The End

This is the last day of the year. It is mild out, around four degrees below zero, and snowing softly. We have made our pilgrimage to the camp site and eaten charred food cooked on an open fire. The woods are filling up with snow. It is winter. The wind, usually brisk, has held off for the last few days, so the trees are heavily laden. The temperature has been mild, so mild that yesterday the faint flurries felt like rain on our faces. A thin layer of ice clings to many surfaces, including the roads, so driving may be treacherous today, and we will be travelling from here to Fredericton to Bristol and back. The Centreville road is probably in bad shape, so it will be the highway for us. After many false starts, this looks like the genuine snow season; we have packed down a snowshoe trail, and I think some of this will be with us through April. Heighho.

Chilly

The temperature fell from -8.5°C at dawn to -9.5°C. The sun kissed the treetops; at this time of year there isn't enough snow to brighten the understory, so the chiaroscuro is pronounced. All dogs proceeded to enjoy themselves in their own way. On the way back, I was facing almost directly into the sun by the "tulip" tree. Overnight, we received several more inches of snow, and the morning was rather somber but very pretty, with all the trees re-iced again. The prediction is for a green Christmas day with temperatures reaching 10°C--we'll see! So far, the November snow has shown some staying power. A few more sunny days would have clearer the

The "Tulip Tree"

thin coating of snow completely, but it has been cloudy much of the time. It has also been damp, which has given the slight cold considerable punch--brrrrr.

The Iceman Cometh

The weekend was eerily bright and mild. On Sunday I panted about, dragging away most of the scaffolding and storing it in the tractor shed. I managed to patch the corner of the wall above the cellar entrance; I realize this has been on my list since we re-roofed the back of the house (nine years ago?). I put the Corolla away for the winter, and managed to squeeze in the chipper and lawn tractor as well. Then I closed up the doors of the sheds and workshop; there was a feeling of urgency about it all, as though this was the Last Day Before Winter. So it turned out; Monday's fall of slush continued through the night, and on Tuesday the world looked very different. Most of the schools are closed--but not the University. We could hear the rattle of hail on the windows and roofs all night long. In the morning, the gentle world of the weekend had been replaced by an icy, stormy wasteland.

Snowsome No More

Mild weather and rain have cleared away most of the snow. The day began with intermittent cloud that became heavy mid-morning. Toward noon the sun began to break through. The temperature climbed slowly to 6° C, and it may reach 8° C. Last year we performed the "Living Nativity" in utter cold, just as we had the year before when the donkey tried to trample the little angels. The area under the red pines is often clear, but as you can see, the whole yard and the fields to the SE are free of even a hint of snow. This is a thoroughly green Dec. 12--very much like last year's weather, with several false starts and very
green periods well into the fall.  I prefer this to the sudden onset of winter, without hope of remission until the spring. This is gradual: a slow descent that gives us plenty of time to prepare and adjust. I took advantage of the warm morning to clean both the pellet and wood stoves. I suppose I should really have swept the chimney as well--perhaps tomorrow. We took the dogs back to the campsite; Valla went very well today and kept up with us. The trail was very wet, but the only snow was in the shaded areas far back in the dense woods.  Out in the open fields and clearings, everything is green. Even the grass looks alive--as though it might need cutting soon. However, the seasonal decline looms ahead: tomorrow's high will be 3° C, and the rest of the week will waver around zero. We might have snow on Thursday.  Still, even if the rest of the winter is unusually cold and snowy, we have had a good start. When the real snow season begins, it will do so from a bare canvas. This is so much more encouraging than having Hallowe'en snow all the way through to April!

The Moral Woodlot: The Politics of Snow Load

It is a beautiful mild day; the sky is again that stunning blue that one sees only in winter. The woods were very wet and quite dark, but the treetops were bathed in sun. In contrast, the understory had to bear not only the weight of the original snowfall, but all the snow that had been shed by the upper layer of the forest, so the stems least capable of it had to carry the greatest load. There's a moral or political lesson here.

A surprising number of slender hardwoods were bent over, though they had no leaves to carry the snow. The low sun shot shafts of light through every break in the canopy--very pretty. Everywhere the sun's rays reached, the snow was melting, so there was a constant glitter as the droplets fell through shadow and light. Below you can see the result: the tall, strong trees, hogging the sun, refuse to carry their fair share of ice and snow, forcing their underlings to do their work. . . .

First REAL Snow

We had our first major snowfall--several centimeters of slush. Rain fell through the night and the snow followed; it was very dense and made for difficult driving. As I descended Graveyard Hill, I saw a truck in the ditch. On the English Settlement Road, the person ahead of me ranged between 50 and 60 km, so I passed him--but not until we were well down route 8, on the flats by the river. This turned out to be difficult. The whole trip took 1h, 20m, which is about as bad as it ever gets. Pictures will follow--this is much heavier than the sprinkling we received on Oct. 17.

Thinning

Every time we take the dogs back, we attack a small area next to the trail. Here we can see the difference: outside looking in and inside looking out. It is really quite oppressive when the woods are dense and wild.

