Meet "Millie"

Every year as we slide into March, we begin to think about upcoming outdoor jobs that will need to be done as soon as Spring arrives and the snow begins to melt.  When we spot our neighbour's maple syrup collection buckets, we know that warmer temperatures are about to make the maple sap run, and that Spring must be just around the corner. 

Spring can be a bit of a tease though. This year, just a week after we were treated to the sight of the buckets, another snow storm arrived.

We had a few visits from some local deer and it was such a treat to watch them from our windows. I am sure they were probably just as ready as we were for a change in weather, and a more varied diet!

Rumours of a particularly nasty ice storm in early April dashed our hopes for getting out to begin collecting our firewood anytime soon.  We stocked up on a few necessities, and prepared for some time closer to home. 

After the storm moved on, we ventured out for a walk.  The road in wasn't too icy and we were able to view some of the damage. And the beauty!

Once our internet was back though, we learned that many areas in Ontario and Quebec had been hit much harder than us, and a lot of people had no power, and that repairs would take quite a while.

A large tree had come down on our local power lines, and we had to guess that Ontario Hydro had cleared the tree and branches, leaving them all on our property at the side of the road.  We made plans to go collect it for firewood once the weather improved. We checked on our reserve firewood stack and it was completely covered in ice. It really looked like winter had come back.

But just a couple of days later, it began to warm up, and we were greeted one morning by the sound of the Phoebes returning.  I can't imagine that they were thrilled with our weather on their return.  By April 13th though we had some lovely warm temperatures, and as you can see below, it was warm enough for a t-shirt, but so strange as we still had snow all around us on our walk!

The day light hours were getting longer and I really liked the lingering light through the trees, and the reflections of our house in the window one night and snapped a quick photo.  Longer daylight hours are always so welcome.

With a bit more time to work at some indoor jobs, Rob decided to do some much needed organizing of his workshop.  He built this cabinet many years ago for the workshop in Navan, and finally got a chance to set it up properly again.

He was also busy programming a microcomputer that he hoped would allow him to use a foot pedal to make changes to his PC keyboard. When he is recording himself playing guitar, he needed to be able to more easily switch the camera off and on without having to stop and lean over to use his keyboard.  Just another little project on the go!  I never know what he will be dreaming up, but this one made me smile.

I had been busy painting lampshades for the log cabin bedrooms and doing many sewing repairs.

Unfortunately my amazing 50+ year old sewing machine stopped working and we were waiting for some parts to arrive to see if we could fix it. My backup machine would not wind the bobbin any longer, but Rob took it apart and fixed it with a hose washer until parts for it could arrive too!

In the meantime, I was trying to come to some sort of decision as to whether to fly out to Vancouver to visit family.  I had "some concerns" (actually lots!)  about the trip as friends had told me to be prepared for long flight delays and cancellations, and I also worried about Covid and the chance that I might bring it to my 96 year old mom.  Fortunately, despite the fact that I spent 4 hours seated in front of someone who coughed and hacked their way through the entire first portion of my flights, I managed to stay healthy. The flight delays weren't too bad and I arrived in Vancouver only a bit later than planned.  Unfortunately, no sooner did I book my flight than the airline announced a possible strike before my return home ! Of all my concerns, an airline strike wasn't one of them. 

I had a good trip, spending most of it in my Mom's apartment, as we had a list of things that needed doing, but did manage to get out with her for a short time each day to take care of a few things as well. She takes cabs a bit more often now, but will still take a city bus from time to time if she is up for it. I couldn't convince her to try the motorized shopping cart at the nearby supermarket, and she insisted on pushing the manual cart herself, while I dashed around trying to find items and save her a few steps. I also lost the argument about who would sleep on her couch.  She is  a fiercely independent little Welsh woman for sure.  She is still a pretty wicked Scrabble player too. 

My breath of fresh air is always my much anticipated ferry trip to the Sunshine Coast to spend time with my cherished brother and sister-in-law.  It is also the time that I most regret that Rob and I didn't make the trip to Vancouver together.  It's a hard choice, but I always feel like I should focus as much of my attention on my Mom as I can while I am there.  We also had to consider that one of us should remain at home to look after our sweet senior cat, Axle. At  the age of  20 he is now the equivalent in age of even more human years than my mom.  The minute I stepped on the ferry though and saw this view, I sure wished that Rob could have been there with me too. And I know he would have loved the chance to visit family on the coast as well.

