The adventure goes on …
Our Adventures
We were starting to run out of supplies again, and our list of required building materials was growing, so it was time for another trip to Campbell River. However, no more dark drives over icy roads – we were going to stay in a motel this time, and enjoy our first showers since May!
Although we now had our wood cook stove in our cabin, we still had a long ways to go before the cabin would be warm enough for us to move in.
When we were still living in Prince Rupert, we had become quite interested in getting a wood cook stove as an auxiliary source of heat for the upstairs of our house, and also as a stove which could be used during power outages (which occur frequently in Prince Rupert). After much investigation, we decided that we really liked a stove called the Baker’s Choice – an Amish made stove designed and manufactured in Canada by a company called Suppertime Stoves in Ontario. This stove is a durable, functional (but not fancy) airtight wood stove made from welded steel plate, and has been recommended by many homesteaders, both for heating cabins and as an excellent stove for cooking. However, before we actually purchased a Baker’s Choice stove for our home in Prince Rupert, we decided to sell the house and begin our adventures with simplicity and sustainability.
Friday, November 13th we finally got the roof on our cabin. For some people, this may have been considered an unlucky day, but for us, it was a very lucky one indeed!
We’ve been busy critters. As it turned out, all the materials required to build our house took three loads (Moody Blue towing our herring skiff) to get to our site, rather than the originally estimated two. It’s amazing how much stuff it takes to build a 20′ x 20′ cabin!
Houses, like relationships and careers, need to have a solid foundation if they are going to be able to stand the test of time. Unfortunately, foundations are often under-appreciated. Most people take them for granted, or can’t even see them, until there is a problem. So, wisely, we have decided to spend a great deal of effort making sure that the foundation for our cabin is strong and solid.
Building a cabin in a remote location, even if the cabin is “prefabricated”, is not a simple task. As we start to build our cabin, I am reminded that this is the end, not the beginning, of a process that has been underway since the start of this year.
It’s been a long, hard week of hauling. First, we hauled all our furniture and belongings out of the hold of the Moody Blue and up to our sheds. Then, we took the Moody Blue and the Kipper’s Folly to Kelsey Bay to pick up the first half of our cabin materials.
It’s definitely been a summer for unusual events. Harmful algal blooms, often called HABs or red tides, have been one of these.
Autumn is upon us, the temperatures are cooler, and the rains have started to fall again. Along with the almost instantaneous sprouting of mushrooms throughout the woods, this wetter, cooler weather has brought another pleasant surprise – our creeks are starting to flow again.