Fall, Winter, Spring. More musings about Weather and Time.

Well, although I had hoped to do one final blog post in 2024, I didn't manage a Christmas posting after all, and now here we are in the summer of 2025.  Time flies …. or as my title for the last posting declared: "Time speeds up".  It appears it isn't slowing down any time soon either! 

We had a rather lovely November, and found ourselves working on outside projects much later than planned.  Once we had moved all of our firewood down to a temporary structure near the house, Rob decided that with the “warmer” than normal temperatures, he could perhaps do some work at getting his portable sawmill fixed up. It had been sitting idle for quite a long time and needed some maintenance. The plan was to use it to saw up some of the cedar and spruce trees that we had to take down when the lot was graded earlier in the fall.  We were hoping the good weather would last long enough to get the logs all cut into boards or posts, so that it could start drying and be ready to use the following spring or summer.  After sawing a few of the logs though, the outside temperatures really began to drop. Rob's hands became too cold, and it was too awkward to handle the wood and safely use the saw, so he reluctantly decided that task would have to wait until spring.

I took a quick pic of a few of the cut boards and posts. It's a great little saw mill!

In early December we discovered that the batteries for our off grid system were not doing well. This was not really a big surprise to us, as we had already lost one “string” of batteries sometime earlier, and so we were down from our original three strings to two. But it appeared that one of the batteries in the second string was now failing as well.  Rob was able to swap in a replacement battery from the original failed group, which gave us two working strings again.  Then he did his best to improve them with some intense maintenance. But we were all too aware that this was a temporary solution.  The batteries were simply no longer performing as well as they once did. The daylight hours were still getting shorter, and of course that meant less and less charging time from the sun.  We began to rely on the generator to charge our system up for a brief time every morning and every night.  That's not an ideal solution, and we weren't sure that we wouldn't lose more batteries as winter progressed.

In general they say the life of the batteries should be about 10 years, and ours were already at 7 or 8 years.  But, they also say your first set never lasts as long, as it is a bit of a learning curve, and some of the mistakes you make while learning, will shorten that life expectancy!  There is no doubt that early on, we didn’t pay as much attention perhaps as we should have. As well when we first bought them, they sat for a time in the dining room of the cabin until we were ready to hook them up.  We later learned that was a mistake! That said, I think we did pretty well with them overall.

All that to say, we began to look around for a new battery solution.  We decided to go with the “newer” style of lithium batteries this time, which hadn't really been an option for our first set.  There would be a bit to learn in order to make the switch, but once installed they would require less maintenance than our lead acid batteries.  They would take up a lot less space too; freeing up some room in the workshop.  We took a deep breath, placed our order, and prepared to do a switch over before Christmas.  Unfortunately the supplier then advised us that our order had been unexpectedly delayed, so we would have to limp along until the New Year. We could only hope they wouldn’t be delayed for too much longer than that. The delay was perhaps not an entirely bad thing in some ways, as it gave Rob time to study up!

Usually in early December I am busy working on Christmas card designs, and planning some festive holiday meals.  Because of the postal strike, there seemed little point in making cards as they wouldn’t be delivered in time for Christmas.  But we did come up with a plan for Christmas dinner, so I made a New Mexico Red Chile sauce, using up the last of my carefully horded New Mexico red chile peppers !  We had a supplier in Toronto that had kept my pantry happy these last few years, but he recently retired, and neither Rob nor I were up for a two hour drive into Ottawa in search of another supplier.  Sometimes I long for our days of owning Chilly Chiles when I would simply raid our warehouse for whatever kind of chile I wanted, and whatever quantity I needed! 

I also took the time to make our favourite Mexican shredded beef dish with some tasty Ancho chiles. With containers of sauce and beef stashed in the freezer, I could easily make enchiladas for our Christmas day meal, without having to spend the entire day in the kitchen. I also spent a day making our traditional New Mexico biscochitos.  The recipe makes 6 or 7 dozen cookies, but we always give some away as gifts, and they freeze beautifully to enjoy in the winter months.

