When Winter gets Weird

A friend once told me that I think a lot about the weather and she was right. I know I certainly talk a lot about it in my blog postings!  The weather has a lot of influence on our day-to-day lives.  In the winter our discussion about it starts first thing in the morning with “what’s the weather today?”.  A sunny day means we will have solar power, and a cloudy day means we likely will not.  Snow in the forecast means that the panels will have to be kept clear.

Thankfully, a new extension on our snow rake has proven to make that job a lot easier this winter.  No more standing on ladders and having the snow sliding down on top of Rob!

A forecast for a lot of snow means we should check to make sure we have extra diesel for the tractor as we will be plowing ourselves out. 

The weather also affects our daily tasks; even something as simple as whether we have enough solar power to use the toaster to make toast for breakfast. I have been searching for a method that would allow us to use our propane stove as an alternative.  When my mum and I lived in England our gas oven had a special broiler unit above the stove for toasting and it worked perfectly. I looked online on off-grid forums and found a number of people recommended an Italian Brustolina. It's a metal rack with holes basically, and it is supposed to be awesome for bruschetta too. We had a friend who was visiting Italy, but didn't want to ask her to haul one around on her travels. I tried to find a supplier in Canada, but in all of North America it appeared to only be available from one supplier in Philadelphia!  Luckily we were able to buy one from them, they shipped it to friends in Florida and our friends kindly mailed it up to us. 

Unfortunately on our first attempt to use it though, we placed sesame seed bagels on it, fired up the stove and the seeds immediately started burning and producing smoke.  I then had to turn on the stove vent hood fan, which sucked out our remaining power, and our power went out.  Sigh.

I have since had email conversations with a very kind food writer in the USA who had recommended it, as well as the supplier and have determined that I need to use much lower heat, and perhaps skip using anything with seeds.  I have tried it with other breads with mixed success, but am determined that I will figure this out.  I have since read that it is commonly used in many cultures, and it can't be possible that it is smoking everyone out of their kitchens!

As our day progresses, the weather dictates what we need to wear for the first of daily walks.  We both love to be outdoors, and the key is to be warm and dry.  I went into this winter with some new extra warm and comfy winter boots as my old ones had completely fallen apart and I bought some wonderful warm and waterproof mitts. More on that later!

As we make plans for the week, the weather forecast will help us plan the best day to drive to town to get supplies and groceries, especially when there are snow storms on the way. We use it to determine which days might produce some solar power for running anything like a vacuum, or washing machine, or tools in the workshop. It lets me know the best day to view and edit my photographs, as I try to limit the power use of my large PC monitor, and my laptop monitor isn't my first choice for that job.

At the same time, we check several times a day on our solar power system health and our power usage. We headed into this winter knowing that our batteries were not doing so well, and knew that this would likely make November and December rather difficult months. Neither of us could fathom that the month of January would present us with 27 days of cloud cover though.  We kept hearing from other off-grid people that they had never had to use a generator as much as they did this winter.  None of us like to use a generator if we can possibly avoid it. (It was sort of the whole point of being off-grid in the first place!)  For a few weeks we had to often use ours for a bit of time in the morning, and sometimes again late in the evening.  Many nights we woke up to the audible beep of our cell phone letting us know it was disconnecting as the power had gone out. Usually in January we expect very cold but sunny days, which are badly needed so that our solar panels can charge our batteries, but this certainly wasn't the case this year.

Those grey and dreary January days were dark ones.

The weirdest thing about this winter though, was the predominantly mild temperatures. Not only were our day time temperatures above normal, but sometimes even the night time temperatures rose above normal day time temperatures ! 

Although we did have a night time temperature eventually of minus 35, it was a very brief cold spell, and within days it was back above normal for the time of year. Those extra warm boots and mitts I bought for the winter?  Well, so far I haven't really needed them so much. Still, I have been glad enough to have them.

