Sweet July

Pink foam, pink foam, tra-la-la.... I should write a poem....

Or not.

Because - the foam is finished!  The last of it went on this week. We would have held a small celebration, but Rob was just a tad tired and technically he still has plenty of roof work left, putting in strapping and eaves and plywood and underlay, so we decided to wait until those jobs are done. I think though, that we will have a major celebration when the metal roof finally goes on in the fall!  (Although, as Rob pointed out - he still has to build the workshop and a whole new roofing job will begin).

Still - the foam job on the house is done. And what a job that was!  Two 3" layers on the walls and three 3" layers on the roof. Rob did a very small time lapse video of how many times he went up and down the scaffolding in just a couple of hours one day.  Multiply that by the number of days and weeks he's been working on this - and well - it's no wonder he's dropped a few more pounds!

I hope the number of photos I included aren't too boring for everyone. We see the changes daily but one part of the house looks like another and if you are not looking carefully you might not see much progress (OK - there were days when I came home from work and even I couldn't tell whether there had been much progress!  But there always was....sometimes I just had to look a little harder for it!)

The wood strapping on the walls and roof basically float on the foam and are attached to the inner structure using long (13" for the roof) screws. In the photo above, the lattice structure is to allow air movement under the valley. (Can you tell that Rob has hopped onto the blog and added some details here ??)(Yes)

The area of the roof in the photo below took an extra long time as it was really tricky.  Not just because of the double valley where the three roof lines meet, but also because of the roof structure coming over the "front" door to the house. I still say that no one is going to use this door since everyone will generally enter through the mud room on the other side! This is especially so for the builder and his dog ....with their muddy feet and paws. Still, it will be a nice entrance and I can just see some nice potted herbs or funky art under that overhang (plus there is a timber structure to be added that will support the roof extension).

We did a happy dance when Rob was able to start on the next side (the east side) of the roof! Of course there is another valley on that side, so Rob wasn't as enthusiastic a dancer as I was.  Perhaps this was also due to the fact that he had to move a lot of scaffolding. Again.

Rob kept working on the east side, and slowly made his way across the roof - safety harness in place of course! Despite the harness, there are still times when I don't really like to watch him up there. My own fear of heights doesn't help.

As he neared completion of this side, we both felt like he was moving into the "home stretch". There would be only one more side to go! (Little did we know that the last side, the north side, was going to be equally tricky to do...)

Sometime during all this roof work, we had a lovely visit from Rob's cousin and her partner. They brought an incredible lunch and kind offers of help. We had to decline the offers of help though. Rob isn't keen on having others up on the scaffolding, ladders and roof. But we gladly accepted the awesome lunch! It was nice to sit with them both too, and catch up on some family news.

Whenever someone visits, we get a whole new perspective on the house.  It's as if we can see it through their eyes instead of ours for a change. Rather than seeing what is being worked on at the moment, we can take time to look at what has been done so far. With that in mind I stepped back a bit and took a photo of the house from the laneway.  Rob and I noticed that the house suddenly got smaller again as the eaves went on. And started to look like a "real" house....much  more cozier and less of a giant foam block!

A bit of a site cleanup was called for, so Rob rigged up a container that we could use to toss in all the wood off cuts. These make for great kindling in the winter!  We had done our best to contain the bits of foam that flew around during each windstorm but we still had a bit of cleaning up to do. We also have a powerful magnet on wheels that we roll around the site as well, to pick up any screws that we may have dropped. Best to find them before the tractor does. Unfortunately the magnet didn't find Rob's (many pairs) of lost glasses.

July 5th, we took a brief break for my birthday.  We went for a stroll in the river and I was treated to a very nice breakfast (farm fresh local eggs and local bacon!), a good lunch and an awesome dinner of blackened shrimp. Yumm! (Whoops, not doing so well with the vegetarian thing....) We ate dinner on the porch,  with a view of the river. What could be better? (Well, maybe being in the new house - but maybe next year!)

