While Jonathan's friends John and John were here, the three Johns put in two dormer windows. I guess Jonathan woke up one morning a put a chainsaw through the roof. So that is where the dormers are now. They are five feet long and three feet tall. The amount of light they let into the cabin is amazing and now we can go up the "stairs" without bumping our heads. 
They even put shelves into each one so I can have plants there year round. What a difference. Now we need to put the insulation in the roof and put the blue metal roof on over the gravel paper that didn't do so well last winter.
There are beach-combed boom-chains running the length for railings, a very nice touch. The board walk leads to these steps going down to the creek. The photo on the right is looking down from the bedroom. You can also see the terraces I am trying to get filled with dirt for a shade garden. The shot below is more detail of the steps. 
They have oyster and clam shell risers, cedar steps, and are lined with sediment striped rocks from the beach. The board going across the creek leads to a path going down to the beach. I think there are some shots of that already posted but what the heck I'll put more up because it is so dreamy.
This is the best outhouse ever!
Jonathan made this for the wedding, it has raised beds in the front for peas. A urinal is inside for the other pee. It even flushes!
The lid and seat are custom made from a door. The knob on the right is his handle on life. Mom and Dad gave a us the double header seat from the barn in Marshfield for our wedding. Jonathan said it was too nice to use. We are going to use it as a frame. One side for a picture of Paula, the other with a picture of John (Buckley).
Yup, running water here, too! We don't have running water in the cabin yet. But I know a plumber.
The greenhouse is full right now. We started a new raised bed this year-20 feet long with a plastic covering system to keep young plants warmer and to protect from too much rain(above). Also two more small ones in front of the outhouse for peas, get it?(see the next posting on the outhouse) We have been trying to fill the stone wall terrace by the creek with dirt for a shade garden, but it is slow going with a four bucket average and then a break. A tree fell in that terrible wind storm and we have been raiding the dirt that was exposed under the root system. It is just too hard to dig in this country. All of the ground surface is occupied by plants, shrubs, moss, tree roots, rocks, sticks shed from the trees or thick sticky mud. So fallen trees that go down from the roots are a great source for dirt. I put some starfish, seaweed and compost, bagged soil, lime and peat to boost it a bit. The results in the garden with this dirt have been better than another raised bed (below, see yellow leaves, small squash)I filled last year with trucked in dirt. Maybe that area doesn't drain as well?
It is sunny out right now better get my hands dirty.
Over the last few weeks we have been in food collecting mode. We have had some visitors that have put some serious time into this too. Thanks Big John, John J Lo, and Lauren. 
These particular ones became crab cakes at the wedding in Marshfield. Fresh shrimp from a friend's pots are so good, nothing like the stuff you get in a store.
The garden has started producing too. We have been eating peas, chard, beet greens, and letttuce, the deer have been eating parsnip greens, seedum flowers, chard and grass. 
Flowers keep showing up in my car when I get out of work. Jonathan? And we haven't taken any deer yet, hunting season opened Aug. 1st.
It was a beautiful and sunny day in Southeast on June 10. We got married on the bow of the MV Delphinus. http://www.dolphincharters.com There was a bit of wind but it was warm and everyone stood by on the dock to witness the event. Here's a couple of photos from the day. When the photographer went to take the traditional ring photo she took one look at our hands and said "oh no never mind". 
But we managed to arrange them to make them look somewhat decent, rough hands come with the territory. I had a request to send/post the vows, so here they are posted below. Capt. Ronn did a great job presiding over the ceremony. The Mouse ears are from Disney World. Jonathan proposed under the fireworks show at Epcot Center with Amy and Bob on one side and Martha and dave on the other. Very brave. So Amy got us the ears and we vowed we would wear them on our wedding day, so did Dolly.
The weeks before the wedding were very busy down at the cabin. Jonathan really hustled to get it ready for the hoe down. The first priority was an outhouse. We have the best seat in Alaska in there including a sky light, running water in the sink and...urinal. The obligatory half moon on the door is from his family's floathouse. My Mom and Dad refinished the two header from the barn outhouse in Marshfield (circa 1838) for a wedding gift. So our outhouse is a real heirloom.
Jonathan and Dusty dug into the mud going down to the creek to get these steps in so our guests could get down to the creek. They are beautiful with oyster, clam and scallop shell risers. We had a lot of shells to line the paths with.
Continuing across the creek, Jonathan cut through some of the logs that lay across the path to make a beautiful path down to the beach. This was no small task he had to get out the big chainsaw (Big Red) with a six foot bar to cut through one that was easily five feet around. You can see it just beyond the tent (accomodations for out of town guest). We used to have to slip and slide to climb over that log which was a major obstacle to getting to the beach, but never the less a really impressive log/former tree. The path now goes through an opening he cut in it. 
The cut pieces were used to make stepping stones along the path. He carved our initials in one side, which made me cry because that is so romantic.
He also put some railings up with beach-combed boom chains to prevent people from falling off the porch (it worked!). The wedding turned out to be a beautiful day and we ate outside. Everyone brought their favorite potluck dish and ate on tables! There was a campfire burning in front of the greenhouse just in case it turned cool. Log torches burned the length of the driveway to light the way down the driveway and keep the no-see-ums away.
