Greetings from the North Woods!
There is a lot going on...
It is May 11th today and I am sitting in front of our beautiful windows at the Crash Pad looking out on sunlit woods and beautiful blue sky. Our landscaping was just completed and the sprinkler system my neighbor helped me rig up with a timer is doing its thing!
Yesterday it was fun to cheer on my neighbor and other riders at the end of the driveway as they participated in the Hungry Bear, and it was good to see friends at the finish line. I was not able to bike along on part of the course this year, more on that in a bit.
Remember I said I was working on an Inge at the Crash Pad video?
Well unfortunately in February my backup drive with my in process video and all my Inge (plus Crash Pad) videos crashed!! I was devastated. Best Buy told me it could cost me thousands of dollars to recover the drive; luckily for some reason I had the gumption to check the external drive manufacturer website, saw I could submit a claim, and to my surprise they had me send my drive in and would try to recover my data for FREE!!! And that they did!!!! I will forever be a dedicated user of LaCie. The company not only recovered my data onto a new drive, but they sent me a replacement drive for the corrupt one, and I bought another one to make sure I would be fully backed up. Lesson learned - never have videos and pictures in just one place!
So all that to say… I recommend LaCie for your backup needs, and the Inge Video will be coming ~ but it will take some time because I unfortunately have a lot of other things going on. One of which is…
After months of physical therapy, multiple steroid injections, two MRI’s, many many many visits to medical facilities, and barely being able to ride a bike for over a year ~ I will be having back surgery on May 23. More on all that to come in upcoming stories. But first…
I am going to do some gravel biking here (yes it isn’t comfortable, and yes it hurts afterwards, but I love it too much not to ride) before the only thing I can do for at least six weeks is walk. And yes I’m working really hard not to overdo it before surgery!
I do have a couple of stories for you if you haven’t seen…
In Cabin Stories…
In GenX Notes…
I’ve also got a few recommendations for you I have collected…
Going to Dublin, Ireland anytime soon? I’ve got a couple of tips from a quick trip we took at the end of March:
We had an absolutely lovely stay at this hotel. We stayed in a shoebox room which was mostly fine because we were not in the room much, but it barely had room for my travel yoga mat [which is recommendation #2. (Speaking of yoga mats, I also would highly recommend making yourself some of this spray)]. I would 1000% stay at this hotel again. We felt very well cared for and safe with the expertly trained staff. On-site breakfast was a life saver, especially arriving early am from the US. Plus they let us in our room early which was also a life saver that first day (ask ahead).
We ate here twice the first day and enjoyed it both times. So nice when traveling not to have heavy, greasy, unhealthy food! And I could eat Japanese food pretty much any meal, any day.
We had an outstanding meal here with a great view. We did not have reservations, but even on a weeknight we would recommend having one because this place is not little, it is tiny.
Other recommendations…
Noise Cancelling Headphones
On the flight home from Dublin while watching Conclave I borrowed Kurt’s noise cancelling headphones to take a break from the airline ones and MY MIND WAS BLOWN! The soundtrack to Conclave is what makes this movie, and with better earphones I couldn’t believe how it got even more amazing. As soon as we got to the Boston airport I bought my own awesome headphones while waiting for our last flight home. They were 100% worth it (and still on sale!). These are going to be a game changer on my next flight (after I get cleared to fly hopefully at my post op appointment in July). Do yourself a favor and get some.
Remembrance Frame
After we lost Inge I wanted to get a picture of her in a frame right away. We have done this for all of our dogs, but this time I thought of something that would be more immediate ~ an Aura Frame. My sister had suggested we get one for my parents for Christmas, and during our January visit I saw how lovely it was to have rotating pictures in a digital frame. So I knew exactly what I wanted to do to remember Inge. I loaded up photos of Inge as soon as it came. That first trip up to the Crash Pad without Inge, we brought the Aura/Inge with, it felt really good to have ‘Inge’ sitting in the middle of the room so we could remember all the good times we had together. A real comfort then, now, and always.
Ninja Countertop Oven
Our limited menu options on the induction burner at the Crash Pad were getting challenging, so we upped the ante and got an ‘oven’. This device has been a game changer! Many of you know that I am a big Cookie & Kate fan, and many of the recipes involve an oven. With the Ninja I am making things this week like green curry, by air frying the vegetables and tofu in it. And I have been air frying small potatoes and asparagus to go with the veggie burgers I make up and bring up here frozen (the recipe is in Cookie & Kates Love Real Food cookbook). The Ninja is so awesome sometimes I wonder if we will actually need a stove up here.
