Farewell to 2017

I think that if I decide to make any New Year's Resolutions for 2018, the top one on my list should be to keep the blog updated a bit more often!  The last post was in August, so the task of looking back over the past four months worth of photos and diary entries and then trying to write something just doesn't work all that well for me, and I obviously should have kept up with it better. That said, I'll do my best to put a little something together although it may seem to be a bit of a choppy read at times.

Recent temperatures have been around minus 33 degrees C, and with the biting cold and a thick blanket of snow on the ground from the December snow storms, I must say it's quite lovely to be looking back to photos I took in August and and to remember a time when it was warmer, with a land covered in greenery. Funny too, to think that back then I complained that it was an unusually cool summer!

The end of August saw us getting ready for the concrete pour at the entrance of the workshop:

And a small porch area at the front entrance of the new house:

Rob prepared both areas, and then decided to prepare an extra pad next to the workshop as well; one that would serve to hold our propane tanks, in case there was enough concrete left over to do so.

Alas, due to a slight miscalculation, there was quite a bit of concrete left over! On the plus side, we definitely had enough for the propane tank "pad" but there was still had an awful lot of concrete leftover. Unfortunately, concrete trucks hate waiting while you try to build something to contain the excess, so with only minutes to decide what to do, he hastily plopped down some 6x6 timbers and had them pour a quick pad next to an existing one elsewhere on the property.  And this is where it will sit, possibly forever, as a constant reminder that when calculating cubic yards, 3x3x3 feet does not equal nine. Another useful fact is that concrete flows downhill as evidenced by the wonky corner. Again, on the plus side, the slab has excellent drainage. I'm thinking maybe we could build a little goat shed on it in future. Goats won't mind that it isn't perfect will they? Or maybe it will work for a small pony! (More likely though it will end up as a base for a wood shed. Still, it was fun to dream.)

As soon as we got over the "concrete thing" (note from Rob: I'm not over it yet!) we moved on and got back to work.  It was time to finish the back roof on the workshop, as we had run out of time the previous fall and didn't want it to go another winter without the roofing and ridge cover.  I don't think Rob was eager to get at it, but if it's any consolation, we think it may be the last roof he has to do (not true of course - see later in blog)!

I think it came out looking pretty good, and it was a relief to see it get done this year.

The September long weekend was rainy and cool and probably not a surprising ending to the "summer that wasn't".  With morning temperatures of only 3 degrees, and imminent frost warnings, we decided we'd better service the tractor and generator while the weather was still reasonable, as neither are tasks you want to do when it's cold or snowing!

With some of the outdoor tasks done, Rob got back to constructing the interior window frames.  Our bathroom frame was made of lovely cherry wood, and is truly beautiful, but it certainly was a bit of a job getting it installed behind the timber brace (it looked so easy in the drawings)!

Next came  the kitchen window frame. It has a sweet accent line of maple on the sill - which, as it turns out, is due to another mistake Rob made, but no one will ever know that (Rob's note: until now!) I think it looks perfect (he shouldn't have told me as I would never have guessed).

As always in September, we began to feel a bit of pressure due to the change of seasons. Rob was anxious to get at acid staining the concrete floors while it was still warm enough inside the house. He was going to have to move out the wood stove, so there would be no source of heat while he was doing the floors.  We had to clear all of the floors of building supplies and stuff, and move everything into our bedroom (which will have it's floor done later) and started doing some test areas on the concrete.

We did our tests in the guest bathroom, as this floor has to be tiled anyway because of the shower, so our test areas will be nicely covered up.  But before doing these, we placed a few of the floor tiles down just to confirm that we liked the choice of tile we'd made - and we did. We picked tiles that look like weathered wood with a bit of old blue paint on them and I love them.  It's a small bathroom, so we could splurge a bit on a nice tile, and Rob had picked them up earlier last year.

The first week of September saw a whole new project enter into the scheme of things. Our friend Bob who has always come to help when we needed a second pair of hands, had asked Rob to help teach him how to build a timber frame structure.  He wanted to build a small one on his own property to use for wood storage.   Rob was more than happy to oblige, as it would be a small way to thank Bob for all his effort and help.  So a deal was made to help Bob on the days that the weather was good, and on the rainy days Rob could continue working on the interior of our house. The timbers were brought to our place as we had all the tools here that would be needed, as well as a perfect setup for working on them.

Amazingly, in mid September our summer suddenly arrived! We had big beautiful blue skies, endless sunshine, and warm temperatures. It was great to be able to work comfortably outside wearing T-shirts although the mosquitoes and no-see-ums were back out in full force too, which seemed strange given the time of year.

