Rob was back here basking in some warm temperatures and sunshine as well. Well "basking" might not be the right term, as I came home to quite a few changes. Rob had been busy here in the cabin and had also been successful in getting his solar system working. (With Jet's help apparently). I must say I did feel a little guilty that while Rob was here looking after 4 cats, (one that requires insulin shots twice a day, and one on meds) and Jet, and working away on house plans, I was having fun visiting family, snacking on local delicacies like "candied salmon" and local gelato, and lounging by the sea in the sun. And lamenting that I wasn't there long enough to be able to visit all of my fabulous nieces and nephews and their children. So while it wasn't quite the seaside experience that I had, I was pleased that Rob was able to take some time to go relax and visit with his family, although go figure - he spent some of that time working on repairing his Mom's porch! He's always happiest when he is building something.
While Rob was away, Jet and I had a good talk about acceptable behaviour, barking, apple washing, and the like. We did some yoga (doga if you are a dog) and made sure that all that male bonding that went on while I was away didn't erase Jet's ability to be in touch with his feminine side.... I'm sure you'll see the improvements the next time he blogs.
On the whole, May has been rather cool and damp, but I still get out for lots of long walks every day, and have been getting my first good look at what kind of plants come up here in the spring.
I am amazed by the variety of plants and wildflowers, and have been trying to learn to recognize some of them. Identification isn't always easy and I may have some of these wrong, but I think this is a wild geranium.
Tucked in around a rock I found round lobed hepatica
And around another rock, but only for the briefest of time a trumpeted honeysuckle
Along the edge of the road we put in last fall, the plants are surprisingly already filling in, and every day I discover something new growing. There are wild strawberries, buttercups, and what may be wild bergamot, but I have to wait until the flowers pop out more to be sure. Also lots of trilliums, pretty ferns, thistles, mulleins, and of course - poison ivy!
The air is still thick with the scent of blossoms, as the hawthorn trees produce huge numbers of flowers.
The wave of black flies seems to have subsided, and we are now into mosquito season. Thank goodness the dragonflies are also out, as they apparently love to eat mosquitoes!
We went out and bought those attractive mosquito head nets that drape over our baseball caps and although we may look odd, they work. They enable us to continue to play with Jet outside each day, and to walk, and do some work outside of the cabin. If it is sunny or breezy the mosquitoes are not quite as voracious, and they will drop in numbers over the next couple of weeks. We are lucky to have a beautiful screened in porch, but it has been rather chilly, so we haven't been able to put it to much use yet, but we will. On one of the days that was a bit warmer, I did manage to pull out my paints and work on a couple of tshirts on the porch table, so I am looking forward to doing more! It's such a beautiful space and I was entertained the entire time by the antics of the hummingbirds at the feeder outside of the porch.
On the whole I would have to say that the month of May has gone by in a bit of a blur. On top of my trip in early May I have been getting into a routine of working a couple of shifts at the shop each week, continue to take a yoga class once a week, and the riding program I volunteered for begins next Thursday night. I love working in the shop, it is funky and fun with lots of good karma! The owner is wonderful, I have met some delightful people, and it is a pleasure to spend time there.
I was hoping to put in a veggie garden this spring, but decided that for this year I will just plant some herbs and try my hand at some container gardening for lettuce, radishes and green onions. When I visited my brother and sister-in-law in BC, I wandered around their gorgeous garden and was inspired by how my sister in law creates incredibly whimsical spaces all over their property. I tried to take a really good look at her garden, and hope I can create similarly interesting areas around our new house in the years to come. In the meantime, I tried my hand at fixing up a little space in the garden in front of the cabin. Rob had found some old drawers lying around the property, and I managed to pick up some pots at a second hand store, so I arranged them in the garden along with a little birdhouse that was already there, and was pleased with the results. I am hoping there is enough sunshine there to get a few things growing this summer.
Somehow during my absence, Rob managed to find some of my favourite garden sculptures, chimes and "things" that I had thought were forever packed away in storage, and I was delighted to discover he had tucked them into the garden here when I returned. Rob's Mom had already created a pretty little garden space in front of the cabin over the years, so with some herbs growing, and my chimes chiming, it feels a little more like "home". I know that it will be a while before we have any semblance of a garden around the new house, so it's wonderful to work at growing something here for now. I'm still sad that all that remains of the lovely old oak is that stump though.
High winds snapped a number of the spruce trees this winter, including a couple on the river side of the cabin. We spent some time this month cutting the remaining parts of them down, as well as some of the other trees that had been damaged by the falling spruce, or that had snapped off due to the heavy snow and ice this winter. We have a small path that runs from the cabin down to the river and along the edge a ways, so I have slowly been trimming back the branches a bit so we don't get any branches in our eyes when we walk. I have been lining the pathways with a lovely thick layer of wood chips that should help keep the poison ivy down too. The air is filled with the sounds of the birds, and the river is still quite high and noisy, so it's pure pleasure to be outside enjoying it all. With the unfortunate loss of the spruce and surrounding trees, we have gained a bit more view of the river now. This is the view from the kitchen window.
And the view from the porch!
Rob has been diligently working on the final plans for the new house and the number of details involved constantly amazes me. We have decided (again!) to go off grid, and we are both really pleased about it. We now have to consider who to get to do the initial clearing of the land, the septic and the drilling of the well. When we built this log cabin 22+ years ago, we would sit in the kitchen at a neighbour's house and she would help us with suggestions of who to go to locally when we needed something done. As well, we had the help of one of her young lads with the initial log structure when we were building. Well now that lad is grown up with kids of his own, and last week we found ourselves sitting in his kitchen with him and his wife, getting the names of local people we could use to help with our septic etc.! What a lovely circle.....
We also had the opportunity to go visit a timber frame home at Gibson Timber Frame where Rob had taken a course last year. Although their's is a much higher and different structure than ours will be, it was still lovely for me to be able to stand inside the house and get a feel for the airiness of the building and a taste of what is possible. I think both of us began to feel the reality of building our new home when we stepped inside theirs!
This week Rob also took the final plans to the building inspector, which for me, really made everything seem much more real. Of course, he came back with more forms to fill in, as there have been some changes to the requirements since we picked up the original forms. The changes are all about new energy saving requirements. As Rob has been working hard on designing an energy efficient house all this time, (that far exceeds the basic requirements) we should be able to get the new forms quickly filled out and turned in early next week. This is just one of the many design views Rob had to put together. Yikes!
As things are starting to ramp up now, I know it will be harder to keep up with this blog, but I will try to post a little more often if I can, and maybe just keep the postings a tad shorter. As I sit here today, the sun has come out, the temperature outside is rising, and I can hear the sounds of the birds, and the river. I cannot believe we have been here in this beautiful place now for 11 months already. Every day has brought something new and interesting, and we always say how lucky and grateful we are to have had the opportunity to make the changes we did. As we move into the actual building of the new house, we are both really excited about it, and looking forward to the next part of our adventure. It should be an interesting summer!
