Bleak

The early winter has been bleak. The solar-powered streetlight at the junction with the highway has been out for days: not enough sun! Just as a long, gray day came to end, a lovely warm gleam of light appeared among the red pines in front of the workshop. 

Winter's Knives

 Winter is trying to stab us--again! Eventually I had to take a shovel to these spikes; they were pressing against the glass rather forcefully.

Serious Winter

 Winter is getting real. We have deployed the snowblower twice (blew another shear bolt; only one left now!), the new enclosure has already defended the fuel line from falling ice, and we've done the commuting crawl behind motorists without snow tires. 

Indoor Activities

With the weather outside quite UNIVITING, we've been working indoors. I finally made the frame for the attic hatch we installed something like 16 years ago. Having knocked off the 28-year-old oil tank job and the 25-year-old woodshed work, it's pleasant to get to tasks that have been hanging fire for less than two decades!

Bleak

 

This is rather a bleak landscape on my birthday; however, 

1) you don't have to shovel "bleak";

2) it only needs a gleam of sun to bring out the green.

We went for a little hike in the woodlot on the weekend; it was very wet. We needed rubber boots to reach the campsite, but in their absence, we turned back early.

Squared Away

 We finished stacking wood today; quite a bit went into the shed, and the rest is here piled along the back boundary--for the last time! Next year we will extend the roof of the shed, creating a lean-to for the wood. I'll try to make it big enough for about three cords, which will be our annual outdoor stack. The shed holds over five cords. We did quite well, all things considered. The wood arrived in September, and now it's all away. This didn't stop a large family of field mice from making it their home. They scurried out as we piled up the wood. Joanne thought they were moles, because of their short tails, but they were fat little field mice.

First Snow

 It looks as though the first snow of the season, which arrived last weekend, is here to stay. In a single day we made the leap from an exceptionally mild autumn to premature winter. We still have a number of winterizing tasks to complete, including putting away paint and re-roofing the enclosures for the heat pump and the oil tank, but we are generally in good shape. I tried, unsuccessfully, to capture the ice glaze on the trees--maybe it will show up on the shots I took with the Canon.

Before/After

 The first is from June; the second is from today.

We re-roofed the garage, and then set about renewing the walls. We tore off the composition siding and trim boards and then shingled the whole thing in cedar--except for the front face, the one that is seen most often. Talk about hiding your light under a bushel! As it turned out, every part of the front posed special challenges. One corner had rotted; the walls were not straight, and the vinyl soffit was nailed directly over half-inch plywood...so it didn't vent at all. Also, the front frame was not attached to the slab; indeed, it swung above it. We rebuilt the frame in the area of the door and then clad the stripped face in plywood.

Finally, we shingled and painted. The result is simple and clean. The wall is actually pinned to the slab. Initially, I didn't think there was room for a door given the position of the framing elements, but like so many parts of the house they turned out to be non-structural timbers hanging from the frame instead of supporting it. 

Got Wood

Over the long weekend (yet another!) we completed a number of winterizing projects, including putting snows on all three cars and shutting down the sump pump in the workshop (sadly, because it was pumping like mad after the recent rains!). We also largely filled the woodshed. We really can't pack anymore in--the rest will have to be laid out in rows along the northern border. 

Now there's just room to squeeze in the wheelbarrows. The next stage is to wire up the lights. This will be exciting! Even now, in November, it is dark by the time we get home from work, and the trip to the woodshed with a flashlight is awkward. Perhaps in a week this will have changed forever.

Woodshed

 I added a concrete ramp up to the door and a plywood one inside. Cleaned up and swept, it looks pretty good in spite of the messy trowel work. I must find a way to get a better finish. However, it should work quite well. The entire perimeter footing is connected by rebar, and the slab sections are linked to each other and to the footing. Moreover, there is a vapor barrier under the slab. Right now it is about one-third full of wood; tomorrow I'll start moving the woodpiles inside. I have a couple of stacks in the little wood between the properties, so I'll trailer those in as well. 

The new concrete mixer isn't bad, once you get used to its various quirks: it spins too quickly, the agitator blades are poorly designed, and there is too much play in the supports. The ball bearing seems to have fixed the locking mechanism, so it is back to its normal performance, which is poor. Still, I mixed the footing and slab for a 16 by 12 woodshed with it, and it didn't quit on me. Now I would like to wire the shed for lights, using standard 14/2 and regular fixtures--but with 12V bulbs. I'll put a deep wave battery in, and when we build the new potting shed and hook it up to the garage system, we'll convert it to 120V.

Shed for Brains

 The woodshed project is finished. For the life of me, I couldn't get a decent finish on that last pour. Never mind--it will soon be covered up with firewood. This half, slab and footings, took just under 100 bags, so that's about $1000, say $2000 for the whole thing--not too bad. I can use the six bags left over to make a concrete ramp for the entrance.

Halloween Day

 

It has been a lovely mild autumn, and as Halloween arrives there is no sign of snow. Good! Every week past the 31st without snow means a shorter winter. We are not even CLOSE to being ready, with work yet to do on the woodpile, woodshed, oil tank housing, and the cars...but we still have time.

Tanks a Lot

 The new oil tank is in place--and my! haven't they added a lot of hardware to the top. The new enclosure is going to be challenging...fully four new projections to deal with, and two must be given transparent caps. Bugger.

