One Long To Do List

We didn't mean to take so long to post but Kirk is the main blogger and he's been too busy. So here's Cheryl, to tell ya what's been happening. We are well pleased with our FirstDay Cottage it got us through a cold long winter with both comfort and affordability. We used somewhat less than 2 1/2 cords of wood for heat. The second floor was rather cool but still livable (63-65 F) while keeping downstairs an average of 68 F. And after we add the attached greenhouse we'll have a nice amount of additional heat wafting up there for free.

Speaking of the attached greenhouse, that project has experienced a delay due to design difficulties. It will be sitting a few feet below where tons of snow slides off our metal roof so we've decided to get the input of a structural engineer before settling on a design. Consequently we chose to slip that project to the end of the list and for this growing/building season concentrate on the permaculture design, garden, detached dome greenhouse, barn, and root cellar.

In the late spring we faced the tough task of removing trees again to open up a food growing space and to protect the house and future structure sites from falling tree damage. White Pines grow tall and have shallow root systems making them susceptible to coming down in storms. We had to remove nearly 50 of them which was hard for us but the results are very nice. The house area is still well-wooded but much brighter now and storms won't be so worrisome anymore.

We received our permaculture design the end of April from Sarah Bostick of The Edible Landscape and it's very cool. Generally what we seek to do is create a system following the ways of nature which incorporates we humans into that system. Such a design includes various animal life and makes use of each animal's natural behaviors to the betterment of the overall system. Another focus is on edible landscaping--meaning that plantings are beautiful but also edible and functional structures like a large trellis to block the sun from entering the south side of the house is covered with grape vines again bringing together function, beauty and food. The design has extensive garden beds to the south of the house incorporating a 42' diameter circular area of beds & paths with many additional beds partially surrounding the circle which include 4 very large beds for growing the large crops like corn, squash, beans, melons & grains. The entrance to the garden will be through an arbor supporting Japanese Yam vines. Much more to the design which includes turning part of the existing forest into an Edible Food Forest (i.e. fruit & nut trees form the forest canopy) while keeping much of our forest in its wild state.

On the clean clothes front we now have our clothesline (yay! no more drying clothes in the house on a rack) and she's a beauty. Here are a couple pics of her maiden voyage. She runs from outside the upstairs window which is adjacent to the washing machine to a large maple about 50' distant. Clothes are pulled clean & wet from the washer, you reach out the window and pin them to the line and send them off to engage with the wind and sunshine. Much $$ and world resources saved without a dryer and the clothes last way longer since they're not being dismantled fiber by fiber every time they get dried.

We created the circle part of our garden beds for this year's growing. That took 2 full hard work days in the blistering sun (& with coal in our pockets and uphill both ways!) providing us with planting beds on June 6. The methods used for the beds were sheet mulching (lots of layers of organic matter such as manure, rotted leaves, grass clippings, compost) and hugelkulture (using wood from logs to brush as the first layer and then other organic matter layers above). Then to top off all the beds we used 4 sheet thick wet newspaper like papier mache to fully cover everything and finally 4+ inches of straw on top. All nicely watered periodically throughout building process (several pics showing process). To plant you pull the straw aside down to the newspaper, make a hole just big enough in the paper and plant your seed or seedling along with some nice compost. This is labor intensive to create but minimizes labor thereafter as there is almost no weeding to do and little watering since the beds hold moisture so well.Though we got a late start we planted quite a lot in our new beds from potatoes, squash, cukes, beans to tomatoes, melons, carrots, chard, kale & more using seed except for tomatoes and a couple of other seedlings. The garden is doing well-pics don't really show it. By their third year these sheet mulched beds will explode with growth!














Breaking News Here's a pic of the huge (22' x 16') Hardy Kiwi Trellis going up on the west side of the house. Brian is building it with saplings from our land sturdy enough to hold up the serious vines and heavy fruit that will eventually be climbing all over it. We'll get the vines planted late summer or early fall and won't see them produce fruit for about 4 years. However, even while there's no food coming from this magnificent trellis, it will much sooner be giving us a fantastic shaded patio space!

We also had Brian build us a temporary garden shed on the side of the temporary chicken run using saplings and slab wood from the land. Here's a pic during construction.