Rob was busy in his workshop, making an moveable overhead light to install over his workbench. After a few different prototypes, he brought me in to see the result.  Of course I had to smile when I saw he had used the light fixtures we used to have in our bedroom loft at the dome!  I didn’t even know he had removed them and had saved them all this time. 

Once again this year, there were forecasts for quite a bit of snow in December, but despite a couple of travel and storm advisories, we got off pretty lightly.  We had a few snowy days, but the temperatures remained fairly mild leading up to Christmas.  We also had a few foggy days, which are always a treat when I'm out with my camera.

We have an annual tradition of choosing a tree growing under the power lines for our Christmas tree, and had been scouting one out for a few weeks on our daily walks.  As anything growing under the lines gets routinely cleared by the electric company, we don’t feel as bad about taking a tree down from there. This year though we had been contemplating taking down a larger tree on our property as it had completely taken over a path Rob uses with his tractor. So we finally opted to take it down, and to use the upper half for our tree, and the lower half for future firewood.  We cut all the lower branches off, and stacked them in a location that we hoped would provide some food and shelter for some wild critters over the winter. Before we moved our Christmas tree down to the house,  I used the opportunity to take a pic for one of my monthly submissions for the fabulous Photocoach Community group. (Which just recently changed name to Photography for the Soul.)

Once we brought the tree inside it was obvious that it was a bit taller than I had thought!  Still, it was a perfect tree, giving us lots of branches to hang our ornaments on. As always, it is quite a treat to pull out our somewhat odd collection of Christmas (and not so Christmas) ornaments, with fond memories of years gone by, Christmases past, and the stories associated with each of our ornaments.  

The holiday season always seems to come up far too quickly, and we soon found ourselves with only days left before Christmas, dropping off a couple of homemade gifts here and there, doing our last grocery run, and trying to get off some emails and arrange some video calls with friends near and far. 

Our internet connection began to get a little flaky, and we crossed our fingers and hoped that we would continue to have access to the internet over the holidays.  Of course, we should have known better, and we soon found ourselves going for days on end with no connection.  Unfortunately, that continued off and on until late January, despite all the attempts by various helpful technicians to sort things out. Kudos to them all though for trying, especially the one who helped out on New Year's day!

Internet problems aside, we had a lovely Christmas, with a dinner with family on Christmas Eve, (after managing to clear nearly 15 cms of fresh snow!)  and a quiet dinner at home on Christmas day.  The day dawned bright and sunny, and the snow that arrived Christmas Eve certainly brightened everything up! 

And those Shredded Beef enchiladas in a New Mexican red chile sauce, turned out perfectly. I will admit I watched a few Rick Bayless cooking videos for some tips and ideas, and in the end did not opt to make my own corn tortillas! We served up some Mexican style red rice, and sliced avocadoes to complete our meal.

In early January, Rob helped out our neighbours by driving them to an appointment in a nearby town, and was on his way home (with the gift of a delicious homemade pie as "payment" for his time) when he called to say he was on our laneway but some deer were blocking the road.  By the time I got there with my camera, they had moved out of the way, but Rob was still happily watching them.  Somehow he managed not to eat any of that delicious pie while sitting in the car all that time! 

January was a pretty good month overall, with only a couple of snowfalls, no massively cold temperatures, and one wind storm that blew down a dead tree, which then blocked one of our favourite walking paths.

As always though, we gratefully accepted the gift of more free firewood come spring, and were pleased that the tree was accessible, and had fallen to the ground.  Usually we find them hung up in another tree, and it's quite a job to get them down.

The river was still fairly wide open through January.  I set up a trail camera several feet from the river's edge and aimed it at a hole in a pile of branches.  It was obvious that the hole led down to the river, and I kept seeing tracks leading in and out of it.  I was pretty sure I would catch some camera footage of either the mink, the otter or both.  I finally managed to catch the mink on camera a couple of times, but no footage of the otter, despite seeing tracks in the snow.  But then almost overnight the river suddenly rose, and there was my trail camera, no longer accessible and possibly under water.

We had to wait until the river receded a bit, and for the water to totally freeze. Then we were able to break a path through the crust of ice and retrieve the camera.  Amazingly it was none the worse for wear and was still working!

