Spring Arrives...slowly

I am beginning to think that I should call this blog "the weather blog" (or maybe No Skin Exposed and Slightly Fed Up) as each and every posting seems to dwell on the weather, and the fact that it usually isn't cooperating with us very much.
But as I look through the photos I took over the past  month, I can see that despite the below normal temperatures, we really did move somehow into Spring. It is most apparent with the changes in the river.

It's funny how it goes - one day there's nothing but snow and ice and more snow and ice - then one afternoon you realize you are walking on a smaller patch of snow, and a few days later you peer through the woods and there's just - bright green moss and brown leaves! There's no more white - well maybe a patch here and there... but you know that the snow is finally melting. Next thing you know, the coat you're wearing is too warm, and winter boots feel totally unnecessary!

I would say though, that I was glad of that coat later in April when it got really chilly again. And I haven't put it away - not just yet.

Throughout the month, Rob did his best to get some work done on the new house.  It wasn't easy though.
Even though he could manage sometimes to work in the cooler temperatures, all of the jobs seemed to require the use of something that was temperature dependent. (Requiring warm temperatures, not cold ones!)  He had hoped to finish up the work on the outside concrete, permanently attaching the foam slabs and sealing the screw holes with spray foam, and applying a finish on top. He realized that it was still too cold outside to use the spray foam or the finish. The north side of the house still had snow around it, and he couldn't even get at the concrete on that side for a while. Sometime around the middle of the month though, some warmer weather arrived (briefly!), the snow finally melted around the house, and he was able to get at some of the concrete slab.

When the weather was too wet or too cold, we took the opportunity to go pick up some of the items we had sourced during the winter.  We try to pick up the items we want when they go on sale. We now have two very nice low flush toilets, a kitchen sink, taps, a bathroom sink and tap, a second hand bathroom sink and tap, and a bathtub! In the end (see last blog posting) I wasn't able to try it out first in the store. But we did open the box and set the tub up here in the porch so I could climb in and check it out! It seems fine.. and is narrower and deeper than our current tub, so shouldn't require any more water to fill it.  We still need to find taps for it.

One day when it was sunny but too cold to work inside or outside, we took the time to drive up to a local sawmill to pick up the flooring for the second floor.  Although the wood looked good when they loaded it, Rob discovered when we got home that a lot of it was not good quality at all. On the plus side, it was a beautiful drive to the sawmill, on some roads we'd never been on.

Fortunately, he found another sawmill close by, and was able to pick up some much better quality wood.
Unfortunately, we now have rather a lot of v-joint pine sitting in the house! We will have to be creative with the poor quality wood we bought at the first sawmill. (It's too expensive to become firewood for that wood stove in the background!)

Ideally we should be staining the underside (which will be the ceiling of the guest room and bathrooms and mudroom) before we install it. But it is still too cold in the house to use the staining products, so we will have to do it later. I know that painting overhead is not my favourite job - or Rob's! But it made more sense to get the floor in now while we had a chance.

Rob wanted to glue the floor down, and some days it was too cold to use the glue, so he'd move on to a different job, like building interior walls! Well - the framing part at least.

Slowly, we are getting our second floor in too. It's going to be a funky little area up there, and will make for great studio space.

And yes, there will be railings!  I am really not good at heights, so it's pretty amazing that I even went up and got that shot.

When it got even colder, he moved back into working on the stair design on the computer in the cabin. It's probably just as well, it gave him a chance to slowly work back into the long days of physical labour. As a lot of the work this month involves him being on his knees, and although he wears the best of knee pads, it still means he's rather sore by the end of the day.

With the arrival of the wall studs, I could begin to picture the interior of the house. It's funny because I have looked at the drawings for months, yet for some reason I didn't have the right placement for the guest room at all ! I picked up some paint chips and started to think about colours for the various rooms. Of course we are a long way away from that just yet, but it was fun to think about it at least.

And then these beautiful glass trivets arrived, a gift from my brother and super-sis, and although they sit here in the cabin for now, shining out their lovely blue light, I can't wait to get them into a place of honour in the new house! Thank you both !!

If April didn't bring us a lot of warm days, it did bring us a lot of glorious sunshine, and deep blue skies. And the return of lots more migratory birds. After hearing the haunting sound of the sandhill cranes for a couple of days, but with no sight of them, four of them flew directly over the cabin one day. Despite their enormous size, with their wings stretched out, and their feet straight back, they simply floated higher and higher on the thermals, calling all the time, until we could barely see them, and then they just floated away. Apparently they make good use of the thermals to go longer distances with less effort during their migration! What a sight....and what a sound...

One of our other favourite sounds of course it that of the "peepers". Even now I can hear them, and all the windows are closed!  It's such a lovely sound to go to sleep to. During the day we hear the other frogs calling, and I was totally enchanted when the grandfather of all frogs hopped up the driveway this week, and up onto a rock where he sat, corners of his mouth slightly upturned, and allowed me to sit and watch him for a while. He had the longest toes I have ever seen on a frog. He slowly made his way off in the direction of the other frogs later that afternoon.

