Catching up

Well, I must say that trying to fill in a blog posting after a nearly four month hiatus is a bit of a daunting task! Rob had hoped to do an interim post with more specific details on the installation of our off-grid power system but there were a few changes necessary so it will have to wait. In the meantime I kept an ever growing pile of photos on the side; hoping to eventually sort through them and come up with a post of my own.  "The best laid plans..." as they say.

So now I find myself, on a rather dark, cool and dreary late May day, hoping to at least write some kind of update. I'm going through our photos and notes, and trying to make some sense out of what we've done in the last few months.  I almost don't want to look at any of the pictures of ice and snow though. It was a rather long winter, and a cold dark spring. The leaves are only just now coming out in the trees, and we are all anxious for some warmer and brighter summer-like weather.

With apologies to Rob; for my lack of details on the installation of the batteries, and powering up of the electrical system, and apologies to anyone reading this, as there may be a bit of a jump-around here and there on the time line. Here I go ...

Rob completed the box that holds the batteries, and one cold March day we moved the batteries out of the dining room in the cabin, and over to the new workshop.  Jet barked a big "Yippee", as his bed had been moved to make room for the batteries and it could now go back to it's original place in the dining room. And I was pretty glad to see those batteries leave this little cabin as well!

Soon, the batteries were all installed into the new box that we had built.

Then we checked them all to make sure they were o.k and establish a base level for voltage and specific gravity (which is used to measure the state of charge).

Somehow, I think I thought there would be more fanfare, but we were both pretty chuffed when we "flipped the switch" and voila - we had real power ! Up until now we'd been running off of a single portable solar panel and when necessary, a generator.

Now we could begin to monitor what really happens on snowy days, or cloudy days, in terms of power being generated from those awesome panels!

We had some beautiful, and unusually mild days in March. And we also had some pretty solid snowstorms.

I would say that I probably spent more time outside this winter than ever before though. It was lovely, and as always a lot of my time was spent down at the river's edge.

Rob continued to work on the workshop, putting in the rest of the second floor:

and hoped for some warmer weather to arrive, so he could do the work necessary to get the house wrap off of the workshop windows, and allow some natural light in.  On the other hand, it was pretty cool to be able to turn on a light! It will be a while before Rob gets this space set up the way he wants, but it sure is fabulous to see his hand made workbench there after all this time.

The weather really didn't cooperate in terms of warming up, so he switched back to working on the new house.  The scaffolding was erected once again, and he donned a clean room suit, and face mask for protection from the insulation fibers, and started tucking insulation into the ceilings. I think after all the stress of installing the batteries and configuring the system, it was nice to do some "mindless" work.  Mind you, we did still have to figure out how best to use the bats of insulation, cut each piece to fit, and move that scaffolding all around, climbing up and down pretty often - which had it's own issues!

It was slow work, but rewarding to see some progress! After the insulation went in, Rob added some Tyvek on top, to help prevent any insulation particles filtering through the ceiling planks, especially if the planks shrink over time, allowing the fibres to escape out. In a regular house, the vapour barrier would prevent this, but this style of building doesn't use one, and the Tyvek is moisture permeable which is important.

Not only was it great to see progress, but those huge piles of bags of insulation started to go down!

In the meantime, I joined a fabulous Photo Challenge (thank you Charles and Photo Coach!) that offered weekly constructive critiques of photos, and I found myself traipsing around the countryside looking for inspiration. As much as I love driving around this area, I was somewhat disheartened that as late as March 26 we still had snow on the ground, and no sign of it going any time soon. (And it snowed in April and again in May!) I loved coming across the Mennonites in their buggies one Sunday morning. I don't usually like to photograph them, but as it was from quite a distance, and not at all intrusive, I thought it would be o.k.

I never did use that photo for the challenge, but I did eventually find the tree that I wanted for the challenge that week!

Back at the house, Rob was working on the final electrical wiring while also finishing the insulation.  As always, one job precludes another, so he's constantly "changing hats". He needed to run the rest of the wiring in the ceiling before he put in the insulation. The time had also come to finalize all of our wiring and lighting plans. We've found some interesting LED lighting strips that will add some programmable colours, as well as some interesting back lighting to some areas. We spent quite a bit of time going over to the house at night to make sure that the lighting we've chosen would be adequate, as sometimes it's hard to tell during daylight hours. We've also accumulated some nice lighting fixtures over the years, so should be able to put them all to good use now. With our final electrical inspection looming, we also had to properly finish all the switches, plugs etc. but we won't install our final lighting fixtures until the drywall has been sanded and painted, and we'll be producing less dust and dirt!