Rob and I usually have a list of things we'd like to work on during the winter months.  For me, mine was a bit of an ambitious list, and I didn't manage to get to every item.  However, I enjoyed getting back into some painting on canvas, worked on some altered artwear clothing, started painting a fifth dining room chair, continued to study German online, watched various Photography videos, and more of Rick Bayless's online cooking classes.   The online classes were a bit of a struggle until our Internet issues were somewhat solved in late January.

Although I had declared one of my paintings complete, and had actually hung it in the hallway, one day I decided it just wasn't right, and started over!  So here's the original:

And here is the new version:

Details of the words in the corner:

I wasn't sure if it was exactly what I had in mind, but I've hung it back up in the hallway for now. It is a nice reminder of how it is we came to be here.  I am sure I have told this story elsewhere in the blog, but here is a "short" version. In 2011 we had the opportunity to see one of our favourite musicians, Kelly Joe Phelps, play at the Neat Cafe in Burnstown.  But in order to be able to attend the concert, we would have had to close our store for at least a day, if not two. For the first time in almost 20 years, we decided not only to close for a day or two but to completely close shop for the entire week, and take a vacation.  We would stay in our little cabin, have some much needed time off, and go to the concert.  So we did.  And after the concert, a little idea began to percolate.  On a walk on one of our last mornings there, Rob said to me "do you think you could move here?" and before we knew it, we were investigating the option of closing our much loved business, leaving our sweet dome home, and moving up here permanently.  Which "just" 8 months later, we did. 

I still have a photo of the empty stage from that "fateful" concert, and my painting is an interpretation of it. 

Here is a quick pic of Kelly Joe and Corinne West playing together that night.

Once I begin painting over canvases I seem to get inspired to paint over a few more. I usually leave my finished work in my studio for a time after I'm "done", and then sometimes decide that I could do something different with them.  So here's another one I redid.

The original:

The new version with paint and words and photos added.  Adding photos was a bit of a challenge, but I learned a lot.  This one is still in my studio.  So hmmmm .... is it done or not? Time will tell.

While I was having fun in my studio, Rob was having fun in his.  He has wanted a router table for a while now, and decided to make his own, complete with all the electronics needed to control the movement of the router. And so he set off on his journey of programming, and wiring, and slowly it started to take shape.

As always in the winter months, there were a few interruptions though, like snow clearing.

On the plus side, after raising the grade of our lot last year, and with the help of a slightly longer roof rake, clearing the solar panels has become a much easier job, and no longer requires the use of a step ladder as it did in previous years.

Sometimes, you just have to find other ways to have creative fun in February, when it feels like the winter has been fairly long already. 😊

Finally, in mid February, two months after the original delivery date, our new batteries arrived! 

Despite assurances that the batteries were arriving in a small van, the delivery service showed up with a rather huge vehicle. We knew that they couldn't possibly maneuver on our laneway, so Rob had them wait at an area where they could more easily turn around, and drove out with the tractor to pick them up.  I must say, compared to the original batteries, they seemed pretty small, even with all the wrapping.

We had managed to limp along until now with our old batteries, and the longer daylight hours were helping a bit to give us slightly longer charging hours, but we were eager to get the new batteries installed.  However a series of heavy snow storms immediately arrived and that kept us occupied as we tried to keep our laneways, and the solar panels clear of the accumulating snow.  

In between snow clearing, Rob began the process of building a rack for the new batteries. He had an idea that he could use part of our old BizHub printer parts for a base.  As well, some old aluminum printmaking frames purchased at an auction some 30+ years ago were finally put to use in the unit as well!  Rob loves to tell me these things, as I am always urging him to divest himself of some of his "stuff", but somehow he always manages eventually to put them to good use.  Sigh.  After building the base, he had to do some firmware updates to our existing system before swapping the batteries. We were both pleased to see that the manufacturer of our system still provided that support after all this time.

You may recall that our old batteries took up a large amount of space in the workshop.  Here is a quick pic of the old batteries. 

