Back in August, while Rob was away visiting family, I decided to paint and stamp on a denim shirt, and give it to him for his birthday in October. Rob has always lived by the credo "The joy is in the doing", so I thought it would be nice to give him a shirt with this theme in mind. I had a lot of fun thinking about what I wanted to put on that shirt! I set my paints and stamps up on the table on the porch, and set to work. It's a lovely place to sit, with the river in front of me, plenty of fresh air, and lots of bird activity in the many trees surrounding the cabin. I started to set up the opening words "The Joy is in the Doing" with my stamps, and went upstairs to get some more supplies. When I came back - I took a look at the shirt..... and was surprised to see this:
Hmmm...it looked to me like Jet was messing with this while I was upstairs. I wonder if it's possible that he rearranged the letters while I was gone. The Joy is in the Dog ???? Well, maybe Jet, but not quite what I wanted to put on this gift. Maybe the next one....
Unfortunately, I never did get this shirt finished in time. But I thought it was rather appropriate, given the theme, to not worry about it. I will continue working on it this winter, and try to appreciate the "doing" part, not the "finishing" part!
Despite spending most of his birthday working on the roof, Rob still had a good day. We stretched out the celebrations a little by having some special dinners at home each day that week. For his birthday dinner I made homemade pizza crust and toppings - at Rob's request! It was a nice birthday celebration.
So the next couple of photos show where Rob spent the majority of his birthday. He rigged up a little seat for the peak of the roof, to make it easier to move along as he fit the peak pieces in place. And there he sat, installing pieces, moving along, installing more pieces...and of course climbing up and down - a lot - every time he needed something.
Once the last peak piece was added, all Rob had left to do was to put the final metal roof sheets onto the area above the dining room and kitchen.
We thought this job would go pretty quickly, but of course it went slower than hoped. We were getting frost almost every night, so Rob had to wait until later in the day for the ice to come off the roof before he could safely get up there to work on it. We also had a few rainy days, and rain made the roof far too slippery to work on. Rob was so close to finishing, but the rain kept holding him back. Finally he was able to get up on the roof and get at the final pieces. He came back to the cabin to get me when he was ready to put the last piece of roofing in. He knew I didn't want to miss seeing him do it!
And then we did a happy dance... Wow what a long, long job that was!
Rob was more than pleased to be off of the roof and back on the ground, but he didn't take much time off as there were a lot of pre-winter chores that needed doing. Although I had split all 10 cords of firewood earlier, it still needed to be stacked so we got at it and got most of it done pretty quickly. It's a good feeling to see a decent pile of wood all neatly stacked and ready to use, especially as we both remember running out of firewood the first two winters we were here.
We moved some of the firewood over to the new house as well. Rob got the wood stove there up and running, and began monitoring the temperature as the house slowly warmed up. The concrete pad took a while to heat up, and the humidity in the house was, and continues to be, rather high - a combination of the concrete drying, as well as the timbers. But it's an amazing feeling to sit in front of that warm stove, in that lovely bright house, and think about the days to come... Especially for Rob - this will be the first time that he's working where it's dry, sheltered and warm!
On sunny days he took the opportunity to service the tractor, and got the snow blower fixed up and ready to go. The new house site needed a good clean up too. He kept thinking he might get a chance to do some timber frame work for the workshop, but there were more than enough tasks that needed attention first, and the days were slowly getting too cold to be outside carving timbers. On rainy days he did some work inside the new house, like installing the upstairs floor !! I can't wait until there is a real staircase in. I had to cautiously inch my way up a ladder to get this shot.
This is a shot from below. When I asked Rob what the red X was for, he groaned. That piece was supposed to be cut out before he installed it. I have a feeling he'll be ripping some boards up .....
It was nice to see the electrical panel get installed too.
We took some time one day to drive up to a local sawmill, and ordered the wood that will be used on the ceilings. Now we begin a whole new dance, as we try to figure out where to put everything. We have wood arriving for the ceiling this week, and a pile of insulation batts coming later in the week. Rob is busy getting ready to do the plumbing and electrical, and doesn't want to have to keep moving everything around out of his way. We can no longer leave anything outside as we know that the snow could arrive any day now. We dodged the latest snow storm, but can't possibly continue to be so lucky! Although I must say November had it's share of lovely warm sunny days too.