I love winter, and I love the challenges it sometimes presents.  I love being outdoors, and out with my camera. I really love winter as well for the opportunity it gives me to do lots of indoor projects on those days when I really can't be outside as much as I would like to be.  But this winter my brain just couldn't wrap itself around the fact that it was winter.  It was so mild that many days I went for several walks just because it was so lovely to be outdoors.  I kept putting off some of my indoor projects, assuming there would be some bitterly cold or stormy days when I would rather be inside.  But it almost never happened!  Not that we didn't get snow, as we did, and for a while we had storm warnings every single week.  But even then, they usually arrived during the night, and we simply had to clear the snow the next day.  I don't remember a single day of howling winds and blowing snow like we usually get. And of course, with all the mild temperatures, we had several thaw cycles, and a lot of the snow melted before the next storm.

The river remained open all winter as well.

I would go down to the edge almost daily, looking for animal tracks and hoping to see signs of the river otters, or a glimpse of some of the ducks that sometimes linger when the water is open a bit.

I even set up a small trail camera, and did catch deer, coyote and a fox, but no ducks or otters so far this year.  I did see a beaver out at the edge one day, and a muskrat swimming across, both of which I thought were quite unusual for the time of year. I will guess that the ducks had lots of open water to choose from and simply didn't have to come to this section of the river.

Indoor projects weren't a complete bust, as Rob continued to take online guitar classes, and is enjoying the community of players he has met through the process.  He also spent time in his workshop, trying to get it in order for the first time since he built it.  Now that he has had some time to use it, he was able to figure out what he needed to do to make it work better. He had to move the dust collection system (yes again!) (now commonly referred to as "the DCS" for brevity). I have teased him enough I think about his use of "linear actuators" (I don't know why but I always think that is the just the coolest thing to say) that help move his dust barrel up and down more easily when it needs to be emptied.  Rob pulled the actuators out of a high-tech dumpster many years ago, knowing they were going to come in useful for something someday. Oddly enough, our dear friend Joe, who is so similar to Rob in so many ways ALSO pulled linear actuators out of a dumpster years ago.  So he is perhaps the only person we know who really appreciates the gizmo Rob built using them. In retrospect I should have documented the whole new DCS system, but I did not.  Let's just say it used to run in roughly this location, then was moved to the upstairs of the shop to create more space downstairs, (with a really clever system that let Rob know if the barrel was full) but it wasn't sucking the sawdust properly, so it is now back in roughly the same place but with vast improvements. (Like those linear actuators!) Rob will no doubt correct me on some of this explanation, but I tried to keep it short.

The DCS is also going to have a new movable section of pipe, but that is still a work in progress.  This is part of the fixed section. 

The moving pipe section is going to be made out of an old metal level, bearings, wire and a bunch of other parts, including pipe of course.  Hopefully I will document this gizmo better, although probably not as I tend to avoid the workshop except for brief visits, and quick photos.  Everyone should have their own "space" and I consider this to be entirely Rob's.

His workshop also has a couple of "new" counter tops installed, with thanks to the ReUse area of our local waste/recycle site, that offers a chance to drop off and pick up various items and keep them from simply ending up in landfill.  So thanks to whoever it was that took the time to drop off several counter tops, all in pristine condition. We have salvaged several great items from this area, including our bathroom mirror, bedside tables, double stainless steel sinks, Moen brand faucets and more. 

A local online auction site has been providing us with some great second hand items (not to mention entertainment!) and we were pleased to pick up some items this winter that have been put to good use in the log cabin, as well as a few items for the workshop, and the house.  I am always happy when I can take some items off my long term to-do checklist, or wish list, especially when it's at a great price! 

My indoor project list has not fared quite as well as Rob's, but I keep reminding myself that winter isn't over yet.  I did sign up for a terrific online Photography course, with the amazing PhotoCoach, called  "Seeing with New Eyes" . Here is the link if anyone is interested:  https://photocoach.co.za/ 

I am still finishing my work on the fourth assignment of the course, but have now completed the first three.  The first part was Abstract, which I love.  For the Abstract portion I first wished I could spend time in the city, thinking there would be better photographic opportunities there, but the reality is that we live here. I set myself the task to get creative, and use what was available for my photo submissions.  So I already learned a good lesson before I started!  You can photograph anywhere; it doesn't have to be exotic or remote. Here's one of my Abstracts taken from the inside cabin porch that has tarps up on the outside of the screen.

