Walden Island 2011

We're headed back up to the lake in a couple of hours. It's that time of year; get things winterized and put away until next Summer. It's always a little sad when we close the door on The Shed for the last time each Fall, as we don't usually come back up for several months. But, not this year. This year, Jamie is hoping to keep working on the boathouse. (Yes, that means more manual labor....big sigh...)

The boathouse has been a "project" for almost 2 full Summers now. Neither one of us have ever built a boathouse and digging out the area took us much longer than we had planned. That is until Jamie found me a Yanmar. Or, as I call it, Amber's Tonka.


That little beauty is my new favorite thing. It's basically a small dump truck. And it has literally been a back saver! Instead of shoveling dirt out of the little John Deer wagon, the Tonka just dumps it. I don't even have to get out of the seat, I just pull the lever. {Angels sing here} The best part is, the Tonka holds approximately 6 John Deer wagon loads at one time. Again, making my life easier! Jamie just fills up the back, and off I go.


Once we got everything dug out, we started building a step. It's a bit difficult to haul things up a sliding hill of dirt.


And having a step is wonderful! The dogs and kids have an easier time getting around too.



So the next step is getting steel for the remaining structure and then getting the roof going. Jamie would like to have the roof on by the end of December. Lets see how things go.