The Big Dipper was Already Taken

Ed McAllen beat me to it. When Ed built his beautiful cordwood house he used glass bottles to display the Big Dipper. I really liked his idea, but I just couldn’t have another Big Dipper—it was already taken. So, instead I decided to do the Orion constellation.

The Orion constellation is quite beautiful to view on a cold winter’s night and is one of my favorite constellations. Besides being a constellation, it was also the name of our cat that won over Jo’s heart. Jo and Orion became “best of buds” and he would always follow her around the house wherever she went. Orion passed away a number of years now, but we have never forgotten the love and warmth that he brought to us.

The Orion constellation includes more stars than these, but the most recognizable stars in the night sky (brighter magnitude) include the “stars” or should I say bottles seen in the above photograph. This panel is directly above the front door entrance which already has a number of bottles along the sides. Once the inside walls are complete, both panels should highlight the front entrance.

This week marked the last full wall of cordwood to be constructed. It was a push, but I was able to finish the wall by Friday afternoon. It is quite encouraging to finally see the house coming together. For the first time I could walk down the lane towards the house and gaze at a house that for all appearances looked like a house! It still needs a front door, but that will come with time. One of my winter projects is to build the front door and if it works out like I hope it will, it should turn out to be rather unique.

On another note, I got a phone call this week from the roofing company that tinned our roof. They want to come out and take a few photographs of the house and roof to be displayed on their web site. I guess even for a company that does metal roofs for a living, this was a unique job for them.

Finally, I was able to mow the grass this week without incident. I’m sure Jo was happy to hear that. I did get a touch of poison ivy around my ankles from my “incident”, but nothing major. Because of the poison ivy I elected to work in my sandals for a couple of days and promptly got stung by a wasp in the heel of my foot—never a dull moment around here.

Next week…wall number 32.

A Downy Woodpecker contemplates the meaning of life… or maybe it’s just resting.