The second assignment was Flora and Fauna, and I thought that would be a snap living where we are. For two weeks I wandered through the deep snow, looking for elusive birds or mammals, but none appeared, not even a cheery chickadee!  I had to settle for plants poking out of the snow, and trees.  This turned out to be a wonderful exercise and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The third assignment was People.  Hah, hah, I knew that one was going to be difficult as we so seldom see anyone here, and I am not one to take photos of strangers.  I did considering hanging out around outdoor skating rinks, near snowmobile trails, or one of the local ice fishing competitions, but was running out of time, and the rinks and trails closed during an unusual thaw, and the ice fishing was postponed until colder temperatures would arrive.  So I settled for photos of Rob and myself.  Not exactly "street photography" but it worked.

Now I am working on my fourth assignment which is Landscapes.  This is taking me a bit of time as I chase the occasional sunrise or sunset, having read how important light is to my landscape subject.  I must admit that I do sometimes think I could have chosen an easier season for a photography course.  But then, winter is the best time for me in terms of time, as all too soon it will be spring and the outdoor jobs will beckon once more.

February is the month of "love", not only because of Valentine's day, but the fact that this year we celebrated 45 years since our first date, and 45 years since we moved in together. We enjoyed celebrating with some good homecooked meals, and lots of reminiscing.  Of course 45 years ago, there was far less photographic documentation of events, so sadly there are no pictures of that time.

Apparently there are few pictures of our celebrations this year as well, as I seem to have been preoccupied with my photography course!  But here is one dinner, a pasta dish with tomatoes in the shape of a heart.  Sweet eh? On our first date we went for a beer at the Saucy Noodle in Ottawa, so I try to always celebrate with a pasta dish.

 It looked even better after it was baked, but the "heart" shape sort of melted in a bit.

For Valentine's we actually fired up the barbeque and made burgers, as our temperatures climbed up to an unheard of plus 10 degrees Celsius outside!  There may have been some flames involved, but they were still really good.  And amazing to be able to BBQ outside without a coat on in February.

For our "moving in" anniversary we had Mexican Chipotle meatballs, rice and roasted squash and peppers.  There was much laughter as we remembered the events leading up to our moving in together.  That is all I will say, although I have added some tags to this post such as "flat tire", "running out of gas", "pushing the van out of deep snowbanks", "ferry to Wolfe Island", "possible stop by police" and "having to find a cheap motel in Smiths Falls".  Just kidding, there are no such tags.

I noticed in the photo above, that there is no visible pile of snow outside the window.  That certainly has changed in just a few days as we had over a foot of snow after two storms, and then it all slid off the roof outside the window, adding to the pile that was already there.

And now here we are in March.  The daylight hours are steadily getting longer which is good for our solar power, and we notice a difference even when it isn't sunny.   We do however still have to clear the panels when it snows, although even then sometimes with the mild temperatures the snow will simply slide off.

We have now been living in the new house for three years.  It's hard to believe really.  I still feel like I am discovering how to live here, and only just settling in somehow.  I still find things that we placed in odd spots, thinking we would hang them later, or find another spot for them, and they are still there and I am only just now dealing with them.  To me it feels like it did whenever I started at a brand new job, that day several months in when I would feel myself finally coming up for air, and realizing "I am here".  I am not sure why it took so long in terms of this house, but I suspect that moving in only a couple of months before Covid arrived has something to do with it.  I think a lot of people have forgotten the intensity of that time, and how it was for all of us, living with fear of the unknown.  And it somehow overshadowed everything.

I think it also has a lot to do with loss, and grief.  In the past 10 years we lost seven friend and family members (two in the past year) and four beloved family pets.  

The building process was intense, and we made a lot of changes in our lives as well. Somehow I am only now just feeling like I can truly relax in the new house. I am slowly slipping into my new routines, and enjoying the process.  It has taken me a while to get used to having more time, and removing the pressure of having to get everything done "now" while I have a chance.  I hope this continues for me.