And here is a pic of the new batteries in their "repurposed" rack.

In the picture below, Rob had already begun to dismantle the racks that housed the old batteries. You can sort of see that the new array on the right is much smaller compared to the old one! 

 

The swap over of the batteries went pretty well overall, although we were probably both more than a little nervous.  (Well, I know I was!) Around 5 p.m. on the day of the swap, I was just beginning to think about lighting candles and lanterns in the diminishing light, when Rob successfully switched our power over to the new batteries, and the system came back on. 

My first battery “test” came the next morning when I popped the toaster on for breakfast.  For the past couple of months, using the toaster in the mornings had not been an option. We were pleased to see that there was barely a blip in the batteries.  We kept monitoring the system closely of course over the next few days, but we could see a real difference already. 

Rob began the task of moving all the old batteries out of the back area of the workshop.  We had contacted some off grid friends to see if they knew anyone that would be able to use our batteries. We knew it would be best if someone could take them while they were still relatively charged. Luckily they knew someone who was happy to take them. Even though they were older and failing they still had a bit of life left in them for the purposes he had in mind. We were happy that they could still be put to some use. 

While we waited to arrange the pick up date, Rob continued to work on his router table.

Overall, he seemed pretty pleased with it.  That mess of wires, displays and boards became a tidy keypad with switches and read out display in a drawer.

Another drawer holds router bits.

And the table hooks up to a dust collector, which is why it isn't covered in dust right now!

I'm thinking there may be some kitchen cupboard doors in our future? 

And so we moved into a long, cool spring.  We are always hopeful to get an early start on gathering fallen trees for firewood, but once again this year neither March, nor much of April gave us any opportunity to do so. 

Mid March looked promising just before the first day of spring, when heavy rains washed out our shared road, and melted some of the lingering snow, but then the weather quickly changed again and it got colder.

At the end of March we had another snow storm, followed by threats of an ice storm.

I spent the day of the ice storm stuck inside, amusing myself with trying to capture the formations of ice sliding off the roof. 

By the first week of April we were pretty hopeful that the remaining snow in the woods would soon be gone.  I took this pic on April 7 after a storm blew down an old elm tree and we cleaned up a few of the remaining branches that were still on the road. There was no sign of snow in this particular area.

But on April 8, more snow arrived!  We were back into wearing winter coats and boots again.

Still, we were content to continue to work on some indoor projects.  Rob was busy reorganizing and tidying his workshop (and making more room for that nice router table!) and I continued to re-work a denim shirt.  

In the colder months I usually make our own bread each week, and Rob occasionally brews beer.  During the summer both activities tend to heat up the house too much, so we enjoy trying out some new recipes while we can.  Rob brewed up an interesting beer using fresh pineapple and pineapple juice that should be quite refreshing for a summer sipping beer.  Updates to follow!

Both of us were also spending a lot of time following the news out of the US, and I felt that the stress of politics was sapping my creativity.  I listened to a podcast about stress and the healing benefits of the creative process, and tried to do more painting and photography, but I can’t say that it quelled my sense of unease or lessened my anxiety.  Creative time did help somewhat though.

The first weeks of April not only brought more snow, but also daytime temperatures that were 10 degrees below normal.  The robins had returned, and I was worrying about them when the night time temperature dropped to minus 15.  I put out some raisins and peanuts under a sumac tree where they were managing to eat some berries, in the hope it might help.  I don't usually feed the wildlife, but it seemed awfully cold for April.  My offering disappeared, but I think it was a red squirrel that benefitted! 

I was also quite worried when we spotted a number of frogs moving very slowly across the snow one day.  I am sure they did not expect to encounter snow when they decided to move from wherever they spent their winter.  We "rescued" a couple and moved them to an area under the trees where there was less snow, and some leafy protection.

Slowly, by the end of April (finally!)  the temperatures began to warm up a bit, and we were able to start on the firewood.  No sooner did we start though, than a series of big rain storms moved in. High winds brought down more trees.  And then the temperatures plummeted again, so we agreed to hold off for a couple of more days until it warmed up a bit.  I didn’t mind working into this job slowly, as it always takes us a few days to find our rhythm, and to build up our muscles again! 