While the scaffolding was up, he also took a great leap of faith, and installed the final two upper windows. After all the unresolved issues we had with our (now defunct) window supplier, we weren't even sure that the ones they had left us with, would fit as promised, but miraculously - they did ! Whew.... Nice to see some part of the window fiasco go right (however, they were not the specified glass - you can't win them all)! And they do look beautiful, and bring in even more light.

April 7 we were dismayed to wake up to (a lot) more snow....and wondered if the returning geese would simply turn around and head back south! Despite our attempts to drive out that day, we couldn't make it up the hill and I never did make it to work.

On the plus side, it made for some intricate patterns in the wetland when the melting waters froze up again!

A week later though, it really did begin to feel like spring. There is a saying here that it isn't spring until the phoebes sing, and sure enough one day we heard the return of the phoebes.

Although there was still a bit of snow lingering in piles behind the house, and in the woods, the temperatures began to warm up, and we could shed our winter coats and boots, and believe that winter was finally over.

We ventured out for a hike in the beautiful Shaw Woods one weekend, skirting the snow and ice that was still here and there on the pathways, and noticed the water levels of the Snake River seemed pretty high. This walkway abruptly ended as the boardwalk was under water.

Our own wetland area was beginning to look like a small lake.

Both the cabin and the new house were high and dry though, so we didn't worry...

Rob kept plugging away at the insulation:

And I kept an eye on the river, as it rose higher and wider than either of us had ever seen.

As soon as the insulation was installed, Rob set to work on staining the pine for our wood ceilings. We had chosen a sort of white wash effect for the pine that we thought would lighten the ceilings, and make the timbers stand out more.  I thought it would take forever to do, but Rob set himself up outside with home made drying racks, and made pretty quick work of it all. (You can see the racks in this earlier photo that I took, below) It made for an easy way to stack the wood while it dried, and then Rob could move them back into the house.

We knew we had only a small window of time to work outside before the bugs arrived.  It's no fun trying to stain wood when bugs keep landing on the planks! Luckily we got them all done in time.

I escaped from the rising waters (and promises of helping to stain all that pine!) and made a quick trip to BC for my Mom's 90th birthday, and to visit family. I was surprised to discover that I took very few photos, but I was intent on soaking up as much family time as possible! It was wonderful to see everyone, and spend some time in the big city as well as the lovely Sunshine Coast.

While I was away, Rob told me that the river had pushed further into our wetland and over to the neighbouring wetland, breaching our road somewhat.  A minor issue - and nothing like the devastation elsewhere in the province where record high water levels caused a lot of destruction. By the time I came home, the waters were receding although the river still remains high. And I apparently missed another day of snow!

While I was away, the installation of the pine ceiling began too. What an amazing feeling it is to look up and see a finished ceiling! There is still lots more to go up but already we can get an idea how the house will look.

I thought this would be the first spring that we wouldn't be worrying about the weather, as we had no major outside tasks planned for early this year. I had clearly forgotten about our tandem load of firewood that should have been sawed and split last fall.  (Unfortunately it snowed in November when we planned on doing it, and the snow never left!)  Just as both the black flies and mosquitoes emerged, Rob set out with his chain saw to prepare the wood for splitting.  The logs arrive in 16 foot lengths and these need to be cut into 16" pieces. It's heavy, dirty work, and the black flies were pretty hungry. Fortunately, a couple of rainy days gave Rob's early bites a chance to heal before he was the main course again and he moved back into working on the new house until the rain cleared and he could get back at the firewood.  Once it is sawed into smaller logs, I can go up and help with the splitting and stacking - but some of the oak pieces are pretty serious in size and we will need to split them using a wedge before we can lift them onto the hydraulic splitter.. We need to give the wood as much time as possible to dry before using it this winter. If it isn't dry enough by fall, we will have to buy some firewood as we did in previous years. (Which will mean even more splitting work for me!)

We've never split wood in the spring before and now we know why. The bugs make it really hard to work outside right now, and they are worse on cloudy, still days.  The wood seems to be an major attractant as well!

So, I think that pretty much covers the last few months.  We think we are on track for moving in by Christmas, but there is a lot of work to do before then.  We shall see how things go this summer as we continue to work on the interior of the new house, interspersed with wood splitting and all the day to day chores and goings on!  I know when the time comes, I shall miss this little cabin.  But I am just the tiniest bit hungry for a bit more kitchen space!

I'll finish with a last photo - just for fun. Looks like Big Rob and Little Al....

A break in winter, but not a winter break

I think I may have to start writing a daily journal again in order to keep track of what we've done each day. I gave up on keeping a journal a couple of years ago when I realized that I had a collection of old ones piling up on my shelf and not being used.  When I'm writing a blog post, I can usually just look back at my photos for the last month or so, and can easily write my update based on the sequence of photos. This time though, my photos are of little help to me. I work part time in a retail store and the Christmas season was busy, so I didn't have time to take as many photos as I usually do. In December, almost every photo I did manage to take, seemed to feature snow. And ice. And then more snow!

