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 ....

May becomes June

Well, no sooner did I get back from visiting family in BC than Rob left for a few days to visit his family. It would be nice to be able to go on these family visits together of course, but it is just not possible right now. I was happy to hear that while I was enjoying some of the best weather I have ever experienced in BC,

Rob was back here basking in some warm temperatures and sunshine as well. Well "basking" might not be the right term, as I came home to quite a few changes. Rob had been busy here in the cabin and had also been successful in getting his solar system working. (With Jet's help apparently).  I must say I did feel a little guilty that while Rob was here looking after 4 cats, (one that requires insulin shots twice a day, and one on meds) and Jet, and working away on house plans, I was having fun visiting family, snacking on local delicacies like "candied salmon" and local gelato, and lounging by the sea in the sun.  And lamenting that I wasn't there long enough to be able to visit all of my fabulous nieces and nephews and their children.  So while it wasn't quite the seaside experience that I had, I was pleased that Rob was able to take some time to go relax and visit with his family, although go figure - he spent some of that time working on repairing his Mom's porch! He's always happiest when he is building something.

While Rob was away, Jet and I had a good talk about acceptable behaviour, barking, apple washing, and the like. We did some yoga (doga if you are a dog) and made sure that all that male bonding that went on while I was away didn't erase Jet's ability to be in touch with his feminine side.... I'm sure you'll see the improvements the next time he blogs.

On the whole, May has been rather cool and damp, but I still get out for lots of long walks every day, and have been getting my first good look at what kind of plants come up here in the spring.
I am amazed by the variety of plants and wildflowers, and have been trying to learn to recognize some of them.  Identification isn't always easy and I may have some of these wrong, but I think this is a wild geranium.

A somewhat blurry shot of fringed polygala, also known as gaywing. I went out to get a better photo, but the flowers have already faded away!

Tucked in around a rock I found round lobed hepatica

And around another rock, but only for the briefest of time a trumpeted honeysuckle

Along the edge of the road we put in last fall, the plants are surprisingly already filling in, and every day I discover something new growing. There are wild strawberries, buttercups, and what may be wild bergamot, but I have to wait until the flowers pop out more to be sure.  Also lots of trilliums, pretty ferns, thistles, mulleins, and of course - poison ivy!

The air is still thick with the scent of blossoms, as the hawthorn trees produce huge numbers of flowers.

The wave of black flies seems to have subsided, and we are now into mosquito season. Thank goodness the dragonflies are also out, as they apparently love to eat mosquitoes!

We went out and bought those attractive mosquito head nets that drape over our baseball caps and although we may look odd, they work. They enable us to continue to play with Jet outside each day, and to walk, and do some work outside of the cabin. If it is sunny or breezy the mosquitoes are not quite as voracious, and they will drop in numbers over the next couple of weeks. We are lucky to have a beautiful screened in porch, but it has been rather chilly, so we haven't been able to put it to much use yet, but we will.  On one of the days that was a bit warmer, I did manage to pull out my paints and work on a couple of tshirts on the porch table, so I am looking forward to doing more! It's such a beautiful space and I was entertained the entire time by the antics of the hummingbirds at the feeder outside of the porch.

On the whole I would have to say that the month of May has gone by in a bit of a blur. On top of my trip in early May I have been getting into a routine of working a couple of shifts at the shop each week, continue to take a yoga class once a week, and the riding program I volunteered for begins next Thursday night. I love working in the shop, it is funky and fun with lots of good karma! The owner is wonderful, I have met some delightful people, and it is a pleasure to spend time there.

I was hoping to put in a veggie garden this spring, but decided that for this year I will just plant some herbs and try my hand at some container gardening for lettuce, radishes and green onions. When I visited my brother and sister-in-law in BC, I wandered around their gorgeous garden and was inspired by how my sister in law creates incredibly whimsical spaces all over their property. I tried to take a really good look at her garden, and hope I can create similarly interesting areas around our new house in the years to come. In the meantime, I tried my hand at fixing up a little space in the garden in front of the cabin. Rob had found some old drawers lying around the property, and I managed to pick up some pots at a second hand store, so I arranged them in the garden along with a little birdhouse that was already there, and was pleased with the results. I am hoping there is enough sunshine there to get a few things growing this summer.

Somehow during my absence, Rob managed to find some of my favourite garden sculptures, chimes and "things" that I had thought were forever packed away in storage, and I was delighted to discover he had tucked them into the garden here when I returned.  Rob's Mom had already created a pretty little garden space in front of the cabin over the years, so with some herbs growing, and my chimes chiming, it feels a little more like "home". I know that it will be a while before we have any semblance of a garden around the new house, so it's wonderful to work at growing something here for now. I'm still sad that all that remains of the lovely old oak is that stump though.

High winds snapped a number of the spruce trees this winter, including a couple on the river side of the cabin. We spent some time this month cutting the remaining parts of them down, as well as some of the other trees that had been damaged by the falling spruce, or that had snapped off due to the heavy snow and ice this winter.  We have a small path that runs from the cabin down to the river and along the edge a ways, so I have slowly been trimming back the branches a bit so we don't get any branches in our eyes when we walk.  I have been lining the pathways with a lovely thick layer of wood chips that should help keep the poison ivy down too. The air is filled with the sounds of the birds, and the river is still quite high and noisy, so it's pure pleasure to be outside enjoying it all. With the unfortunate loss of the spruce and surrounding trees, we have gained a bit more view of the river now. This is the view from the kitchen window.

And the view from the porch!

Rob has been diligently working on the final plans for the new house and the number of details involved constantly amazes me. We have decided (again!) to go off grid, and we are both really pleased about it. We now have to consider who to get to do the initial clearing of the land, the septic and the drilling of the well. When we built this log cabin 22+ years ago, we would sit in the kitchen at a neighbour's house and she would help us with suggestions of who to go to locally when we needed something done. As well, we had the help of one of her young lads with the initial log structure when we were building. Well now that lad is grown up with kids of his own, and last week we found ourselves sitting in his kitchen with him and his wife, getting the names of local people we could use to help with our septic etc.! What a lovely circle.....

We also had the opportunity to go visit a timber frame home at Gibson Timber Frame where Rob had taken a course last year. Although their's is a much higher and different structure than ours will be, it was still lovely for me to be able to stand inside the house and get a feel for the airiness of the building and a taste of what is possible. I think both of us began to feel the reality of building our new home when we stepped inside theirs!

This week Rob also took the final plans to the building inspector, which for me, really made everything seem much more real. Of course, he came back with more forms to fill in, as there have been some changes to the requirements since we picked up the original forms. The changes are all about new energy saving requirements. As Rob has been working hard on designing an energy efficient house all this time, (that far exceeds the basic requirements) we should be able to get the new forms quickly filled out and turned in early next week. This is just one of the many design views Rob had to put together. Yikes!

As things are starting to ramp up now, I know it will be harder to keep up with this blog, but I will try to post a little more often if I can, and maybe just keep the postings a tad shorter. As I sit here today, the sun has come out, the temperature outside is rising, and I can hear the sounds of the birds, and the river.  I cannot believe we have been here in this beautiful place now for 11 months already.  Every day has brought something new and interesting, and we always say how lucky and grateful we are to have had the opportunity to make the changes we did. As we move into the actual building of the new house, we are both really excited about it, and looking forward to the next part of our adventure. It should be an interesting summer!