I had made the choice not to bring my camera on this trip, which wasn't an easy decision for me. A friend had kindly lent me a cell phone for my trip so that I could keep updated on the airline situation, so I thought I could simply use the phone for taking photos instead.   But I found that without my camera, I pretty much forgot about taking photos!  I am not in the habit of using a phone as a camera at all.

I did manage to grab a pic of the lovely Hidden Grove Recreation area where I went for a short hike (with two of my favourite people!), and another one of the lovely sea (and two of my favourite people again!) before I returned to Vancouver less than 48 hours later.  Much too short a time but I was so grateful to have had the chance to visit.  

My other brother passed away last year, and so my trip was rather an emotional one at times.  The last time I had returned to Vancouver on the ferry I had met up with him for a coffee downtown, and I was filled with mixed emotions to pass through that area again.  I was thankful to have a chance to spend a couple of hours one evening with his son. 

I returned home somewhat tired, jet lagged, and introspective.  I took it easy for a few days, and then we ventured out into the bush in search of downed trees to pull out for this winter's firewood.  We usually start earlier in the season, before mosquitoes and black flies are out in full force, and long before the arrival of the poison ivy, but the weather and my trip had delayed us. Unfortunately shortly after we pulled out the first two downed trees, the tractor signaled a problem, and stopped working.  It took a couple of days to diagnose the issue, but Rob was able to get it working again, just before a mini heat wave hit!  There are always lots of other jobs that need doing so we decided to delay the firewood for a bit longer until the temperatures dropped a bit. The forecast was for more moderate temperatures in just a couple of days.

A large pine had snapped off this winter, so as soon as the temperatures dropped, we got at it. After moving a portion of it out, we gathered up the huge number of pine branches that had come down as they too make for good firewood. Cutting them into lengths is a tedious job though.  So after watching some videos, this new crib was constructed and we tried it out.  It worked perfectly!  We were glad of it, as we later found more smaller diameter lengths of wood that were easier to cut in this as well.  The crib allowed us to simply lay the branches in and then Rob was able to chainsaw through several at a time, and all at the same length so as to later fit into the woodstove.

Conditions became rather dusty as we were working.  Recent construction in the area had produced a huge number of pot holes in our common road, so the road had been newly graded.  As we were working, gravel trucks kept going by producing huge amounts of dust. The air quality wasn't good, and it unfortunately just got worse with the smoke from the wildfires later on.

I'm not usually the one to talk about or praise tools, but here is a little gizmo that has proven to be most useful this year. Meet "Millie" our Milwaukee Hatchet Pruning Saw. Battery operated, it is light enough for me to use, and it has been super at allowing me to help trim the branches of the trees we are gathering for this year's firewood.

The dead spruce trees in particular have a wicked number of branches.  It took a bit of getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, I could trim them off, stack them to be chipped later on, and leave the remaining log for Rob to cart away with the tractor. It definitely made the task easier.  We of course find ourselves using it for other tasks, like clearing trails as well.

Usually this is the point where I say "And in no time the firewood was done".  Well, not this year.  The smoke I mentioned earlier got worse as more fires burned in Quebec, and then one started about 60k south of us.  Air quality warnings were issued for our area, with warnings to wear N95 masks if doing any outdoor activities.  We continued doing firewood, while wearing masks, but then decided to wait until the air cleared a bit to continue. The smoke does produce some rather spectacular sunsets, but the cause detracts from the beauty. 

With conditions so dry, our area was already under a total fire ban.  I  pulled out my list of items to bring in the event of an evacuation order, and we discussed our emergency plans just in case.  With hundreds of fires burning across Canada it is foolish to think it can't happen, as much as we all hope it won't.  