Snow, piling up on everything around the building site before we even had a chance to put things away.

Snow, lovely and white against a blue, blue sky on our walks.

Snow, sliding down the roof of the cabin ever so slowly, then freezing in place to completely block the window like a magical snow curtain.

 I opened the window, reached out with my hand to touch it - and poof - it all slid away.

Snow, deep in the woods, thick as can be on the evergreens, and on my sweet bench.

Snow, sliding down the valley of the new house and landing between the two buildings with a massive thump. (We'll have to figure out a way to deal with this - for now I just run between the buildings if there happens to be snow on the roof that looks like it wants to cascade down!)

 Snow leading down to the river, and the ice slowly building at the edges.

Snow, piled onto the truck  so that we always know how much  actually fell during the latest storm.

And for a break in the snow, beautiful hoar frost in the trees all along the river banks.

And solar panels, with and without snow.  Since these panels will be the source of our power in the future, I think this is going to become an important daily observation. When there is snow on the panels, it means there is no power coming to the batteries!

Here in the cabin, it only took a few snowfalls before we remembered that every winter we end up with ever increasing piles of wet mitts, gloves, hats and clothing, and no easy way to dry them. I came home from work one day to find Rob had taken care of the problem, with hooks and long screws. (Who knew those screws would be put to a good use other than for attaching foam?)

Not only does this arrangement work to dry things quickly, we can now find matching mitts when we need them!  We'll have to figure out a way of doing something similar in the new house.

What I don't have photos of,  is all the other things we did these last several weeks. The discussions, decision making, web site research, emails to various companies, trips to electrical contractors, building supply stores, and plumbing stores. The driving back and forth with wiring, propane tanks, and conduit. Picking up locally  milled wood, and unloading it all into the workshop, carrying it through the snow and ice. Taking back the propane tanks after discovering they were already two years into their limited 10 year "service life" (and trying not to be upset with the poor customer service on that purchase!) The many deliveries  of propane heaters, hoses, connectors, hot water tanks, and some odd shaped tools (all with many thanks to sweet Elizabeth for allowing us to use her store as an easy drop off point). We try to buy locally as much as possible, but there are a lot of items that we simply cannot find here.

There are no photos of the day Rob's hard drive ceased to function (which is a blessing); the files lost, two years of photos gone.  (Note to readers: it is not wise to leave a comment with the question "Did you have a backup?". Just sayin' ) Thankfully most of his drawing files, and building documentation were kept on another PC. so all was not lost (and there actually was a backup, but it was quite an old one) !

All this to say, that this will likely be a rather short posting, based mostly on our memory.

First though;  a quick update on the red squirrels and the flags.  My "courage" flag remains, albeit hanging by a thread.

Another string of flags are now being pilfered at another location.

It makes us smile when we see them, and that's not a bad thing...

Work on the inside of the workshop has continued when possible.  We got two exterior doors installed after swapping one of them with an older one from the new house. Unfortunately, we discovered that one of the other doors that we wanted to use for the new house opens the wrong way. Oops...

Rob worked on installing the wood flooring for the second floor of the workshop which will likely be used mostly for lumber storage.  We bought the flooring from a local mill, and it was really good quality, unlike the first load that was used in the house which we were not all that happy with (it came from a different mill of course, and there's nothing we can do about that now).

Our batteries for the solar panels arrived in early January. We had a bit of a mild spell and were hoping to get them installed before we found ourselves in another cold snap but there was still a lot of work to be done on the inside of the workshop where the batteries will reside.  Also, the workshop had no heat which is not ideal for batteries (or for the work crew, i.e. Rob). After tossing back and forth between a small wood stove, hydronic heat  (using the pex tubing installed in the slab) or going for a small propane heater; we opted for the propane heater.   It will heat the small room that houses the batteries, inverter etc., but we are hoping that the heat from the small room will also keep the main room of the workshop warm enough that Rob can work in it.  We may have to install a vent between the two rooms if this idea doesn't quite work out!  As with a lot of the decisions we've made, only time will tell whether things will actually work exactly as planned.

When our colder weather did arrive, I could hear Rob muttering "heat and light, heat and light" rather a lot. It was pretty cold to be working outside, getting the propane tanks (temporarily) set up, propane lines run, and a hole cut into the outside wall for the heater vent to fit into. I know he can't wait to have a working workshop, one that is warm, and with power and working lights.

