Since we are renting out the house while we’re in Mongolia we need to move much of our stuff into storage. Sure, we’re going to have a massive garage sale and we’re taking 12 large bags of stuff with us. But we’ll have a house of furniture, books, toys, puzzles, tools, kitchen stuff and clothing to leave behind. So we could rent a couple of storage units but I think we’d need about $200 a month in storage unit fees. So I decide the most pragmatic thing to do is to build a building behind the house to keep our stuff in. I’ve always wanted a large workshop so the long-term idea is that this will serve as the future workshop.
But we could also use storage if I have a workshop. So we decided to go with a two-story 15×25 foot building.
A week ago I had piling driven for the foundation and then on Saturday Keith, Orin and Seth helped me move and place the foundation beams. I spent a few hours on Sunday squaring, leveling, cutting, and strapping down the beams.
An excavator used a huge spike and a vibratory head to punch a pilot hole into the earth. Then piling were pushed into the pilot holes and vibrated in until stopping.
Jordan and I then marked the height that the piling should be to level them all. I cut them off with a chainsaw that I borrowed from Seth.
the right side of the building will have a 4 foot covered porch that I’ll undoubtedly end up using for storage. I imagine I’d store lumber there… The left side will have a ramp that leads to a door and the ramp will continue on to the existing covered porch on our house. That will let us use hand carts to wheel things into the storage building instead of carrying everything.
I’ll be using windows and doors that I replaced on the house. They are perfectly serviceable but may not be the most energy efficient choice. I think I’ll frame the front entry for a double door even though I only have a single. It would be nice to have a large door for getting big projects in and out of the shop.
A few weeks ago we started building a garden and I spent a few days building this garden shed to go along.
The shed was built on a 2×10 and 3/4 inch plywood base that used to be the top of my ramp. I used salvaged 2×4 boards for the walls and roof joists and reclaimed 5/8 inch plywood sheathing on the walls. The roofing material was removed years ago from part of the front porch. The siding is red cedar that I salvaged from the burn pile at the dump. The outward facing side was against the wall and it looks like it was a wainscoting before it was dropped at the dump. The trim boards are yellow cedar that I plucked from the free pile at Jerod Cook’s mill. All of the nails and the roofing screws were also salvaged. The sink that is mounted on the front was a dump find also. I plan on putting a gutter up that drains into a 55 gallon barrel which is then plumbed to the sink and a hose to use for planting and watering the garden during dry spells. The sink will just have buckets placed below the drains to collect soils from doing plantings and to recycle any water that is used.
The garden materials are also salvaged. The three tires are growing zucchini plants and they were dragged out of some of the fill in the back. (I also removed a car battery from the fill!) The boxy planter was the base used to hold the fuel tank that was in the carport. We’re growing carrots and peas in it now. The pea plant trellis was salvaged from the dump. The fencing that surrounds the whole garden was a find that Heather Canik gave to us. She had a whole pile of these metal grates that were used for attaching shelves at the video store. But she was paying rent on a storage unit and was unlikely to ever need more of them so she gave them to us one cold winter day. They make fantastic fencing material.
I did leave an opening in the fence one night and that’s all that it took for the deer to waltz in and eat the tops off of all of the pea plants. Oops.
I’m really excited about the garden and have plans to make at least one more bed. I transplanted the raspberry plants that were growing in the front of the house to just outside the fencing and also have moved the rhubarb plants to containers that you can’t see in the picture.
In the next few years I think I’ll get a greenhouse built adjacent to the garden too.
We thought we were being smart by planning on hitting the Vatican City on Monday. Turns out Mondays are the busiest day of the week because most Italian museums and sights are closed on Mondays. We decided to be part of a tour so we could skip the two hour long line and the complex is so vast that it was nice to have someone navigate us through the labyrinth. I did learn to not believe the salesmen when they are telling you how many people will be in your group. We were told there would be 25 but in the end had about 48 people on our tour.
Our first full day in Rome was on a Sunday. We figured that would be a stupid day to try and hit the Vatican City so we stomped around and saw some sights. It rained on us mid afternoon (which it seemed to do almost every day).
On May 21st we headed to the airport with Kevin and Trina. They were headed back to Los Angeles. Pepper, Jordan and I boarded a flight to Prague, Czech Republic for an 8 hour layover which then continued to Italy. But we never told Jordan we were going to Italy.
You see, when we started planning the trip we had hoped to hit Sweden and maybe Finland and just keep the trip in Scandinavia. I got to thinking about how Pepper’s sister and her boyfriend were going to be in Italy when we were returning from this trip and how Rome was one of Jordan’s top dream destinations. The only place on the planet that would have been more exciting for him would have been Greece. So we surprised him in the airport while we were checking into our flight to Prague. They asked our final destination and we said Rome. Check out the video…
So eventually he believed us. Maybe we shouldn’t joke around with him quite so much.
