July 4th Weekend

Here is a breakdown of the participants and festivities/activities for the weekend:

Participants: Tina, Isaac, Scrubby, Emily, Eric, Steve, Deb
Not attending: Owen, Lisa, Lyra, Fiona, Gail

Unknown: Wink, Matt, Nina, Carson, Riley, Jack, Joe, Alison, Stephanie

Arriving/leaving:

• Emily & Eric will arrive on Friday morning and leaving Sunday
• Steve & Deb will arrive on Friday evening
• Tina & Isaac?
• Scrubby?

Saturday activities:

• Eric & Emily have asked our wedding VIPs to join us at 10:30am to do a walk-through of our ceremony (Steve, Deb, Angie, Kristina, Joe, Alison, Stephanie)
• We will then be doing projects for the rest of the day (see Steve's email for the project breakdown)

Sunday activities:

• Continue with projects
• We will be celebrating our Summer birthdays with a bbq (bring your own meat, side dish, appetizer or dessert and drinks). Here are our Summer bdays: Stephanie, Carson, Owen, Matt

Meals - we can potentially share meals (if we know who is coming and when):

• Friday dinner
• Saturday breakfast
• Saturday lunch (on your own - probably easier that way)
• Saturday dinner
• Sunday breakfast

Eric and I will be happy to take a breakfast.

Tina what meal do you want to take? Scrub? Steve & Deb? When are you all arriving/leaving? Anyone else coming up that we should prepare to feed?

Potential Policy Adjustments

It has come to my attention that we may need to revise the Reservation policy. Here are the issues on the table:

1. There may not be enough weekends available during the Spring/Summer/Fall months. So we may need to adjust the number of "family only" weekends.

2. We may need to require that at least one member per shareholder unit participate in the pines workdays and clean-up days and if at least one member does not participate a fee may be incurred.

3. We may need to institute a different way of dividing weekends that is based on sweat equity and allows shareholder to pick their preferred weekends.

4. We also may need to require that if you are unable to use your designated weekend and are unable to find someone to trade with, you have to do so with enough notice for the cabin to be occupied by another family unit.

Please read the reservation policy and add your thoughts so that we can air all concerns and ideas before we have a family meeting to make decisions.

June Updates

Thought I'd log some of the happens at the cabin in the last month:

• Cory (the electrician) installed new floor plates on our floor outlets (in order for us to pass inspection)
• We passed our final inspection and received our certificate of occupancy (this happened late May). Yeah!
• We purchased pet protectors for the screen doors. They have been installed.
• The marmot has found a way into our foundation. We purchased a grate for it. It still needs to be installed.
• New screen has been purchased for the screens with holes. We now need to install the new pieces.
• We hung string from the ceiling fans so they can be adjusted without a ladder.
• A new bbq has been purchased and brought to the cabin.
• Some water was discovered in the closet under the stairs. Getty came up and fixed it.
• The outside faucets were leaking. Getty discovered that they probably froze over the winter. He is in the process of fixing them. He may not be able to fully access the broken pipe. In which case we may need to make those non-functioning until we build a crawl space access in the future. He is getting some additional parts and will keep us updated on his progress.
• The loft outlets were not working. Cory came up to investigate. He replaced the breaker and they seem to be working fine now.
• We reported a septic tank smell. I have not heard back from Rick. But Getty suggested that we pour water in the washer and dryer pipes every time we go up there. This will block the smell from entering the cabin.
• Ali and my dad washed all of the cabin windows.
• Scrub cleaned the freezer and refrigerator.

I think that's all for now.

Spring Time in the Mountainhood

Just thought I'd drop a note about our weekend at the cabin. It was amazing!

We (my Dad, Deb, Matt, Riley and I) arrived in the morning on Saturday. Getty had fixed the leaky pipe. Mark had fixed the furnace (some wires had melted together). We worked our bums off into the afternoon. My Dad installed a new faucet in the kitchen sink. So the water is on and all systems are go. Riley cleaned up micro-trash. Matt cleared an area for our wood pile. Deb cleaned the deck and brought out patio furniture. We swept the stone paths. We raked the yard. I sectioned off an area with stones where my Dad spread wildflowers. We chopped and re-stacked wood as well. Cory came up and finished off the last of our re-nspection to dos. So we will be calling for our final re-nspection either this week or next.

We discovered that the critters have been trying very hard to get into the cabin. They have made some significant holes in the screen doors and riped off one kitchen window screen entirely. There are also a few holes in the screened porch. We will need to get some ply wood to cover the bottom of the screen doors and buy some new screen material for the other spots. We will also have to take the kitchen screen to a window store to be fixed.

We also noticed a septic tank smell coming from the bathroom. I will be calling Rick Rich and/or Getty to see what we might need to do about this.

We have left all of the indoor cleaning for those who are going up in future weekends.

After the work was over, Eric and I had our buddies (Matt, Krystal, Ryan, and Krysta) come up for some fun. Even Scott Cornwall came over in the evening for dinner and hung with us for a bit on Sunday as well. We hung out on the deck, made dinner, went for a walk, made a fire inside then moved our gathering to the fire pit outside. In the morning we made breakfast and then wandered around the ranch. We went to the suspension bridge, discovered a zip line that we played on for a while. Then cleaned up the cabin and chilled on the deck until we dragged ourselves away (kicking and screaming). We didn't want to leave!

The river is raging and everything is beautiful!

Cabin Use Update - April 2009

We put the cabin to full use this weekend and there are a few things worth sharing:

• Getting in - it is still necessary to park at the crossroads and haul stuff in
• Furnace - the furnace is not working at all. Eric re-wired the thermostat and replaced the batteries in the thermostat plus reset the furnace based on the instruction on the inside panel...but it just won't do anything at all. We will need to have a technician come look at it when the snow melts a bit.
• Getting & keeping the place warm - even though there was no furnace we were still able to keep the cabin warm. We purchased a space heater and had the other 3 running most of the time. Add the fireplace and we were able to get the cabin to a comfortable 65 degrees (it started at 42 degrees). We also purchased 2 new heating blankets.
• Water - Steph and I arrived on Friday afternoon and cleaned buckets for drinking water and toilet water. Eric arrived on Saturday and by Sunday morning it was so warm we decided to try turning the water main on. We got everything running and even turned on the water heater. However, we discovered a leak in the pipe in the place where the ice maker hose is connected. Eric tried to fix it but was unable to get it to stop spraying or dripping. So we ended up turning off the water main just before we left. It will need to be turned on at the water main...for whoever goes up there next.
• Refrigerator - We made an executive decision this Fall to turn off all electricity to the cabin to save money. However, over time all of us have probably left a few things in the fridge. Since it has warmed up there were things in the freezer that melted and leaked and got moldy. There are also things in the fridge that may not be good anymore either. I decided to leave the power on to the fridge as we were leaving. All other electricity is off. There is a bit of a mess in the freezer that we will need to work on when it is easier to clean things (i.e. we are able to use water in all sinks)