If I had a day off work and they were busy working on the timbers, I would help prepare something for our lunch together.  Sometimes Bob would bring a nice homemade soup for us, and I was delighted when Rob set me up in the new house with a bit of work space and a hot plate, and I "cooked" our first lunch there.  Although I was technically cooking in what will eventually be my sink area, it was a total joy to be in our light filled space, window open, looking outside at the lovely river, and imagining the times to come. When the guys showed up for lunch I couldn't help grinning and exclaiming "I'm cooking lunch in my new house!".

Once they finished with the timber preparations, we moved them all over to Bob's place, where he could finish up some of  the remaining work on his own, such as making the braces.  When he was ready, Rob would go back and help with getting the frame up.

The September weather was incredible, and for the first time all year we found ourselves spending time in the evenings relaxing down at the river's edge, and we even went in for a swim a couple of times!

Some evenings, as we sat in our favourite place at a point above the river, we would see the Osprey fly by.  A short time later we would hear the telltale splash as it hit the river, in search of a fish for dinner.  I still haven't actually watched one do that, but I hope to someday.

As the end of September approached we knew that these warm summer-like days were about to end so we made the most of them.  I would rush home from work each day to grab a bit of that warmth and sunshine while I could. The birds were beginning to migrate, and we knew this weather couldn't last. But with promises of the weather holding for a little while longer, we decided to make a trip out and pick up some timbers for our entrance ways, as it seemed like we might have time to get them ready and installed.

During the first week of October, Rob and Bob got Bob's frame up. Well, it took two tries, as they discovered a few adjustments that needed to be made!.  But they didn't lose too much time, and Bob hoped he would still have enough time to get his roof up and on before the snow arrived.

We were glad we could do a little something in return for Bob's efforts, but now it was time to get back at our own project again.  Rob began cleaning our concrete floors in preparation for the acid stain.

He also had a design in mind for the baseboards, and needed to cut the drywall off a bit where it met the floor.

He taped cardboard between the floor and the drywall before applying the stain, so the drywall wouldn't get sprayed (it did anyway!) and then sprayed 2 coats of the acid stain on using a standard pressurized hand sprayer.  After the stain dried he had to neutralize, wash and scrub off the residue, using the shop vac to remove any excess water.

We loved the way it turned out, but knew it might change a bit after we put on a finishing coat to protect the concrete surface.   This is how the guest room looked before the protective coating:

A view of the kitchen while the acid stain was drying:

 The front entrance:

The kitchen and dining room:

I loved the turquoise colour running through the kitchen!

So the colours worked great but when we put the finishing coat on - ugghhhh.... it was too shiny! It was supposed to be a matte finish and it just didn't come out that way at all. It was also really "patchy" looking, with varying glossiness and although we loved the depth of colour, it just wasn't what we wanted.  Rob did some research and came up with a new product to try that was guaranteed to be "matte".

While we waited for delivery of the new floor finish, Rob's birthday arrived, and we took the afternoon to go for a glorious walk in the very beautiful Shaw Woods.

We've seen snow here on Rob's birthday in the past, so we really appreciated how lovely it was to be out in the woods enjoying warm weather and brilliant sunshine, with all the truly golden colours of fall all around us.

It was also great to have a visit from our wonderful friend Marilyn just before Rob's birthday - no photos (unfortunately) but a perfect day. Several years ago Marilyn gave Rob a ceramic geodesic bird house that has graced our driveway ever since we started building. At least she got to see it - a few days after her visit a branch came down in a windstorm and destroyed it. It must have been waiting to see her before leaving!

With November fast approaching, we still had more than a few tasks that needed completing before the weather changed. Rob was still hoping to get the exterior timber structures up in the porch areas where we had poured the concrete, so each day he would work putting a layer of the new finish on the floor, then while it was drying he'd go up and work on the timbers.

He first had to sand down the glossy finish on all the floors,  and then applied the new product. We lost a bit of the depth of colour in the process, but we were both really happy with the results.

As soon as the timbers were ready, Rob moved them down to the new house, and was even able to get a protective coating of Cetol on them.

The weather was beginning to change and I started pulling out the garden, gathering wood and kindling to store on the porch, moving my summer clothing out and back into storage, bringing winter clothing in, and getting the cabin sorted out.

We moved the wood stove back into place in the new house, serviced the snow plow, and got the truck ready for winter.

We still had more than a few cords of firewood to split, so stopped everything else and took a couple of days to get it done together.  Then we had to move what we hoped would be enough of the dry split wood down closer to the cabin, and got it neatly stacked and covered.