So what’s been happening at the Crash Pad you might ask…
There has been what seemed like a leak in the roof dripping through the top of our stove pipe. We had both the roofer and the wood stove installer out here who both concluded that the issue was not a leak but from condensation in the top of the pipe. I’m still a bit baffled by this, but I guess it is what it is.
Thanks to our connections at the local pizza place, we now have all the electrical completed in the back of the cabin! This means ceiling lights, outlets, and two smoke alarms!
We now also have a smart thermostat. This was a bit of a learning curve. When the electricians were here we had them install our Nest thermostat, but later that night realized it was 80 degrees in here and it wasn’t turning off. Kurt did some research and learned that Nest thermostats do not work with Navien tankless water heaters and spent a late night switching wires back to the old thermostat. We then had the plumber come out and put a compatible thermostat in.
Before we left the Crash Pad on the last visit we noticed one of the small tanks in the mechanical room had a hairline leak. The plumber also replaced this when he was here. Luckily it was under warranty.
The green is grass seed, fertilizer, etc. that will turn into grass Our Landscaping is in! It is pretty simple, rock and what will be no mow grass, but it is SO nice to be at this point! Once the grass grows in it will be low maintenance and we will have less erosion around the cabin and sand tracked into the cabin. The crew did a really nice job and came recommended from our neighbors.
Before I came up to oversee the landscaping, my neighbor who I now call Gadget Gal, advised me on materials to purchase to make a sprinkler system so that the no mow seed would grow and turn into grass. I purchased some hoses, sprinklers, and the key item a four zone timer. After a happy hour together, we got it all set up and it is running beautifully as I type. I was worried how well it would work because our water comes from our well system, but it is working great. My neighbor has all my log in information to the b-hyve app so she can make adjustments when we are not here and stop by and check on things until our next visit. This is giving me great peace of mind!
We have hired a contractor to finish our front porch! That work should be completed early Summer. It will be great to finally have all the siding fully completed and get our bike ‘garage’ installed out there. I also purchased Dark Sky friendly lights to replace the temporary ones that were installed last year.
While our contractor is here, he will be fixing our doors. The front door and the mechanical room door were not installed correctly by our SIP installer. The front door in particular has been a real problem. At times it has not locked, and the weather seal has degraded because the bottom drags too much. We have had multiple people try to fix it without removing it, but it needs to be taken out and reinstalled. I worked with Anderson Windows to get a new kit for the weather seal that our contractor will install before he resets the front door. The mechanical room door is clearly not plumb because in the winter you can see evidence of heat leak at the top. Now is the time to have these fixed as the contractor will have to remove siding and reinstall it to do these repairs and he will already be working on the siding.
Our new contractor will also be building our screen porch for us later this Summer. This will be huge as it will be the last thing to be built on the exterior and the architect’s vision will finally be complete (minus the front deck which is tbd if we will do that). This will also be a game changer for Summer days up here as we will likely have many happy hours, dinners, yoga sessions, and just plain relaxation time out there ~ bug free. Speaking of bugs…
The woodticks are out. I’ve found dead ones on the bed this week, which tells me Solrig’s Nexguard is working, and picked 5 off of him on our morning walk yesterday. And it looks like the first mosquito hatch is happening, they aren’t bad ~ yet. This part of being at the Crash Pad scares the daylight out of me and part of why I left the Great North for many, many years! Spring and early Summer are really my least favorite times up here ~ contrary to what you would think having a cabin is all about. I love Autumn here and have come to love Winter too when we can walk to the back of our property, because NO BUGS and sleeping bears. Summer is hard, even biking. I’ve had a few rides where I have literally screamed in terror from mosquito or deer fly hordes on and around me.
I hope I am not ruining my luck for my morning walk by saying this, but so far we have not seen any bears (Update: no bear sightings).
The robin’s are back! This year they are trying out our new light instead of the dog ramp they used last year. Such a pretty nest.
And the trilliums have exploded. This was the first one I saw, and a couple of days later the forest is covered with them. If you followed our bicycle bag company, you will remember that our last bag intro was the Gräventyr in Trillium green.
That’s a lot, and surely there is more. But as I sit here on my last day at the Crash Pad before surgery, looking at a forest that has gone from bare trees to full green in my week here, I relish the peace and the beauty, and my time here with Solrig.
Before I got here the city was wearing me down. I now feel refreshed and recentered ~ and that is really what being here is all about.
The days ahead are a bit nerve wracking as I head home for my pre-op appointment, and then surgery and recovery. But there is comfort in knowing I will be back.