September arrives with lots of changes

I am always surprised when I finally sit down to update the blog, and I discover from my log of photos, and the entries in my journal, just how much time has passed, and how many things have gone on!

When the building site was first cleared earlier this summer, Rob and I set out and marked out where the house would go, using bright orange marking spray paint, string, and some bits of wood knocked into the ground.

We moved two chairs into the space we had created and spent some time sitting and thinking about the views from the various future rooms, and whether the house should be angled a bit more to the south. It's always fun to stand in a space in a clearing and to try to imagine you are actually in a room! In the above photo you are looking through the kitchen and dining room on the left, living room on the right. It looks much bigger than it actually is.

We continued clearing the downed branches and tree trunks out of the site, moving some of them out and piling them in two locations further away in the woods. They will provide good homes and food for the wildlife I hope. Anything that would be good firewood, or future building material was moved to other areas on the property. We soon learned that heavy rain will wash away your spray paint markers though, and when the site was later levelled and graded, our string and wooden markers went too! Rob tied orange tape around the trees well outside of the perimeter to use as a future sighting reference and that proved to be a better solution.

When the heavy equipment arrived to install the septic system, we opted to put the equipment to good use, and used them to level out the building site. I wasn't sure the big excavator could make it up our narrow road, but it did.  The little dome in the corner of this photo is a bird house, and a reminder of our previous dome home.

Although we thought we had cleared out most of the branches, the excavator operator quickly pulled out lots more that were lying all around and piled them in a giant pile for Rob to haul away. Rob was kept pretty busy for several hours working on that pile!

Slowly the site began to take shape, and they worked hard to get everything level.

 

Any of the really large rocks were saved to put around in a semi circle on the south side of the lot. I think this will be a pretty little place, and it has a nice view of the river too! We've already seen a couple of garter snakes around, and they will love sunning themselves on these rocks.

 

Once the site was level, then they began to bring in the gravel base, and to dig for the septic tank. Luckily Rob continued to take photos when I was away at work during the day, as I missed the septic installation! If I had to make one observation, I would say that we seem to spend a lot of money and time on digging holes, and filling them in again with different stuff. (Dig up the lot, fill it with gravel, dig a big hole, fill it with a septic tank, dig a big hole, fill it with pipe, special rocks and sand, dig a big hole and fill it with more sand......)

But in the end, we were pretty pleased. Within a few days, the site took on some dramatic changes.

 

With the septic system in, and inspected, the site level and at grade, and filled with the necessary gravel, we were ready to think about the next two items we wanted to do before winter - the well drilling, and the concrete pad pouring. We know that we can't possibly get the timberframe up before winter, so at best, we decided that if we could get the site ready, the well and septic in, and the concrete pad poured, then in the spring, we will be able to get going on the actual building of the house as early as possible.

In the meantime, we moved two more chairs up to the river's edge, so we could sit in the early evening above the river, and enjoy the sound of the water, and the sight of the setting sun, and try to imagine what it will be like to be living in this very beautiful place.

Of course anytime work is going on at the building site, it means Rob is not up working on the timbers, and he finds it hard to be pulled away from one task, to do another. But we knew there would be times when there would be several different items requiring his attention at the same time. The other distraction is the weather. It seems we have waited all summer for summer to actually arrive.  Even on the days when they promised sunshine, the clouds would soon roll in, and the rain wasn't far behind.

On the occasional days when the weather seemed really promising, we were tempted to get out and enjoy the weather a bit, so we did take some time one sunny afternoon to go for a drive and look for some possible kayak launching sites. We found a small lake just off of one of the local highways, with a nice sandy launching site, so went back one afternoon and put our kayaks in for the first time! I have no photos of this occasion, as I wasn't going to take my camera anywhere near the water until I had an idea of what this whole kayaking thing was about. It was truly lovely, we both had a great time, and we hope we have a chance to go one more time before it gets too cold.

We also had an opportunity to visit some friends at their cottage one afternoon, and spent a lovely few hours in their cottage, and outside on their dock when the sunshine came out, and things warmed up a bit! It really has been a cool summer though, our thermometer outside registered plus 3 one August morning, and I am sure my little basil plant outside was snapped by the frost long before any frost warnings arrived.