We also took some over to the new house and stacked it under the shelter of the workshop roof.

Rob made one more trip over to our friend Bob's to help him get his roof on, although they had to wait until a snow squall passed before they could finish it. Bob is at a higher altitude than us, so often gets snow when we don't.

We didn't quite get our entrance way timbers up in time, as then it snowed here too. And got much colder!

It sure was pretty though.

Our long time friends, Gary and Liz decided to come up from Florida for a visit.  While we were really looking forward to seeing them, we couldn't help but wonder why anyone would leave Florida in November to come to Ontario!  We can only guess that they missed the snow and crisp cold air! Luckily we were able to provide them with plenty of both.

Rob decided to move a few things into the new house so that we could have a more comfortable visit with them, so moved in our fridge, dining table and chairs, two living room chairs and our stereo and speakers.  While we still couldn't offer them a comfortable place to stay, we could at least gather easily around the wood stove, and provide some snacks and such.  With a hot plate and a bit of planning, we even managed to provide a hot soup for lunch, and a simple dinner of veggie burgers and salad for a quick dinner!

Here I am (slightly blurry...) cooking our first dinner in the house!

And with our friends in our dining room:

We even managed to get out for a drive and showed them Bob's new (finished) timber frame.

After they left, it warmed up very slightly and Rob decided it was a good time to get the generator hook up installed while he had a chance. This will allow us to start up the generator and plug it into our off grid system if we need to charge the batteries, or simply run off of the generator at any point. He also decided to try to get the timber frame structure up under the roof overhang of the shop and new house front entrance.

We managed to get them up, but not totally installed, when it snowed again, and our temperatures plummeted. They will probably have to remain in this state until spring.

We always look forward to winter, and the changes it brings, but we always forget that it brings some new challenges with it.  The shorter hours of daylight result in Rob stopping early in the afternoon in order to get Jet out for one last walk before darkness falls. With an unusually cold December, we went through a lot more fire wood than normal, and it was a bit more effort to keep both the cabin and the new house warm.  When it warms up a bit we get snow, and then we spend a day plowing and clearing, which is how we spent Christmas Day!  Not to mention having to keep the solar panels clear of snow.

Still, it's nice in the winter to curl up in a warm house and have a game of scrabble with Jet but he was complaining that I used the "O" he wanted to use and put it on his triple letter space.   (O.k. - it might have been a staged photo as I was trying to get one of my PhotoCoach challenge entries completed - but I had fun doing it, and Jet's always willing to help out).

We also tried to take a bit of time to sit by the wood stove in the new house, while we still had the chairs and stereo there to enjoy.  It's nice to sit and listen to some of the many CD's we have that have been tucked away in storage all this time - not to mention enjoying the sound of real speakers! We've been listening to a limited number of CD's through a Walkman plugged into a docking station for far too long...

All this will end though, as we are about to move that little bit of furniture back out, so that Rob can begin the task of taping drywall, sanding, and painting. The house is about to go through some real changes!

He's spent the last week or so trying to get his workshop organized so that he has room to build the cabinets and things that will fill the new house.  Wisely, he decided not to rent a floor sander over Christmas to do the upper floors!  Instead, we curled up on Christmas Eve, with our little tree outside all lit up, and toasted each other with hopes that Christmas next year will truly be celebrated in the new house.

New Year's Eve came and went, with severe cold warnings, and bright blue skies.  We stayed pretty close to the wood stove for the most part, although I couldn't resist bundling up and going down to see the changes in the river.  This time last year the river was wide open, but this year there was a small narrow channel here and there, and for the most part it was mostly ice.  While there are lots of animal footprints along the edges, you won't see mine as I am pretty cautious not to get too close to the edge, which still changes almost daily.

And so, as 2018 begins, we continue to dream and plan and design the house interior, and look forward to the coming months as everything (hopefully) comes together. Our time here in the cabin has been sweet, and I know there are things I will surely miss, but at the same time I am looking forward to the change.  We are anxious to pull out our boxes of "stuff" to see what has survived, to rediscover some of the art work we have missed seeing on our walls, and to listen to more of the music we have missed all this time.

My mantra this year is simple, yet complex. It is "Community".  For while this project has gone on, it is something we have had in some ways, but not in others.  I hope that the finishing of this house will bring more community back into our lives somehow, whether through more frequent visits with friends, or the bringing together somehow of more like minded people.  I'm not sure yet where it will begin, but I know this word is for me this year, so I will remember it, sing it, chant it, and see what happens.

