So; you want to build a castle, eh?

Yep, it's been a while. Still here!  Still thinking about castles. Since the economy cooled off and mortgages have dried up, gone belly up or simply become unattainable, the owner-built-anything has disappeared too. Our plans to move to the area near the land have been put in hold, we gota house and had some renovation done but the contractor did a terrible job on the tile work that was completely unsatisfactory, and the plumber failed to use the proper fitting for the external gas hookup along with failing to provide a pressure test to the gas company. So, the house is unlivable. No bathroom, no gas to cook with, no heat. Let that be a lesson, NEVER pay the contractor until ALL work has been completed satisfactorily.  They've got our money and we can't get them to come back and fix their screw ups. 

At any rate, it's freezing here in the Northeast, and we just got back from a road trip to check on the house and happened to have an opportunity to have a look at the land in the frozen state. IMO, it's beautiful. You can see all sorts of tracks in the snow; rabbit, birds, mice, deer, even something surprisingly large that I was unable to determine. I couldn't tell if it was a really big dog or a small bear, the footprints had degraded due to the rain after the snowfall. The creeks were frozen solid or had a thick layer of occasionally transparent ice that the water flowed beneath. Where the creeks join up the water had spread out due to ice dams and flies through icy waterfalls. Thought it was great. Hopefully we'll get to see that through a window while enjoying a fireplace indoors. Here's some pics.