Rob will remember the day this next photo was taken. He says that I should have noticed when I took the photo that this piece was cut a few inches short on the right hand side. But I didn't!  He sure did though.... after it was all nicely nailed in place.

I of course, was too busy admiring the fine fit at the top!

And actually, from my angle, it looked good at the other end too.

Oh well, just another minor fix - not much I could do so I went off for a nice long walk where I came across some sweet ducks in the river and had fun trying to get a photo of them before they heard me and swam off.

Later on I ventured out into the river with my camera (gulp) and took some shots of the house from there. I really don't like walking in the river with my camera, but I try to be careful and keep in the shallower water, where the rock bottom is most stable.  A week or so later I slipped on the rocks and fell in, and was glad I didn't have my camera that time! You can't really see much of the house, which is nice for our neighbours across the river. I love the shoreline here, as we see all sorts of birds who burrow in and nest here, as well as lots of frogs, dragonflies, and damselflies. It's a pretty sweet spot.

The north side of the roof took a little longer than expected.  The chimney for the wood stove exits through this side of the roof, and Rob took the time to make sure he was running the chimney exactly where it should go. This was no time to be cutting holes in the wrong spot! As well, we will be required to have an inspection of the wood stove installation, so he contacted the stove and chimney manufacturers as well as the inspector to make sure that all the correct clearance requirements were being met.  He then built the chimney support accordingly, and cut a hole in the roof and installed it (the support is air sealed to the shell and is specially designed to be insulated).

During this time, I ended up working extra days at the funky good karma store so I missed some of the day to day building progress. I love the drive to work and back, along the back roads.  I really should try to get some photos early in the morning when the light is so soft and pretty. But here's a little taste of some of the sweet views I get. A large part of my drive is through farmland and I love the gentle hills with a view of the "mountains" behind. These are not like BC mountains of course, but they are referred to as mountains by the locals nonetheless!

I always know I'm almost home when I come around one of the corners, and first catch sight of the river!

We have a large group of Mennonites who have moved into the area, and many of them sell fresh produce, and farm fresh eggs from stands at their farms. We are able to pick up lots of fresh vegetables this time of year.  I love driving by their farms, it's always a delight to see their pretty and hard working horses in the fields. They travel only by horse and buggy, so the township has put up signs to let us know they are on the roads. For the most part, drivers do seem to slow down and pass carefully when they see the buggies on the road.

Some days when I arrive home, Rob is looking a little wild... when it is really hot out he wisely wets a piece of cloth and tucks it under his hat to help keep him cool and keep the sun off the back of his neck. Sunglasses, knee pads and safety harness are a must, along with a cordless drill and impact driver! Those flashy shoes have non slip soles on them too which helps when he is on the roof. (Note added by Rob: I always try to look my best. Dressing appropriate to the occasion is obviously a very high priority on this job)

Despite the arrival of some hot summer days and an increase in the humidity, which slowed the work down a little, Rob was able to finish the north side.... well, almost.  After I took this shot he worked on the fascia and this job did not go so well. There is a dip in the concrete pad on this side which threw the timber frame out of plumb a little and together with some other factors - everything was slightly "off" i.e. "difficult to deal with". Then he had to drill another 5" hole through the roof and foam to run the plumbing "stack" - which would have been a much easier job if it had been done before the foam and strapping was put on (another note from Rob: A small moment of forgetfulness - I had a lot on my mind :).  But he did manage to get everything finished!

Fortunately, there is some relief from the sun on the north side and this will be where we will eventually build a small screened-in porch. In the meantime, Rob sits here to cool off during the day, and there is almost always a nice cool breeze coming off the river. In the photo below you can see Rob preparing some of the strapping, and yes - those are the awesomely long screws he mentioned earlier!

