Did I mention Bugs?

Well, if April showers bring May flowers, we have to admit we were pretty nervous when April brought us more snow than rain.  The unusually cold days and cold nights had Rob sighing loudly as he looked at his schedule and watched the days slip by, with little opportunity to get outside to work on building the new house.  His original schedule was made with the assumption that he would be able to work outside for part of March and most of April!  Neither of us were thrilled when we woke up to this one morning...

But finally, the April showers did arrive, washing away some of the snow, and the temperatures rose very slightly. Rob, still dressed in warm winter gear, was able to move the timbers out from the tarps and away from the pole barn.

The logistics of moving the finished timbers to a good location, and then moving in the ones that need to be worked on, while still keeping all of them dry and clean, has proven to be a challenge. We need to sand and stain the finished ones, and then stack them carefully somewhere too, but the cold weather delayed the staining process, so we will probably start that process in June.

The ice on the river finally disappeared, and we had the treat of watching some of the ice floes float by one evening.  It felt like we were watching some kind of "Farewell to Winter" parade.

By May 9th, Spring truly arrived with warm temperatures, and Spring's forest flowers began popping up. Purple violets, white trilliums, and purple and white hepatica were the first of the flowers to show, and then that beautiful shade of bright green began to appear as the leaves came out in the trees all around us.

Usually by this date we would have seen plenty of days with temperatures in the mid teens or low twenties, but not this year.  Just as we slowly peeled off our winter layers, the black flies arrived, and they were voracious!
Rob took this photo one evening when the western sun highlighted some of the bugs in the air. All those little bright spots? Black flies....coming right at him.

We purchased mosquito nets last year; they pull over our heads to keep our faces clear of the black flies and mosquitoes.  They work well if we are out with Jet for a walk, but Rob cannot wear them if he is working, as he needs to be able to see clearly, and the nets don't allow that.  He managed to rig one up over his baseball cap so it covered his ears at least.  After waiting through the long, long winter for warmer temperatures, it always seems a shame to have to wear long pants, long sleeve shirts, and shoes and socks, but there's no way around it. Mosquitoes and black flies are very good at finding any bit of exposed flesh!  In the last two days we noticed the arrival of the dragon flies, and they usually help to bring down the insect population, and we are hoping the black flies numbers will begin to decline.

The concrete pads for the house and workshop seem to have fared pretty well through the winter.

We pulled off the plastic and layers of straw, and gave the concrete a chance to dry out a bit.  We need to remove the form braces from the sides, and attach all the pink foam securely to the concrete, now that Rob has found some good fasteners to do it.

There's a nice breeze off the river, so we can occasionally sit out on the pad, relatively bug free, and get excited thinking about someday actually being in a finished house!  We will have views from the living room of the river, the sunsets, and the yet-to-be-named area that we sometimes refer to as 'the bayou'.
When the river is at it's height in the spring, this area floods in, and the beaver gets pretty excited about the possibility of a new lodge location, and gets busy taking down our poplar trees.

We know how important beavers are to the environment (they are considered keystone species!) so we are happy to share space with them, even when they drop a tree on our power lines, leaving us in the dark for one day.... As well, they seem to leave a few trees hung up, or precariously gnawed through from time to time, so Rob has to go in and pull them down.

The 'bayou' is a fascinating area to us, and we walk into the woods and over to this area from different directions trying to get a feel for what lives there.

I have been tempted to toss in a plastic blow-up alligator, just for fun, but decided against it!

The downed trees in this area are covered with thick moss, and often we discover that there is water right beneath our feet, with only a light cover of branches or old logs keeping us dry. We've seen various ducks swimming around, can hear all sorts of frogs and peepers, and sometimes the Blue Heron sits motionless on one of the logs.  One day we followed the biggest snapping turtle I've ever seen into this area, but we haven't seen it since. There are lots of little painted turtles there though, and this makes us very happy! We love to go down and watch them, but they are rather shy, and at the first sound of our footsteps, we hear a plop, plop sound as they drop off the logs and disappear into the water.

This area dries up a lot in the summer, so the beavers usually leave then for wetter areas, but sometimes they will continue to work on building some channels. They try damming up the river to redirect the water, but every year the river moves their dam out of the way.

