And then the winter came….

November 14, 2020November 14, 2020 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ Leave a comment

Hoping to see the end of camp style coffee soon… but not until at least Monday or Tuesday. No wait a minute. While I was typing those words, Ken got a call from the guy who is doing the countertops for the island. Apparently the main piece (there will be 3 pieces). …. Cracked. Sadly the piece what cracked is the centre piece and so the one that the others need to butt up against, so he cannot put in the other pieces either. BTW, they are concrete.

It started snowing last night. It has snowed all day long. It looks like 1.5-2 feet. Last year it took an excavator to finally clear the road up to where we are. THIS year we are hoping we can stay ahead of it. Otherwise we might be STUCK?? (scroll back to February )

Now being STUCK up here may have some appeal…. we have food put away for the winter, we have wood, and a wood stove….

However, unless the trades people can get up the road we will never get this place finished.

Ken has been trying to find a snow blade for our tractor, but this is not the best day to be looking for one… and they ARE expensive.

Fortunately, George, the guy we bought property from, has a truck with a snow plow on the front. The tires are not in great shape, so he got some chains today for the tires. So for now, he is going to leave this vehicle here now so Ken can go out and plow PRN. It is best to start with the plow at the TOP of the hill. So at least for now, we have a plan.

Now THIS is a luxury that allows me to make….

But you cannot make coffee in the oven. We have tried to make coffee on the wood stove, but it would take forever.

So they are starting to do the showers. The shower areas were the only part of the house where concrete was not put down. Showers are always tough with concrete in getting it all to drain down to the drain. This is a new concept to me… The metal piece at the front is the drain, and it is a trough drain. It allows them to make the floor all draining down to the trough, rather than the circular way. If that makes sense? We are thinking we will not have doors on the shower if the floor is concrete?

The one below is in the MBR… I have recently been told that the term MASTER bed room dates back to the slave days… and so I am trying to come up with the right term, OUR bedroom/bathroom VS Guest Bedroom/bathroom.???

Other changes to the “guest” bathroom”

So the fir boards we are using were salvaged from a floor and have been planed to take off finish and we have (Ken has) finished them with the mixture of vinegar and steel wool. When the steel wool dissolves we can either use it as is or add tea to mixture. For this project he has used some plain, some with a reddish tea and some with greenish tea.

We ARE expecting it to look better without the ladder.

So we are planning on creating a “feature wall” in each room, this is the greenhouse

So this is the current stage of the Island, the big centre spot is for the stove top, and there will be a sink at each end, a the gap next to the basket is for the dishwasher.

We did go for a walk earlier in the day and found these prints, after finding a huge bear poop. (aren’t they hibernating yet?)

Well it is now the next day and we still have power.

Thanks for reading, much love from Janet, Ken and Tucker the bear hunter.

twas all fun and games till the rains came

September 18, 2019September 18, 2019 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ Leave a comment

Now it is water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. We still do not have electricity, which is fine, except that we will need electricity to get to the well pump, AND I have electric car. Normally I just plug it in when I get home and it is charged by the next day (at home we just plug into a regular outlet and it take about 24 hours to fully charge from empty. However with no electricity I have been having to drive down to the rapid charger in Chase (about 8 miles from our place) every few days. It is free to charge there and takes about 40 minutes.

In case you were wondering, YES we are STILL moving. The house has been empty for over a week now, but having had a “farm”, …… there are a lot of things to move the yard.

Ken and I have moved 8 times in our 36 years. I can remember the last stage of each move, and it is never pretty. All those last minute items crammed into some box, …. to be rediscovered at some time in the ? future. It is always a difficult time where you cannot find anything.

So the property has had a “trench running through it”, going from the power pole to the well. It now has the power cable in it, as well as the water line.

So in running the power cable and the water line, we have had to run both of them into the “shed”, so that we could put a temporary electric panel in the shed, as well as a pressure tank. Normally all of this would just go into the house, but since we need a place to live while all this is going on, we have had to take these extra steps.

So the shed was put OVER the trench, so that the power lines and water lines could be brought up through the floor.

We have not been able to move forward on anything, because the electrical inspector did not approve the safety inspection and then required several other “actions”. So we have been stuck with the trench, not being able to move the SeaCans because they could not cross the trench, ….. we cannot get the B C hydro to even put us on a list to hook up the power until the electrical safety inspection was approved. So we have been in a holding pattern, thank goodness yesterday, they approved the trench, and power lines VIA pictures, so the guy with the excavator has filled in all of the trenches today. There has been a time constraint there because he has just retired and is wanting to put all of his equipment up for sale. So here the lower area has been filled in.

And this is from a different perspective……. There we have our home sweet home.

Our life is pretty chaotic, we have too much stuff in the motorhome, awaiting the seacans to start moving stuff into.