The Barn! Cheryl found a design online done by an architect in NY (Don Berg) for a small, stoutly built barn designed for affordability. We chose one that's 20' x 24' with a loft (overall 20' tall) and with a 12' side run-in shed to house Ollie, our tractor. And on the other side we'll be building another shed to house dry firewood. Here's pics of current progress. On left the guys are lifting the huge beams into place. The finished barn will have shiplap siding stained woodland green and an ivory metal roof to match the house. There will be a high door to the loft equipped with a hoist.

We've just ordered the geodesic dome greenhouse from Growing Spaces in Colorado. It'll be 22' diameter and have great solar features: large water tank to store heat & raise some fish and solar heating running through the growing beds as well. This greenhouse, if used intensively, will feed 4-5 people. Check them out! Our kit will be arriving August 8 so we'll be growing in it this fall/winter!!

Chickens! On June 24 we got 5 day-old chicks. One had a problem which we tried to help with but she died during the first night. We've got them in a homemade brooder in the center room upstairs. Two are Light Brahmas, one is a Black Australorp and one is a Barred Rock. What everyone says is true: chickens are fun to watch. Of course being bird people we're already crazy about our girls! We've decided to choose names based on personality characteristics and thus far just one has shown us her name. She is the most outgoing of the bunch and takes every opportunity to hop up on the edge of the box and escape. None of the others has done anything similar. When she's not being given such a chance at escape she's keeping an eye out for the next opportunity. Cheryl named her Sojourner. (She's the close up black one in the pic to right.)

We're hoping to build a root cellar this late summer/fall. It will be built into one of the gravel ridges on our land using cement block and we hope a living roof i.e. soil & plants growing on a slightly sloped roof.

Naturally we're hoping for a good harvest from our garden and as you know we have plans for preserving that harvest. Cheryl & Jayne did their first canning project--rhubarb sauce in mid-June and will soon be canning strawberry jam. They also have started brewing kombucha, a fermented tea made with a mother culture, which is very healthful. The big jar in pic is the kombucha & you can see the mother floating in it. (To get started with it Cheryl put an ad on CraigsList asking for someone to share a mother culture with her and she immediately heard from a man not far away willing to help her out. When she went to pick it up he also gave her a jar of brewed kombucha, a large jar for starting hers in and written directions! Good example of what the people of Maine are like.) We'll be doing both water bath and pressure canning and we also have a real sweet dehydrator to put to good use very soon.

House Update The only house project we've done since moving in is the replacement of the construction stairs with the permanent ones. We used copper tubing for the balusters and we're well pleased with the results.

Wild & Wooly A while back Cheryl went to Bee School here in Maine since we hope to have some hives later on. One of the things she learned was that there are estimated to be 25,000 black bears in Southern Maine (which is where we live). Now if you're not real familiar with Maine you might not know that Southern Maine is a small part of the state and it is where the preponderance of the state's human population resides. 25,000 bears just in the area that's populated? Well, yeah and on Father's Day one of the group was spotted on our land, unfortunately not by us--we were still sleeping. Our neighbor was out and saw the bear going through our woods toward our driveway. A couple of friends have also reported seeing cougars not far from our land. Cheryl & Jayne think this is exciting; Kirk is more circumspect.

As for family news... Jayne got a job cleaning houses and received a raise after working just a week. She works part-time applying time also to "uncolleging" i.e. self-directed learning just like she did in place of going to middle & high school. She is saving toward doing some learning/traveling in the near future. She's looking at becoming a WWOOFer (Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms) which is an apprenticeship program. There's also a possibility of her going after a cooking apprenticeship. We have offered to help fund such expeditions of learning as much as we are able. The three of us feel that in today's world going to college is no longer the best path for promising young people. Jayne has incredible potential and we are very proud of the level of maturity she has reached at such a young age. She has had several significant epiphanies in the last year or two and now has life understanding that surpasses that of many folks her senior. She is currently on a spiritual quest, the pursuit of which may well be involved in her upcoming travels... Kirk's current life situation can almost be summed up in one word: WORK. He still has the same engineering job--computer automation at hydroelectric dams--but he has gone from working part-time to working 60+ hour weeks. It works for us since he's paid hourly and we know it's temporary. He's bringing in the bucks and we're spending it to create our homestead/farm. We ended up hiring help to build this season instead of the barter thing--Brian, of house-building helper fame, is back with us and we've also found a couple great experienced carpenters willing to work cheap as they are trying to start their own business. Kirk does manage to find time for his bass playing, even has a gig this Friday night, and though his week or longer work trips are a bummer, he still feels present to Cheryl & Jayne largely because much of his work is done here at our house. We've all gotten quite good at mixing our personal lives into Kirk's work day. Finally, Kirk was stung by a yellow jacket or a wasp recently and had a systemic reaction so we hustled him off to the urgent care hoping his breathing wasn't going to be affected. It wasn't but now he needs an epi pen... Cheryl is still busy as the managing architect of creating our new life in addition to keeping our day to day lives limping along. We are still committed to avoiding going out to eat and to eating as much as possible real, healthy food which of course requires time. We've found several local farm resources so we do pretty well. Cheryl is also doing some volunteer work at the local library. She really misses the active spiritual exploration that was part of her life in Michigan and would like to find the time and energy to create that here in Maine. All in good time.