Once we had gathered up all of the downed trees on our paths, here at the house, and around the cabin, we set to taking down some of the dead trees that we had marked the previous year. 

Some of them were clearly too close to our road or house, and we knew that they were in danger of falling over.  We had hoped they would come down on their own during one of the several storms, but they had not. Dead and dying trees can make for excellent nesting and perching sites as well as food sources for a number of birds, so we do try to leave some standing if we can safely do so.

By the second week in May we felt that we had gathered enough logs to begin to cut and split what we had. 

Rob would cut up some logs in the morning, and then we would spend the afternoon splitting and stacking.  We were making pretty good progress, but then we had another week or more of rain which once again put a halt to our work.  It was a rather cool and rainy May but I would say that it was also somewhat less "buggy" and we appreciated the cooler days for working. 

We actually remembered one day to take a couple of pics of us "working" ! 

By the first week of June, we reached a point where we decided we had probably split and stacked more than enough for the upcoming winter.  It's always a nice feeling to know we will be snug and warm when fall and winter arrive.  Our wood stove is our sole source of heat, and we never know what kind of weather winter will bring, so it's always wise to have extra.

We actually had quite a bit of firewood left over from the winter before.  We needed to dismantle the “temporary” shelter next to the workshop where we had stored our firewood, so had to decide where to stack the wood until fall.  After some debate, we ended up tucking it safely under some eaves of an old shed.  We usually do our best not to move the firewood too many times, but it seemed like the only solution.  So between last year's wood, and what we cut and split this year, we are pretty sure that we will have more than enough. We have friends visiting us this fall, and they will be staying in the cabin, so if they need to use some, we will have enough for them as well. This year we were still using our woodstove to take the chill off at night as late as May 23rd, so it can be a long season!

This spring we managed to find a nice sized "Gorilla Cart" on sale (with thanks to our friend Bob who agreed to pick it up in Ottawa!).  We had ordered it earlier in the winter after I unfortunately tripped on a tarp while carrying an armload of firewood.  A trip to the emergency and a couple of stitches in my lip made us rethink my method of moving firewood by the armload.  But the cart simply would not fit in our car. Luckily it fit into our friend’s car with a fraction of an inch to spare, so we were able to bring it home.

So here it is. I call it “Jane”.  😉

It has already proven to be super useful for much more than just moving firewood.  We’ve used it to haul wood chips, garden soils and tools, and potted plants etc.  It has a “dump” feature that is much easier to use than tipping my wheelbarrow when we spread wood chips on our paths.  Note to self though, do not simply haul up on the handle and tip the cart while standing in front of it.  Just sayin’.  I soon learned to stand at the side of the cart when operating the dump function, in order to remain firmly on my feet!  (And somehow avoided another trip to the emerg.)

We were lucky to finish the firewood just shortly before the air quality declined here due to the horrific wildfires in Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan.  The stunningly red sunsets are no cause for celebration when it's due to wildfires and the havoc they wreak.  Still, I did try to capture some of the intense colour and odd looking sky one evening.

We had huge piles of branches we had stockpiled after trimming the trees we had gathered for firewood. We had plans to chip some of them and spread the chips on more of our pathways, and made a good start until the air quality advisories were posted. 

We decided to delay our plans until the air quality improved.  Both Rob and I had a list of other projects we could work on in the meantime.  As usual though, items on my list often involve Rob, and he was gracious enough not to complain when I suggested it was time to get some herbs planted if we were going to enjoy any this summer.  I also usually dry some of my herbs and store them for winter use.

Last fall when we graded the lot, we had to dismantle my eclectic arrangement of herb pots, bits of wooden shelves, and off kilter platforms, as well as the raised bed garden.  Rob assembled a nice sturdy plank for my herb pots so I set to getting some of my annual seeds planted.

And then he surprised me with the offer to build a slightly smaller raised bed garden so that I could at least get some tomatillos, perennial herbs, and possibly some lettuce and kale growing.  Next year perhaps, we may add a second raised bed.