While we are doing all of this, I am reading a book called “A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistry. A book set in 1975 India “With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India.
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers–a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village–will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.”

Reading about the situation of the lower caste characters in this story, as you follow their struggles to find a place to sleep at night, it would seem that our current living situation would be like a castle to many….. so I shall think of it as such.

Goodnight from “the castle”

Much love, Janet, Ken and Tucker (the protector in chief of the castle)

first things first… the garden

August 18, 2019August 18, 2019 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ 2 Comments

We cannot begin building house until our current house sells, Sept 27th, so we will not start building until the new year. HOWEVER garlic has to be planted in the fall and so that will be our priority. To the right of this picture is where the garden will be, the ground is darker there.

When a mine is started up, one of the things the owner must do, is to remove all the topsoil and place it aside, so it can be put back after the mine is closed down. We have asked him to put the topsoil in one specific area. We have not measured it yet, but as you can see it will be LARGE. This is a different view of the “garden”.

Between the floods in India destroying huge areas of farmland, to the drought in central America, which is partially fuelling the migration of people to the US southern borders, to even the upcoming Brexit, everyone is talking about food shortages. I just feel that as long as we are able we really need to grow food, even if it is just for us. Of course we always grow way more than that.

Since we are both feeling the effects of aging and gardening…. my goal is to attempt to do a MUCH better job at organizing garden such that it is easier on our bodies.

We are thinking of getting some sort of machinery to help us out…. trying to decide between tractor, or backhoe….. or perhaps just a harness on Tucker ..

SO the “topsoil” that is there has essentially NO organic material in it…. just like sand and dirt. So I guess my newest “obsession” shall be “cover crops”. Also called “green manure”.

Each plant is different and you need to know when to plant and when to sow, .. for maximum soil building.

“Buckwheat cover crop seeds produce hardy annual, upright plants. It grows so fast it can reach 1m (3′) tall in only three weeks. Then it blooms with white flowers, attracting pollinating insects and beneficial hover flies. This cover crop grows densely enough that it can be used to smother out competing weed species. Within ten days of blooming (or at any time before) it can be cut and tilled under to improve tilth and add organic matter. A succulent, brittle plant that can break down completely into the soil in a matter of days. When breaking ground for a new garden, grow two consecutive crops. Digging them in will provide ample organic matter to stimulate the soil biology. Frost will kill tender annual.”

So essentially I plant these soon, get them growing, then it sounds like they take off. SO then we come in and cut them all down with our weed whacker and suddenly you have soil that organic roots down into it and the organic plant carcass lying on top. ( to act as weed control)

I have ordered several types of cover crops and they all are used for different purposes, but this one it sounds like if I get it growing soon, and then cut it down, it will provide nutrients for the garlic we plant in late october. ……. and mulch for the winter.

We will likely get a load or two of donkey manure to build up the soil as well.

Meanwhile back in Scotch Creek, we have purchased 2 of these Sea Cans and are filling them up with all of our belongings. Mid September we will move them up here and put them about 20 feet apart and put up some support between them and ultimately create a large shop with a sea can on each end.

Our first “structure” on the property, a “tupperware”….. storage unit we have been hauling around for years.

Stay tuned….. and you will see cool things happen here…

Much Love, Ken, Janet And Tucker

Our new home SWEET home.

August 17, 2019 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ 4 Comments

Well our most recent obsession is a gravel pit we have purchased on the south side of the Shuswap lake. I should IMMEDIATELY add that it is no longer a gravel pit, but OUR homestead.

However it still LOOKS like a gravel pit.

We have been looking for a new place to live for a few years, wanting to be a bit closer to “amenities”, like doctors, banks, grocery stores, and insurance companies. ( you have no idea what a pain it is to have to physically go to another town to renew your automobile insurance. But also …..now to our new grandson Talon.

Back to the gravel pit part…..( also called a “mine”)…… We have learned a bit about how it all works. I guess the fellow who has hauled all the gravel out of here for some time, first of all had to take all of the topsoil and place it in a certain spot, so that when that mine (gravel pit) was decommissioned, … they would then take all of that top soil and put it back onto the property.

We have almost 9 acres of which at least 5 acres is usable land, so we have saved lots of large garlic with the plans to plant them in the fall.

We took ownership today, but it was great to be involved during the final stages of the gravel pit such that instead of spreading the top soil every where, we had them just put the top soil in a designated area where we are going to grow Garlic… and the rest of the place is gravel. IE no weeds…. or mud.

So there is of course no house here, and we have sold our house as of the end of September…..

So it is great that we have grown so fond of living in our motorhome in the winters, because it seems like we shall be living in it for at least a year now. At this stage, at least, I am quite excited, as I just love living in the motorhome, live is “simpler” than living in a house. Who knows how it will feel a year from now

However THIS is our new adventure, and this is where we begin.

Much love, Janet, Ken and Tucker.