Final Words We began our journey to a new life out of desire to live differently, but along the way we realized that world circumstances would have forced us into the very thing we were already seeking. We absolutely feel that the world we're all used to is slipping away. The resources needed to keep doing what we take for granted are simply not available any longer in the quantities necessary. And the small group of rich & powerful will stop at nothing to siphon to themselves what little riches the regular people still possess. The time is now for questioning everything you have always assumed was a given. The time is definitely now for starting to do everything you can to prepare for at least some semblance of self-sufficiency. Whether we want to or not we're all soon going to be heading down a new road. There are rich resources available for wrestling with what is happening in the world: books, online news sources, blogs & articles, etc. To engage with it, however, means taking the red pill (reference from the film "The Matrix") and once you do there's no going back...

Even in Maine, Winter has to end sometime

We love winter - have for years. But this year we're really ready for spring. After a slow start to the snow season, things really picked up in February. I haven't kept track of snowfall or frequency but for awhile it seemed all I did was clean out the driveway and the yard. Since our tractor doesn't have a blade yet, it takes about 3 hours to do a proper job plowing the driveway and cutting back the banks. I sure am glad I spent the time pushing snow back. After the last snow, I was beginning to get concerned about where to push another snowfall.

Most of the pictures are various locations on Anam Cara illustrating the snow depth. The tent-like structure interior is our firewood pile. We started the winter with 3 chords and this is what we have left. It's possible we will finish the winter with wood left. Since the temperatures have been in the low 40's, we have not been doing a fire in the daytime. Generally we start a fire sometime after the sun goes down and throw a few logs on at bedtime. The house retains heat pretty well - we're very pleased.

Since these photos were taken, we've been in a slow snow meltdown. Yesterday it rained most of the day (yuk). The snowpiles are considerably reduced and the ice which has plagued our driveway is starting to give way to brown. Mud season is very likely not far around the corner.



We've added another vehicle to the VW used car lot. Our neighbors were going to send this Toyota truck to truck heaven. We bought it and had the frame repaired. Now we have a handy vehicle for transporting all the stuff you need to make a homestead.



With the coming of the meltdown, flu has also invaded our house. Jayne had a mild case several weeks ago. We thought we'd dodged the bullet since quite a bit of time passed without Cheryl or I getting sick. But then an office mate came down with the upper respiratory stuff. Then I caught it the week before I was scheduled in Vermont on a hydro startup. Up until the Sunday before I left, it was touch and go as to whether I would be in good enough shape. Fortunately Cheryl loaded me up with 1000mg hits of vitamin C and some other stuff. By Tuesday I was actually in decent shape and by the Thursday I was nearly recovered. It would have been a real problem if I wasn't able to go since the job was already scheduled and no one else in my company could go either.

While I was in Vermont, they received the third highest snowfall ever. About 30" if I remember correctly. I drove my car which is not exactly a great snow vehicle. On Monday morning I was snowed into the hotel parking lot. Thankfully the hotel maintenance guy was patrolling the parking lot with a snowblower. After I got out of the parking lot, I found the roads hadn't been plowed for hours. When I reached the hydro site, the side road was filled with snow from main road plows. So I drove on and turned around after several miles. Just as I returned, a town snowplow showed up and cleaned out the side road. I finally reached the site and started the work day. The news channel said to stay off the road unless it was an emergency. I guess getting to a hydro upgrade project qualifies as an emergency!

