Brutus the Wonder Dog

 I guess I'm feeling a little down today.  Hubby is at the cabin, Kayle went to a photo shoot all day, came home long enough to wash the theatrical makeup off and change clothes and she was off with Nick for the night.  I couild have gone to camp with Bruce, he keeps asking me to go, but I guess I just haven't reached a point where I'm comfortable leaving home for more than a quick run to the neighborhood grocery store...and that's only if I have no other choice,

Anyway, I just started thinking about my beloved dog Brutus.  Since Bruce and I were too old to have our own children, he with 2, me with 3, we talked about getting a dog.  One day we got a call from his cousin who lives in the next town over telling us that her German Shepherd Hallie had puppies.  11 of them
 
She has papers and they always thought they might breed her down the line, but it seems that somebody else got to her first- a lab/shar pei cross that belonged to a neighbor.  Well too late to do anything about it, she offered us a puppy so we packed the kids in the car and drove over.  We picked out a little square headed pup with shepherd markings and way too much skin.  His cousin told us he was found outside (in January) and they had thought he was dead, but put him under the heat lamps and he seemed to come around.    Friends of ours Hoyt and Maryann also picked a puppy for their daughter Megan, and they named her Penny.  As the dogs grew older they grew as different in looks as if they weren't even from the same littler.  Brutus picked up the coloring of the shepherd, and the head and skin of a sharpei.  Penny looked exactly like a black lab.

Brutus was always a very easy going dog, didn't bark, didn't mind little kids mauling him and went everywhere with us.  On the sailboat on our excursions to Port Dahlousie and our weekends at our camp in the Adirondack mountains.  But when we were home, he could always be found lying at my feet.  No matter where I was, on the computer, in the living room, in bed, that dog was always right there beside me.

Brutus was my heart, and I miss him so much.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of him or look at his 'baby book' and remember his puppy days and the joy he brought to our family.

 

This is the last picture we have of him.  Kayle would often walk him over to the state park so he could run on the beach and play in the water.

Rest in Peace My Angel, I'll see you again.

Windy's Designs Cabin in the Woods

Friends of ours, Bob and Pauline have a lovely spot in the Southern Tier nestled in a small valley where they have 4 cabins.  They've been camping in one of them for years now, and offered the large 'kitchen cabin' for my husband's use since he likes to go deer hunting in the southern tier,  The deal was we clean it and fix it u p and it's ours to use for as long as we want.  2 years ago Pauline was treated for breast cancer, and because at that time she didn't know how long she would be around, she made arrangements to pay it off so that it would always be a place for Bob and Bruce to go.

It's an open L shaped floor plan with a huge fireplace at one end, a huge round handmade table with an equally huge lazy susan in the center of it.  It does have an indoor bathroom, a kitchen with hot and cold running water.  Bruce sleeps on a vintage day bed and I sleep on a convertable couch that clicks down into a bed.  Initially, all we had for additional heat was an old iron cookstove and we managed simple meals on it, but because we have electricity, we have coffee maker, toaster, crock pots and bought a 2 burner hot plate.

This first picture is in the corner beside the back door, my husband's latest project.  We once had a huge antiquated old fridge there and it was removed and we placed a small apartment sized propane stove there.  He built a shelf and on that you can see the small apartment sized fridge.  behind that wall is the shower.

This is a picture of the shower.  that back room used to be full of wood scraps and tools and there was no place to wash up other than the bathroom sink.  Sure makes it nice!

This is the bathroom, it's directly across from the shower area.

This is the kitchen, directly across from the new stove and fridge.  To the left is the shower and bathroom.

If you follow the counter around, you see the rest of the kitchen, and beyond the dining area, and the antique iron cookstove.

Here you can see the huge round table with the lazy susan in the middle.  The photo was really dark, so I lightened it up a bit, you can see the detail much better if you click on the picture to enlarge it.  Notice the woods outside the window!

Here is the antique daybed my husband sleeps on which doubles as seating during the day since there really is no 'bedrooms' to speak of.

across from the daybed is my click clack couch that turns into a bed.  Notice the big stone fireplace to the right, we'll get to that in a minute.

Here is the long view.  It really is quite spacious, even if it lacks a bit of privacy.

Here is the fireplace.  It's easily 10 feet to the top, I know my eye level is lower than the mantle.  We used to have a free standing wood stove on the hearth with the pipe going up the chimney, but we lost so much warm air to that huge gaping maw.   Eventually, we found an excellent used fireplace insert, and it had made a world of difference.  One thing that helped distribute the heat a little better was the installation of ceiling fans.  My husband put one up above the fireplace, one as close to the center of the cabin as possible and one in the kitchen.

Here is the outside view of our cabin.  Even though we are up on a hill, you can still see in the background the hills behnd us.

If you back further down the hill you see part of Bob and Pauline's cabin to the left.  Oh, and you can see we also have satellite dish......

And here is the guest cabin.  It looks teeny, but it's actually not a bad size.  It's heated by a propane wall heater and get's quite cozy.  This was my daughter's cabin for a couple of years, but with work, school and the boyfriend, she just doesn't have the time to come down, so Pauline decided to fix it up so that anyone of us could have visitors down.  She put an antique sleigh bed in there and my husband says it looks wonderful.  I wish he'd have gotten a picture of it, because I haven't seen it since it was changed.

There is a 4th cabin, up on the hill beyond ours.  It's not been used and is rather hard to access.  It sits overlooking the valley and it appears the ground will eventually wear away.  We've jacked it up but Pauline would like to find a way to move it and eventually fix it up as well so it could be used.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my tour of our little cabin in the woods!