And so our summer days are progressing. The long term forecast for the summer was for below average temperatures, with normal precipitation. We've quite enjoyed the cooler days and nights - not ideal for cottage goers perhaps, but rather good for building, and for sleeping comfortably at night! We've had a few ultra hot days though too - mid 30's with high humidex values and they've been brutal for working on the roof.  Our days usually begin at 6:30, with a nice homemade granola breakfast, and some time to sit on the porch and enjoy our morning coffee. Hummingbirds swoop around the feeder, and the young mergansers are busy learning the art of fishing in the river. Mom Merganser doesn't let me get very close though before she shoos her brood off the rock.

Rob usually gets Jet out for his first walk of the day and some play time, before heading off to work.

The days wind down around 7 or 7:30 p.m., usually with a cold beer on the porch and a discussion of the day's work. Jet gets fed, the cats get fed and  then we enjoy a late dinner on the porch, and before we know it, it's time for bed. Both of us sleep really well!

We always take time during the week to spend some time together. Whether it's walking in the river, or with Jet in the woods, a trip to the local lumber yard, or a drive to one of the nearest towns for supplies (or the very occasional run to the most excellent chip van.)  Summer is short, and despite the amount of work that needs to be done, we make sure we take some time together to enjoy these lovely days. It's three years this month since we arrived here, and we know how fast the time flies!

The next job will be to get the plywood up on the roof. We are really looking forward to having that job finished. With the plywood and wrap on - it will finally be waterproof again!  Timbers for the workshop have been ordered and should arrive soon; Rob will be glad to be doing some work with his feet on the ground again, at least for a little while.

Pink foam

I'm sure that May arrived with more sunshine and warm temperatures than we ever saw in all of 2014.  The heat came on suddenly, making us look desperately around the cabin for lighter clothing; shorts, t-shirts and even baseball caps to help protect us from the unexpected heat and UV rays! The anticipated bug season began, but the black flies were few, the mosquitoes are just starting to bite now, and the deer flies came early. Usually we see a good long season of each one, followed by the next. This year they all seemed to arrive, albeit in smaller numbers, at the same time.

We had humidex levels in the mid 30's followed by cold fronts that brought a sudden and severe overnight frost.  I first noticed an odd look to the sumac trees, and after checking with a nature group that I follow online, heard that many other varieties of trees in the area were affected by that same frost. Rob later noticed that our oaks were also hit.  We aren't sure yet what this means for the trees - it's highly unusual for such a late, hard frost.

May brought the return to Canada of our "old" friend Joe, and we were extremely happy to see him on the two occasions that he kindly took the time to drive up here to visit with us. I hadn't seen him in 25 years, and Rob hadn't seen him for a good number of years either.  Within minutes of his arrival though, it was as though he had never left.  I was amazed to find that even hearing his voice in our new house seemed totally familiar. We sure have missed him, and it was lovely to reminisce a little, and catch up on some of the details of our lives.

We also were lucky to have a chance to see our friend Mose, who we hadn't seen in about 7 years!  When he called to say he was about a two hour drive away, we dropped our plans for building that day and made a quick trip down to see him.  It was a short visit - as we have to try to organize ourselves around cat and dog feeding times, meds for feline diabetes etc. but still - it was a chance for a quick chat and we were glad to be able to do it.

May is also the month that I get to accompany my very sweet and generous friend Elizabeth on her yoga retreat in the beautiful Northumberland countryside.  It was a wonderful weekend of terrific vegetarian food, great yoga, kirtan and a "therapeutic art experience", all in the company of 20+ amazing women.   A big "thank you" to Elizabeth for the awesome weekend!

(And kudos to Rob as well - as he had to look after our 4 cats (with various diet and medication requirements) all weekend while I was gone, while still working on building the new house, and doing the volunteer work he does each April/May for the amazing group of people that work so hard to put on the spectacular fundraiser "Sounds and Tastes" for ACCESO International!)