Making Plans
This winter has been a time for rest & renewal as the building push was tiring, but it has also been a time for planning our next phase of creation. Spring to fall will once again find us busy making our new life. Top priority is being given to establishing food growing. We're going to start an outdoor kitchen garden on the sunny southern slope south of the house which will be several raised beds. Secondly, we'll be implementing the construction of an attached greenhouse/sunspace on the southern side of the house. Cheryl designed this with the help of a great book from the 80's about attached greenhouses. Ours will be 24' along the house starting at the west end and will be 9' wide. The height of almost 10' will allow the accumulated heat, that will help to heat the house, to enter the house into the second floor, which is where additional heat is needed when the only heat source is a first floor wood stove. The prime purpose of this space will be for year-round food growing, but the added heat in winter and the year-round sunny living space will also be very welcome. We'll be using many containers of water in here for heat storage including a 100+ gal tank which will be part of our solar hot water system. This greenhouse will be glazed with glass due to its permanent lifespan. The third growing space being planned is a detached 18' geodesic dome greenhouse which we will buy as a kit and build ourselves.

In addition to growing food one needs to store food for the winter. So our second priority for the coming active time is establishing at least a temporary root cellar system. Our winter food plans include root cellaring, drying, canning, cold hardy crop growing, and some freezing.

Our third priority is the building of our barn/workshop. We have purchased plans for a 20' X 24' barn and would love to have it before winter hits again, but we don't really expect to make that happen. We'll be building it ourselves and siding it with pine lumber from our land. Kirk has a backup plan for providing covered storage for Ollie the tractor by adding a shed roof off the side of our tool crib.

Kirk's paid work volume has increased to the point where he is working full-time probably for several months to come. So if we want to see all our plans come to fruition we need help around here. We are now in the process of seeking someone with building skills who would like to barter work for a place to live. Our Craigslist ad brought in several interesting prospects. We'll house this person or couple in our travel trailer during milder weather. If we all want to make the arrangement more long-term, we'll have to get a cabin built before the snow flies.

Living with Jayne is still a roller coaster ride but she's doing pretty well. She's still working on her voice, has a job interview coming up in a few days, and is volunteering at a local orchard/bakery/restaurant where she's learning skills from barista to waitstaff to baker. She's gotten creative with getting around since having to face the hard realities of no money and parents with snugged pursestrings.

Home Sweet Home

We've been a bit tardy updating the blog. But we have a good excuse - we moved in two days after Thanksgiving! Since we managed to get virtually everything done before moving in, the move wasn't toooo bad. I (Kirk) declared this was going to be our last move though - I'm really sick of the process. This is the place we're going to be buried.

I went around the house with the camera trying to produce a photo tour. It's always frustrating trying to convey the feel of place with pictures. We feel very comfortable here. I hope the pictures convey that comfortable, lived-in look we so enjoy.

My parents gave us the beautiful welcome sign adjacent to the front door. With the windy storms we've had, it has been a challenge keeping it on the house.


















Our indoor porch. The sitting/dining area is in the southeast corner of the house. It captures the winter sun and provides a view that feels almost like you're sitting outside.











Cheryl's pride and joy - an Amish made wood cookstove. Since we're still in the process of getting settled, we haven't put a fire in it yet. It is lovely just to look at though. Pinkish column in background is a temporary insulated window covering prototype that Kirk is working on. We'll be covering some of these big windows during the night and then swinging them up out of the way during the day. Hopefully next winter we'll have permanent insulated roman shades made to replace them. Even without any windows covered the house is holding heat nicely over night without keeping a fire going. Single digit mornings still find us cozy inside with 61-63 degrees downstairs.

To the right is the dishwashing station. Cheryl bought a dish rack that hangs above the cast iron sink. The dishes drip directly into the sink for drying. They are left on the rack until the next usage. How's that for minimum handling? Plus there is a great view while doing the washing.




Kirk's new office space on the second floor. The storage situation and room to work is much better than any previous spot. A great view down our wooded driveway is a nice plus.

















The upstairs sitting space. Suitable for watching movies, reading or just hanging out.















Another view of the sitting area.
















Here are before and after move-in views of the kitchen. For awhile, we were buried in boxes. Since we don't have a cellar or garage, we pressed the 32ft. travel trail into service as additional storage. Gotta stay flexible!

























The poinsettia in the pic was brought by neighbors welcoming us to the neighborhood. We're pleased to say that we already know several of our new neighbors, have even started neighborly helping each other out with the couple across the road and have plans for farming-type collaboration with the family behind us through the woods.

