlement at Monk's Cove. About 15 minutes from us and they have cabins and rooms. Some of the cabins are quite large (and all are 2 bedroom, 2 bath) and as of now are $135/night. We stayed in a room Saturday night (last weekend stayed in a cabin when family came down).

Above, dining room left, living room right. You can even rent the whole thing for a big group, including the kitchen. Below, our room. All rooms and cabins have a fireplace.

Sunday the work continued. Beautiful weather.



Russ was getting sprayed with bleach water far too much when he was rinsing off with the power washer so he put on a face shield and slicker.

Above: part of Sunday lunch. Grilled country ribs, apples, turnips and greens. Sweet potato pie dessert. It was great! the apples and turnips from AL. Local.

As Russ drained the rain barrels, he took apart the whole system. I cleaned out gutters, camo-ed water tubes, etc to get ready for setting it up again with all the barrels connected and off the ground with taps. We wanted to get it set up before we left to capture new clean water from this week's predicted hurricane.

Below, left: Spraying the tubes (camo so they don't show up as much or look as dirty as white PVC) for our rainwater system; Right: the drying tubes.

Russ finished bleaching the sunny end of the house... his comment, "This is about the color the house will be when we stain it." But the difference is, it's dirt, mildew and old sawdust coming off. The new stain is a honey color.
Left: a before and after picture. End wall (on right) is done, back wall not done. Right: bleached!

Done! It's white and clean. Ready for staining next nice weekend.

Setting up the improved rainwater system: barrels off the ground on the shady end of the bathhouse (less algae), with taps for easy draining (no more siphon) and connected so all fill. Picture below is the work in progress. Neighbor Rod assisting.

Preparing to Seal the Outside with Olympic Toner

What would you do if you were ready to stain your new wood siding but you had dirty splash up and mildew on it from a lot of rain? And no piped water or electricity?

dirty splash up, left; ugly gray mildew, right

Russ had already determined that "gravity feed" from a rain barrel wasn't enough pressure to run a pressure washer so on Oct 25th, he was ready to try an experiment: use his own compressor and generator to pressurize the rain barrel to push water to a pressure washer. We had a special cleaner we had bought to wash the siding: dirt, mildew, etc.

Step 1: Add a pressure fitting to the top cap of the rain barrel (left below) then hook it up to the compressor (red hose right below). Compressor is run off the generator.

PS: Try not to put on too much pressure or the rain barrel will blow up!

Step 2: Hook up the now pressurized rain barrel to a power washer then admire the leaves and moss.

Another issue not shown: carrying water to keep the rain barrel full! Russ went back and forth between the four barrels up at our bathhouse and this one by the cabin. He has a plan to deal with that this weekend.

Anyway, with water under pressure, we were ready to clean. Russ sprayed on the cleaner (garden pump up sprayer), we let it sit for a few mins then we took turns rinsing it off with the power washer as shown below. Russ had to give me a power washing lesson. Watch the video....

Is it still work if it's a beautiful day? About 70 and the leaves were turning but still many green.

Unfortunately, the cleaner didn't entirely do the job so we are trying it again this weekend with a new water-movin' system and bleach. *sigh* The good news is there's no more splash up because we put down landscape cloth and mulch all around, something we should have done in the first place.

We worked til the day faded... then headed for home.

Back to Work after the Allison, Lorenzo, Sofia Visit

Russ has had problems with lightning strikes near his metal shed, damaging generators and such. So he devised and installed this grounding system to protect his equipment. Meanwhile, I mowed the grass coming in and a section of woods.



The following weekend, we bought 12 sheets of beadboard for the ceiling of the main cabin. Our plan is to finish the big room first, not worrying about the screened in porch area, so that we have a dry place to sleep this winter. I primed the beadboard, then we moved it undercover so no rain would get on it.

Russ got up on the roof, we snapped a line and he put in the rest of the screws. Inside, he opened up the insulation to install 4 ceiling boxes for two lights, two fans.

Of course it's not all work! We keep finding new wildflowers we've never seen before. This September, we saw wild asters and the blue flower on the left: in future, we plan to show off the wildflowers by terracing a long hill at our entrance and filling the terraces with native wildflowers. Russ saw some big wings beating in the woods and tracked down this owl.

And as usual, there were some good eats!