Fortunately a bit of rain arrived, and although it wasn't enough to make a huge difference, the air quality improved.  We got back to doing firewood, with a short break as we needed to get some new parts for the chainsaw.  We made pretty good progress and were pleased with our work.  But the tractor announced another problem, so we had to take a break again to fix it.  Once complete, Rob took a short trip with it to get some parts for our scrap wood box.  And that's when the hydraulic hose blew.  Yikes, what a mess it made! 

More parts, more hydraulic fluid and a LOT of clean up later, it was back up and running.  

We worked for a couple of more days on our firewood and declared it done.  We still have more dead and fallen trees to pull out, (like the dead elm in the rear left of the photo below) but we think it might be better to wait until late fall or even early next spring.  The stacks on the left are our well seasoned oak, and the ones on the right are our more recent work.  We would have liked perhaps to have done a bit more, but I am sure that we have more than enough. And we both agreed that June 19th is the latest we've ever finished the wood, and aim to do better next year.

We celebrated with a great homemade beer that evening at the point, and put our feet up and enjoyed the river view, but didn't waste much time before getting at our next "task" for the summer.  There is still some siding that needs to be finished, and we really want that job to be done this year.  There is still one small section on the east side of the workshop to be done, as well as the back of the shop. We are just waiting to hear whether the propane company will agree to move our tanks for us. We should probably do this section first as it requires the longest and most noticeable pieces of siding.

Rob has set up scaffolding in preparation for completing the back of the shop. This area requires shorter boards, and we are hoping we have enough to complete that side.  The "porch" area may be done in metal siding if we don't have enough wood, or we may have to see if we can find some at the local mills to complete it. I think we still have lots of stain to use up!

As soon as were set up and ready to begin, the forecast changed to some much needed rain.  Which didn't arrive, but more wildfire smoke did, and it was the heaviest yet. We drove up to visit a friend and were stunned by how heavy the smoke was, and how poor the visibility, especially on one of the lakes (called Lake Clear, but definitely not-so-clear when there is smoke fall out !)

This pretty much sums up our rather strange Spring and introduction to Summer so far this year.

Oh, and those Phoebes that arrived in April ?  Well, this is a photo of the first brood in the nest at the front door just before they all flew away.  We didn't think they would nest there as we had finished the siding and ceiling in that area, and there wasn't much room,  but they were determined.  Rob put a little extra ledge there for them and that seemed to help. There is a second brood coming along now so we are avoiding using that door as much as we can so as not to disturb them.

We had robins nesting on a tarp next to the workshop door, and the babies left the nest a couple of weeks after I took this photo of them. 

We had another robin nesting at the cabin, but I found broken eggs at the door so I will guess something destroyed the eggs. 

They are trying again in a new nest set on a ledge on the porch now.  I hope this batch of eggs works out for them.

I found a starling inside the wood stove one day and ran to get Rob so we could escort it safely out.  It had a bit of a flight around the cabin before we caught it again, and left a bird-like smudge on the window that I thought looked pretty cool, but I guess I will have to wipe it off. It seemed none the worse for it's time in the stove, and flew off.  I have been checking every day now to make sure another one doesn't come down the chimney pipe.

On an afternoon walk one day this month we had the chance to watch a grouse have a dust bath.  They are usually pretty shy and fly away when we come across them on our walks, but I think this one was simply enjoying it's bath too much to leave.

Our wildlife cams have revealed a parade almost every day and night of fox, hares, fisher, deer, raccoons, porcupine, wild turkeys, coyote and a very brave little cat. In the video of the cat, it appears it chased a young fox back down the path, reappearing minutes later, puffed up to twice it’s size and casting an evil eye back to where the fox had been.  A few minutes later a very nervous looking fox came back up the path. That little cat shows up on the camera a lot, usually late at night.  I hope it stays safe. It looks healthy and well fed so I will guess it may belong to one of our neighbours.

A young hare is outside of the house most days, and seems pretty accustomed to our comings and goings.  I am glad that it can’t hop up onto my raised bed garden though, or it would make short work I think of my lettuce and spinach.  

And my battles with the chipmunk continue.  This year it is building tunnels in my garden.  I read that onions are a good deterrent so scattered lots of cut up onion onto the soil and into the tunnel before replacing the soil.  It seemed to work for a while, until I found a new excavation with all the onions pulled away.  A little ghost pepper powder worked too, until I water the garden and then it is no longer effective.  I just continue my efforts, and hope for the best.  I have what looks like a good crop of tomatillos coming up so hope they survive.  We have already enjoyed kale, cress, spinach, chives, cilantro and lettuce.  The chippie thankfully seems to not care about those!