Suddenly the weather changed again, and we had more than two weeks when both the highs and lows hovered around zero degrees C !  We've had "January thaws" before, but nothing like this.  We tried to use our time wisely, knowing that the milder temperatures couldn't possibly last.  Of course that same milder weather also brought snow, freezing rain and ice pellets on occasion, and our snow blower (which we bought used a few years ago) suddenly packed it in.  We searched around for another used one, but were advised that it might not be the best idea to go that route, and then with the help of our friend Sam back in Navan, we found a new one at a pretty decent price. Unfortunately, after spending the time to drive out and pick it up and bring it home, we discovered it simply could not move the amount of snow that our old one did, we doubted it would be adequate for our long, (long, long!) laneway.  A call to Sam, and our supplier and we took another trip to return the new blower and pick up a slightly different make and model - we were pleased to find that this one does a great job.  Sadly, our original one is of little use to anyone, as it seems it cannot be repaired.

Despite losing a couple of days to the snow blower problem, work progressed on the back room, and suddenly the heater was installed and working, and it seemed like things were finally moving forward again!  It took a few days for the workshop (and the rather cold concrete slab floor) to warm up, and the humidity in the room was amazing.  It felt like walking into a spa!  But after a dew days things started to dry out, the temperature slowly came up, and we could get to working on the the next part.

With the heater installed and running, Rob started putting up more drywall.  And then the boxes of parts slowly went out of the cabin and over to the workshop; the inverter, two charge controllers, the combiner, battery cables and various other pieces of the system. The boxes that have been piled in this little cabin, taking up most of the small dining area were gone !! Mind you, they've been replaced with 12 giant batteries and other boxes of stuff, but that's there "just for the time being" (at least - that's what Rob told me!).  Slowly all the parts for the system started to be assembled.

Unfortunately, with the high humidity my camera kept fogging up, so my photos are a little blurry!

Rob had been working on the design of the box that will hold the batteries for quite some time.  It's important to make it easy for us to access each battery as they will require regular checks and maintenance but batteries must also be contained and the hydrogen gas that is generated during charging must be safely vented.  As well, the connections all have to meet code and be safe for us to work near them  (i.e. no chance of shorting the terminals - which can be quite spectacular).  Because the batteries use acid, the enclosure floor needs to be an acid proof  and so it was lined with EPDM rubber (basically, a pond liner).

Meanwhile, the rest of the battery box is being assembled in the workshop (which is actually beginning to look like a workshop).

We are getting closer to the day that the off-grid system will be providing our power and I think that this will be pretty exciting for us, but it will be a bit of a learning curve.. We currently have a couple of lights in the workshop and in the house entrance area that are powered by a single solar panel that we set up a couple of years ago.  The weather was gloomy and grey for a long stretch of days and that panel wasn't able to charge enough and so for a few days we had no lights at all.  It's a good reminder that there will be days when the solar panels on the roof also won't be able to supply us with what we need and we will have to use a generator for charging.

Both of us are looking forward to getting back to work on the new house rather than the workshop and a bit of power will make the work easier for sure.

In other news...

Jet had a sore leg this month, so no play time for him as he is on "bed rest" orders.  Hopefully this will help him recover.  He sure looks sad when he isn't allowed to chase his "wubbas" or play with his Jolly Ball though! A normal dog might be able to play gently, but for him it's all or nothing.

GB and Sita will turn 16 this year.  Hard to believe!  GB seemed unwell early in the month so went for a quick check up at the vet, where he displayed his good manners, and allowed them to take some blood tests.  He seems to be o.k. so we will keep an eye on him, and weigh him a bit more often as he lost a bit of weight in the last few months.  I think it may just be that I used to give him extra food when I was enticing sweet Leon to eat!  With Leon gone, GB no longer gets all those extra goodies.

Christmas seems like a very long time ago, but we did of course, take time out for Christmas and New Years celebrations.  It's lovely to be in the cabin during the holiday season, but we are both hoping to be in the new house this time next year.  We miss some of our Christmas traditions, and funny little decorations:

My computer screen background of a former Christmas Tree ornament was lovely; not quite the same as the real thing - but it worked!

On these cold and snowy evenings, when we are sitting in the cabin by a warm wood stove, neither Rob nor I really mind very much that we aren't yet in the new house.  I know we each have our moments, where the cabin seems a little cramped, or the possibility of being in the new house seems too far away,  when we worry about each other, or feel it hasn't been the most productive of days.  Those are often the times when something delightful happens: the appearance of an eagle against a blue sky, an otter playing at the river edge,  a raven talking high above as it barrel rolls in the air.  Sometimes we just need a calming walk in the woods, or a few moments listening to the song of the river.

My mantra for 2017 is Peace, Love, and Joy . With recent world events I have since added "and gentle compassion". Some days it's hard to hang on to it. It's always easier here, on a forest path, with the river nearby, and the cheerful sounds of chickadees and nuthatches on the branches above.