Wishing all the very best for 2018, and peace, love and joy to all.

Catching up

Well, I must say that trying to fill in a blog posting after a nearly four month hiatus is a bit of a daunting task! Rob had hoped to do an interim post with more specific details on the installation of our off-grid power system but there were a few changes necessary so it will have to wait. In the meantime I kept an ever growing pile of photos on the side; hoping to eventually sort through them and come up with a post of my own.  "The best laid plans..." as they say.

So now I find myself, on a rather dark, cool and dreary late May day, hoping to at least write some kind of update. I'm going through our photos and notes, and trying to make some sense out of what we've done in the last few months.  I almost don't want to look at any of the pictures of ice and snow though. It was a rather long winter, and a cold dark spring. The leaves are only just now coming out in the trees, and we are all anxious for some warmer and brighter summer-like weather.

With apologies to Rob; for my lack of details on the installation of the batteries, and powering up of the electrical system, and apologies to anyone reading this, as there may be a bit of a jump-around here and there on the time line. Here I go ...

Rob completed the box that holds the batteries, and one cold March day we moved the batteries out of the dining room in the cabin, and over to the new workshop.  Jet barked a big "Yippee", as his bed had been moved to make room for the batteries and it could now go back to it's original place in the dining room. And I was pretty glad to see those batteries leave this little cabin as well!

Soon, the batteries were all installed into the new box that we had built.

Then we checked them all to make sure they were o.k and establish a base level for voltage and specific gravity (which is used to measure the state of charge).

Somehow, I think I thought there would be more fanfare, but we were both pretty chuffed when we "flipped the switch" and voila - we had real power ! Up until now we'd been running off of a single portable solar panel and when necessary, a generator.

Now we could begin to monitor what really happens on snowy days, or cloudy days, in terms of power being generated from those awesome panels!

We had some beautiful, and unusually mild days in March. And we also had some pretty solid snowstorms.

I would say that I probably spent more time outside this winter than ever before though. It was lovely, and as always a lot of my time was spent down at the river's edge.

Rob continued to work on the workshop, putting in the rest of the second floor:

and hoped for some warmer weather to arrive, so he could do the work necessary to get the house wrap off of the workshop windows, and allow some natural light in.  On the other hand, it was pretty cool to be able to turn on a light! It will be a while before Rob gets this space set up the way he wants, but it sure is fabulous to see his hand made workbench there after all this time.

The weather really didn't cooperate in terms of warming up, so he switched back to working on the new house.  The scaffolding was erected once again, and he donned a clean room suit, and face mask for protection from the insulation fibers, and started tucking insulation into the ceilings. I think after all the stress of installing the batteries and configuring the system, it was nice to do some "mindless" work.  Mind you, we did still have to figure out how best to use the bats of insulation, cut each piece to fit, and move that scaffolding all around, climbing up and down pretty often - which had it's own issues!

It was slow work, but rewarding to see some progress! After the insulation went in, Rob added some Tyvek on top, to help prevent any insulation particles filtering through the ceiling planks, especially if the planks shrink over time, allowing the fibres to escape out. In a regular house, the vapour barrier would prevent this, but this style of building doesn't use one, and the Tyvek is moisture permeable which is important.

Not only was it great to see progress, but those huge piles of bags of insulation started to go down!

In the meantime, I joined a fabulous Photo Challenge (thank you Charles and Photo Coach!) that offered weekly constructive critiques of photos, and I found myself traipsing around the countryside looking for inspiration. As much as I love driving around this area, I was somewhat disheartened that as late as March 26 we still had snow on the ground, and no sign of it going any time soon. (And it snowed in April and again in May!) I loved coming across the Mennonites in their buggies one Sunday morning. I don't usually like to photograph them, but as it was from quite a distance, and not at all intrusive, I thought it would be o.k.

I never did use that photo for the challenge, but I did eventually find the tree that I wanted for the challenge that week!

Back at the house, Rob was working on the final electrical wiring while also finishing the insulation.  As always, one job precludes another, so he's constantly "changing hats". He needed to run the rest of the wiring in the ceiling before he put in the insulation. The time had also come to finalize all of our wiring and lighting plans. We've found some interesting LED lighting strips that will add some programmable colours, as well as some interesting back lighting to some areas. We spent quite a bit of time going over to the house at night to make sure that the lighting we've chosen would be adequate, as sometimes it's hard to tell during daylight hours. We've also accumulated some nice lighting fixtures over the years, so should be able to put them all to good use now. With our final electrical inspection looming, we also had to properly finish all the switches, plugs etc. but we won't install our final lighting fixtures until the drywall has been sanded and painted, and we'll be producing less dust and dirt!

