We had our first sleepover!

 For the first time since starting out on this project, we had company stay the night! My mom and kid sister came out and stayed with us.

While the Lady Shacklefords had some wine and cheese, I taught the Littlest Shackleford how to carve a pumpkin:

Things turned out pretty well! She was able to handle a power drill with a forstner bit just fine--super handy way to put fun circles and designs on a pumpkin.  If you try it out, just be sure to hold the pumpkin for the little ones.   And be careful with paddle bits--pumpkins don't have enough structural integrity to cause the drill to kick back, but paddle bits throw pumpkin EVERYWHERE.  A forstner is a lot easier to manage, since it doesn't make quite as much mess. 

I really like the way her stars-and-circles pumpkin came out:

A lot of my photos didn't turn out so well, but the pumpkins did! I made a point on this trip of bringing out the good SLR, and then put it under the back seat in the truck to keep it safe during transit.  By the time we arrived, I'd completely forgotten I brought the SLR and didn't remember until we were back in the city and I had a cell phone full of terrible photos.

I'd pretend that wasn't entirely my fault, but it was.

While we were at it, we moved the bathtub out back to take advantage of the new back door we cut in.  The back of the cabin is eventually going to be an enclosed greenhouse, like a conservatory. For now, it's a handy place to keep the bathtub out of the rain!

We picked a heck of a night to have family stay with us--it rained nonstop for 48 hours straight, and our creek flooded:

Nonetheless, the night must go on--and a bit of rain doesn't make all that much difference when you can relax and watch it from somewhere dry:

The weird paddle there, by the way, is the "don't scald your hair off" paddle.  When you've got the fire going, you can sometimes build up a layer of hot water on top of the bathtub.  This thermocline can be severe--the strongest difference we've measured is 120 degrees on top, and 75 degrees on the bottom.  Fahrenheit, of course. Sorry, as an American I don't use proper units for temperature. 

The baths went well. I think it blew Elder Lady Shackleford's mind that she could be in the middle of the woods, in a bath, with a cup of Earl Grey tea:

Pretty sure that was life-changing for her.

Now for the screw-up.

What, you thought this was going to be flawless? Nah, come on--this is our first time having somebody sleep over. 

And our cabin is 8 feet by 12 feet.

And we have three dogs.

And we had two people sleep over, not one.

You may, at this point, be doing the math and realizing that there were more bodies than places to put them. 

Funny thing is, my wife and I came to the same conclusion: "we'll just sleep in the hammock, and let the guests sleep in the cabin".  This seemed like a reasonable conclusion, and we barely even talked about it.

First problem was, our dogs sleep in bed with us, and won't sleep outside. Their line between "outside" and "inside" is really blurred because of the cabin lifestyle, but when we say "ok, it's bedtime" they all climb right up into bed.

Not usually an issue except that we forgot that Nisba, the hound, has a tendency to shove.  When she's really sleeping hard, she will shove with all four legs and push you clean out of bed (technically I should say "she will push Mrs. Shackleford out of bed, because she always does this with her back to me"; I've never been shoved out of bed this way).

So we have my mother and youngest sister in bed with three dogs, one of whom likes to shove the "lady of the bed" out of the bed. 

She shoved them both out of the bed during the night.

Our other "big dog" Tula is a Cane Corso, and she likes to lay on people. We joke that it's her way of keeping people safe.

After Nisba shoved Littlest Shackleford out of bed, Tula laid on her and stayed there through the night. So my mom is sleeping on the floor and my littlest sister is pinned under a dog bigger than her. Two out of four humans aren't having the best time of their lives. 

Meanwhile, out back, my wife and I tried to figure out how to sleep in the hammock together.  Ever tried sleeping in a hammock with somebody? No matter how much you love them, you will not like them during this experience.

Why not just set up two hammocks, you ask? Because we had to fit the hammock under the protection of the cabin. The rain didn't let up until well after our company left. 

So our night was spent climbing in and out of the hammock, my wife trying to set up a bed on the ground underneath it (significantly less than awesome), and genuinely considering just hiking back out to the trailhead to sleep in the truck (decided against it because of the storm). Finally, some time in the wee hours of the morning, I woke up and Mrs. Shackleford was nowhere to be seen.  Checking inside the cabin, she'd finally gone inside and was sleeping at the foot of the bed like a dog, with the dogs reposed regally, enjoying their newfound place at the top of the pack. 

Lessons learned:

1. We need to build a bunkhouse before we have more guests stay over

2. Our dogs are assholes

3. We should build a doghouse

Bonus spooky thing we woke up to:

That's not a small spider.  Hooray October!