The new bed is about 3 1/2 feet by 5 feet, so large enough for what I wanted this year.  And it's also lower than my previous raised bed, so we will see how this height works for me, (and the wild critters) before we build a second one. At 18 inches, this is the recommended height, and it certainly required less soil and compost to fill it!

The chipmunk has already been scouting it out - no doubt looking for it's summer supply of tomatoes.  I planted two tomato plants after taking this photo.  And side dressed them with blood meal on the recommendation of another gardener, so we shall see if that deters the chipmunk or not! Otherwise, I will once again agree to "share" the bounty. (Note - just before posting this I discovered on a trail camera that a raccoon is climbing in and digging around! 😒 So, after reading up on raccoons, I have spread wood ashes around the box, sprayed the sides with vinegar, and added some jalapeno powder to the perimeter of the soil. I will do an update next posting!)   

Spring always seems like a busy time as we move into outdoor jobs, while taking time to enjoy warm sunny days, and admire the seasonal changes.  This spring we've been delighted to catch more than a few glimpses of some baby foxes playing on our hill, and I've caught the parents both on my camera and on the trail camera as they work hard to keep the little kits fed.

The kits get a bit more shy as they get older, and soon learn to run away when they hear us.  We tried not to stress them, (or the parents) and opted to walk a different route until they got older. But I did manage a couple of quick pics.  On this day the three of them (we initially thought there were only 2!) were busy tussling with each other.

The first nest of baby phoebes have already left the nest, and the parents are working on their second brood, next to our front door.

A trail camera in the woods has already recorded the first bear of the season, as well as the usual wild turkeys, raccoons, snowshoe hares, deer, fisher, and as mentioned earlier, the very busy fox parents.

A trail camera at our house has recorded regular visits by not one, but two porcupines, and possibly three!   They seem to find our temporary wooden steps a bit tasty, perhaps because in the winter we put salt on them when it's icy.  One of them is definitely female (and therefore not Hoover, the male porcupine we rescued, and brought back here for release after he was treated for a pellet wound and mange.  The June 2022 blog post has his story 💗). The female visits with her baby porcupine.  We have no way of knowing if the third one is Hoover, but wouldn't it be sweet if it was? This is one of the visiting porcupines.

We've had the chance to get a good look at a painted turtle behind the house, a quick glimpse of an adult snapping turtle in our creek, and a small young snapping turtle on our road.

The return of the birds each spring is always a treat, but we were reminded that we had only completed one bird blind last year and needed to complete the rest.  We had built a prototype blind for the kitchen window and it really did seem to work as we had no further bird strikes on that window.  So Rob set to building the rest of them, with a few new adaptations to allow us to still easily open our opening windows. Plastic conduit at the bottom, a fiberglass driveway marker for the top, and parachute cord did the trick!  So far, we've had no further strikes on the windows. 

We weren't sure how we would feel about them when looking out from the inside, but the prototype we installed last year reassured us that they would be fine.  There are times when the cord is not even noticeable to us, and it doesn't affect any of our views at all.  And the relief we feel is immense.  We have had quite a few bird strikes over the years, and many of them did not end well for the birds. We have read that this is one of the most effective ways to help prevent birds from hitting the windows, so I'll try to report back with the results in my next blog posting.

But for now it feels like this posting has probably rambled on enough. Somehow summer has arrived, and I can't believe we are in the last week of June.  We are hoping to work on some smaller projects this summer, like a permanent firewood shed, but I think we might have said the same thing last summer!  We will see how it goes.  We still have some work to do on the lot where we graded and filled areas with gravel. Rob is still hoping to saw up the logs that he started on last fall.  The cabin needs scouring in preparation for some friends arriving in July, and I would love to give the small bedroom there a coat of paint.  But summer is short, so we will also enjoy some day trips around this beautiful county, some time in the river, some creative time, and hopefully enjoy some of the bounty that will come from our garden, as well as many of the local farms that surround us.

And, as always on our multiple daily walks, we will try to catch a glimpse of some of the sweet wildlife that are always there if we just pause long enough and take the time to look.