It was also a tad cool when I embarked on my own adventure, a weekend at a yoga and music festival with my friend/boss/yoga instructor Elizabeth and another friend/yoga instructor Stephanie and we opted to camp together for two nights! Fortunately at the last minute, we were gifted a small truck camper for the weekend, so we ended up camping in style (and much more warmth and comfort!) We arrived on the Friday night, and got the camper and awning set up, and installed a dining tent to house our wares from the boutique, and went to sleep that night to the sound of coyotes (maybe wolves) under starry skies. It was one cold night though, and we burrowed into down sleeping bags and comforters, closed all the windows we had opened, and were startled in the middle of the night by the sound of the heat coming on in the camper. I didn't realize there was a heater, but we discovered it was set to come on if the temperature inside dipped below 50 degrees F. It was much colder outside! The Saturday was lovely and sunny, and we were able to listen to fabulous musicians, my two friends taught a wonderful yoga class in the morning, and we took in some other classes, and even watched a hooping demonstration! (As in hula hoops!) We all gathered around at night in front of a large communal bonfire, and went to sleep to the sound of drumming and music. We got up at 4:45 the next morning (yes, it was still dark out, and very cold so I wore my pyjamas under my clothes!) and took in a yoga class together, to the sound of coyotes, and a view of the sunrise. It was a truly wonderful weekend, and I am so glad that I was given the opportunity to go!

Friendship abounds here, and I have also picked blueberries, raspberries, and last weekend wild apples with a group of other friends.  Having been so busy running our business all these past years it is a real pleasure to be able to have the time to go out with friends and try some new experiences. And our freezer is stocked with some tasty fruit that I know we will enjoy in the coming months. The wild apples were pressed into cider, and I have a jug of the most delicious cider in our fridge.

We actually have an apple tree of our own here on the property, and  the cool and rainy weather seems to have been good for it. The apples are pretty tasty although a tad tart, and we have picked a few to eat ourselves. One night we spotted a doe and a fawn underneath it, so I think they too are enjoying the free fruit!

We also have wild plum trees, but I think the birds and the deer benefited from those as well. By the time the plums were sweet, most of them had disappeared.

Our social calendar this month also saw us attending a small intimate concert of one of our favourite performers, Australian guitarist, Jeff Lang and we attended the opening of the local film group series !! We hope we can continue to go the film group nights through the fall and winter, and will keep an eye out for future concerts as well.

As the sun rises a little later these days, and sets much earlier, we are reminded that the season is changing, as much as I would like to believe that summer is still going to arrive. After struggling with a limited amount of dry firewood last winter, we agreed to order our wood in a bit earlier and it arrived last week. In future years we will hopefully just rummage around here for our own wood, but we can't be building a house and gathering firewood at the same time! I unfortunately had to go to work that day, leaving Rob to split and stack it all. I arrived home in time to help with the last cord though, so did do a little bit. We both feel a lot better about the oncoming winter when we see our nice big stack of wood outside of the cabin. Although Rob was tired at the end of that day, Jet was still raring to play.

 

Last week the well drilling rig arrived, and they spent the day drilling our well. They finished up the next day, and later in the week tested it for the flow rate, and it looks like it's a good solid well, with good flow. Now it's capped, and we can leave it for the winter. Another big item off of our to do list.

Rob is now busy these days with working on the plans for the concrete pad. I think he dreams about plumbing, vents, pipes and concrete. There is a lot to think about - the placement of the sinks, bathtubs, washer, toilets, drains, and stacks, and as well the pipes for things like propane and power sources. Everything has to be figured out before the pad is poured. Then he has to lay out the forms, and the hydronic heating system. So there has been little in the way of timber framing the last couple of weeks, and I know he misses it. We have picked a finish for the timbers he has completed, and are still hoping to have time before it gets too cold to sand and finish them as well!

This week we are supposed to have a solar audit. Rob rigged up a cool gizmo (a solar tracking device) that gives us a pretty good idea of how much solar power we should be able to tap into, but before we make that off-grid choice we want to be sure. So someone is coming to look at the site this week and will offer their opinion.  This is Rob's measurement tool - a ladder, a bevel level, a digital protractor, and some other stuff, that gave him a sighting on the tree line in relation to the sun's position throughout the day, that he then mapped to a chart he found on line. If we mount the panels on the roof though, they would be higher than this ladder, but it gave us a rough idea.  (Ha, ha, I knew Rob would love that description - he says it's not a bevel level, it's a part from one of his saws or something....!)

December and January are the problem months, although apparently one of the trees he sighted on was deciduous,  so when the leaves are gone in the winter months we may gain a little more sunshine.