We are now a week into "Summer" and the smoky skies have cleared somewhat for now.  We are hoping the siding project will go smoothly and try to imagine what it will be like to have that task off of our "to-do" list. I think we have been working on that job for the past three summers!  We are making plans for a bathroom renovation at the log cabin later this summer if all goes well. We are also making plans to take time off to scout out the area a bit more.  We have friends arriving from Germany in the fall and we could use some new locations to explore.     

Of course, summer is also the time when we love to relax outside.  We have had a few lovely evenings sitting out at our point, and look forward to more.  The river levels have dropped significantly, so I hope we will soon venture in for our first river walk of the year. And of course, if the hot summer weather arrives, the day will come when we simply plop our chairs into the cool river and sit for a while.

Definitely a White Christmas

Well, not unexpectedly, we did not quite manage to move in before the end of 2018.  Instead, winter arrived (rather early!) and kept us busy, which meant that work on the new house slowed down once again.  In fact just a couple of days after I posted the last blog entry, a solid winter storm hit here.  We had a feeling that it was the kind of snowfall that wasn't going away anytime soon, and it turns out we were right.  So we shoveled and plowed, and cleared the solar panels, and talked about the fact that we didn't quite get all the tasks done outdoors as planned, and how now it was possibly too late.  And then the temperatures plummeted, with lows in the minus 20's (yes - MINUS!) and we were kept busy loading firewood into the wood stoves, and wondering just how bad a winter was in store for us.  By November 21st, Rob had plowed four times already, and there was more snow in the forecast.  My circadian rhythm was all out of kilter.  My brain couldn't seem to fathom why it was minus 20, with bitterly cold winds that made it feel more like January than November.  Not only that, but just the week before, we'd been planting some native trees and bushes along the river's edge. We'd been given them by a group that promotes biodiversity along shorelines, and they had told us it was a perfect time to plant them.  It didn't seem possible we'd been digging in the still somewhat soft earth such a short time ago.

On the "plus" side though, the snow cover was exceptionally pretty, and somewhat brightened what is usually the long dark month of November.

By November 21st, we weren't feeling quite so thrilled by it all. Below normal temperatures, wind chill factors, and constant snow squalls were wearing us out somewhat.  I think too, we had conveniently forgotten about those short pre-winter days, the limited sunshine, and the myriad of tasks that winter brings.  Even stepping out the door takes longer, as we first have to don a pile of winter clothing!

Despite all the firewood we had cut, split, and stacked to dry for future years earlier in the fall, we actually didn't have all that much dry wood for burning this winter.  We had tried cutting up some wood that we had left in long lengths all summer, but they turned out not to be all that dry either. We realized we should have prepared more "swing season" wood; lots of poplar and spruce that would give out heat, but aren't really suitable for sustained heat during the really cold months. That would have enabled us to save the good dry hardwood for the middle of winter.  We did gather up all the scraps of pine that we had left over from the timber making process and used it for a short while, and then we turned to some of the short oak short scraps we had left in an open trailer to dry. These were a bit drier but not great. By November 21 we were breaking into our "winter wood", and recalculating how long it might last if the unusually cold weather persisted.

Snow days are cloudy days too, and we found ourselves having to run the generator occasionally to boost the power in the solar powered batteries.  There sure were a lot of cloudy days in November.  Plus the constant snow would cover the solar panels, so not much power was generated on those days either, at least until we could get the snow cleared off of them, or until the snow slid off.

I think if we weren't trying so hard to get things finished in the new house, none of this would have mattered very much, but every minute Rob was pulled away from working in the new house, felt like time lost.  We were both a little disappointed too, to see time slipping away, knowing that it truly meant we would not be in the house before the end of the year.  Fortunately most days we could generally cheer each other up, and remind ourselves that it's all part of the building process.