Heating Begins

We have had wood and pellet fires in the house for some time, but today marks the first pellet fire in the workshop for the heating season. It was so well set up last year that it only required a light cleaning to set it going again.

Bluebird

 Often, the red apples remain in the tree in the front garden right through the winter. This year it is already quite bare--I think that big Blue Jay may have something to do with that! 

Shedding My Worries

 Time is running out! I still have most of the footings and slab to pour (last year's half was a little under a half). There was nearly a foot of debris--bark, wood scraps, rotted boards--to dig out before proper excavation began. There is a little rot on the sills, but on the North side almost none at all. Elsewhere, I'll just shave them down with the reciprocating saw.


 

Fall

 The leaves are falling rather early on the ash--I hope the borers haven't got to it. 

Horse Haul

 There were some fine teams at this year's Stanley Fair. I generally watch about half the horse hauling; I don't like to see the final struggles (and failures), but I'm told they finished well.

They had a small car show as well, something I don't recall seeing before. A nice old Triumph!

 

August 13

Vacation

 Whose woods are these? Not ours! Otherwise, it wouldn't be a vacation. We managed to squeeze in a week by the beach, and the young people joined us. The wedding will be hectic...next week.

Deck Day

 Sometimes you just have to savour a July day with a glass of cider on the deck! 

Treeface

 I like this wood carving attachment for the angle grinder. It cuts quickly and provides a lot of control--much better than I expected! 

Auguries

I'm sure it means nothing...nothing at all! We had no really violent storms this summer, and neither drought nor heavy rain. It will be fine....

Blossoms

 

The snows are long gone and the trees are in blossom. The sky is blue, cold and troubles seem equally distant, and in all it's a fine day.

May Be Hot

 This is a little hard to believe: March started off colder than -29, but by the middle of May it was...this! It's no wonder large heavy things like chimneys, foundations, and...ROCKS are always heaving and splitting. 

Spring!

 This is the view out the kitchen window--at the end of April! Brrrrr.....

Done

With the last shelves built, sanded, and stained, we decided the kitchen was finished--so Joanne took pictures to send to the cabinetmaker. I think the beam came out quite well in the end. 

Work Table

My old, old work table is slowly being gentrified. First built out of scraps (i.e., garbage) found in the woodroom of the Chicken Shack in a Ditch in 1989, it has now been in service for 32 years! I gave it three new four-by-four legs, heavy duty casters, and an oak board to fill the gap along the back edge. And below, you can see more oak boards and the end vise has oak plates. Having done it, I now know why I didn't do it 32 years ago....

Having done all that, I then rebuilt the vice end, set in large dogs in a new tailpiece, removed the Record bench vice and added a wood vice, added four-by-four feet, and replaced the front casters with lockable ones. 

Reno

We watched an episode of a renovation show featuring a couple who restored a rather grand stone building on a shoestring. For the most part, it was a roofless shell, so it looked like a much more daunting task than our own project; however, in our time here, we have replaced or refurbished

-the entire foundation of the rear section

-the electrical system

-the pump, plumbing, and drains

-the seepage bed

-sixteen feet of the wall of the rear section, together with the floor joists, floor, rafters and roof deck, main beam and posts, and more

-the main roof

-the siding

-all the windows and doors

-the back stairs

-chimneys and woodstoves

-most of the floor surfaces

-the kitchen and both bathrooms.

The biggest difference was that we did this over time, always having a livable house while we worked. Also, we had to tear out the old before we put in the new. It would have made lousy TV.

March Hare

I nearly stepped on Mr. Bunny as I went back and forth between the house and the workshop. He was crouched by the foundation. When he accepted a carrot, I realized that he must be tame (also, he was QUITE plump!). I fired up the pellet stove, put him in a box, and gave him the run of the workshop for the night. Meanwhile we made some inquiries. It seems a family decamped abruptly, and a neighbor found a hutch full of rabbits in an outbuilding and turned them loose. This one wound up here. There is a happy ending: Joanne put out a notice on Facebook, and a woman who has three daughters and a sort of home petting zoo swooped down and took him away.

Reno Redux

 The endless kitchen renovation continues. I made another shelf to match the one in the "dining area." Here it is in the workshop finishing room, ready for staining. One more shelf to go...I think.

Fingers Crossed

The pellet stove I installed in December stopped working in early January. Yesterday I reinstalled the chimney, quite carefully, after verifying that the stove worked. But when I was done...it didn't. Back to the instructions, and I also disabled the cutoff that prevented the upper auger from running while the fuel door was open. Success!

Pressure Rising

 

This is embarrassing: a speck of coffee grounds blocked the filter, and the pressure shot up and stayed high. I had to wait until it slowly fell so that I could ease off the "portafilter" (that, apparently, is the name of the alloy basket that hold the filter). Well, I didn't blow it up, but for a while it looked like the 10-ton press disaster all over again.

Vale Valla

 Today we lost the last of our dogs, Valla Valhalla. 

Farewell, old friend.

Skyface

 

The sky was restless today; faces kept forming and then melting in the clouds. The weather is unsettled...and quite chilly!

Short Days and Long Shadows

It is late in January, the hardest month. Christmas is long over and Spring is still far away. Also--it is very cold. Astonishingly, our oil consumption is minimal. The wood and pellet stoves do most of the heating between them, and we have finally reached a point at which the upgrades to windows and insulation are making a difference.