I think too that we have both benefitted from some time to simply "be" in the new house.  We needed time to see what works, what doesn't, what really needs to be finished, what we can live with, what we can live without.  Already we have realized that we installed more lighting than we use, more opening windows than we ever open.  We weren't making our own beer before we moved in, and in hindsight we could have built in better means to deal with the large equipment, and the clean up. Overall though, there is little that we feel we got "wrong".  I think that's a good thing!

I've been cleaning up my 1800+ photos of the building experience. This has definitely contributed to my reminiscing lately.  It's been amazing to look back on them all, and more often than not I find my self simply looking through them, rather than sorting or deleting which was my original intention.  It's a work in progress, and I have been trying to set aside some favourites, but almost every photo has so many memories that I love them all. It seems like a another time that we were at these stages:

Rob says he feels quite exhausted when he looks at them.  I can see why.  I try not to remind him that there is still a bit of exterior siding to be done this year!  

For now though, it is still "winter".  We have a few weeks yet before we have to think about outside tasks, like siding and gathering firewood. Our firewood usage was amazing this winter.  We used maybe only a dozen pieces of our purchased oak, and the rest of the time we simply used wood that we gathered, split and stacked last spring from downed trees.  We still have a bit left here at the house and still have 2 more piles on our concrete pad that we haven't touched.  

The longer daylight hours are helping with our solar power, and we are seeing a bit more sunshine than we did in January.  We have a forecast for a long cool spring, with more snow on the way, but we still have lots of indoor projects we are hoping to work on.  So for now we will enjoy whatever weather we get, and I will set myself a promise not to write so much about the weather in the next blog posting. Well, maybe ....

Timber Frame # 2

Rob didn't waste any time in the second half of June, and finished carving the timbers AHEAD of schedule. No complaints from me, but I will admit that I missed some of the slower pace that occurred when the house timbers were being worked on.  I don't think I brought up a single lunch for us to share on a sunny afternoon, or spent any time watching him work at all. It seemed like I would come home from work, only to hear that another 3 or 4 pieces had been completed, and it almost felt like I'd missed it all!  Before I knew it, there were stacks (and stacks!) of finished timbers, ready to be moved down to the workshop site.

Before we could move them down though, the site needed some clean up. The concrete pad of the workshop has been home to piles of foam and other building materials while the house was being built.  Rob had also erected a small shelter on the pad, that housed firewood over the winter, and our small solar panel was mounted on it's roof, so it all had to be dismantled. The areas around the pad needed to be cleared of building materials as well, and a tall dying spruce needed to be felled.

Once the pad was cleaned and ready, I had visions of practising yoga there, maybe on a cool summer morning with the sound of the river as my music, but it never happened. As soon as the site was ready, Rob began to bring down the timbers, and got on with the assembly!

The workshop is angled slightly to point due south, in order to maximize the sun exposure on the solar panels that will be mounted on the workshop roof.  This exposure also means that the site is in full sun for a lot of the day, which made for some hot working days.  And on days when the humidex was in the upper 30's (Celsius) it was pretty brutal. Climbing up and down the scaffolding in the hot sun was hard work.

The workshop is smaller than the house, so at least there weren't as many timbers to put up!  Once the lower timbers were in place, Rob was able to drape a tarp up, which provided a bit more shade during the day.
It's amazing the difference a bit of shade makes when taking a much needed break.

After a heavy rain though, we had to drain all the water that had accumulated on the tarp.   As we keep moving in and out of drought conditions this summer, it probably would have been a good idea to try to use that water for watering the garden. But we didn't.  At least we have a rain barrel set up near the house though, which fills beautifully when it rains.

The timbers went up pretty quickly.  As soon as they were up, Rob set to work getting the roof trusses assembled, and we started calling around to find a crane company that could come in and lift them into place.

We would still need at least 3 other people to come help, so we needed to coordinate the arrival of the crane with the availability of our friends. While we waited for everything to fall into place, Rob worked on carving  more oak pegs.

