Dry wall almost finished in the guest cabin. Mudding, taping and the dreaded sanding should be done this week. That will be it for the icky jobs.

We went to town yesterday to pick up the laminate flooring. We were just going to paint the plywood floors but we were offered a great deal from a local store in return for the roofing headaches caused by their supplier. Not the store’s fault but we have finished most of our material purchases now and finish up with that store as happy customers.

In addition to project materials, we did a major shop to stock the pantry for the winter. We had already done a big shop for staples, TP, shampoo and the like. Yesterday we bought everything for my pantry. Base supplies to make soups, stews, chillies, breads, and treats. Still need to do one last gas run and a meat shop at Costco. The freezer will be packed with vacuum sealed packages of steaks, chicken, ground beef and maybe a few lamb chops by the end of September.

I have now canned all of the tomato sauce I am going to need. Jams, chutneys and whole fruit are ready. Applesauce still on the to do list. I am waiting for Mother Nature to do her thing.

The firewood is ready for this winter with more waiting to be split for future winter warmth. The guest cabin is an ongoing project. Fun to do, even funner (???) in the weeks to come when we are painting and decorating. But we have to still prepare for our winter.

As you all know our primary goal after October 1st is to have no need to go to town very often. In a perfect world we would go to town once every three weeks. If E could learn to like beer on his cereal instead of milk we could go even longer. I have offered to use wine for my oatmeal.

We finish the summer in pretty good shape system wise. The generator has only been used to run E’s power tools. If we ever finish renovating, summer generator usage should be reduced to zero.

We had all of the water this summer we really needed for bathing, laundry, and the watering of a minimum number of vegetables. I could have used more for the flower portion of the garden but nothing is dead like last year. I even had a very nice selection of flowers on the deck. Unlike last year at this time, when I was ready to give up and tear out the whole garden. I am feeling more optimistic for next year.

We had more rain this summer than I remember having during the last four summers. We had a nice selection of warm weather with a day or night of rain ever week or so. Our driveway still has green grass which is unheard of.

March 1st we started the summer with 6000 gallons in storage at the top of our property. We then moved 1000 gallons down to the two garden tanks. We won’t have to do that again as we are going to have rain water catchment for the garden tanks, this winter off the new guest cabin.

We finish the summer with a decent amount of tomatoes, squash, carrots, parsnips and pumpkin in the cupboard for winter nourishment. We finish the summer with a reasonably undead flower garden. Most importantly, we finish the summer with our clothes clean and our bodies relatively well bathed…

and the numbers are in… drum roll please.. We are finishing the summer with 1300 gallons of water still in the upper tanks.

We made it!