Jorpblog

I made biscotti today, and I don’t mind saying that they’re great. Just yesterday I noticed that the Sullivan Street Bakery has put online the bread recipe I use as the starting point for all breads these days. Biscotti di Prato was the other recipe they posted, so I figured it had to be a winner, and it was.

The only thing I did differently from the recipe was to use hazelnuts instead of almonds. Yum! Next time I’m going to use chocolate.

Too lazy to take pictures–use your imagination.

OK, this was actually a 12″ long baby milk snake that Sara and I saw on a walk along the nearby road. Still pretty cool though.

There’s also a pond that they made recently, and here you can see the deck that Greg and Robert worked on while we were doing the plastering.

I’d say the pond is maybe 100 yards across. Now it’s stocked with little fish and tons of tadpoles. Because that isn’t enough, there’s some plan for an underwater chamber, though the design and engineering haven’t been worked out yet.

Jamie, Ryan and I went for a nice swim shortly after this photo. It wasn’t too cold on the surface, but you only have to go down a few feet before it gets frigid.

So there is this other house on the land…Apparently, just a couple years ago this was a 1-room, door and windowless, corrugated aluminum shed. Now it’s an amazine barn-style house with a really open feeling, lots of light (despite the short windows), and beautiful furnishings.

If you don’t feel like roughing it, you can be in the country, but sleep in style. The kitchen counter has got to be my favorite piece in the place.

Here’s a good view of the windows, welded by Quentin, and some of the facets of the roof.

Greg puts everybody to work, and now I’m proud to be part of the club. Before working on the treehouse, Jamie did raku for Greg. Heather is pretty much running the Raku Vessels business now. And Sache is working on his “All the…” projects.

The treehouse is built on a slope (the structure itself is level) and the windows look down the hill, so you’ve got quite a view. Of course you’re in the woods, but near enough to the edge to see for some distance.

The natural light is great, but you know there have to be outlets in the walls and solar panels on the roof.

Greg doesn’t seem to do anything the quick and easy way. Not that he can’t work fast–he and Robert put up a shed in a day and a half. But on the walls withough windows, he decided that solid wood would be boring and there should be some contrast.

So he and Jamie cut out the rectangles, built frames, filled it with recycled denim insulation and then left it to us to attach the metal grille and plaster it over. (It’s a light weight natural plaster, by the way, since you don’t want to put unnecessary weight onto a treehouse.)

It’s nearly done here–just a little sponging to even things out. The painting and trim will be done sometime soon.

So it does exist after all. I’d heard about this tree house for about 2 years–the 9 trees supporting it, the working kitchen and bathroom, the many-faceted roof, etc.

It seemed entirely possible that Jamie was just making it all up to support some mysterious double life she was leading. Maybe she was going to Wisconsin every weekend for a secret rendezvous with some cowboy…

But there it was, nearly finished as promised. And it’s going to be gorgeous. Should be ready to move in by the end of the summer.