When we set the roof trusses up on the house itself, it was a pretty stressful experience.  We had never assembled a frame before and because we could not pre-assemble the joints, there was the worry that they might not fit!  It was also a much bigger building, and more complex due to the valley rafters. This time though we were both a lot more relaxed, as we had a better idea about what to expect and the building was much simpler.  However, we were using a different crane company (the owner of the previous company had retired) so were hoping that we could find an operator as good as the first.  We were also keeping an eye on the weather as we had a massive heat wave coming, and we were worrying that it would be too hot and humid to reasonably expect anyone to work outside. Rob had scaffolding in place, timbers and purlins marked and ready, and I was planning snacks and cold drinks for the work crew.

We had tentative plans for a Wednesday "roof raising", but when we called the crane company on the Monday morning, we found out that the crane was already at a job site just around the corner, and could be at our site in a few hours.  We called our friends, and left frantic messages, hoping that they would be able to make it in time.  I gathered up a cooler of water and a handful of granola bars and we headed over to wait for the crane. I grabbed my steel toe shoes too, as Rob told me that I might have to be the one attaching the straps to the timbers before they were raised up by the crane if our friends couldn't make it in time.  Just before we headed out, our dear friend Bob called to say he had got our message and was on his way.  So at least Rob would have help with getting the trusses and beams and purlins into place.

The crane arrived, and the driver was great (hurray!) and he quickly manoeuvred the crane into place. Rob gave him the rundown of how the timbers would be placed, and in what order to move them.  Just then our wonderful friends Murray and Scott arrived, and I heaved an enormous sigh of relief as I was really worrying about having to work with the trusses alone.  (Rob of course, had already figured out that he would probably have to help me, and was worrying about how many times he'd be going up and down that scaffolding !)  Murray, Scott and Bob had all helped with the first roof (only Murray's nephew Simon was missing) so they just got at it right away, and before I knew it the first piece was going in .... I took the first photo from the upstairs of the new house. It was great to have a nice vantage point! 

But I couldn't see everything that was going on, so I quickly went back outside and tried to stay out of the way, but still get some photos of the process. Everyone was working in the full sun, and although it was nowhere near as hot as it would be later in the week, it was still plenty hot and rather humid. I was worrying about everyone staying hydrated, and safe.

The first truss dropped into place pretty nicely, and the crane operator was doing a great job and keeping an eye on everyone too. The second truss was up in the air and on it's way in no time!

It went in fairly well, although it would need some adjustment later on to seat the foot.

A ridge beam was put in next to help stabilize the first two trusses (there was also a temporary brace used on the first truss). I couldn't get a clear shot, but Rob also had a corner brace tucked under his arm, that had to be inserted into both the truss and the ridge beam. It looked a bit tricky, but it seemed to just drop in pretty easily.

And then number three truss arrived! What an awesome team, they just kept going...

The second ridge beam was lifted and put in place.  I started counting how many pieces were left, and realized that things were going pretty quickly.   Rob shot me a grin and said "this is going really well!". Wish I had a photo of that grin...it was pretty wicked, and it made me relax too.

As soon as Rob and Bob had each piece in place, they would release the straps, and toss them down to Murray and Scott, who would take them over to the stack of timbers, and loop them around the next piece, and then the crane operator would start winching the timber up. Did I mention they were an awesome team?

The purlins pretty much went into place smoothly (the dovetails are not fitted tightly - they are wedged in place later but they pretty much lock the trusses together).

It really felt like a rather short period of time had passed, when the last piece got dropped into place, and everyone headed for some shade and some water.

The crane operator packed up and drove away, and our fabulous friends departed to carry on with whatever we had pulled them away from at such short notice.  Words really can't describe how grateful Rob and I were that they came.


We could admire the frame forever I think, as it really is lovely to look at when it's all assembled. We wandered over a couple of times that night to look at it.

Somewhere in between getting the base frame up, and getting the roof on - we celebrated my birthday.  Rob secretly built 2 benches for me as a gift. Knowing how much I love being by the river, he installed one at the river edge where I used to sit on a fallen log, positioning it securely on the rocks with some rocks in front for my feet to rest on.  He showed me this one a few days before my birthday as he knew I'd discover it as soon as I visited the river edge on my day off. It's a lovely bench, made out of a cedar log from the property.

