Our Lifestyle Blog as We Create a Homestead in Northern Ontario
So the notion of keeping our fresh water pumped into tanks in the loft of the sauna met cold, hard reality early on in our adventures here. We rapidly realized that keeping the sauna (or at least the tanks) from freezing in winter was a losing prospect. As such, for the first year or two … Read more
After trying this, then this, then a bit of this, and moving onto this, I then tried a bubbler. Ok, so the bubbler only seemed to work for a little while and then things returned to a very taupe normal. This time around I purchased a pond pump with a 15′ power cable. I attached … Read more
I don’t want to get ahead of myself or jinx things, but there has been a definite and very noticeable difference in the water situation since I began aerating the well water on a daily basis. Previously, water taken directly from the tap and boiled on the woodstove suffered severely from the iron being concentrated … Read more
So we’ve never had to use the heat cable in our well as the daily pumping to the holding tank in the kitchen has always managed to keep the well water open. That’s a blessing that I really cannot stress enough. Unfortunately, the water that we pump is just lousy, lousy, lousy with iron. We … Read more
The extended periods of -30 degree weather played havoc here at the homestead. The most egregious issue was around the chimney. Inside my little attic chimney room, the air must have been extremely cold, and when moisture infiltrated from the cabin itself, it froze within the rock wool insulation. Once temperatures warmed up to a … Read more
We returned from a Christmas break to find the cabin a rather chilly -9. It took two days before we got it back up above 20 (although we did return to the city to spend the night with Mummu and Grandpa). Thankfully J! from next door kept our driveway clear while we were gone, and … Read more
After a couple of mild days, and warm fires, and wishful thinking, the water line in the bathroom suddenly burst to action just the other day! A sight for sore eyes! There was a bit of sediment that had collected, but surprisingly less than I feared. It’s so nice to wash up in there again! … Read more
The other night we reassembled the portable shower. This time I put Panasonic Alkaline batteries into the sump pump and it made a huge difference compared to Walmart “Great Value” brand batteries, and an even greater one compared to Dollarama Zinc Carbide batteries. We were actually able to pump water a couple feet higher than … Read more
Don’t panic, it’s not a TOTAL disaster. The water in the bathroom has stopped running. The tap’s on full, but no dice! Funny, when I washed my hands yesterday morning it did seem a bit slow, and I even wondered if the line COULD be freezing up, but dismissed the notion immediately as ludicrous, as … Read more
Stunning as the survival of two goldfish was this past winter, I still would like to believe that we can keep this up going forward. I purchased a dozen new fish to add to our pond a couple weeks ago, although within the first hour we lost one, and the next day, found another floating … Read more