We've yet to see any turtles, but with the last of the snow disappearing around the beaver channels, we are hoping to see some soon.

The robins have returned of course, the yellow bellied sapsuckers are busy chasing each other around, the grouse is drumming in the forest, and this week the swallows arrived. (Oh dear, a sure sign that black flies and mosquitoes will soon be here too!)

Just as we were lamenting that the bugs would arrive, and we wouldn't have had a chance to experience any nice, warm and bug-free weather - the temperatures rose back to normal, and then beyond.  Bliss!! The weather we've been hoping for arrived this week.  Rob quickly changed gears, stopped doing inside work jobs, and went back to the outside concrete work.  With two good days in the forecast, and no chance of rain, he got two coats of  the finish on to all sides of the house, and started the same process (screwing in the foam slabs, foaming the holes, and applying the cloth and finish) on the workshop slab.

Suddenly, instead of hot cups of tea, I was bringing cold drinks to him.  It was a fast switch. Wearing winter coats and multiple layers one day, t-shirts the next!

Almost daily now a "new" bird arrives, and the scenery changes. I love hanging out at one of the "pond" areas and listening to the frogs on one side and the sound of the river just beyond.  This little area will dry up quite a bit once the river levels drop in the summer, but for now it's a busy spot. The ducks check it out every now and then, and later on the heron will do a little fishing here.

I even caught sight of a rather shy porcupine one afternoon (whew - glad Jet wasn't with me!) as he scuttled away through the woods and up a cedar tree, keeping a good eye on me the whole time.

After the quiet solitude of the winter, the air is full of sounds now.  There is a lot of nest building going on around the cabin, with lots of birds flying around with bits of building materials in their beaks.  I guess Rob and I are sort of doing the same - ramping up that building process! It will be interesting to see how far we progress between now and the next blog posting.

Did I mention Bugs?

Well, if April showers bring May flowers, we have to admit we were pretty nervous when April brought us more snow than rain.  The unusually cold days and cold nights had Rob sighing loudly as he looked at his schedule and watched the days slip by, with little opportunity to get outside to work on building the new house.  His original schedule was made with the assumption that he would be able to work outside for part of March and most of April!  Neither of us were thrilled when we woke up to this one morning...

But finally, the April showers did arrive, washing away some of the snow, and the temperatures rose very slightly. Rob, still dressed in warm winter gear, was able to move the timbers out from the tarps and away from the pole barn.

The logistics of moving the finished timbers to a good location, and then moving in the ones that need to be worked on, while still keeping all of them dry and clean, has proven to be a challenge. We need to sand and stain the finished ones, and then stack them carefully somewhere too, but the cold weather delayed the staining process, so we will probably start that process in June.

The ice on the river finally disappeared, and we had the treat of watching some of the ice floes float by one evening.  It felt like we were watching some kind of "Farewell to Winter" parade.

By May 9th, Spring truly arrived with warm temperatures, and Spring's forest flowers began popping up. Purple violets, white trilliums, and purple and white hepatica were the first of the flowers to show, and then that beautiful shade of bright green began to appear as the leaves came out in the trees all around us.

Usually by this date we would have seen plenty of days with temperatures in the mid teens or low twenties, but not this year.  Just as we slowly peeled off our winter layers, the black flies arrived, and they were voracious!
Rob took this photo one evening when the western sun highlighted some of the bugs in the air. All those little bright spots? Black flies....coming right at him.

We purchased mosquito nets last year; they pull over our heads to keep our faces clear of the black flies and mosquitoes.  They work well if we are out with Jet for a walk, but Rob cannot wear them if he is working, as he needs to be able to see clearly, and the nets don't allow that.  He managed to rig one up over his baseball cap so it covered his ears at least.  After waiting through the long, long winter for warmer temperatures, it always seems a shame to have to wear long pants, long sleeve shirts, and shoes and socks, but there's no way around it. Mosquitoes and black flies are very good at finding any bit of exposed flesh!  In the last two days we noticed the arrival of the dragon flies, and they usually help to bring down the insect population, and we are hoping the black flies numbers will begin to decline.

The concrete pads for the house and workshop seem to have fared pretty well through the winter.

We pulled off the plastic and layers of straw, and gave the concrete a chance to dry out a bit.  We need to remove the form braces from the sides, and attach all the pink foam securely to the concrete, now that Rob has found some good fasteners to do it.

There's a nice breeze off the river, so we can occasionally sit out on the pad, relatively bug free, and get excited thinking about someday actually being in a finished house!  We will have views from the living room of the river, the sunsets, and the yet-to-be-named area that we sometimes refer to as 'the bayou'.
When the river is at it's height in the spring, this area floods in, and the beaver gets pretty excited about the possibility of a new lodge location, and gets busy taking down our poplar trees.

We know how important beavers are to the environment (they are considered keystone species!) so we are happy to share space with them, even when they drop a tree on our power lines, leaving us in the dark for one day.... As well, they seem to leave a few trees hung up, or precariously gnawed through from time to time, so Rob has to go in and pull them down.

The 'bayou' is a fascinating area to us, and we walk into the woods and over to this area from different directions trying to get a feel for what lives there.

