Scary kids and back to work...

 For the past few days my life has been plagued by these scary little monsters! Matisse and Maya came to visit with Eric their dad. On Saturday they came to Cortes Daze, our annual island festival, and thanks to a young face painter, turned into these otherworldly beings. Luckily, the face paint did not change their sweet natures!



Yesterday, I said goodbye to Danielle and our visitors and did some shopping in Campbell River. Today I went back to work. I installed short pieces of wainscotting around the spiral staircase opening and made a start on shingling the one remaining gable end.

Spiral staircase - installed

 After months of sitting under a tarp outside, today we finally brought the metal frame for the spiral staircase into the house and into its designed location wrapped around the cedar log in the centre of the house.

Mike and I did this with the help of a "come-along" and there were times when we wondered if we had enough combined muscle power. But we finally wiggled and twisted and nudged it into place.

And the good news is it fits pretty well! We need to make a minor adjustment to how the spiral stair rail and the top rail join together. No big deal...

There is still quite a bit of work to do before the stairs are finished, starting with attaching the frames for the treads and notching them into the post. Then I need to make 13 treads out of local fir that's been sitting drying in my shop for two months.

 Last evening I spotted this charmer next to my trailer and was delighted that he/she posed long enough for me to haul my camera out of my pocket. Mmmmm fresh worm (or grass hopper or ???)

Glass Roof finally installed...

 Mike, the carpenter who has basically built our house, with a bit of assistance from me, says he has been thinking about how to install the glass roof over the rear entry way for more than a year. Today, we finally got it installed and it all went very smoothly. All that's left to do is install some kind of a gutter to catch the rain and steer it into the main roof gutter to the left of the glass section.













 Here's a shot of the interior with our chosen colour "Light Incense" (what else are you going to do with it?) applied to the walls. It's a nice pale but strong yellowy beige colour.

TIME FOR SAILING AND MUSIC

 Last weekend I sailed south from Cortes Island to Comox on Vancouver Island for the amazing Musicfest. This year's headliners were Richard Thompson, Emmy Lou Harris, K.D. Lang and more...






I left Cortes Bay at 5:15am and arrived in Comox at around noon after a great downwind sail. The is is the sunrise over the coastal mountains...

This band, called Talavya or Tabla Ecstasy were for me the highlight of the festival. Check them out...http://www.rrmproductions.com/tabla-ensembles/tabla-ecstasy.html