This boat was one of our favorites. It was a wooden double-ender hand troller. Kind of eerie seeing it through the water like that. We went down to check it out on our last trip to town, the dock was straining to keep it at the surface. 
It is still snowing. It has been snowing for soooo long. Not normal. The Iditarod was earlier this month and the mushers had runs without snow even though they moved north a bit. Maybe they need to move south?
![CAPT. RONN: Friends and neighbors and relatives, we are gathered here today to witness the marriage of Jonathan and Megan. To do so, we must perform these vows in an act of ceremony.But what are these things: to wed, to marry, to take a wedding vow? Vows have the crucial feature of making real the very act to which the vows refer, the union of two people in marriage.It's not enough just to think the words of the wedding vow, no matter how sincerely you may be thinking them. (If it were enough, then I wouldn't be here and neither would you.) And it's not enough even to say them. (If it were, Jonathan and Megan could just recite these lines to each other in a skiff, say, or while making smoked salmon, and—voila—they'd be married.)Although we've just begun the ceremony, some interesting questions have already gathered on the horizon: Is this set of words, so far, “accepted”? Are they “appropriate for the dedication of a marriage”? Are we doing the wedding “correctly” and “completely”? Is it enough simply to say, “Do you, Megan, take Jonathan to be your lawfully wedded husband?”MEGAN: “I do.”Capt. RONN: “And do you, Jonathan, take Megan to be your lawfully wedded wife?”Jonathan: “I do.”CAPT. RONN: As it turns out, it is enough, and the words just uttered by both Megan and Jonathan are sufficient—but not because of the words themselves.First of all the words must be meant “seriously” and not self-ref.The problem with that, though, is that the distinction between serious and non-serious is always uncertain, especially with these two, and any attempt to solve that problem by insisting on the “proper” context for a statement is bound to fail.For example, we are all familiar with the sign on the dock that reads “no unattended dogs on the dock”. But this sign fails to take into consideration that the dogs can’t read the sign. As the sign has clearly been ordered from a professional sign maker and posted in a conspicuous location, through its context we understand it to be serious. It's a bit like the comedian George Carlin's observation about official signs. “NO JOKES,” perhaps, “but what about riddles?”Our point is that the distinction between “serious” and “nonserious” as determining what makes this ceremony binding doesn't solve the problem; it only pushes it back a notch. We can only ask, “Did you, Jonathan and Megan, seriously mean what you just said about taking each other as husband and wife?”MEGAN AND JONATHAN: Yes, we did.CAPT. RONN: Okay, good. Now we're getting somewhere, legally speaking. When such words are uttered in the “appropriate” context—by two parties who have obtained a marriage license, presided over by me (“by the power vested in me,” as we often hear), and so on—then those words are nevertheless binding, no matter what anyone thinks.All of which is why the very first definition of the word “marry” in the Oxford English Dictionary is “to join for life as husband and wife according to the laws and customs of a nation”. And this, in turn, is why it is misguided to think that what validates a wedding ceremony is the making public of innermost feelings, and the sincerity or earnestness them. That may be a dramitic performance, but it is beside the point of the wedding vow.This is why the act of marrying, is to be described as the saying of certain words, rather than as performing a private and spiritual action.To understand the act otherwise—to see it as, indeed, the outward sign of a private and spiritual action—is precisely what makes most wedding vows so uncomfortable for Megan and Jonathan.Such pronouncements, heartfelt though they may be, indulge in a fundamental misunderstanding. They do not understand that the power of the wedding vow as a performance doesn’t come from the bride and groom revealing their most intimate and spiritual feelings—as if somehow the more heartfelt and confessional your ceremony is, the more married you are—but rather from the public and repetitive nature of the act itself.This is why Megan and Jonathan are not going to drone on today about how much they care about each other, how they promise to do this and not do that, and so on. First of all, they assume that you all already know how they feel about each other without being told in graphic and revealing detail—that's why you're here. And second of all, it takes a lifetime, not twenty minutes, for two people to define for themselves what the word “marriage” means. Your presence here is simply to witness their commitment to undertake such a mission.In sum, then, it is not the “uniqueness” or “originality” or “sincerity” of the vow that carries its force but its repeatability, its utter unoriginality. So that is how we find ourselves at this moment in the middle of a vow that is itself largely about vows. That such a vow may itself be taken as highly “original” perfectly exemplifies the point about statements and context that provides the joke in the “No Dogs on the Dock” sign: If we wrote a vow about vows, you would have to take it seriously, wouldn't you?So it isn't that you, Megan and Jonathan, have said particular words, or even that you have performed particular acts such as the customary exchanging of rings to symbolize your commitment to each other.[Megan and Jonathan exchange rings.]Rather, it is that you have agreed to do and say these things under certain binding circumstances—circumstances to which you have, as it were, surrendered yourselves.And now I will say, “by the power vested in me,” that I now pronounce you husband and wife. Jonathan, you may now kiss-- not your girlfriend, or your domestic partner, but your wife with a binding force more powerful than all the kisses that came before.](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nyLsgkZw7WY/RqerGjWKfWI/AAAAAAAAAIk/-C7gD6NIVBA/s1600-h/_MG_8405.JPG){kind=link}