I have been tempted to toss in a plastic blow-up alligator, just for fun, but decided against it!

The downed trees in this area are covered with thick moss, and often we discover that there is water right beneath our feet, with only a light cover of branches or old logs keeping us dry. We've seen various ducks swimming around, can hear all sorts of frogs and peepers, and sometimes the Blue Heron sits motionless on one of the logs.  One day we followed the biggest snapping turtle I've ever seen into this area, but we haven't seen it since. There are lots of little painted turtles there though, and this makes us very happy! We love to go down and watch them, but they are rather shy, and at the first sound of our footsteps, we hear a plop, plop sound as they drop off the logs and disappear into the water.

This area dries up a lot in the summer, so the beavers usually leave then for wetter areas, but sometimes they will continue to work on building some channels. They try damming up the river to redirect the water, but every year the river moves their dam out of the way.

While Rob works extra long hours trying to catch up on his schedule of timber framing, I continue to work part time, go to yoga classes, and early in May, attended a fabulous yoga retreat in an off grid house at Harmony Dawn near Peterborough.  Elizabeth had asked me to lead a workshop one afternoon on Fabric Art, so I brought a selection of paints, and stamps, and inks and markers and various fun stuff, and the group set to creating some amazing work!

Elizabeth worked hard to provide us with a diverse schedule of yoga and meditation sessions, kirtan, lectures and even a yoga themed movie night, and I was surrounded all weekend by wonderful men and women, most of whom I had already met through yoga and work. The food was fabulous and the whole experience was delightful.  It was interesting to see how an off grid house operated with 23 guests too!

I have also been given the opportunity to help out a (new) friend, who is waiting for a hip replacement and was looking for someone who would be interested in helping her to keep her garden growing this season. My gardening guru - Sally - gives me gardening lessons, cuttings, plants, seeds,  (and last week mmmmmm fresh rhubarb). In return I try to help to dig up the earth, and plant some of her garden, while peppering her with questions and observations.  It's a lovely drive to her place, and I have the choice of taking a route that brings me past the lovely Lake Clear, or through winding country roads with views that take my breath away.

Sally is also an avid cook, so I am treated to delicious teas and sweets after my not-so-hard labour....
I would love to have a vegetable garden here, so I am hoping to learn as much as possible from her, and then we can maybe get our own garden going in the years to come. For now, we have a few pots of herbs around the cabin, and Sally is encouraging me to plant some veggies in her garden so that we may have some fresh produce to enjoy this summer.

Of course, I don't want everyone to think that I am off having all sorts of fun all the time while Rob is working away on timbers.  I am here from time to time, and try to look after the day to day stuff like cooking and cleaning and groceries and laundry, and when I can, I take up a nice lunch to Rob, or some tea and fresh banana bread so he can have a bit of a break!  I am sure that the time will come when there will be plenty of house building stuff that I will have to do, but the timber framing part isn't one of them. Which is probably a good thing, as even with the help of some tools, Rob still has a hard time moving the timbers around, and I know I can't move them at all!

Unfortunately, when we moved some of the timbers out from under the tarps, Rob discovered that they were too wet, and had developed a light mould on the outside. He has restacked them all to allow more air around them and as soon as one had dried a bit, tested to make sure that he could sand it down, and the timber would be none the worse for it. It appears that they will be o.k.

We cleaned off the concrete pad that is near the pole barn, so that we could stack some of the timbers there too. And yes - I swept it all nice and clean - so I finally did some work!

Now the May long weekend has passed, along with the annual (unsanctioned) "River Run".  On the Sunday afternoon, groups of people float by us on the river, over the small rapids further downstream (with much screaming and the scraping sounds of the floats - we can't actually see this part as it is around a bend, but we know that they don't always stay afloat! ) and on to a small beach area further along for a BBQ and party. The river is pretty fast, high and cold this time of year, so it's not something that we are likely to try. Still, it's fun to watch.

And with the May long weekend, we launch officially into summer, even if the solstice doesn't arrive until June. Rob is up early and works outside at every opportunity, and he usually doesn't come home until sometime after 8 p.m.  He is trying hard to get the new house up before winter, so that he can do the inside work during the winter months.  On rainy days, if he really can't work outside, he will use the time to order building supplies, and research the next stage of building. These days he spends a lot of time talking about fasteners - for fastening the foam to the concrete, and the timbers to the concrete, and for the roof and insulation system.  Apparently we need a lot of different kinds of fasteners.  I could probably do a whole blog just on those!

While Rob knows every piece of each timber he carves and can envision which room they will be in, and which side faces which area or room, I cannot, so I am anxious  to see how these timbers will all go together.  He marks them all with codes that he understands, ready for when they all get put together.

I like to make up my own meanings for them. The one on the right is ABN which I am pretty sure means Administer Beer Now.   It's a warm sunny evening, and I just happen to have a nice cold lager in the fridge waiting for when he gets home.   Jet is anxiously nudging my arm with his own code too. DNHSYHTTMOFP.  That's German Shepherd for Dad's Not Here So You Have To Take Me Out For Playtime. Smart boy.