When we landed we were picked up by a driver that scooted us downtown where we had a foot tour of some of the main sights in Prague.
Then we got on the subway to take it to the end of one of the lines.
And when we got of…
What’s that? The Czech Beer Festival? What great timing!
Our driver picked us up at the beer festival and shuttled us back to the airport for our flight to Rome. It was a great but rushed day in Prague. I definitely need to go back. Preferably during the beer festival!
On our drive from the airport to the apartment the previous evening I was really struck with just how many people bicycle in Denmark. I guess it is something I had always heard but to see the throngs of cyclists, the dedicated lanes, and the incredible number of bicycles locked up and leaning against every building was really eye-opening.
We only had two days to spend in Copenhagen so some of my plans for Denmark had to be shelved. I had really wanted to try to get to Legoland. Sure, there’s a Legoland in California. There’s also a Disney theme park in Japan if you catch my meaning. I wanted to go to the original Legoland where LEGO is made. But it was a 2.5 hour train ride one way from Copenhagen.
So we saw some of the urban sights, statues, castles, museums, amusement park and microbreweries. Here are the highlights of the two days.
We knew that Oslo would be expensive so we planned on a very short stay there. So on the 18th, Pepper, Jordan, and I were up a bit early for a vacation and hitting the last sights we wanted to catch in Norway.
First we went to Akershus Festning a medieval castle which allowed for Jordan to see more cannons and weaponry. This castle had lots of neat rooms and was beautifully furnished.
From there we walked to the harbor and caught a ferry to see the Viking Ship Museum and the Museum of Cultural History. We found the cultural history site first and I was most interested in seeing the stave church.
At the viking Ship Museum we met back up with Kevin and Trina. It just so happened that the 18th of May is International Museum Day and we were admitted for free! The ships were pretty cool. We hoofed it back to the harbor to catch the next ferry. Unfortunately we just missed the boat. So we sat down and ordered some nachos while waiting for the next one. We were starting to get nervous about the timing and catching our ride to the airport but we made it without a problem!
Since Petersburg was founded by Norwegians our community has a strong link to that heritage. Every May the town has a festival to celebrate Norwegian Constitution Day which is on May 17th. So when we started planning a trip to Norway I knew we had to try to be in Oslo for syttende mai. There are a remarkable number of people that have actually been to Norway from Petersburg so there was no shortage of tips on things to see.
We woke on the 17th and made plans to rendezvous with Kevin and Trina in the early afternoon. Pepper, Jordan and I headed out on foot toward Karl Johans Gate which was where the parade would be. We walked through the cemetery that was close to our apartment building and then started hearing a marching band playing so just followed our ears and the other people that were on foot – everyone was headed in the same direction. We stumbled on a band playing for what looked like a high school graduation and then moved on toward the main drag. Even from a distance the mass of people looked impressive.
When we got to the parade it was clear that we wouldn’t be able to see much. But we found a way to get above the crowd and stood and watched the parade for 20 minutes or so. 20 minutes of what must have been a 3 hour long parade!
Then we worked our way toward Det Kongelige Slott (the Royal Castle) where the King and Queen were waving a the passing parade. After looping around the back of the castle we had to cross the parade twice to make it back to the spot that we had arranged to meet up with Kevin and Trina. In hindsight we should have brought the pair of Motorolla radios with us because my phone wouldn’t get text messages for a very long time after Trina sent them. We found a spot for lunch and people-watching and then walked to Vigeland Park. (As a side note, I figure we walked at least 8 miles on this day and much of the day was pretty dang warm!)
We then walked back to our apartment in time for shaving off Kevin’s beard on the roof of the apartment during the sunset.
Trina lined up a van to transport us to the train station first thing in the morning. We slogged our bags down the ample stairs and headed to the station. After picking up our tickets we loaded our bags onto the train and took our seats. Jordan sat and worked on his math workbook muck of the ride.
Travel by train really is a nice way to go. The seat space is better than a plane, you can walk around and even hop off briefly at stops, and best of all, you can see the countryside. We were getting to see the countryside from Trondheim to Oslo. It was a 7 hour trip for the 310 miles.
Much of the view was of farmland. There were waterfalls, small towns, quaint train stops, and I even saw a moose.
When we arrived in Oslo we dragged our bags something like 3 KM to our apartment. We met a guy who let us into our place which was thankfully on the first floor!
We got our act together and then found a place for dinner and called it a day pretty early.
