May Long Weekend

The May long weekend saw us headed back out to Nordegg.  This will be the drill through most of the summer as we have a lot of work to do out there this year.  The push is on to get everything finished up as much as possible through this summer, and then we can relax and enjoy the place, without too much additional work, after that.
We loaded up two trucks full of stuff, and a trailer and headed out to Nordegg for the May Long Weekend.  It was a bit of a battle to get our oldest daughter to come along as she is getting to the age where she prefers to stay home.  But we have lots of work to do out at the cottage, and she needs to be part of the family and help out.  We finally hit the road late Saturday morning.

The girls camped out in the garage, with their menagerie of rabbits, skinny pigs and dogs.  For those not familiar with "skinny pigs" they are a hairless version of the more traditional guinea pig.  The girls had foam mattresses spread out on the gravel floor in between all the cages.   We had a couple of small electric space heaters running to keep the chill out.  The girls were convinced that the paint fumes in the cottage would not be good for their beloved pets.

Modern latex paint doesn't smell nearly as badly as the old stuff used to.  Margarit and I stayed in the cottage all weekend, and last weekend as well, and didn't really notice much of a smell at all.  We worked all weekend long and now have most of the painting done.  We are ready for carpet installation in the bedrooms and living room.  Seems we work best when we have some sort of deadline.  With the exception of one high wall, and parts of two others, all of the rooms are now painted with two coats.  After the carpet is installed we will continue with the last of the painting, and then move on to interior trim, and wood panelling.

We collected some more flat stones to use for a section of floor beneath our wood stove.  The girls had a bucket of water and scrubbed all these stones.  We've set them aside and now have them ready for when we get to this part.  I also brought out some wood trim for window casings... but didn't get to those yet.  I did manage to install some walnut trim on the floor around the openings.  This includes the area around the stairwell, and at the open edge of the living room, overlooking the dinette.  This material needed to go in ahead of the new carpet.

It was mostly a working weekend with very little time for anything else.  The girls did get out a few times for an ATV ride, but that was about the extent of our leisure activities.  Seems things will continue on this basis for some time to come.  Looking back at the calender I see that I have worked for 43 of the last 45 days... with four more to go before I take a break.  We took two days off to go to the music festival in East Coulee back in early May... but other that I have worked every day... partially at the office and the rest of the time on cottage stuff.
Despite the warm days, it still gets pretty cold at night out in the mountains.  It got pretty chilly in the cottage at night with no heat.  The girls had the extension cord strung into the garage to run the small portable electric heaters, and to watch DVD's on their laptop, which left Margarit and I with no power.  On Monday morning I got up early and went outside.  I made some coffee and stirred the fire to life to warm up.  The thermometer showed a temperature of only +2C.