Meet "Millie"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still waiting for Spring

Like a tractor on an icy road, February somehow slipped past us.  Ahhh, sorry Rob - I couldn't resist ....

The icy roads I mentioned in last month's blog, didn't improve much in early February. Often a good snowfall will stick to the ice and change the conditions in our favour, but not this time. Rob was out plowing and hit a particularly icy spot, and found himself sliding off over the edge of our road. We tried using a shovel to remove all the surrounding snow from the tires, but the tractor just kept going in deeper. Rob tried to use the tractor's front bucket for leverage but that just made the tires spin, and pushed the tractor further into the bush. For a while it looked like we were going to have to call someone and get pulled out, but Rob decided to give it one more go, and he lucked out, and somehow got enough leverage to push the tractor out backwards and back onto the road.

On the plus side, that was the last time we saw a snowstorm! There have been quite a few to the south of us, but so far the Valley has missed them all, and we haven’t plowed since. Not that winter is quite over. Certainly the cold weather is still with us, with wind chill and frost bite warnings continuing, even now that it is mid-March. I don’t know how many times we’ve thought “this must be the last really cold night”, but then we see more in the forecast. Hopefully not too many more, as we have are now burning up the last of our firewood.

Rob has managed to spend a couple of days in his makeshift shelter on the porch, working on timber braces, but nowhere near as much time as he hoped he would. It's just been too cold.

He has however, been able to spend a huge amount of time on the house designs, which will prove to be a good thing when the weather turns, as he can then dedicate his time to the actual building. He finished all the final window designs, and we got our last quote back and have sent in our order!

We just need to let them know what colour we want the window exteriors to be. In order to do that, we have to figure out the exterior cedar colour, and roof colour, so that we can get the window colour right. Every time I drive anywhere, I find myself looking for metal roofs, and checking out people's window colours (most of the windows are white and we know we don't want white so it hasn't been very helpful!) Rob and I both agreed we like the rusty barn roofs the best, and discovered you can actually order a rusting roof. The web sites advertise "new steel that looks 100 years old" ! It's kind of tempting, but we think there may be some issues, so we will go with a coloured roof instead. We spent a day driving around to some of the stores to see what roofing is available, and Rob got busy figuring out how much we'll need. This is the roof design, although it has probably changed since I took a photo of Rob's screen.

We just received our exterior stain samples, and have little pieces of cedar all coated with the various colours that we think we might like. At the same time, we also ordered and received some interior white "wash" samples for the pine ceilings.   Hopefully this week we will sort all these colours out, and make some final decisions.

Rob has worked his way through all of the drawings, in an attempt to visualize how he is going to assemble all the timbers once they are ready.  In one breath he is talking to me about renting a crane, vs. building his own assembly, and in the next he is back to talking about double walls, vapour barriers, and sources for the insulation.

Most days he spends hours and hours on the PC, and if I find it hard to keep up with his conversational topic switches, it's nothing compared to what I see him doing on his PC screen.  Watching how-to videos one moment, calculating costs and budgets the next, installing software for room designs to try to figure out wood stove placement, following numerous building forums, researching woodworking tools.... and that's just a small part of it!

Fortunately Jet requires daily play times, and some good long walks, so Rob has lots of opportunities to get up from that chair and get some fresh air and exercise.   Jet's always happy to go the building site, where he can check for the scent of deer, while Rob can think a bit about the house.

Jet is a bit too keen on checking for deer though, so is back to being walked on a long line again, after running off one evening and putting both Rob and I into a panic when he didn't return.  He came back eventually, tired and (perhaps) a touch contrite, so Rob has doubled his efforts now on recalls, heeling, and general off leash behaviour. They have an intricate series of game playing, interspersed with training that Jet seems to enjoy.  It's good to get his brain working too! (Jet's - not Rob's. Rob's brain is busy enough!)

We didn't think that the river surface froze over completely last year, so checked on some of our photos and sure enough, it was open in the center, and there were very few signs of animals crossing the river. But this year it actually did freeze over, and the deer have been crossing it constantly. We didn't really know if this was normal, but then we read that the Great Lakes have frozen over more than they have in decades, and even a small part of Niagara Falls froze !  So this really is an unusual year.