According to my journal, a year ago today we saw our dome house go up for sale. What a lot has happened since then !! As we make the transition from summer to fall, and with the thoughts of winter creeping in, we look forward to some quiet times here in the cabin. We are looking forward too, to the adventures the next year will bring.  If it seems a bit overwhelming at times, I simply go sit by the river, hang out with the frogs, and listen to the sounds of the water tumbling over the rocks for a while. It's a lovely place to sit quietly and observe, and if I'm lucky, the great blue heron, or osprey, or kingfisher might fly by for a visit.

 

Oops, I missed July!

The last month or two passed by at a remarkable pace. We met with the building inspector and turned in our final plans and after a fairly short period of time, received our actual permit. We put our order in for our timbers, and then drove up to the lumber mill a few days later and were able to get a look at some of our order. Rob had a pretty big grin on that day!

 

As soon as the order went in, Rob took some time to work on a few things while he had a chance. We knew that once the wood arrived, he wouldn't have time for fixing things up around the cabin, or doing much in the way of maintenance around the property. We knew we were having some drainage issues on our new road where it meets the common road, so he somewhat reluctantly dug it up, pushed back all the layers of gravel and arranged for a small culvert to be delivered. We originally ordered a plastic culvert, but soon realized a metal one was needed, so had to have them pick up the plastic one we had bought, and bring a metal one instead. The meeting of the two roads looks much better now, and we've had such heavy rains that we've at least had a chance to check that it is all working better now. The rains will no longer wash the common road away where the two roads meet.

 

Rob then started to prepare space in the shed to make sure he could manoeuvre the timbers when they arrived, and cleaned up the road leading to the shed and the old concrete pad that had amassed a pile of junk over the years. (Some neighbours had asked to use it for storage when they sold their cottage, but never returned to pick up their stuff!) We had to haul a lot of it up to our local waste collection center, and pay for it to become landfill. Anything that we could recycle though (metal, old tires, asphalt shingles, clean wood etc.) were handed over to the various recycle bins. We then had to spend a lot of time cleaning the concrete pad, and removing any nails that were lying around. Luckily Rob had some kind of mega magnet that helped me to find some rather old nails and any other remaining bits of metal!

Somewhere during the move last fall, Rob has "misplaced" his wooden mallet which he purchased at one of the timber frame courses, after spending a fair amount of time making sure that it fit his hand just the way he wanted. We are still hoping that he simply put it somewhere safe, knowing he would need it this summer. It would be a shame to have lost it! In the meantime though, he needs a good mallet, and has been eyeing the iron wood in the forest, thinking he should maybe try making his own. In the end though,we simply ordered a new one (thus ensuring that the lost one will show up!)

Thanks to the generosity of our friend Bob we were able to borrow his I-beam and trolley and this has allowed Rob to more easily move the timbers around as he works on them. He spent quite some time building good solid frames to rest the beams on as well.

When the day finally arrived for our timbers to be delivered we drove up to the top of the property and sat on the tailgate of the truck in anticipation. Due to some loading problems at their end, there was a slight delay, but finally as we looked down the road, we could see the truck arriving!

 

We directed the truck to our concrete pad, and the driver proceeded to unload the timbers, with some help from Rob.

The aroma of the timbers, even though they were well covered, was pretty heady. We were like little kids peering under the covers, and couldn't wait to get a good look at them all. With rain in the forecast though we had to wait, so got them all under good tarps just in time as some heavy rainstorms soon arrived.

As soon as the weather cleared later in the week, Rob got the tractor out, and with the help of the stands he had built, started sorting through the timbers. He had all his diagrams ready, and was able to tag the timbers with a number of each end, according to the quality of the wood, and where it would be in the new house. I was pretty surprised at how fast he was able to move them all around. They are really heavy. He built special covers for the forks on his tractor so the forks wouldn't mark the timbers as well.

I can barely pick up the end of one of the smaller beams, and then only if it is lying with the majority of it's weight on another beam. In a fairly short period of time, Rob had them all moved next to the shed, and under the protection of the shed overhang and some tarps. Some of the timbers were stacked into the pole shed, under the I-beam, ready for him to begin working on them! I tried to show up once all the hard work was done...