It was an odd day. Often it was quite clear with a vivid blue sky. Though it was dark under the trees, the sky was bright, and the higher branches--still with an impressive burden of leaves--caught the early morning sun.

At other times, a mist rose from the forest floor and the sun was filtered through a dull haze lit with occasional bright patches. I tried to capture this, but it was a subtle and fleeting effect (plus, I had entirely the wrong ISO setting).

Hallowe'en

This year, a mere seven children. On the other hand, no major buildings were torched, though I hear there was a small fire down the Williamsburg Road.

LBW (Not Leg Before Wicket, but Lower Bay Window)

I hadn't the heart to take "before" pictures; let's just say that the major theme was rot.
This project really began in March, when, while drywalling and insulating the living room, we found we could look into the wall . . . and out at the world through the rotten floor plate. That streak of light near the bottom of the photo to the left is the great outdoors. From then on it was just a matter of time; we knew we had to tear out the front and rebuild. The only question was how much was rotten?




First, I tore out the old sills, 8 by 8 beams spiked together. They were still tough in places, even though the rot came off in clouds of wood dust. Like the House of Usher, they had a specious appearance of integrity that vanished under hammer blows. I thought I might get away with cutting out the face of the long front beam, but no, the rot went deep in places. I built up new sills out of 8-inch planks, glued and bolted together. I countersunk long lag bolts to link them together. The lower faces of the studs were affected, and of course the plate was quite gone--in fact, that's the part through which we could peek out at the world when we did the insulation in March. After fitting new L-shaped pieces to the studs with lots of screws and construction adhesive, I replaced all the insulation.





The three layers of boards I replaced with a single layer of well-fitted three-quarter inch plywood. Then I applied lots of flashing and Tyvek. I deliberately abandoned the "all shingle" approach in rebuilding the bay. Harold originally used framed raised panels on these bay windows; I was in a bit too much of a hurry for that, but I did add some framing.



I couldn't resist adding the first row of shingles on the front--that was last Sunday. Jo went at it this weekend and finished the shingling. It was a brilliant, sunny day (which I spent in the cellar working on the ducts). Clean up was extensive; it's always astonishing to see how much garbage even a small job generated. We followed our usual ultra-eco procedure (cheap-ass protocol # 5), and separated materials into "trash" and "local landfill," which we hauled away with the lawn tractor. I had to charge up the lawn tractor's battery yet again--I'll probably have to buy a new one next year.

I can see that it now looks a little unbalanced: the shingled area above is much greater and creates a heavier appearance. I think that when we redo this next year, framing it will reduce this effect; also, it will be white and thus visually lighter. Still, broader frames might have been better. I do prefer the vertical effect created by using solid boards on the first part of the bay instead of shingles. And in any case, it all helps keep the outside outside.

Next year we will replace those three ground floor windows. I still have a little pointing to do on the stonework, and some caulking as well; I hope the weather cooperates. Meanwhile, I have the heating ducts back together (almost), and I have devised a plan for the air return. If winter can be kept at bay for another two weeks, we should be fine. Last weekend was a bit of a scare!

Early Snow

It is well before Hallowe'en, and yet we have snow. It began as a drizzle--annoyingly, because I was trying to shingle the area under the bay window--and then turned to big, lazy flakes. These all disappeared as they hit the ground (or the dogs). I went down in the basement to work on the furnace. When I came up, I found that the ground was lightly carpeted; the snow had started to accumulate. Now, to the northeast I see the grass covered in a pale blanket, and the trees deeper in the woodlot are partly hidden by a gray haze. This is not the earliest substantial snow I recall, but it's pretty close. I well remember the year the snow came on Hallowe'en and stayed until April. I hope we aren't in for one of THOSE. The fall colours were late in coming and when they appeared they were a little muted. The snow sets them off nicely, though!

UPDATE: It snew all evening, and the forecast high for the day is only 4 degrees, so I think this will be with us for some time. After a brilliant dawn, the day settled down to dreary clouds. Below is Ye Olde Wishing Well; I know what I'm bloody wishing!

October Rush

Suddenly it's October, and we are rushing to finish the preparations for winter. There are ducts to clean and reinstall, joists to set, and the area below the bay window to shingle and seal. Fortunately, the pellet stove is back in business, with a fresh coat of black paint and careful oiling and greasing. I like the fiery trails the pellets kick up as they drop into the burnbox.

Flow soft . . .

The Crick is still flowing, thanks to a week of drizzle. We haven't had the time this summer to clear up the woodlot properly, and the little Crick is quite overgrown. I couldn't find the bank on Monday when I hopped across to put out the trash and almost splashed into the middle. I haven't lugged the the chainsaw into the woods once, apart from a single foray with Pat on the downed boundary trees. Still, there's a certain charm in the unshaped lushness. I'm still hoping to put another culvert in, but I can feel the summer drawing to a close and there is much to be done with the house before winter. The summer, in the end, is all too short, and the dark days are coming.


