Our Lifestyle Blog as We Create a Homestead in Northern Ontario
Grandpa was up bright and early this morning, eager to get cracking on the sauna footing. I was just as eager, and although Mummu and Donna were off on their morning hike, and Kenny was still asleep, I decided to head out. I was certainly within earshot of Kenny if he woke up and was … Read more
Grandpa returned to our building sites early Monday morning and we added an inner square of 1″x4″ boards to hold in our footings for the sauna. I am planning on using standard 8″ concrete blocks, and because the footings are only about 4″ high all around, we decided we were comfortable with 10″ wide footings. … Read more
So our excavator, F! predicted that he would be able to do our foundation work early last week. Of course, the weekend before it rained for four straight days, and I suspect this put his schedule way out of whack. Thankfully, Saturday evening we received a telephone call informing us that he was going to … Read more
Last weekend it rained for four days straight. Luckily in the city they didn’t experience it quite as dramatically as last spring, but on my clay pathways, it was a disaster! Everything took on the texture of butter, with the look of fudge. Driving on it eventually became out of the question. I took to … Read more
Now that our dry firewood is pretty much exhausted, we are finding it harder to stand nights that still drop below zero (this morning they still announced a frost warning!) In an act of desperation, I opted to purchase a heater – but I didn’t want a really large one, as I’m hoping this is … Read more
After repeatedly coming close to, but not quite passing, our water tests, I finally became disillusioned with attempting to get our well to a zero bacteria level. We have managed to avoid e. coli, but there often seemed to be other coliforms that managed to infiltrate somehow. Bleaching the well is always an option, but … Read more
I snapped this picture a week ago. It’s the first mosquito I swatted this year. They seemed larger than usual – and I hadn’t been bit by them yet. I was trying to convince myself that they were some sort of damselfly or something like that. I took the picture anyway. Last night was sauna … Read more
Once the water lines had been taken down and cut up into firewood for next year, the other big obstacle to excavations was my solar array and battery/electronics box. I was not a little leery of having heavy equipment tearing things up anywhere near my power station. I anticipated this to be both a crisis, … Read more
Now that we have contacted F! and have arranged for excavation of our sauna and cabin building sites, it is time to prepare the location for some heavy equipment, followed up by some exciting construction! I first prepared the area with Grandpa by staking out approximate squares where both the cabin, and the sauna would … Read more
As I have complained about lately, we have had an excess of snow. In fact, although much of our snow is gone, it is snowing as I type this – on May 11th. This snow was a hassle to navigate while it existed. Now that it is melting rapidly, it has again become a … Read more