PART 1: I haven’t posted anything on this blog since November. I don’t know where the winter went, but by the looks of fast-melting snow and the sound of Canadian geese returning to the north, we are heading into spring.
We had a good winter, very busy at Lighthouse Trails and Dave doing the rough-in electrical and keeping the furnaces and woodstoves in both buildings going with what seemed like eternal fires. We already had one of our authors, Ray Yungen, come out for a writer’s retreat. He worked on his new book and several booklets. He stayed in the temporary guest room at the “Light” house (where LT runs). We took him to Fernie one day to see the snow capped mountains and drink coffee from Tim Horton’s.
We had a good steady staff in the shop all winter, packaging up about 400 orders a month, filling tea boxes, and sampling the biscotti we now carry; Everyone worked hard and stayed warm.
We had a lot of snow this winter. Beautiful, bright, and cold! It’s almost all gone now except for in the mountains that surround us.
The lodge this winter. Because there was no insulation but with the wood furnace and woodstove going inside (to keep Dave warm while he did the electrical), we had a lot of icicles on the building. Some were nearly 4 feet long!! Soon, we will have lights and walls inside.
PART 2: Today, we are praising the Lord. Dave finished the rough-in electrical a few days ago. We cleaned up the place, called the inspector, and today he approved our rough-in electrical.
In Montana, at least in this county, the only inspection needed in construction is the electrical. It took a few months longer than we had hoped for him to complete it, but Dave is a very busy guy with the publishing ministry and everything else that has to be done around here. Plus, he had never wired a house before. It was a huge undertaking. But he did it, and he saved us a lot of money by doing this himself.
We are already scheduled to have the insulation done on the 21st, and tomorrow we are getting a quote on sheetrocking. If it’s too expensive, we’ll have to do that ourselves too as our construction budget is just about depleted, but we hope we can have that done. It’s another big job for one person.
Dave will spend the rest of this week putting in a media panel and running wires for Internet and phone (easy compared to what he just did) and then work next week on clearing out the lodge of all the tools and materials to get ready for the insulation and sheetrock.
After that, we would love to have some volunteers come help with painting, finish trim, and a million other things.
DAVE: Editor, publisher, woodsman, and now electrician! Not to mention a wonderful husband.
The panel in the mechanical room.
The rough-in for one of the bathroom cadet heaters. A little extra warmth in the three bathrooms.