The May Long weekend fell a touch early this year, and we both thought it would cause problems for the unsanctioned annual "float down the river event".  Usually the river would be high, fast and extremely cold. This year the river was slow, low and warm!  The floats cruised slowly in the current, and often would hang on the rocks below. Some of the occupants would casually hop off into the river and push the float along a ways. The lovely weather brought out a lot more entrants, and it was fun to watch them go by during the day.

While we were both busy with visiting old friends, weekend escapes, and river gazing, we were also admiring the annual return of the migrating birds. This year, for the first time, a male Baltimore oriole showed up, singing away, and I was fretting that there was no female in the area. Sure enough though one showed up, and they have stuck around, so hopefully this will become an annual occurrence. As well, another one of our favourites - the red wing black birds, have set up on our side of the river!  This is the first time we have seen them here, although in the past we could hear them on the other side.  We hope this will be a regular occurrence as well.

Every day we noticed more of the spring flowers in the forest, and loved inhaling the rich scent of the woods and river on our daily walks. Somewhere in there - there was also some progress on the new house!

Sometimes Rob laments that he is not making progress, especially after a day of planning, or redoing drawings and calculations. But I am always amazed as I look back at the photos for the previous month at just how much work has been done.

Putting the foam up on the outside of the house has been a bit of a learning curve, and as always, Rob was keen to work out some interesting ways to approach the project.

Cutting foam can be a messy job and a tricky one. Rob rigged up some cool looking hot wire gizmos that easily cut the sheets at different angles, with little mess.

Just to show how it works, he cut some fancy shapes too!

He is putting up two layers of  foam on the outside walls, and three layers on the roof. Wood strapping, and house wrap follow, then a layer of plywood.  The metal roof will be added as soon as he is finished (after we finally decide on the type of metal roofing, and get it ordered!) The wood siding will be added much later. (Hopefully some time next year)   

The foam board is quite pink when it goes on. I could get used to a pink house!  The pink fades pretty quickly though.  Rob was pleased with the way the corners worked out. (If he wasn't so busy building  - he would fill this blog in with a lot more details - like how he has to stagger the layers so the seams don't line up)

The foam cutting hot wire gizmos worked beautifully.

The windows were covered over briefly.  We sure missed the view of the river when we were sitting inside having our afternoon tea break!

(And yes - one year later we still don't have all of the windows we ordered. Sigh.)

Rob cut away the extra wrap, tucked extra foam in around the windows and tucked the wrap in around them. 

Then the eaves went in as he started his way up the first roof.

Rob was really dreading the roof work. It's a lot of ladder work, and pretty hard on knees, calves, and hip joints! It also means moving the scaffolding around. A lot. Taking it down, moving it, and putting it back up isn't the most fun part of the job.

 Luckily the foam isn't too heavy to carry around.

It's hard to believe, but when it rains, water still works it's way through some areas and drips inside. Not a lot, but some.  We will be so glad when the final roof is on!

Rob has a safety harness that he uses of course.  However, the weight of the straps, the tool belt, and the various tools, while working in full sunlight on the roof can be a bit much. The glare off the foam is pretty strong so he has to wear sunglasses too. He says the worst part though, is when he sprays foam into the cracks, then moves along. The harness rope drags through the spray foam and gets really sticky, and he then gets it all over himself as well. Nice.

And so, June arrived, and with it came early sunrises and late sunsets. Rob manages to put in a pretty long day of work at the new house. Even on rainy days, he can continue to work on projects inside the house. For the most part, he tries to take advantage of any decent weather and work as long and hard as he can outside.

We do try to take time together to sit out in the morning for a few minutes in the screened in porch of the cabin, and enjoy watching the hummingbirds come to the feeder, and the sounds of all the nesting birds in the area. One morning I saw what I thought was a shaggy dog, trotting down the path between the cabin and the river.  Rob says that I could only stutter  - "Rob, Rob, Rob.... Bear!"  A few seconds later Jet got a whiff of it and started barking. My first bear sighting!  It was a smallish one, so presumably young.  We called the neighbours to let them know it was heading their way, just in case their grandkids were outside.  They said in all their years here, they've never seen a bear.

