The Changes that Snow brings

We woke up this morning to an unusual brightness in the room, and it took a few moments to recognize what it could be.  The trees outside were covered with thick white snow! The overnight forecast had called for a few flurries, but this was obviously more than that.

Down in the kitchen Jet barked and barked at the window, and I don’t know if it was because of the brightness, or simply the anticipation of getting outside.  He paused at the doorway and I just knew he would have a case of the “zoomies”.  Sure enough he did – several times, but he’s learned to calm himself down a little so it doesn’t get out of hand like it used to !

It feels like I’ve been talking about and planning for the arrival of snow for ages, but in actual fact we were nowhere near ready. I had found my winter boots in a box the day before but had tucked them away so had to dig them out.  Coming back into the cabin with snowy feet I realized we hadn’t quite got our entrance reorganized so we still have to enter through the kitchen, and the carpet that covers the wooden floors will get wet which isn’t good for the wood. 

I also remembered that we always had a stash of windshield wiper anti-freeze, and lock de-icer at the dome, so will have to make sure I pick some up this week as we have none here. We found the snow brush, but it isn’t actually in the truck yet. We have seven – yes seven – snow shovels, but none of them are down here at the cabin where we need at least one.

I have got a stash of soups and canned goods stocked up ready in case we can’t get out, but the fridge is a bit bare and I should make sure it doesn’t get too low for the next few months. I realized today I am out of bread, and getting low on a few other staples. (Not to mention we have run out of red wine!)

I think it’s the first time that I started to think that we are seriously living here now – it is no longer a cottage where we will just make do because we are going to leave and go home in another day or two. This is now for real!

Although it was just a little snowfall, it has stayed all day as the temperature is well below zero.  The roads look icy, and I doubt any plows or sanding trucks have been out on the main road.   We could have ventured out, but we have a line of soft stone in front of the cabin as we are getting some more work done to the road, and most of the rest of the road is full of stone and waiting to be graded. Unfortunately the grader got a flat tire and all work stopped temporarily until it can be repaired later in the day.

Ah yes, the road. It’s been a bit of a learning curve.  We had hoped that Brennan’s bulldozer would get repaired earlier in the fall so we could get the road finished, but it just wasn’t possible. When we called to get some grading done, (by the same person who will plow and sand our road this winter) and to see if he could maybe get the last sections finished, he and Rob agreed to meet up and walk the road to talk about potential problems, and possible fixes. Well, it was no surprise that he felt that some sections were too narrow, especially at the "steep curve" part, so we all agreed to add more stone, and to increase the width where needed. At the same time, the final part that approaches the cabin has never had any stone laid, and it will be a mess come spring when the snow melts, so a layer needs to be added to it as well.  They started the work on Friday, and would have finished up today but due to the flat tire, they will have to now return tomorrow.  By the time the tire was fixed, it was already dusk outside. All this to say that we couldn't drive our truck out today as there were big piles of soft stone blocking our way out!

The photo above shows the steep curved part is now a bit wider and I am feeling a lot better about driving on it. It will be graded again tomorrow, but I tried it out with the truck on Friday and was pretty pleased.  We shall see how it goes this winter, it may need grading again in the spring once things settle a bit.

They moved some rocks away and levelled out this section on Friday. They filled it with stone today. I was worried it would lose it's nice country laneway feeling, but it didn't, it still looks much the same thanks to all the evergreens. It was even prettier today with the snow!

We decided not to worry about being unable to get out of the driveway, and all the work being done on the road, and went out for a couple of good long walks in the glorious sunshine. It was cold and crisp out, but the sky was blue, the woods were beautiful and we stopped to admire the snow in the trees.

It was so lovely to be out in the sunshine. Where the sun had melted, the moss was a bright green, and the reflection off of the river was stunning. Rob noted how the snow had melted on our riverbank but on the other side of the river, the snow was still all there. I am glad we are on this side of the river!

We are both really looking forward to the next few months, as we have only once been here in the winter.  I love to head down to the river, and watch the changes that occur there. This week we noticed how the ice had formed around the vegetation at the edges, and then hung suspended out of the water when the river levels dropped.

And we saw our first owl last week! It flew out and landed high up in a branch of a tree and sat there while Jet and I admired it. (Well, Jet barked, but only once or twice, and then he sat and admired it) I took Jet home, grabbed my camera and went back, and was so pleased to see the owl still there. While I was taking photos, Rob arrived, so he was able to watch it for a while too! What a beautiful bird.

I think this winter we will learn that we need to be flexible. If the weather is bad, we will just have to curl up in the cabin and not worry about trying to go anywhere. I will make sure we have a few more staples always on hand, and we will get the snow shovels and all that other winter stuff organized and close at hand. It’s not like we didn’t already do this at the dome every year, so it’s really just all regular winter routine stuff. We just don't have a regular winter routine here yet. Of course at the dome we were a few minutes walk from a convenience store - here it is about 5 km. away! And the power does seem to go out here a lot more often, so we need to be prepared.