And as always, there is nothing like a good long walk in the woods, or along the river, with my camera in hand, to cheer me up a little.  The sight of a lone mink one stormy day, loping along the icy edge, diving into the river, coming out of the frigid water, shaking off the icy droplets, then repeating the process again, took all my thoughts away from house building and self imposed deadlines. I tucked myself in next to a pine tree to steady my hand and hoped for a better shot.  Imagine my surprise when the mink caught wind of me, stood up on it's hind legs sniffing the air, then trotted up the shoreline towards me.  I was definitely holding my breath when I took this shot!

And I was happy one evening to run down to the river's edge and catch the last rays of a rather spectacular sunset.

In between the snow days, Rob would continue to sort through his lengths of cherry, maple and oak and get them stored in the workshop to acclimatize while he got everything in place for the cabinetry work.

My upstairs studio was going to be the "test" site for the first cabinet. Plus we needed to get a cabinet in place so that we could move the temporary double stainless steel sink out of our bathroom, but still have the sink available somewhere in the house. As it's final resting place was my studio, it seemed like a good time to get it in place.

We had a counter that we had pulled out of our Chilly Chiles kitchen when we closed the business, that was perfect for my studio, but it began to bow slightly after being pulled out of storage. Rob tried wetting it down daily to get it back in shape.

Towards the end of November, we had a small break in the weather.  We had been working on a means to get internet access and a working telephone at the new house, and had finally decided to try a Power over Ethernet (POE) box (that we now refer to as "Edgar Allan" or "Edgar" for short !! ) that would connect us to the system here at the cabin.  With the weather reprieve, Rob was able to hook up a box here in a tree, and one over at the new house, and test it out.

And it worked!  (Well, of course it did - why am I surprised?)  We had already purchased and tested out an internet phone service earlier in the year, so now have both telephone and internet services running in the new house.  It feels like progress indeed! And just in the nick of time, as then it snowed. And rained. And snowed, snowed, snowed.  So we were thankful that we had managed to get it up and running when it was at least a bit milder and drier out.

The constant snow somewhat delayed a necessary trip to Ottawa for some specialty cabinet hardware, but before the month of November ended we were finally able to make the trip.  We were lucky to have found a company in the west end of Ottawa that had exactly what we needed.  If we have to source products we try to do it locally, but our second choice is always Ottawa.  After that we have to resort to the internet, which usually means shipping costs and time delays.

Most nights at home would find Rob working on stair design and cabinetry details. The existing stairs were found to be off slightly in measurements due to varying concrete floor levels, and we realized we would have to lift them slightly.  Building codes dictate the depth of stairs too, and I learned that you don't want them to be off as you might misstep and fall. O.k., in actual fact I have learned more about stairs in the last couple of weeks than I cared to know.  Rob caught me out one night in mid-explanation when he realized I was totally not listening and was intent on some entirely different topic in my head.  Oops !!  Really though, I'm sure I was still paying attention..

December arrived and so did some sunshine!  We felt like moles coming out of our burrows that morning, squinting into the bright sun against the white snow.  CBC reported that Toronto had seen no sign of the sun for 88% of the time in November. We can only surmise that it was the same for us here.  So we enjoyed a gloriously sunny morning, complete with hoar frost in all the trees near the river, and some lovely light coming through the trees along the path.

Later in the day though, we saw rain, freezing rain, ice pellets, and more snow arrive.  We had more of the same the next day and I stayed home close to the wood stove, and wondered if it could possibly be any darker here in the cabin in the middle of the day.

Eventually I simply headed over to the new house where even on the darkest days, it is ever so much brighter inside.