On the other hand, it won't be so bloody hot! It was 30 degrees in the sunporch when we got home yesterday. I closed up the house
completely this morning--a high of 29 is forecast. We'll see how close it comes. Lovely bluebells below.

By Design?

We encountered this in our April travels. This is a high-end designer furniture store, but really--that sign--surely they must realize? Or has someone vandalized them? They do spell "nazi" oddly in  Kitchener, Ontario.

Notes from Underground

I wondered what caused the long gap in posting this summer. It was this sort of thing--the job that began with a Bosch jackhammer and eventually involved dragging the concrete mixer into the basement. To pour this, I had first to support the floor without having any posts on the centre line. This meant using jackposts under built-up carry beams placed under the joists--a technique I tested on the workshop. I ran draintile under the footing, and put in lots of rebar. I used readymix, to ensure a consistent blend (and speed everything up--plus, the good folks at Wilkins gave me an excellent price). I suspended the rebar from the centre beam itself with lashing wire.

For much of the summer, a slide was screwed to the (broken) cellar steps, so I could load in bag after bag of ready-mix. It takes a lot to make up a 12-foot by 16 inch sill! As soon as it had set up, I poured a 12 inch footing on top.

Limits to Growth

I find the difference between the new growth in the woodlot and that in the area near the house astounding. Here is what I find in fir and spruce in the closed-canopy lot: an inch or so of new needles.

I thought it might be a matter of the species involved, but it seems to be true of both fir (left) and spruce (below).

 Now, soil may be a factor as well, but I suspect both nutrient starvation and lack of light develop from the same condition: overcrowding. It's time to thin, thin, thin. By contrast, the trees in the cleared areas near the houses show about three inches. These photos are from about ten days ago; yesterday I noticed that the woodlot trees have made no gains but the ones near the house have continued to develop new growth.

 This is from the edge of the field, where there was once a barn (and probably lots of manure). There is a much greater depth of soil, and probably more nutrients, but there is also more light for each tree. I'm going to try thinning some areas in the woodlot quite severely, and we'll see what develops.

If the rest of the lot grew at this rate, we'd have massive regeneration. These ones are growing at about six times the rate of the ones in the lot!

Renovations

This time, we worked on the house itself, though it looks much like the workshop from below, and the first stage of the project was very similar. The work began in the cellar, where I doubled up the 24-inch centre joists with some new two-by-eights. My main tools were scissor jacks, 2-ton bottle jacks, and jack posts--and a hefty "persuader." It took a weekend and a week, but I managed to insert eight new joists to join the ones that were added long, long ago--the north side of the house received a new sill and new joists some time before the furnace was installed . . . and the plumbing, judging by the way they installed the vent pipe. Earlier, I had unstrung the wiring, removing it from the holes drilled through the joists. I slid the new two by eights over the centre beam, and then drew them back above the wires. I used galvanized joist hangers to attach them to the sill. When I do the conrete work, I will give them more substantial support. Once the new joists were secured, I went topside to screw the sub-floor to the joists, both the new ones and the old replacement, which had been "floating" up to this point. This probably explains why all the china clattered about whenever anyone walked into the dining room. The maple flooring ran around the perimeter of the rooms, but the centre was simply some tongue and groove softwood, probably pine. Lucy tore up the dining room floor in just 15 minutes! Securing the subfloor to the joists was more painstaking work. We set in about 500 3.5 inch screws, and it took some hours. The breadth is just under nine feet, and the whole floor is about 20 feet long, not counting the existing maple. Under the old floor we found lots of nails, splinters, and some broken needles.
The boards were remarkable--some were nearly 18 inches wide. Howard probably used the trees from the lot, and they would have been old growth spruce. Some ran the full length; others were awkwardly short. There were gaps that had been filled with . . . plaster. Here it is, cleaned up (note the vacuum). I set up a sort of ledger board and started flooring. The beech floor boards were 2.25 inch--which makes very slow work. However, they match the original boards and I really prefer the look of narrow strips . . . and I find the packages tend to contain more long pieces than is the case with broader boards. The imitation Bostitch floor stapler is hooked up to my Canadian Tire twin-tank compressor--$49.00 and worth every penny. To my surprise, the groove of the new hardwood actually fit neatly into the bead of the old maple! This made lining up the flooring almost easy, though the wayward nature of the old flooring presented some challenges. I picked the best line I could, and used long boards. Note the paper underlay--it hides a multitude of sins. We estimated that we would need some 200 square feet of flooring--eight boxes.
There they are, stacked up under the bay window. We decided to run the flooring at right angles to the subfloor--not what home design types would recommend, but a very practical way of dealing with the occasional gaps in the surface! Once we had reasonable area floored, we noticed at once how much tighter the surface was. We could still rock the china in the cabinet, but it took some effort! Finally, I finished off with some narrow fillets--the last row did not quite mate with the old wood. Still, at the end of the room the variation from side to side was only about 0.25 inches, which isn't too bad--considering. Jo found some actual bird's eye maple when she sanded the old hardwood surround!