Some things come full circle

These days I have the feeling that a lot of things in our lives have come full circle. During the ice storm of ’98, I remember two guys showing up to install our new gas furnace. Natural gas had just arrived in the village, and we had somewhat reluctantly decided to get a furnace installed. We had been heating the house with a big Jotul wood stove for 20 years or more, but we were in the midst of plans to open a store and knew from experience that the long days required in a store would make it difficult to keep the house warm during the winter.  We were all too familiar with coming home late at night to a cold house, with not enough time to get the wood stove going properly before it was bedtime.  So there we were, in the middle of an ice storm, with no power, and the two guys showed up to install a furnace (luckily with chainsaws as so many branches had fallen that they blocked the entrance to our house) Somehow they still managed to get most of the install done too!

Before long, the gas furnace became a nice convenience, thanks to a programmable thermostat, and we woke up to a warm house, and came home at night to a warm one.  A flick of the switch when we were chilly was all that it took to warm us up.

I guess over time I forgot what it was like to heat with wood.  But I sure remembered last week, when the colder nights hit, and the frosts arrived. Suddenly we are back to getting up and getting dressed rather quickly. Our morning routine now includes coaxing the wood stove to life, and that chilly interim period when the house is still cold, before some warmth comes out of the stove. We have to make sure we have papers and kindling on hand to start it. And wood to burn.  This week Rob and I spent time gathering up some of the wood from the trees that we cut down when we put the road in.  There is lots of poplar and birch, and a bit of maple that will be useful.  Some of the logs are dry enough, but some are too wet, and will have to be left to dry ready for next year. We are back to choosing a location to stack it – close enough to the house that it isn’t a chore in the winter to get to it, but not too close that it will cause problems with critters and insects.  I’ve had to re-learn how to stack it properly so it doesn’t all fall over. Rob had a stack that he had cut sometime earlier, and it all needed to be split, so he was soon back into a good splitting rhythm.  We will still have to order some firewood to be delivered though. In future years we can probably pull a lot out of the forest, but for this year we will have to order some, as we need good dry hardwood.

As we plan for the new house, a lot of our discussions will be about heating systems. If we go off-grid it will get even more interesting. This winter will see us do a lot of research on heating systems.  While we are curled up in front of this nice wood stove no doubt.

 

 

Now that the nights are colder, we are suddenly loading on the bedding too. We have a lovely quilt that was made by Rob’s Mom.  We once all spent an amazing Christmas here, Rob, his Mom and myself.  The quilt was our gift from her that year and this is a photo from that Christmas, when she was still working on it! Some people say you shouldn’t use a handmade quilt, you should keep it tucked away as a memento, but I feel that it was made to be used, and to enjoy.   So it is on the top of our bed;  it sure keeps us warm, and it’s such a pleasure to see it back in the cabin. And we always say “Thanks Mom!” when we snuggle up under it.

It washes up beautifully too, and here it is out on the clothes line earlier in the summer. Isn't it gorgeous?

 

We have also reconnected with an old friend, Bob, who lived with Rob just before I met him. We have seen each other off and on over the years, but now we get together more often, as he lives in a lovely log cabin about a half hour drive from here.  He has been in the area a long time, so can help us when we are trying to locate specific items. As well, we all enjoy hiking and have been on a great hike together, which I wrote about here in the blog. We all went on a Studio Tour in September, and this is one of the pieces I picked up at Tim Storey’s studio.  (I posted a photo of his teapot earlier in the blog) I bought this thinking it would make a nice gift, but it was quickly put on our kitchen shelf, so I guess it was a gift for us. It is a beautiful mortar and pestle, and I love it. 

 

 

We went and  visited some of the off-the-grid houses that are in the area as well that day. It’s good to reconnect, and we seem to all share a lot of the same interests.  Funny  that we both ended up in the same area, it just took Rob and I a lot longer to get here!

We had snowflakes and ice pellets in the air last week, so most of our week was spent looking after things that had to be done before it got much colder out. Nothing like a little snow to get you thinking about winter.  I didn’t see much of the chipmunks or red squirrels last week, so obviously they prepared themselves much earlier than we did ! We still need to get a lot more firewood in. We also need to address the issue of coming into the house through the kitchen. In the winter we will pull too much cold air and snow in, and have nowhere to put wet boots or hang winter coats. Rob is thinking of building a small temporary insulated area on the porch, so that we can use the porch entrance instead.  We should be able to let our boots and coats dry off there, and it may cut down a bit on the blasts of cold air coming into the house. 

We’ve also been going through boxes of stuff, trying to get ourselves organised a bit. We seem to have a bit more time to do things inside the house now. The days are suddenly shorter, and we are finding that the outside activities start later and end earlier. We don’t have a fenced in yard here, so we need to make sure that we have played with Jet while it is still light out. We don’t want to lose him in the woods!

On the weekend we went to the Taste of the Valley event in nearby Cobden. It was packed, both with visitors and vendors. There were all sorts of crafts, preserves, and local produce. I was pleased to see one of our favourite vendors there - Moonlight Crofter's Farm - so I was able to pick up some of their organic garlic, potatoes, and stewing beef.  Their beef is, I believe, Scottish Highland, and very lean. Later, I cooked up a huge pot of chili with it, using up some of my stash of guajillo paste and chile powders.  Delicious. We froze some of it for later in the season.

Well, Jet is getting restless. That usually means that Rob is coming down the road with the truck and trailer. Jet hears him long, long before I do of course.   Time to think about dinner, and get ready for tomorrow's adventures. I am supposed to go to my first yoga class tomorrow. The last time I took yoga, I was 14 years old, and went with my mom, when we lived in England. I guess that little circle took a while....