One of the choices in building the kitchen cabinets was whether to put backs on the cabinets or not.  We keep trying to minimize costs, and think about maintenance and ease of cleaning, so initially thought it would be fine not to put backs on the cupboards.  But eventually Rob decided it just wasn't working, and we needed some backing materials.  Which of course, we didn't have.  We get by with only one vehicle, which I use to get to work, so as usual, this decision came about on a Friday when he was here without the truck.  So we had to wait until the following Monday, when the truck was available, and the weather promised to be nice and clear.  Which meant we would have a decent drive to Ottawa, as well as the materials staying nice and dry during the trip in the open bed of the truck.  Well.....we woke up to - you guessed it - snow!
But the forecast promised clear skies were on the way, so we agreed to set out.  Unfortunately we made the decision to hook up the trailer and use it to haul the materials, but 20 minutes into the trip realized the trailer was now completely covered in wet road slush and salt. This did not bode well for hauling materials.  So we returned home, and unhooked the trailer, and set out again. Of course it snowed the entire trip (both ways!) but thankfully when we picked up our order they allowed us to drive the truck right into the covered-in facility so we could strap our order into the bed of the truck while remaining warm and dry ourselves. They also gave us some protective covering for the products so they would stay relatively dry on the ride home. Things got a bit wet, but not too bad, and we made it home and unloaded everything with no problems.  So much for the weather forecasts!

Up until now, whenever we wanted to know what the solar panels and batteries were doing, we'd have to walk over to where the batteries are installed and check the readouts there.  Thanks to "Edgar" we were able to hook directly into the system and now can monitor it from wherever we are.  Which means in future, if I'm thinking of doing something like vacuuming in the new house, I can log onto the system and know whether it's a good time or not !! (i.e. do we have enough power?) How cool is that. Here's what the screen looks like. Kind of geeky maybe, but it works.

Coming into mid-December, our thoughts began to turn to Christmas, friends, and family.  When some friends invited us for an afternoon brunch, we gladly accepted, and headed over for a couple of hours of good food and conversation.  It's a pretty drive there and back, and we were glad of the outing.  As an added bonus, our hosts are ardent gardeners and they gifted us some butternut and acorn squash when we left.  Which I in turn roasted and turned into a delicious soup.

Unfortunately, that same weekend, our sweet cat GB, who at 17 years old had been having some health issues, (although still happily eating, drinking and purring) began to have problems breathing, and the vet advised us he had congenital heart failure.

He was our "wild boy", and up until the last year or so always game for a good romping play. He stole all of the other cat's food any chance he could get, and proudly held the title of  "the Cat of Perpetual Hunger". He chased his sister Sita somewhat mercilessly at times. He had the most wicked claws, and wasn't afraid to use them.  He didn't like to be picked up much, but he sure would enjoy a good petting and absolutely loved to be brushed.  After we lost Leon our tabby cat, who was the most vocal and loudest purring cat we'd ever had, GB rose to the challenge and developed an absolutely amazingly loud purr.  And so in the last year or so, as his health declined and he quieted down somewhat, he and I enjoyed a lot of quiet time together, as I gently rubbed his ears, and stroked his sides, with him purring all the while.  It's a quieter place here without him and I sure miss his sweet presence.  And I know our other two cats miss curling up with both him and Leon (who we lost over 2 years ago).  I love this picture of the four of them.... and still can't get used to only having two cats on the couch now.

By mid December we had a working sink and counter installed in the upstairs studio.  It looks great, and I am already beginning to think about fabrics and paints and projects again.  It's been too long since I've done anything creative with fabric.  With this sink installed, we once again have somewhere to clean up paint brushes etc. while we continue working on the house. And we can now get to work on getting a proper sink into the master bathroom.

The week before Christmas Rob began cutting wood for the cabinets.  I work a retail job so was putting in extra hours at the store, and planning and doing the shopping for some festive meals. When we received some warnings for a freezing rain and ice pellet storm we made a quick run to pick up extra gas for the generator, and diesel for the tractor.  We were planning a fairly quiet Christmas, and although Rob would happily stop working on the cabinets to enjoy some wine and good food, we were planning on getting those cabinets well on the way over the holiday period.  But then alas (because "alas" just seems like the most appropriate word here, although probably NOT the word Rob used at the time) Rob's table saw croaked.

(Note to non-woodworkers here - this is not a good time for the non-woodworking person to say to the woodworking person "can't you just use another one of your tools".  That is all I'm going to say on this.)

With the holiday season fast approaching, we didn't have much hope for a quick fix.  Once we figured out that it was indeed the motor that had failed, it took some time to shop around and decide whether we could find a suitable replacement motor, or would have to actually find a new saw.  With most companies closed until the New Year it was somewhat difficult to make any decisions.  So we decided we just had to wait until companies re-opened.  There are always plenty of other things that can be done (although I was surprised to learn that most of them required a table saw!  See earlier note. ) so we just continued as best we could.