For those of you who know how much Rob and I used to love our daily walks in a stunning wetland area where we used to live, and our devastation when that area was destroyed, along with the wildlife that lived there - you will understand how very pleased we are to have a gorgeous area here, that is home to beavers, and muskrat and turtles and other wildlife.  When a snapping turtle showed up in the garden and tried to lay her eggs, we were in awe.

We think the area is too rocky though, as she moved out of the garden, and stood staring up at our doorway for quite a while and then left.  Later in the week she tried out several spots near the new house. We don't think she was successful there either. Still, it was lovely to see her.

And just as lovely to stand in a rather spectacular spot, just steps away from the new house. It's filled with channels that the beavers and muskrat and turtles use, and we hope that we spend many, many more years here, in this lovely space, as we learn a little bit more about the wonderful creatures that live here.

Spring Arrives...slowly

I am beginning to think that I should call this blog "the weather blog" (or maybe No Skin Exposed and Slightly Fed Up) as each and every posting seems to dwell on the weather, and the fact that it usually isn't cooperating with us very much.
But as I look through the photos I took over the past  month, I can see that despite the below normal temperatures, we really did move somehow into Spring. It is most apparent with the changes in the river.

It's funny how it goes - one day there's nothing but snow and ice and more snow and ice - then one afternoon you realize you are walking on a smaller patch of snow, and a few days later you peer through the woods and there's just - bright green moss and brown leaves! There's no more white - well maybe a patch here and there... but you know that the snow is finally melting. Next thing you know, the coat you're wearing is too warm, and winter boots feel totally unnecessary!

I would say though, that I was glad of that coat later in April when it got really chilly again. And I haven't put it away - not just yet.

Throughout the month, Rob did his best to get some work done on the new house.  It wasn't easy though.
Even though he could manage sometimes to work in the cooler temperatures, all of the jobs seemed to require the use of something that was temperature dependent. (Requiring warm temperatures, not cold ones!)  He had hoped to finish up the work on the outside concrete, permanently attaching the foam slabs and sealing the screw holes with spray foam, and applying a finish on top. He realized that it was still too cold outside to use the spray foam or the finish. The north side of the house still had snow around it, and he couldn't even get at the concrete on that side for a while. Sometime around the middle of the month though, some warmer weather arrived (briefly!), the snow finally melted around the house, and he was able to get at some of the concrete slab.

When the weather was too wet or too cold, we took the opportunity to go pick up some of the items we had sourced during the winter.  We try to pick up the items we want when they go on sale. We now have two very nice low flush toilets, a kitchen sink, taps, a bathroom sink and tap, a second hand bathroom sink and tap, and a bathtub! In the end (see last blog posting) I wasn't able to try it out first in the store. But we did open the box and set the tub up here in the porch so I could climb in and check it out! It seems fine.. and is narrower and deeper than our current tub, so shouldn't require any more water to fill it.  We still need to find taps for it.

One day when it was sunny but too cold to work inside or outside, we took the time to drive up to a local sawmill to pick up the flooring for the second floor.  Although the wood looked good when they loaded it, Rob discovered when we got home that a lot of it was not good quality at all. On the plus side, it was a beautiful drive to the sawmill, on some roads we'd never been on.

Fortunately, he found another sawmill close by, and was able to pick up some much better quality wood.
Unfortunately, we now have rather a lot of v-joint pine sitting in the house! We will have to be creative with the poor quality wood we bought at the first sawmill. (It's too expensive to become firewood for that wood stove in the background!)

Ideally we should be staining the underside (which will be the ceiling of the guest room and bathrooms and mudroom) before we install it. But it is still too cold in the house to use the staining products, so we will have to do it later. I know that painting overhead is not my favourite job - or Rob's! But it made more sense to get the floor in now while we had a chance.

