Walks in the Woods

These pictures are from 3 short weeks ago. The snowmelt had begun and the streams were finally exposed. Only one of our streams is year round, the rest are from seasonal runoff. And even the year round stream dries to a trickle in the dry months of July and August. Amazing when you see what flows through this time of year.

Our main steam

The first culvert

Pond just starting to thaw

My brother's part of the main stream

The "not supposed to be there" stream

We're going to do some additional grading this summer so that we can minimize driveway damage. This is an ongoing task - we fix one section and another needs it the next year. This section of road actually has a small diameter culvert - but it was so cold this winter that it froze solid.

No idea where this stream is...

The streams have since calmed down and the woods are drying out. Some of the trails that we laid out while snowshoeing are swampy messes but we're hoping they'll be dry once all the frost leaves the ground. Turns out it was a good thing we held off on marking the full trails. The trail heads are fine but we may need to alter routes a bit if the water doesn't drain.

Bathroom sink progress

You may recall that way back in May 2013 the downstairs bathroom sink looked like this:

Black pipe for supports, missing shelf supports, and temporary pine boards as side tables.

Well, now it looks like this (this is a surprisingly difficult thing to photograph):

Walnut sideboards and pipe shelf supports

We added the pipe shelf supports to get the sideboards up higher against the sink. And the sideboards themselves are from some walnut boards that Chris bought at the local wood auction (yes, we have wood auctions up here - who knew?). 

Walnut sideboard

The walnut shows beautifully against the white porcelain sink and fits in with the overall masculine look of the bathroom. We haven't actually installed the boards as we still need to spray paint the pipes but it'll all be solidly tied into place very soon.

Overall the look is slightly industrial, very organic, and I'm really loving it.

Distractions

We're supposed to be working on the upstairs clothes closet but seem to keep getting distracted. Good weather makes us want to be outside and the snow melt has the stream banks running full (pictures coming soon). So we're doing all kinds of stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with closets. We are:

Putting on the tractor's backhoe - which means we took off the snow thrower!

Throwing mushy snowballs for the dog

Clearing trees for firewood and a future apple orchard

Taking pictures of funny snow animals

Practicing our agility training

Walking. A lot.

Removing a tree that overhung Dad's garage

We've also been clearing off the front porch and putting the table and chairs in place. Yes, it's time to sit and enjoy the sunshine before bug season to arrives. We'll take advantage of these black-fly-free days while we can; it'll be soon enough to get back on indoor projects.