Once we got halfway settled, it was time for another project. Cheryl bought a starter chicken coop so here we are building the chicken run. Early December was pretty mild, allowing easier building weather. Remember to hit the staple, not your finger, smiley!

We'll be starting with 4 laying hens and will expand once we can get a permanent & larger coop built. Cheryl has one customer for our extra eggs waiting in the wings, so to speak.













Ah, the "Hillbilly Hotel" as we've come to call this structure. It started life as a canopy for the travel trailer. But we needed a surrogate barn/garage so we covered the sides and ends with tarps and made it work. The original canopy roof leaked so we threw another tarp over that too. It houses the table saw, wood storage and rough storage for a variety of larger household items. It may not suit Martha Stewart but we're thrilled to have it!
















When we received the copper light fixture for this spot, we were initially dismayed by how big it was. But we liked how well it worked and its looks. So Cheryl decided to buy a street sign and a "Public Telephone 5 cents" sign to create a street scene motif since the light fixture made us think of an old street light. The Third street sign has special significance to Kirk. It's an actual sign from Bay City, MI where he spent a lot of time as a kid.















The view looking northwest with our stylish woodpile out front. Can't beat the woodpile location for convenience though!


Cheryl has linked up with a nearby farm store called Yesteryears Farm where they have commercial kitchens for cooking/baking products to sell in the store. Cheryl has applied for a commercial food prep license for our farm-to-be, Bird Briar Farm, and she, Jayne and Cheryl's friend, Paula, are making plans to bake & cook their way to a bit of income. Jayne will be knitting & maybe crocheting items to sell there as well. Cheryl's working on learning some new, funky ways to bake bread, seeking out intriguing recipes for catching the fancy of farm store customers, and making connections with other local farmers/growers to use their food in her products. One such is Raven Hill Orchard where they grow fabulous organic, heirloom varieties of apples which she would love to turn into scrumptious applesauce, sweetened with Maine maple syrup of course!

Ta ta from Tory Hill

This is our last posting from the rental house we've known as home for almost 2 years. Packing and moving is well under way as we write this. Although temporary, we've really enjoyed living on Tory Hill. Our landlords are wonderful people and we've made some good friends with our neighbors. The new house is not far so we can stay connected.

Over the weekend the refrigerator found its way to the house with the help of our friend Bob, the same great guy who helped put our roof on. Other things happening in the kitchen were the installation of the basic structure of the 7'+ pantry designed by Cheryl which when complete will have lots of slide-out shelves & baskets and circular lazy susans making its entire 19" depth useful space, the pot rack was installed, the floor was finished and the professional chef's floor gel mats were put in place (these make a huge difference to the bod when standing on concrete), and the plate rack from Great Britain was installed over the sink so just washed dishes can be placed to drip dry and then stay for permanent storage. This plate rack took forever to get to us, it was feared lost. When it finally arrived you should have seen the box, if only it could have told us the story of its voyage!

The entire first floor is bare concrete, which you may remember has radiant heat within, we chose to seal & finish the concrete with dark tung oil (the same natural product we used on the wall wood except it's dark brown instead of amber). The floor was washed & dried, oil applied and later in the day wiped with t-shirt rags, then 2nd coat the next day with another wiping. Then the floor isn't walked on with dirty shoes for 7-10 days (we did the floor in sections and made walking trails with waxed paper so we could still get around the place). The floors came out with a mottled look incorporating browns, grays and black and have these funky geometric shapes going on randomly which just occurred naturally. Each room is different in terms of how the concrete took the oil. The kitchen came out particularly cool and we figure people would believe us if we told them we hired an artist to create its effects! It was quite a bit of work but worth it as we are pleased. And we avoided the acid staining that has become very popular lately, which is hazardous and we hear its neat effects fade badly after a few years.

We'll be softening the look & feel of the floors with rugs. Cheryl had a ball finding rugs online getting some great deals on antique & new rugs. She also found some locally via Craigslist, one huge handmade braid rug made in the 1950's by a Newfoundland woman.

Halloween slipped past in a haze of sawdust and oily rags for Kirk & Cheryl, but Jayne who loves the holiday did it up right. She was Mother Earth, her friend Grayson, whom she met doing the production Hair, was David Bowie and they had a great time at several parties in Portland. They spent hours together doing their makeup & hair.