While the scaffolding was up, he also took a great leap of faith, and installed the final two upper windows. After all the unresolved issues we had with our (now defunct) window supplier, we weren't even sure that the ones they had left us with, would fit as promised, but miraculously - they did ! Whew.... Nice to see some part of the window fiasco go right (however, they were not the specified glass - you can't win them all)! And they do look beautiful, and bring in even more light.

April 7 we were dismayed to wake up to (a lot) more snow....and wondered if the returning geese would simply turn around and head back south! Despite our attempts to drive out that day, we couldn't make it up the hill and I never did make it to work.

On the plus side, it made for some intricate patterns in the wetland when the melting waters froze up again!

A week later though, it really did begin to feel like spring. There is a saying here that it isn't spring until the phoebes sing, and sure enough one day we heard the return of the phoebes.

Although there was still a bit of snow lingering in piles behind the house, and in the woods, the temperatures began to warm up, and we could shed our winter coats and boots, and believe that winter was finally over.

We ventured out for a hike in the beautiful Shaw Woods one weekend, skirting the snow and ice that was still here and there on the pathways, and noticed the water levels of the Snake River seemed pretty high. This walkway abruptly ended as the boardwalk was under water.

Our own wetland area was beginning to look like a small lake.

Both the cabin and the new house were high and dry though, so we didn't worry...

Rob kept plugging away at the insulation:

And I kept an eye on the river, as it rose higher and wider than either of us had ever seen.

As soon as the insulation was installed, Rob set to work on staining the pine for our wood ceilings. We had chosen a sort of white wash effect for the pine that we thought would lighten the ceilings, and make the timbers stand out more.  I thought it would take forever to do, but Rob set himself up outside with home made drying racks, and made pretty quick work of it all. (You can see the racks in this earlier photo that I took, below) It made for an easy way to stack the wood while it dried, and then Rob could move them back into the house.

We knew we had only a small window of time to work outside before the bugs arrived.  It's no fun trying to stain wood when bugs keep landing on the planks! Luckily we got them all done in time.

I escaped from the rising waters (and promises of helping to stain all that pine!) and made a quick trip to BC for my Mom's 90th birthday, and to visit family. I was surprised to discover that I took very few photos, but I was intent on soaking up as much family time as possible! It was wonderful to see everyone, and spend some time in the big city as well as the lovely Sunshine Coast.

While I was away, Rob told me that the river had pushed further into our wetland and over to the neighbouring wetland, breaching our road somewhat.  A minor issue - and nothing like the devastation elsewhere in the province where record high water levels caused a lot of destruction. By the time I came home, the waters were receding although the river still remains high. And I apparently missed another day of snow!

While I was away, the installation of the pine ceiling began too. What an amazing feeling it is to look up and see a finished ceiling! There is still lots more to go up but already we can get an idea how the house will look.

I thought this would be the first spring that we wouldn't be worrying about the weather, as we had no major outside tasks planned for early this year. I had clearly forgotten about our tandem load of firewood that should have been sawed and split last fall.  (Unfortunately it snowed in November when we planned on doing it, and the snow never left!)  Just as both the black flies and mosquitoes emerged, Rob set out with his chain saw to prepare the wood for splitting.  The logs arrive in 16 foot lengths and these need to be cut into 16" pieces. It's heavy, dirty work, and the black flies were pretty hungry. Fortunately, a couple of rainy days gave Rob's early bites a chance to heal before he was the main course again and he moved back into working on the new house until the rain cleared and he could get back at the firewood.  Once it is sawed into smaller logs, I can go up and help with the splitting and stacking - but some of the oak pieces are pretty serious in size and we will need to split them using a wedge before we can lift them onto the hydraulic splitter.. We need to give the wood as much time as possible to dry before using it this winter. If it isn't dry enough by fall, we will have to buy some firewood as we did in previous years. (Which will mean even more splitting work for me!)

We've never split wood in the spring before and now we know why. The bugs make it really hard to work outside right now, and they are worse on cloudy, still days.  The wood seems to be an major attractant as well!

So, I think that pretty much covers the last few months.  We think we are on track for moving in by Christmas, but there is a lot of work to do before then.  We shall see how things go this summer as we continue to work on the interior of the new house, interspersed with wood splitting and all the day to day chores and goings on!  I know when the time comes, I shall miss this little cabin.  But I am just the tiniest bit hungry for a bit more kitchen space!

I'll finish with a last photo - just for fun. Looks like Big Rob and Little Al....