While we always remain cautious and stick close to the edge, it was lovely to be able to walk along and look up and down the river. But one day as I stood at the edge I realized I could hear the river running under the ice, and although the surface still appeared to be frozen, there were fewer fresh deer tracks, so I followed their cue, and decided it was time to stop walking the edge. Sure enough we had a short mild spell, and the slush began to form on the surface.

But then it got cold and everything froze again! These are Jets big paw prints.

And so begins the pre-spring tease.  A little breath of warm air followed by another deep freeze.  Slowly though things are beginning to emerge.

We didn't manage to go snowshoeing yet with our friend Bob, but we did go out for a good long walk along the road near to where he lives.

In his area there is a lot more hardwood, whereas we have a lot more cedar, balsam and spruce.  We don't have a single beech tree here, yet there, they were everywhere we looked. We think we may try planting some beech nuts here and see if we can get some growing. We had some beautiful big beech trees around the dome and always loved them.  The birds and squirrels loved the beech nuts as well, although here they certainly seem to enjoy the feast of cedar seeds so they aren't lacking for food!

We live in logging country, so I shouldn't have been surprised to see logging equipment on our walk, but I was.

This is the biggest saw I've ever seen, and it was interesting to see the equipment they use. In another couple of weeks this area will be a sea of mud, so I guess it's easier to do the cutting now.

On the way home we pass a lot of planted forests, all perfectly lined up, with the forest floor bare. Even from the car you can see through a long way!

Both Rob and I say we are reluctantly saying goodbye to winter in a way – it’s been nice to be cozied up near the wood stove, and we know we have a pile of work coming our way!  These lovely early evening winter walks are about to end.

There is a quiet beauty to our winter surroundings, a stillness and pristine whiteness.  But this morning the air was filling with sounds, the lovely sounds of small birds, blue jays, crows and ravens, and red squirrels chattering, but also the sounds of the trucks on the other side of the river in the gravel pits, chain saws in the distance…. We are slowly emerging into the sunshine and warmer weather, getting ready to build our nests.... and in our case our new timber frame house!

Other than road work

The new road is not the only thing we have been working on. Rob has been busy preparing the old sheds, so that he will have a covered in working area for when he starts working on the timbers for the timber frame. With some help from his brother Ryan, he first had to get at the old shed, which was overgrown with trees.

Then the two of them started the task of clearing out all the old wood and building materials, debris, and porcupine poop that had accumulated over the years. (O.K. I am guessing it was porcupine poop, but I am sure there is also raccoon, and other critters that have called this shed home!)

Anything that we may be able to use, was moved to a second shed.  I am pretty adamant we won't be using it for interior wood projects (again with the porcupine poop!) but we may be able to salvage some I suppose.

Rob has continued to clean out the sheds, and there were some fun things in there - like an old claw foot tub (missing two claws) and a pile of old brick  - there's got to be something we can do with those! I'm thinking the tub would be great in the garden...

Finally he was able to get the tractor in to the shed, and start the long process of scraping out the soil, and getting everything level and ready so he can add stone, and a concrete floor to work on!

At the same time he has scraped down all around the shed to give him more access too. That process brought it's own great finds - a big old metal spring harrow for my garden, or maybe at one of the bends in the new road.

In between this work and the road work, we spend a lot of time walking the land, trying to get a good feel for what is around us, for when and where the sun shines, and the breeze blows.  Trying to find our survey pins, and determine where our property ends and the neighbour's begins.  When it is hot and sunny, we are pulled outside again and again, and we must walk it 4 or 5 times a day or more.

At the end of the day, tired and dirty, Rob comes home, but always has enough energy to spend some time playing with Jet.



Then we usually all go for one more long walk, and enjoy the evening sounds and sights, before we all settle in for dinner, and some time together on the porch. Listening to the sounds of the river, the constant wind in the trees, and the rustlings in the forest, we plan our tasks for the next day, sometimes do some web or book research, chat with family and friends on the phone, and head off for a good night's sleep.