Rob spent a couple of those nice sunny days, helping our friend Murray and his nephew Simon to get a small roof onto Murray's new addition. (I guess Rob hadn't had enough of roofing after all!) He was happy to do it as they had both come so willingly, along with Murray's son Scott, and our friend Bob, to help us get our second level of timbers up last year. It was nice to be able to finally give a little something back.
While Rob is busy building, our agreement is that I will do all of the cooking, but Rob happily suggested that he would make appetizers to bring to a pot luck birthday celebration dinner for our sweet friend Elizabeth. He made salad rolls - a favourite of ours, although neither of us had ever actually made them before. They were delicious, and he even tucked in little red hearts cut out of red peppers. Elizabeth loves hearts! And he made two delicious dipping sauces for them too. I can't wait until Rob is able to cook more often again.
Fortunately, we both love to cook, and I've been able to make lots of good soups and stocks, and our freezer is looking a bit fuller again. Now that it's cooler out, the porch is a great place to set things out to cool, and I thought the recent batch of granola looked pretty lovely out there.
As always, we take lots of time to walk together in the woods, and along the river. It's easier to walk through the woods in late fall, and after a recent wind storm we made our way through a few areas to check for damage, and look around. This particular section of woods is quite different from the rest; the ground is spongy and mossy, and there are lots of holes and openings in the forest floor so you have to watch where you step.We always keep an eye out for any fallen trees that may be hung up above us though as well.
When we heard there was a possible snow storm on it's way, Rob spent a few days last week doing a more thorough clean up of the job site. It sure looks good when all the scaffolding is gone, and the scraps of wood, metal and foam are tucked away. If we have a chance, we'll do one more scan for nails and metal objects and then we're done. (Maybe we'll even find that pair of lost glasses.) (Again)
As December approaches, we are going through what are now familiar chores. We've swapped out our spring and summer clothes for fall and winter ones, and checked through our hats, scarves and mitts to make sure we have a good supply. Our pile of winter boots and shoes are filling one corner of the kitchen (why is it that having a dog to walk seems to require so much attire ?) Our one tiny closet is stuffed with winter coats, down vests, rain pants and snow pants. The garden ornaments have been tucked away, and we have a box of kindling ready for starting the wood stove. Snow tires go on this week. (O.k. - a bit late on that one!) Anything that can't be left outdoors for fear of freezing, or damage from the snow, has been brought back into the cabin. We've checked our store of batteries and flashlights and stocked up a bit on water and a few tinned items in case of power outages. (It will be so different when we are living off grid!) We also realized that Rob will be walking back and forth from the cabin to the new house when it's dark, so have made sure he always has a small flashlight on him. Just for fun we went out for a walk one night and turned off our flashlight to see how dark it really is. Yup - it's really dark !! You could walk off the path and into a tree in a second....
There are times too when there is not enough natural light in the new house, which makes it difficult for Rob to see what he's working on - so after a lot of thought, he rigged up a small solar system and some LED lights. We've been testing LED lights here in the house, and they sure have come a long way! They produce a much better light than they used to. He should be able to work just fine in there now.
And work he will; if the joy is in the doing - he plans on doing lots. He's busy now studying plumbing and electrical codes, designing the staircase, thinking about concrete floors and acid stains, tub drains, faucets, vents and ducts .... insulation and drywall, pine ceilings....well it's a bit of a list. And it all has to be done in some sort of reasonable order.
One of the nice things about all these jobs though - is that for the first time in this project, none of them are weather dependent! Rob can work inside the house no matter the weather - so we can now take a bit of time to ourselves on a sunny day, and not worry that we are wasting good building weather. And our favourite place to be on a sunny day is down by the river. It's lovely to watch the changes in the river that come with each season. Slowly it's getting higher and faster, and this morning there was heavy frost in the vegetation on the shoreline. On a sunny day though, it's still easy to sit on a rock at the edge, close our eyes and listen to the river song..... it's a sound we miss during the winter, so we try to get our fill of it while we can.
