Walls are going up on the addition

It's moving quickly now!! Lucas has been hard at work whenever I have a day off getting the walls constructed! Really starting to feel real!

Hot shower

It's simple and efficient!
1) turn on generator
2) open water hose from gravity fed tank
3) plug motorized pump in
4) turn on propane
= on demand hot shower within 30s!

Hot shower, new paint, prep for foundation, and new flooring

It's been a busy few weeks with some exciting changes!

Little Helper

Lucas built us a new "dining set"/picnic table :)

Green before

Gray after 

And a lovely new floor 

Framed in for the concrete to be poured for the 20' x 25' addition

I missed catching pictures of the new hot shot (on demand propane heater!!)  but it is luxurious.  Will try to capture soon.

We're back!

From Sept 2015 to April 15, 2020 we moved into a conventional home a few miles away. Two sweet little girls later, we made the decision to cross Star Valley and once again return to our off the grid adventure.

We've made some upgrades this round to make life more comfortable, and I have to say, we've been having a great time.  The girls (ages 4 and almost 3) are loving all of the time running around outside and learning the names of the plants in the woods.

New propane/solar full size refrigerator

Bathroom before

Bathroom after with fancy
new Swedish composting toilet

An addition is in the works and Lucas has been working hard spreading gravel loads to make a road to the site behind the shack for the concrete truck to poor a 20' x 25' foundation.

Lucas and his brothers, Nathaniel and Buck, have also set up an 8 hole frisbee golf course through the woods.

Just waiting for concrete to be poured in 
the next week or 2

Also, we finished the sauna ages ago....I just never got around to posting pictures :)

The Sauna Begins!

Here comes the Sauna!

It's coming along quickly, but there's still a ways to go. Insulation, stove piping, house wrap, benches and metal siding, and then we will have a functional sauna!

I wanted a picture collage, and Lucas came up with this creative decor.
The pictures hang from a 12 foot long tree branch above our sink and oven.



Jeremy and Lindsey spotted these 2 swag lamps at the local flee market.  This is also a great shot of the colored boards
that line our ceiling in the main room.

A new painting I created of our bathroom window made its way onto the living room wall.

Rilo got to have her very own bed made from the leftover scraps from our reupholstered dining room chairs.

Lucas has been busy!  He also built a 20' long, 10' deep woodshed with these beautiful birds painted on the side.  A picture of the wood shed will come soon, but he also came home with 2 does this hunting season, and they are currently obscuring the view of the shed.

Cleaned up and painted the sink.  I used lace to create patterns and then spray painted it.  We've been using this sink since we moved in, it had been Luke's parents years ago, and was sitting in a shed on the farm.  He cleaned it, built a base, and made it useful again.

Expanding our syrup, gardening, and canning endeavors has left us with a storage problem!  I finally got the idea to build this shelf in the small space between our water tank and wall.  About 3 feet deep and build out of reclaimed wood from a pallet, it holds over 75 jars!

An up to date interior shot of our main room

Fall pics of the house.  Not too much has changed recently on the exterior, but the hops that Dad and Lori are growing splendidly and make a nice frame!

Porches, Birthdays, Ramps, and Syrup!

 We had a lot of help hauling buckets and boiling down the sap.  We wound up with 25 gallons of syrup! 

It's great to have a covered porch!  Thank you to my Dad and his cousin Loureen for giving us the boards from her old deck!



We had a cowboy themed party to celebrate my birthday :).



So many great friends came out!

So many kids e njoying the woods!

Mustaches on sticks....

And awesome costumes!

 And Andrea and Thomas brought sky lanterns too!

 

 

 

Wild Ramps Pesto!



1. Find ramps



2. Gather many ramps

3. Puree with parmesan, walnuts, and sunflower oil

We wound up with 5 gallons of finished canned pesto :)
 

And a lovely nest of robin eggs by our toolshed.

 

 

We leave for Colorado for tomorrow, so this is the last post with house pictures for a few months.  have a great summer!