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.

Spring Progress

Well, we may have imagined that spring was just around the corner, but March managed to throw a little more winter at us, and then April did too. Just when we thought that the river was beginning to melt, colder weather returned and the river view was once again a frozen white vista.

We like to remain hopeful though, so set up chairs on top of the snow that covers the concrete pad of the house and workshop, and prepared ourselves for the warm sunny days we were sure would come.

This is the thermometer in the morning of March 29th.

After such a long, cold winter we eventually ran out of firewood. We called around, but of course everyone else ran out too, and our firewood supplier didn't have any dry wood left to sell.  Jet did his best to dig some up out of the snow. Just trying to help!

Fortunately the sun in March still managed to warm the days up a bit, so Rob was able to work a bit in his shelter on the porch, and every time he worked on a timber brace, he would produce some pine off cuts that we could use in the wood stove. It was a good incentive to get some braces cut! We do have electric baseboard heaters, but after checking on our hydro costs after using them for a couple of days, we decided to turn them off as much as possible, and use the wood stove when ever we had some wood. Rob managed to get all of the braces cut, so finally felt like he was making some progress again!

Ever hopeful, each day we would walk around the property and look for signs that the snow was receding. But we soon realized that even with some of the snow gone, the timbers remained firmly frozen into the ground, held in place by equally frozen tarp edges. It would be a while before Rob would be pulling these out to work!

We did finally manage to figure out our exterior window, exterior finish and roof colours. We walked around with this little sample for quite a while and finally stuck it in the snow above the concrete pad so we could see it in natural light. The turquoise broom handle helped us to imagine the darkers colours brightened up somewhat with a splash of turquoise paint here and there!

March is such a funny month. A tease of spring, a blast of winter. Days of warm sunshine that soften the snow during the day, making it hard to walk in any of the snow without falling in over your knees. Cold nights that turn the softened snow and roadways into solid ice. On the days when the sun came out we'd venture out, hoping for signs that we could soon spend more time outdoors. On the blustery days we would hang on to our quiet times spent in the cabin, knowing that this blissful little existence is about to change with the amount of work ahead of us.
And then finally, the snow began to melt, and the river showed real signs that it was breaking up.

I went down to the edge of the river almost every day, watching the sudden changes. One day the center of the river was filled with the most magnificent shards of ice.  The next day they were all gone.

The river opened quickly, and one evening as the sun set, we decided to go sit in my favourite spot, and enjoy the last bit of the sun's warmth, with a nice cold beer in hand. We were still dressed in our rain pants, winter coats, hats, boots and gloves though!

This time last year we were out on the porch in much lighter clothing enjoying our first cold beer of the season outdoors.  And we thought last year it was a late spring!

My March order from the food co-op included the first available and incredibly tasty micro greens.  As much as I love all the root veggies, by March I think we are all waiting for something a little more fresh tasting.

I felt like the snowshoes hares outside must feel, after a winter of chewing on bark, when the first spring shoots pop up....
(Although unlike the snowshoe hares, I am turning grey not brown!)

Suddenly in the last few days, the sunshine and occasional rain has removed some of the snow. Puddles are gathering everywhere, waiting for the ground to thaw so that the water can drain. Jet loves it and splashes in the puddles, diving right in, picking up sticks and dropping his toys into them.

He is unfortunately back to full time long line walks, no running unleashed after a jolly romp after a fox.  Rob was able to track his escape by running after him through the deep snow and up and over to a neighbours. After a really fun game of chase, Rob was able to catch Jet. Unfortunately he had no leash with him, so had to hang on tightly to Jet's harness and try to stumble back through the deep snow and through the woods. At which point the smart little fox sauntered out ahead of them both, and down the hill.  I am really sorry that I laughed at Rob's story about how he gamely hung on to Jet as he plowed down the hill in full pursuit of that fox again....
(And really sorry that I wasn't there with my camera - to catch a photo of the fox of course!)

Finally, the beams are emerging from the ice and snow, so that now we just need for things to dry up a bit and Rob will be able to get working on them again.

For of course, we forgot that melting snow produces lots of muck, and things need to dry up a bit.

It's a bit drier around the cabin, so Rob did manage to get a band saw set up (by running the cord through an open window and plugging it in to the stove outlet) and cut the curves for all the braces. He will still need to sand them all and figure out what look he wants for the edges, but it's good progress!

He also took down the second red oak tree in front of the cabin. We were both really sad to have to take another one down, but it clearly had died, as had the first. Once he took it down we were somewhat relieved, when we saw how rotten one portion was. We park the truck right next to it, so we are lucky it didn't come down on the truck during one of the wind storms!  We are hoping to be able to use some of the sound wood for the pegs for the timbers.  Rob has chain sawed and split it all, and while he wasn't able to get enough straight sound wood for all of the pegs, he did manage to get some. It's amazing how much of the wood has a bend in it, or a knot, or a bit of punky wood, which renders it useless for pegs.  We will be happy to have some of that lovely old oak "living on" in the new house.  The rest will be firewood once it dries.

Unfortunately, it also took down my clothesline! Looks like we were going to have to replace it anyway, as the line broke easily in several places.

Tonight as I write this, it's pouring rain, with a rain warning in effect.  I'm preparing to teach a fabric art course at a yoga retreat in May, and working on my notes and making sure I have enough paints and supplies. Rob is costing house wrap and flex wrap.  The wood stove is on, taking a bit of the early evening chill out of the air. Neither of us can really imagine what the next few months will be like, but I have a feeling there will be a lot more activity than there is right now! We are both anxious to get at it, and a bit nervous about how much there is to do. As the building site slowly emerges from the snow we both are also very excited.  It's a beautiful spot, and every day when we stand there we hear the migrating birds returning. So far, ducks, geese, robins, kingfisher, phoebes, turkey vultures, and yellow bellied sapsuckers have all arrived. Their arrival reminds us that no matter how busy we are, we will always stop to admire the natural beauty, listen to the sounds, and breathe......

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!