Jayne's been working on her new bedroom. The rug is a genuine hippie 1960's persian! which is a big hit with Jayne. Still to be done is the full wall mural which she designed and she & Grayson are going to paint.



The shower is done and came out nicely. We went with a soaking tub, 2' deep so you can soak up to your neck. The livestock watering trough, which will be our soaking tub (hey, don't laugh, Cheryl got this at the Agway for $83, compare that to several $100 for an actual soaking tub) is not yet installed but it's ready to be. Faucet and drain lines are in putting the tub next to the window for a great soaking view!

Here's our laundry room/extra pantry. It's upstairs and will only have a washer, drying will be on the line which we'll run from outside the window down to a tree. That way heavy wet laundry won't have to be carried downstairs & outside, but rather just pulled from the washer & hung out the window!




We've got ourselves a starter chicken coop for 3-4 laying hens. We're going to add an attached outside run and hope to get started with a few girls right after we get settled in the house. Ultimately we will be building a larger coop for a good sized flock. Then this coop will go to an urban-dweller like Jayne when she moves out.


In the sitting area upstairs we chose to break up the wood look with partially painted walls. This pic shows some of Kirk's beautiful trim work, but you'll just have to come to Maine to really see it! The rug is one of Cheryl's antique finds. We went with pale taupe on this floor rather than the deep sage of the other upstairs wood floors to bring more light into an otherwise quite dark space.

In non-house news...Kirk is still playing his bass at jams about once a week...Kirk's job is stressful and a music buddy suggests that he take up smoking pot...Jayne is doing fine grade-wise in her 2 college classes but hates the formal education gig and plans to seek adventures other than college in the new year...Cheryl was bit by a tick which Kirk found lurking out of sight almost on her back, it was engorged and thoroughly disgusting -- couldn't feel a thing, healing well and no signs of disease...bought ourselves a new used car -- 2000 Honda Civic with 83k miles on it -- for us that's a new car (our van now has 255,000+), we're going to let her stretch her legs on a trip to Michigan for a short Christmas visit to both families to celebrate getting into the house.

ADVANCE! ADVANCE! ADVANCE!

We've reached the hardest part of the project: it feels almost done causing increasing fantasies of it truly being done & images of living in it, almost done is relative meaning there's actually a fair amount still to do, and we're tired of working on it in nearly every available moment. But we are committed to a November move in so we keep on keepin' on. Current tasks are plumbing for Kirk and painting and other finish work for Cheryl. Jayne makes a periodic guest appearance to function as helper to a job needing 2 people or to sling a little paint and then she's off to much socializing with new friends she met doing the show Hair or to work on her 2 college classes, writing & history or her voice work.














In the interest of getting a living space quicker we decided to go with temporary countertops in the kitchen. On the left is Kirk's handiwork in using some used laminate pieces and filling in with a wood section made from the beautiful pine used throughout the house. On the right is an old interior door cut down to form a section of counter, papered with Paper Illusion to look like stone and polyurethaned to help it last for a while.

The middle of September saw red letter days at Anam Cara when our 800 lbs wood cookstove was delivered to the end of our drive and hauled to the house by Kirk & Ollie, our tractor. The next day the guys came with our heating wood stove and installed both beauties in the house. Here's to being toasty & cooking without fossil fuels!


















This is our water boiler to provide hot water to our radiant floor, which is our backup heat, and our domestic hot water until we get our solar hot water put in. Above is the bathroom vanity Kirk made with the vanity top that arrived with both corners broken. Still waiting for another we'll go ahead and use this one temporarily if need be since the damage doesn't affect its functionality.










This is the prep sink. It's handmade from copper in Mexico. The cabinet is handmade from white pine by Kirk in Maine. Our approach has been to use frugality as our guiding principle and then to here and there accent with something more expensive.

Stairwell to the right with Brian's pine sheathing handiwork and an antique light fixture we've been moving around with us for years.







We take time out to notice the beautiful New England autumn all around us. We all celebrated together our first fire in the wood stove. Kirk & Cheryl celebrated their 30th anniversary with dinner out and a dozen gorgeous white roses. And we'll be gathering with friends, the Weyer family, at their off-grid house for Thanksgiving. So we're not completely obsessed with housebuilding.

By the way, the inspiration for the title came the retired general in the movie "White Christmas". Being big movie buffs, we tend to think in terms of great lines from movies.