Later on in the winter, when the weather gets too nasty, well, we will just take our cue from Jet. Find a little spot of sunshine, curl up, and have a snooze. Clever boy.

On the level

We are just waiting for yet more stone to arrive. I've lost count of how many truckloads we've had delivered so far, but we will tally them up when we get our next bill. We are lucky that the quarry is across the river and close by, and they deliver so quickly to us. We've had loads of larger stone delivered for the lower and upper roads, and finer stone for the finishing base. We've had stone delivered for the base in the large shed. Today we ordered more stone for the shed, and more stone for where the lower road joins in with the original cabin road. The original cabin road is more like a path now, and there is a sharp corner where it joins the new road that needs to be a bit rounder and wider so that we can actually get the truck around it. Then we will be able to use our new roadway! We tried driving it, but get stuck at the corner, or have to pull in and back all the way down to the cabin.  I'm getting pretty good at backing up the truck these days, although I could use a booster seat sometimes to see over the tailgate!

Once the final stone was laid on the upper road, Rob was back out with his level to measure the grade.  Being a bit of a MacGyver (remember that TV show?) he rigged up a way to measure it of course. 

(And just as an aside, we were in Vancouver many years ago when they were taping a MacGyver show, with our nephew Zack who was maybe 3 years old and they came out and asked if he wanted to meet the actor, but he said no so we didn't get to meet him either. At the time I thought it would have been fun! Oh well, I have my own MacGyver anyway.)

So the road measured out o.k.  There is still one little steep bit, but now that we have driven it a few times we think it will be just fine. They worked really hard to make it a bit less steep, by regrading, dropping it down, and adding more fill. Where the hill ends there is a rather good curve, so we wanted to make sure we got it right. I guess we will know for sure once winter arrives!

If I was impressed by Rob's level device for the road, I was equally impressed by his level device for measuring the levels of the floor in the sheds. When I first saw it I thought it was an odd chair setup, but of course, it turned out it wasn't a chair after all. And here I thought he was sitting down on the job... although it didn't look that sturdy. Handy place for his glasses though!

While sitting out on the porch, keeping on ear out for the sound of a truck arriving with our stone, I heard lots of splashing in the river in front of the house. I popped Jet in his crate, and ran down with my camera. I was thrilled to see that two of the mergansers were out, but as soon as they heard the click of my camera they got nervous, and flew up the river. There was a group of three hanging out earlier last month, and if these are two from the same group ones, they have grown quite a bit and their feathers are filling in with more colours.  They are such beautiful birds.

This week when I was out walking Jet I saw a lot of movement in the bush, and out popped the bobbing heads of a group of wild turkeys. I didn't think I needed the excitement of Jet seeing them, so turned around and came home at a good pace. I went back out with my camera, but they were long gone, I could only hear them somewhere in the bush. I saw them again yesterday briefly down the road, but they were off into the bush in a few short seconds.  No doubt we will run into them again at some point, so hopefully I will get a photo. I don't usually have my camera with me if I am walking Jet, as he is not one to be calm and quiet when he spots wildlife.  (Yes, he knows all too well that he is not the gentle giant that Zuni was!)  But he is getting better about the chipmunks dashing around, and the sounds of the herons and gulls and mergansers in the river so hopefully walking him and taking photos will someday be an option....

Road Work

Well - it will be 4 weeks tomorrow since we arrived here. Hard to believe.  We have woken up to sunshine almost every day. Perfect weather - except for the drought conditions. But yesterday and today we had a bit of rain, not enough to help the farm crops and livestock, but a little bit of rain at least. The air smells sweet with the bit of moisture we've had.
I'm sure we will get better at this blog thing as we go along, but for now, just a quick update. We've put in two sections of road, what we call the lower and upper. (Yeah, we could probably come up with more innovative names) The lower section has the base rock added, and still needs a final layer of finer stone, and the upper section is still being bulldozed as it has a pretty steep grade. They have been working hard on it today, so it's just about time for me to go look at the progress.  We had a lot of fill sitting at the top of the property, some that we had created ourselves this month while clearing out the shed, and some that was there when we bought this property 20+ years ago. So they trucked it down and spread it on the road and in an area where the upper and lower roads meet.  I'll know later on how many loads it took!

This is a view looking south along the lower road. It curves around a up a slight hill at the end, and joins into our existing road.

This is a view looking west and down the upper road. We tried to create a road that has some nice long curves to it. You can't really tell, but at this point it is still too steep, and our friend Brennan is working hard to get the grade down.

I should mention that while we had thought about doing some form of a lower road as a way of getting to the new house location, the upper road was Brennan's idea. At first we weren't sure about it - we didn't want to take down more trees or disturb the vegetation. But we quickly agreed that it gave us a way to be in the heart of the woods, to walk undisturbed, and to create some small paths running off of the road and into the other sections of the forest and towards the river.  We walk these now every night, learning the names of the trees and peering into the woods that now have a bit more sunlight coming in here and there. We are so glad we agreed !