This past weekend Luke, my dad, and I started building a treehouse behind the cottage in Monteagle. I was able to spring Luke from school about an hour early and we drove up. Both my parents and Lauren were there. All we did then was back the trailer as close as we could to the treehouse spot, and unstrapped the boards. We all went over to campus to see the goats and the Templeton Library to see a bunch of fog. My mother prepared a wonderful dinner afterwards.

The next morning I started work about 7:30 while the others went to breakfast. I was able to get the beam between the two trees set and the band mostly installed before my helpers arrived. We then worked together and installed some joists and dug holes for the posts. Just before lunch we went to the lumberyard for screws and concrete. Back at the jobsite we installed posts and joist hangers. I then cut the deck boards to length and started installing them. The wood was in pretty good shape for being from our old deck. We knocked off around four and relaxed a bit before going over to campus for dinner, which was great.

On Sunday morning we started at about 6:45 due to the time change. We finished installing the deck boards, cleaned up the job site, and loaded up our tools and leftover materials. We cleaned up the cottage and hit the road about 9:30. It was a very productive and fun weekend. Hopefully we will be able to return soon for the next stage of construction.

Life continues to be busy.

Luke has started kindergarten. It has been quite an adjustment. He has homework(!), a rather exacting teacher, and more kids in his class. He is also running cross country now. I believe he has had for races now. He enjoys it, but doesn’t seem to have much sense of urgency. He continues to make new friends at school and church, helps me around the house and yard, and is getting back into puzzles.

The house is coming along slowly. We have replaced windows and doors, patched flooring, added trim, and got most of the deck done. We need to pick out paint and roof colors now. Actually “we” needed to pick them out a while ago. Most of the property is in pretty good shape. We have lots of logs strewn about, but I have plans for them. I need to grind stumps, but am trying to find a big enough machine. Once the weather cools and the snakes go away I will work on the tree lines to clear them up.

A week from tomorrow we will head to Michigan for fall break. Luke is pretty excited and it should be a fun trip. The weather has cooled a bit here, and it will be even chillier up there. There are lots of pears and apples to pick, but unfortunately no pumpkins.

Not much else is going on. I will try to update this more regularly.