It’s been a tough stretch.  We’ve been working 12 hour days 7 days a week trying to get our house finished.  And winter is coming.

OK so the famous Game of Thrones saying is becoming a bit cliche, but in our case, it has very real ramifications.  The snow will start flying in 8-9 weeks and we have a hard deadline by our bank loan to finish everything by December 1st.

When you live in the forest, you’re more in tune with the subtle activities of the animals, and we’ve noticed an end of season push to do what they need to do while the weather is nice.  We’ve felt it too.

We’ve been scurrying around wrapping up outside projects that will be impossible in three feet of snow.  Soffits went up since our last post, and this week paint was finished on the house and garage.  The contractor we hired to build the first 2/3 of our house has been paid in full.

It’s been an exhausting few months but we can take a breath and steady ourselves for the final push: interior trim and a punch list of annoying little items that’s as long as your arm.  But for now, we celebrate a milestone and remind ourselves that it will all be over in a few short weeks.

And then what will we do with all our free time?

Speaking of animals, here are a few critters we’ve seen wandering the canal trail right in front of our place.