Houston ....

We have lift off !!

Where there's smoke
there's fire,
and where there's fire
there's warm toasty bodies
or warm bodies toasting

(Hah! I know this looks kinda like a cadaver
due to the waxy white legs
and strangely blue toes
but no human beings were harmed
and/or killed
in the making of this blog)

So, it was an extremely
perfuhlicious weekend
for finalizing all things sauna
with just the right amount of sugary snow.

First you have to make a door



and then hang it so
don't nobody see
no nearly nekkid bodies.
(triple negative!
Please refer to this post here)

Then you have to make a fire

(We don't know why he's wearing that hat, either)


And then you have to get some water
and carry it uphill from the creek
in a rahther heavy container
and make hernia-like sounds humping it
across the threshhold
and into the sauna




And then get it up on the stove
(grunt, gasp, groan)



And, voila mes amis
in a word,
STEAM !


A veritable pillar of cloud
doth issue from the rooftop
and the hand of the Lord
doth pass over them.
"And the pillar of cloud by day
and the pillar of fire by night
did not depart from before the people."
Even people with weird hats.
(Exodus 13 : 22)
Yay!



And now
on a completely different note .... birds.
In particular, a large, prehistoric,
Jurassic Park-like bird
called the Pileated Woodpecker.

They come to the birdfeeder here
and they are impressive indeed.



And here is Dave's graven image ...

(photo stolen from Ellen)



and a close-up I took
to show the carving detail


I know you want to worship it
but .... not a good idea.

Wintering Scandinavian-Style

Remember when we were talking

about how much I dislike winter
even though it is a very beautious time of year
at the Van't Hof cabin near BSL?

Well thank goodness Dave VH is making
something out of these wooden hubcaps
previously encased in snow
and now guaranteed
to warm even the chilliest of bones.



What once looked like this ....



now looks like this ....

Can you find it in there?

I know it's somewhat reminiscent of
Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother's house
or, the Lair of the Troll who so
viciously attacked the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

But in reality
it just needs a little more tweeking
and a wood stove
and the rocks that you pour
boiling water on
and a water supply
and a changing room
and some nearly nekkid people
and maybe some plush terry cloth towels
donated by anonymous hotel chains
from across America
and then all will be ready
for the fake Finnish people.


Le tour de la sauna ...

This is kinda the front.

Judy is testing the support beam
which seems to have fallen already
and Ellen is bringing sauna-supplies
of a mysterious nature
(Holiday Inn towels?).

This is the side of the sauna
and we pray it is somewhat camouflaged
from the ravenous bear
who hoffentlich is not at all drawn to
slowly cooking human flesh.



This is the back of the sauna.
Rustic is our name.
Impenetrability is our game.



And this is the inside of the sauna
where you get the full
hubcap decor affect ....




Then, to kind of gild the lily,
Dave added these pretty telephone-pole thingies.

These double as rifle port holes
when under ursa major attack.



All in all,
I think the VH sauna falls somewhere on the
woodland housing spectrum between
this troll house


and this fairy house

We discovered this fairy house
at Bill's cottage at BSL.
It was constructed
(we think)
by Esther Bovenkamp's grand kids.
Notice the similarities to
the structure below.

Almost complete sauna.



Very soon now
3 hair highlights later
and 50 pounds leaner
this will be Ellen and I
just chillin' in the sauna ....


complete with my favourite snack ....
burnt marshmallows.

Another Nook in the Woods

This is a cheating kind of blog-i-sode
so just bear with me.

This is what Dave & Ellen's cabin looked like when we first saw it.

In case you can't locate it in the photo, Dave is pointing at it.
We're looking at the back door. Don't ask me what direction we're facing ....
after 3 years I still can't tell if it's north/west/east/or south.

This is the cabin from the front.
The front does not face the road.
A tricky thing to remember.
Very disconcerting for Dutch people who like things straightforward.
I'm taking this picture from down by the creek.


Here's the creek in the summer ....
Gorgeous.


And here is the creek in the fall ....

Gorgeouser.


And here it is in the winter....Despite the beauteousness of the snow,
I do not care for winter.
So, no comment allez-vous from moi.


All right.
Why all these pictures of a cabin in the woods?
And why all these pictures of a creek
when this blog is about Big Star Lake?
Because I have a point and the point is,
this little creek flows into a bigger creek which
flows into the Pere Marquette which
puts us right at Big Star Lake's backdoor.
(I may have this slightly wrong, but, whatever).

And this is my backdoor way of posting some
photos during the wintertime
(which in Michigan is never ending)
of something that is almost BSL.
At any rate, it's most definitely Lake County.

Now, integral to this story is the part where
Dave & Ellen were not satisfied,
and so like the Tower of Babel,
they had to keep adding to their largesse.

As you may recall, Dave is a builder of boats,
and a collector of guns and a whittler of duck decoys
and a scavenger of cork-stoppered bottles of
Dr.Coffin's Tincture of Goat Saliva
and an owner of labrador retrievers that have been
red and yellow, black and not white
(I'm not kidding)
so where do you keep all this crap?
(dogs included)

Ta-Da!
You build an outbuilding.
This is a photo of Ellen saying,
"David, do not fall off that ridgepole!"


Next we will fast-forward
and show you what the building of the outbuilding
looks like near completion
and yeah, it's winter again
and that dog is a random dog that does not
belong to anyone we know.

Isn't that great!
So matchy matchy!
And a big shout out to Mark Kelderman!
So...
back to that Babel story again.

Erecting this big honking edifice was
kinda fun while it lasted but, what next Cheswick?

Well,
seeing how it always appears to be winter in this,
the winter wonderland,
or at least pretty dang cold most of the time,
Dave thought a real live sauna
would be just the thing.
And that's pronounced sow-nuh, BTW.


Let's get to felling trees, guys ....

This is Dave, Della the Dog, and Dale.
We are only missing Darryl and his other brother Darryl.


Coming along nicely with 3 gigantic
250 pound lincoln-log type crossbeams in place
and one still to go.
When the frame is completely done,
then this happens ....


See, you chop down all these trees that have
big fat trunks
until you have lots of round sections
that look kind of like wooden hubcaps.


Here is the cutting area
where lots of chopping and chainsawing
and things of that nature occur.
It all involves a lot of noise and engine revving.

Anyway,
the giant wooden hubcaps get piled one on top
of the other, just like in the picture,
and then you fill in the gaps with some goopy stuff
and VOILA, you have an extra thick wall
and no rainforests were destroyed in the making
of this sauna!


I just threw in this photo
to remind me of sunlight!
and fresh vegetables!
and green branches through the window!
and D & E's hospitality!
and why I like summer better at the cabin,
though it is toasty warm and peaceful-like
with the new wood-burning stove
(which was another project that we won't even get into)
and thankfully the resident bear is hibernating
and no longer leaving monster claw marks on the deck
mere inches from this table
after bending the birdfeeder into a giant letter "S".

The End.

P.S. I will keep you updated on the progress of the sauna.
P.S.S. And the bear.