On Christmas Eve Rob surprised me with a fresh Christmas tree inside the new house, and boxes of Christmas tree decorations stacked beside it.  We haven't had an indoor tree in a good many years so it was a truly lovely surprise.  It was our first Christmas without his sweet Mom and we were both really missing her.  Mom LOVED Christmas; the lights, the music, the Christmas Specials on TV, stockings, gifts, cards, Christmas trees and decorations ....the whole event.  She's made tons of decorations over the years, and we have a lot of them.  So it was somewhat bittersweet to open our box, and decorate our lovely tree, but we did it.  At the same time we decided to purge ourselves of some of our decorations, keeping only the ones we love, the ones with meaning, and the ones that make us smile (or occasionally tear up a little).  Some of them had totally disintegrated into a pile of rubble...we are still guessing what they might have once been!

We enjoyed walking over to the new house on several evenings, where we enjoyed sitting by our tree, sipping a beer, and dreaming of Christmases to come.  It sure was sweet to walk up to the new house at night and see some lights inside too.

Rob also surprised me before Christmas with a shelf for the master bathroom.  It's a live edge shelf that goes on two sides of the bathtub.  It isn't finished though and he made me promise not to post any photos until it is.  But I can say that it looks fantastic, and totally adds to the organic, zen look that I was hoping for.  Hopefully I'll be posting a photo in my next blog entry!

Christmas Day was a quiet one, with our traditional long walk, good food, lots of telephone conversations with friends and family, and a nice dinner at the end of the day.

Boxing Day was more of the same, and then we both got back to work.  As I was off for four days over New Year's we had asked a couple of friends to join us for a dinner on New Year's Day at the new house.  I had said I wasn't going to prepare another meal in the cabin and then run it down to the new house, but there you go.  It seemed like a good idea for the start of a New Year!

As we were in the process of working on kitchen cabinets, we had already pulled out the previously installed "temporary counter" that we had used the last time we served a meal there.  So Rob knocked another quick one together for me.

We tidied up the guest bathroom, and even added a couple of favourite Christmas themed decorations!  (With thanks to my super sis for the sweet little painting she did for us this year.  It will look even better in here once we get this room finished!)

And our funky temporary "scaffolding bed" was made ready for our friend Joe to be able to spend the night.

In the end though we had to cancel our dinner plans as storm warnings began to come in a couple of days before hand, and we didn't want anyone on the roads with a forecast of freezing rain, 50k winds and up to 20 cms of snow.   On New Year's Day, once we finished plowing, shoveling and clearing the snow off of the panels, we still managed to have a nice meal by ourselves, although not the festive one I had planned.

As the roads remained snow covered and somewhat icy for the next couple of days, I was glad our friends hadn't ventured out.  I was worried enough when I saw a truck swinging around the corner one morning when the local Mennonites were out with their horse and buggy!

And I enjoyed a few days off, with lots of good long walks, and evenings by the wood stove.

As soon as New Year's was over, Rob was able to pick up a replacement motor for his table saw, and another necessary part arrived in the mail.  With the saw working once again, we could get back to building cabinets and stairs.

On the whole, the first half of January seems to be promising somewhat milder temperatures than normal, and our wood usage has dropped a bit.  Fortunately too, we had a lot of rain in December, and that washed away a lot of the snow, or we'd have a few feet of it by now I think ! That said, we broke into the wood pile slated for January before December ended (to be used at the new house) and I have dipped into the "February" pile to use here at the cabin. We are trying to make do at the cabin with our electric baseboard heat, supplemented by the wood stove, and so far that seems to be working.  The sooner we can move into the new house and only heat one place the better though!

Well, I had a few more stories, but I think I will add those on to the next blog.  I was trying to get this posted close to the New Year so I could wish everyone all the best for 2019.  My mantra this year is "to see the world through the eyes of a child".  Rob has been working on his, but is leaning towards the infamous Calvin and Hobbs "what a lovely afternoon".  More on this later ... For now, wishing everyone much love, peace and joy.