 

Now things started to get a little more interesting. Rob had to prepare all his chisels, find all the hand tools he would need to work on the timbers, get his drawings printed out, and at the same time, start working on the house site as well! We took a couple of hours one afternoon and sadly started marking out the trees that would have to come down. Fortunately, a lot of the trees were already in poor shape. The spruce bud worm has really decimated almost all of our spruce trees, and there were a lot of them in the area where the house will be built. We were happy to agree to try to keep a lovely stand of cedar at the driveway entrance. Our friend Brennan had agreed to do the first round of clearing with his bulldozer, so he showed up early one morning and got at it. Rob helped by clearing out the fallen trees and branches as Brennan took them down.

We were really surprised to discover some lovely old oak trees in behind some of the trees we removed, and the oaks are far enough away that they will remain, and we hope we will enjoy them for many years to come!

As soon as the site was relatively clear, Rob had a septic system specialist come on site to see where the septic field can go. We were hoping it could go on the river side, but expected it would have to go on the opposite side. We were really thrilled to hear we could tuck it in on the river side, leaving lots of room for Rob to put his future workshop in the location he wanted! Our permit for the system has now also arrived.

Now that things have ramped up a bit, we also saw a bit of more normal summer weather - hot and humid - so we were careful to pace ourselves, work a bit earlier in the morning and stop the heavy outside work before noon if possible. Then Rob happily headed up to the pole barn area and worked on some timbers. It's such a beautiful spot - it is where we camped 20+ years ago, and will always have a special place in our hearts. There is a sweet aroma in the air there, a constant breeze, and he is visited by phoebe's, robins, chickadees, blue jays, yellow bellied sapsuckers, and chipmunks. Above him ravens, crows, turkey vultures, red wing hawks, and an American kestrel soar. He can hear the gurgling of the bobolinks in the adjacent field, and sometimes the flute like sound of a Wilson's snipe.
And sometimes he gets a surprise visit from some rather large spiders!

 

All in all it's a pretty sweet place for Rob to work.

 

We are trying out a few different variations on our day in order to give Rob more building time. I will sometimes bring up a picnic lunch so that he doesn't have to stop working for too long, and will head up at least once a day with cold ice tea and some cookies for a short break. We are eating dinner even later than normal as Rob's day usually ends now around 7:30 p.m., and we then spend some time playing with Jet, and get him out for a short walk when it's a bit cooler, and then feed the cats, get Axle his insulin, and then take some time over a cold beer to discuss the day, while sitting on the porch. We tumble into bed shortly after 10 p.m. and neither of us has much trouble sleeping!

With the building site cleared a little, we spend some time there each day, watching the movement of the sun, listening to the river and the birds, admiring the view of the trees and the river. Both of us feel it is a very peaceful and beautiful building site.

Well, interestingly, I wrote almost all of the above sometime back in June and early July. It is now almost mid-August! I was surprised to read about the summer heat, as it quickly disappeared, and we have since seen a lot of cool days and nights, lots of cloudy days, pop-up thunderstorms, and even had tornado warnings! We have only been in the river once this summer so far, as we have only had a couple of brief hot spells, and they are usually accompanied by thunderstorm warnings, so we never have much opportunity for those lazy hazy kind of river days.

The river is higher and faster this year than normal, and certainly way higher than last year when we were in a drought, and the river became a trickle.  The only time we were in this year, I could barely hold myself up against the current. It has a dropped a bit since then though.

 

Rob has been busy working on the timbers almost every day, and has managed to rig things up so he can work if it is raining (which proved to be a good thing this summer!). I think he had a blog posting prepared sometime in July, that explained a bit about the work he is doing on the timbers, but he just hasn't had time to post it.

I have been putting a few more hours in at the delightful and funky good karma shop, so haven't had as much 'free' time as I used to. I also find it hard to sit indoors and spend time on the PC whenever the sun comes out, or the temperatures warm up a bit. I know that in a few months I will probably have a lot more time indoors!

Well, I was just going to post a few photos of Rob's timber frame handy work, with a little more detail,  but then today they showed up to level the building site and install the septic system, so things got a little busy. The forecasted rain held off until the end of the day which was nice.  So I will keep my comments a little shorter than planned. (Good thing maybe as this entry has been long enough eh?)

You can see Rob's new mallet on the left. Still no sign of the one he lost.

 

 Cool - it fit !! Good job.  I love all the writing on the sides of these. 

Some pretty fancy work.

More fancy work.

 

It took two goes to get this one right. Luckily the timber was long enough that he could start over with out losing the whole thing!

Using the mortiser.

A visitor! 

Well, I could keep writing but I won't. I didn't even stop to write about the plants, the insects, the wildlife... the wild plums that we discovered are everywhere....With a bit of luck, I hope it won't be two months before I post again.