While Rob works extra long hours trying to catch up on his schedule of timber framing, I continue to work part time, go to yoga classes, and early in May, attended a fabulous yoga retreat in an off grid house at Harmony Dawn near Peterborough.  Elizabeth had asked me to lead a workshop one afternoon on Fabric Art, so I brought a selection of paints, and stamps, and inks and markers and various fun stuff, and the group set to creating some amazing work!

Elizabeth worked hard to provide us with a diverse schedule of yoga and meditation sessions, kirtan, lectures and even a yoga themed movie night, and I was surrounded all weekend by wonderful men and women, most of whom I had already met through yoga and work. The food was fabulous and the whole experience was delightful.  It was interesting to see how an off grid house operated with 23 guests too!

I have also been given the opportunity to help out a (new) friend, who is waiting for a hip replacement and was looking for someone who would be interested in helping her to keep her garden growing this season. My gardening guru - Sally - gives me gardening lessons, cuttings, plants, seeds,  (and last week mmmmmm fresh rhubarb). In return I try to help to dig up the earth, and plant some of her garden, while peppering her with questions and observations.  It's a lovely drive to her place, and I have the choice of taking a route that brings me past the lovely Lake Clear, or through winding country roads with views that take my breath away.

Sally is also an avid cook, so I am treated to delicious teas and sweets after my not-so-hard labour....
I would love to have a vegetable garden here, so I am hoping to learn as much as possible from her, and then we can maybe get our own garden going in the years to come. For now, we have a few pots of herbs around the cabin, and Sally is encouraging me to plant some veggies in her garden so that we may have some fresh produce to enjoy this summer.

Of course, I don't want everyone to think that I am off having all sorts of fun all the time while Rob is working away on timbers.  I am here from time to time, and try to look after the day to day stuff like cooking and cleaning and groceries and laundry, and when I can, I take up a nice lunch to Rob, or some tea and fresh banana bread so he can have a bit of a break!  I am sure that the time will come when there will be plenty of house building stuff that I will have to do, but the timber framing part isn't one of them. Which is probably a good thing, as even with the help of some tools, Rob still has a hard time moving the timbers around, and I know I can't move them at all!

Unfortunately, when we moved some of the timbers out from under the tarps, Rob discovered that they were too wet, and had developed a light mould on the outside. He has restacked them all to allow more air around them and as soon as one had dried a bit, tested to make sure that he could sand it down, and the timber would be none the worse for it. It appears that they will be o.k.

We cleaned off the concrete pad that is near the pole barn, so that we could stack some of the timbers there too. And yes - I swept it all nice and clean - so I finally did some work!

Now the May long weekend has passed, along with the annual (unsanctioned) "River Run".  On the Sunday afternoon, groups of people float by us on the river, over the small rapids further downstream (with much screaming and the scraping sounds of the floats - we can't actually see this part as it is around a bend, but we know that they don't always stay afloat! ) and on to a small beach area further along for a BBQ and party. The river is pretty fast, high and cold this time of year, so it's not something that we are likely to try. Still, it's fun to watch.

And with the May long weekend, we launch officially into summer, even if the solstice doesn't arrive until June. Rob is up early and works outside at every opportunity, and he usually doesn't come home until sometime after 8 p.m.  He is trying hard to get the new house up before winter, so that he can do the inside work during the winter months.  On rainy days, if he really can't work outside, he will use the time to order building supplies, and research the next stage of building. These days he spends a lot of time talking about fasteners - for fastening the foam to the concrete, and the timbers to the concrete, and for the roof and insulation system.  Apparently we need a lot of different kinds of fasteners.  I could probably do a whole blog just on those!

While Rob knows every piece of each timber he carves and can envision which room they will be in, and which side faces which area or room, I cannot, so I am anxious  to see how these timbers will all go together.  He marks them all with codes that he understands, ready for when they all get put together.

I like to make up my own meanings for them. The one on the right is ABN which I am pretty sure means Administer Beer Now.   It's a warm sunny evening, and I just happen to have a nice cold lager in the fridge waiting for when he gets home.   Jet is anxiously nudging my arm with his own code too. DNHSYHTTMOFP.  That's German Shepherd for Dad's Not Here So You Have To Take Me Out For Playtime. Smart boy.

September arrives with lots of changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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