Amazing how we have come full circle

From cooking outside from August 2008 to March 2009 (that's 8 months with no kitchen) to cooking outside again in April 2011:

Nice, huh? The back of the house has come a loooooong way:

Here it is covered with limbs as Woody, Ginger, Brian, Jamie, Fe and I work to take down some trees:


Here it is draped with tarp before we had a real roof (I had forgotten how classy this looked. Our house looks like one of those motorcycle jackets with the fringe.):


Here it is after the overhang went up:

And here it is today:

We are going to make the "upper patio" our cooking area and put a sideboard up there as well. The lower patio is going to be our dining/ basking around the fire pit area.

Woody has already put in a bunch of veggies -- brussel sprouts, spinach, broccoli -- you know, all those things that will further add to our planet's methane problems...

We also have the concrete pad ready for the construction of our outbuilding. Thanks to some slight miscalculation of how much concrete we needed, we now also have a ramp into the building:

To reassure you that we have not gotten too far from our hovel-like roots, we have a new pile of crap ready for pick up. It is amazing how many piles of crap this house can generate. Wait, did I say this house? I might have meant our plant-based diet.

Do we have grass yet? No, but who needs grass when you can sip cocktails on a patio?