Rob wanted to glue the floor down, and some days it was too cold to use the glue, so he'd move on to a different job, like building interior walls! Well - the framing part at least.

Slowly, we are getting our second floor in too. It's going to be a funky little area up there, and will make for great studio space.

And yes, there will be railings!  I am really not good at heights, so it's pretty amazing that I even went up and got that shot.

When it got even colder, he moved back into working on the stair design on the computer in the cabin. It's probably just as well, it gave him a chance to slowly work back into the long days of physical labour. As a lot of the work this month involves him being on his knees, and although he wears the best of knee pads, it still means he's rather sore by the end of the day.

With the arrival of the wall studs, I could begin to picture the interior of the house. It's funny because I have looked at the drawings for months, yet for some reason I didn't have the right placement for the guest room at all ! I picked up some paint chips and started to think about colours for the various rooms. Of course we are a long way away from that just yet, but it was fun to think about it at least.

And then these beautiful glass trivets arrived, a gift from my brother and super-sis, and although they sit here in the cabin for now, shining out their lovely blue light, I can't wait to get them into a place of honour in the new house! Thank you both !!

If April didn't bring us a lot of warm days, it did bring us a lot of glorious sunshine, and deep blue skies. And the return of lots more migratory birds. After hearing the haunting sound of the sandhill cranes for a couple of days, but with no sight of them, four of them flew directly over the cabin one day. Despite their enormous size, with their wings stretched out, and their feet straight back, they simply floated higher and higher on the thermals, calling all the time, until we could barely see them, and then they just floated away. Apparently they make good use of the thermals to go longer distances with less effort during their migration! What a sight....and what a sound...

One of our other favourite sounds of course it that of the "peepers". Even now I can hear them, and all the windows are closed!  It's such a lovely sound to go to sleep to. During the day we hear the other frogs calling, and I was totally enchanted when the grandfather of all frogs hopped up the driveway this week, and up onto a rock where he sat, corners of his mouth slightly upturned, and allowed me to sit and watch him for a while. He had the longest toes I have ever seen on a frog. He slowly made his way off in the direction of the other frogs later that afternoon.

We've yet to see any turtles, but with the last of the snow disappearing around the beaver channels, we are hoping to see some soon.

The robins have returned of course, the yellow bellied sapsuckers are busy chasing each other around, the grouse is drumming in the forest, and this week the swallows arrived. (Oh dear, a sure sign that black flies and mosquitoes will soon be here too!)

Just as we were lamenting that the bugs would arrive, and we wouldn't have had a chance to experience any nice, warm and bug-free weather - the temperatures rose back to normal, and then beyond.  Bliss!! The weather we've been hoping for arrived this week.  Rob quickly changed gears, stopped doing inside work jobs, and went back to the outside concrete work.  With two good days in the forecast, and no chance of rain, he got two coats of  the finish on to all sides of the house, and started the same process (screwing in the foam slabs, foaming the holes, and applying the cloth and finish) on the workshop slab.

Suddenly, instead of hot cups of tea, I was bringing cold drinks to him.  It was a fast switch. Wearing winter coats and multiple layers one day, t-shirts the next!

Almost daily now a "new" bird arrives, and the scenery changes. I love hanging out at one of the "pond" areas and listening to the frogs on one side and the sound of the river just beyond.  This little area will dry up quite a bit once the river levels drop in the summer, but for now it's a busy spot. The ducks check it out every now and then, and later on the heron will do a little fishing here.

I even caught sight of a rather shy porcupine one afternoon (whew - glad Jet wasn't with me!) as he scuttled away through the woods and up a cedar tree, keeping a good eye on me the whole time.

After the quiet solitude of the winter, the air is full of sounds now.  There is a lot of nest building going on around the cabin, with lots of birds flying around with bits of building materials in their beaks.  I guess Rob and I are sort of doing the same - ramping up that building process! It will be interesting to see how far we progress between now and the next blog posting.