The second one he placed in another favourite spot, but I didn't see it until my birthday.  When the river is low, there are stepping stones over to it. When the river is higher, I can splash through shallow water over to it. There are pollywogs and minnows in this area, and I can spend hours watching them. I put some more Tibetan flags up nearby as soon as I could too, to send more good karma out to the river and beyond.

Both benches are in the shade for part of the day, and I will often sit first on one, then make my way over later to the second one.  Both locations offer wonderful views of the dragonflies, swooping above the river, and along the edges. And doing what dragonflies do.

Often they will pause and land on our knees or shoulders, or on the pages of my book, and give us a close up look at their beautiful wings and iridescent colours.

Of course, come fall we will have to pull the benches out, as the river will rise quite a bit then, and the winter ice would destroy them.

The weather this summer has been incredible. It may have been a slow start to summer, but the summer solstice arrived somewhat auspiciously perhaps, with the arrival of a sweet beautiful snapping turtle, looking for a nesting site in front of the house.  We don't think she left any eggs in this spot, but we will be looking out for baby snappers in the area soon.

For the first time in three years we've had a real summer. Long hot sunny summer days that are more or less perfect for building.  The last two years were really difficult for construction due to the constant rain.

Rob and I have had breakfast nearly every morning on the porch of the cabin, looking over the river, and watching the antics of the humming birds. We spend many an evening in the river, sitting in deckchairs with the cool river water soothing tired feet and legs, and spend most evenings sitting quietly on the porch again, waiting for the coolness of a summer night. 

When we do get the occasional rain days, we use them to plan, catch up on paperwork and pick up hard-to get supplies in the city if we have to.  When we needed to look at windows for the workshop we tried to do it on a rainy day. Absolutely no complaints, but it's also a rather dry summer, and rainy days have been few and far between!

We sure could have used this kind of weather when we were building the house. No point lamenting it though; we are just grateful to have it now.  With the frame up, Rob began straightening and tightening it up and then anchoring it to the concrete and then installed the sills.

The sills are totally sealed to the concrete and this does cause some problems with water pooling inside the frame, but it isn't as bad as it was in the new house. Rob uses a giant squeegee to get the water away so that it doesn't stain the timbers.

While waiting for our lumber order to arrive, he made more pegs.

We did have some wood on hand so we also began to do some of the framing and there was a bit of insulation on the concrete that had to be finished.

When we heard that we couldn't get our order until after the weekend, Rob made a trip to pick up what he could so he could keep working until the remainder was delivered.

The rest arrived the following week, and he just kept on working.  The area with the plywood will house our solar batteries, inverter and other services.  For now, it provides some much needed shade, and is a good place to sit and relax with a cool drink of water!

If I am home while Rob is working, I try to bring cold drinks and snacks as often as I can.  We are extremely lucky to have a Mennonite farm nearby that keeps us supplied with a bounty of fresh produce, as well as farm fresh eggs, maple syrup, honey and homemade pickles!  We definitely eat well, and so far I've managed to keep Rob's energy levels up high enough for him to keep working! I've been happy to spend more time outside this summer than ever before, walking the property, and bringing my camera along to capture photos of the wildlife and plants, in the hopes of identifying some of them, and learning more about others.

I was pretty pleased to get a better look at a black and white warbler, as well as a photo.  Usually they flit by the cabin, and I never get a good look at one.

While I'm out, I can also pick some wild raspberries.They are the most plentiful we've seen, and although we are in competition with the chipmunks, birds, wasps (and perhaps the family of foxes), there is more than enough to go around.

When it gets too hot I just head back down to the river, where I can sit near the cool water, on one of my fabulous benches.

So far the forecast for early August looks good.  We'll try to continue with the framing of the workshop, and the installation of the plywood roof and walls, while we wait for the windows to arrive. Then the task of putting on the foam will begin again.  It should go more quickly than the house, as the workshop is quite a bit smaller and less complex. Then it will be time to put on the metal roof, and the solar panels. We aren't sure how much we'll get done in the next month or so, but  I guess we'll know more by the time I work on the next blog!