Earthship Island, Day 21

Two days ago we came upon this guy. He was much larger than most of the other hermit crabs we have come across.

He looked quite oversized for his shell so we tried offering him a bigger one.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t going for it. I don’t think he liked being handled so much and just wanted to get away. We left him be, but he still didn’t take either of the shell options we offered.

The mornings here are usually pretty nice. The wind is calm and the tide is out. Sometimes the sun shows up too.

Yesterday afternoon the clouds rolled in and we were pretty sure it was going to rain on us. Here is what it looked like looking out from the Earthship.

It wasn’t long after I took those photos that the sky opened up and the rain came down.

It was fascinating to watch as the rain smooths out all of the waves coming to shore.

This rain was driven by strong winds from the south, so the back of the Earthship fills with water.

I had put a towel over the door to try to reduce the wind and rain coming in. It did cut down on the wind, but didn’t do much for stopping the rain.

Out front, we saw this guy out in his boat in the rain storm.

He didn’t seem overly concerned. He did pull into shore in front of the Earthship to bail out his boat and the headed back out, sticking to the shoreline.

I was watching all of this and thought to myself, “how many opportunities will you have in your life to go out and experience a tropical rain storm?” So I ran out into the rain and had a good frolicking.

I have to say that compared to the rain water, the ocean water felt like bathtub warm. I yelled out to Kat, who took the picture, “This is the coldest I’ve been since we arrived!” The rain was chilly, but not unbearable.

I can mark that down on my list of exciting life experiences.

Earthship Island, Day 13

Good day and welcome to day 13 of our stay on Earthship Island. It’s not exacly like Fantasy Island, but it’s what was available.

Yesterday we decided to tackle the fixing of the screen on one of the vents over the door.

As you can see from the picture, it has suffered some damage, Probably due to the earthquake that also cracked the wall.

Here is a close-up of the screen. You can also see how much the rebar has rusted due to the salt and humidity.

Why they didn’t paint it like the outside ones, I cannot say. Though, it may be something as simple as they ran out of paint.

We decided on a simple patch, which isn’t the greatest, but it would make things better than it was. We used bailing wire to sew the patch on, which was tricky because if you pull too hard it damages the screen. We wanted to try using string, but we would need some sort of needle to thread it through the screen, which we didn’t have.

We managed to get it installed, and it’s better than it was, but far from perfect.

In other news… playing with hermit crabs.

This has become an almost daily event for us now.

We find them on the beach all over the place and you just can’t resist picking them up.

Mama Kenawa brought in a fresh batch of coconuts the other day, so we all got a coconut with a straw. It was quite tasty.

It actually rained here yesterday while we were having dinner, and it came down pretty hard. Not sure how well you can see that in the picture.

Here you can see all of the boats up on shore. These are the boats all of the locals use for fishing.

Looking to the east of us, you can see the rain in the hills on the island next to us.

Approaching from the south is more rain for us. This is good as it adds more water to the cisterns.

When it rains hard, it comes right through our back door, as it’s mostly just screen to let the breezes through. Fortunately, the floor is concrete and brick so it doesn’t affect it too much.

I have to say that the water just in front of our Earthship is fascinating. All of the other ocean water I have encountered has had some degree of surf. We have had some surf, but on many occasions, it’s almost completely flat. I find it a bit bizarre that I can skip stones on the ocean water.

I’ll add that to my growing list of new experiences.

Soggy spring

I would love to say that we have accomplished a whole lot in the last month since I posted, but unfortunately we haven’t. This is largely due to the weather. I think this past May has been the soggiest one on record. Rain is pretty common in May, but it has been rather severe this year.

Our area was pretty lucky in that the worst we had were a few basements where the sub-pump broke and they wet basement floors. Other parts of Ontario and Quebec had full blown evacuations and states of emergency. When you come back to your house after it all resides and find that the water was up to the level of your counter-top in your kitchen, you could say that we had a lot of rain.

My last post was on May 2nd and it wasn’t long after that when things started to get crazy. We had two days of severe rain, then this happened on the 7th.

Yeah, that’s right. It started snowing. This has been known to happen in May, so it wasn’t so much of a big deal, except for the fact that it didn’t stop. I bet you can guess when I took the following picture?

That wasn’t the end of it either. It just kept snowing, right through until the 9th.

You can see that there wasn’t a whole lot of accumulation, but still, three days of snow in May?

Someone needs to turn up the outdoor thermostat.

That wasn’t the end of it either. I think we had a day or two break and then we had two more solid days of rain. When I say solid, I mean around 60mm (2.5 inches) of rain. That number may seem small, but if I put that in equivalent snow terms that would be 60cm (2 feet) of snow. It rained A LOT!

Those were the two heaviest days, but we’ve had quite a few days where it rained since then. Not nearly as bad. On May 14th we had a severe thunder storm which included hail. I had just done my weekly trip to the dump and it started on my way back. I was pulling into the driveway when the hail started so I sat in the truck for a bit and snapped this picture of the hail building up on the windshield wipers.

Not only has it been wet, it hasn’t been particularly warm either. We’ve had a few days above 20C (68F) but not many. And on those days when it isn’t cold and raining, the bugs are bad enough to pick you up and carry you off if you aren’t careful. The black flies especially are having a bumper year. We’re hoping the dragon flies will show up soon and we have seen one or two, but the big swarms of them have yet to arrive. They help a lot with reducing the biting insects.

All of this wetness has put a big damper on our firewood harvest this year. Going out in the pouring rain to cut down a tree isn’t a great thing to do. It’s even more inadvisable if there is high wind. Don’t try cutting down a tree in high wind and expect it to drop where you want it. I avoid that at all costs.

In addition to this, because of all of the rain, there were times we couldn’t even get the truck up the hill for fear of burying it out of sight just because the ground was so saturated with water. We still can’t drive to the top of our hill because a lot of water is draining down the road and it’s very squishy.

Of course there is the bug factor as well. Once you do get a decent day to go cut wood, you have to deal with the bugs. So, needless to say, we are behind in our firewood harvesting.

Fortunately, we haven’t been completely idle. We did get started on installing a new sink and finishing the counter-top around it. Here you can see the cutting of the hole where the sink is going to go.

Slightly closer so you can see the sink outline in pencil.

There we have it, a hole for a sink.

We even have a sink to put in that hole too! We bought it at the Re-store which I have to say, is kind of a hit or miss in terms of whether it’s really worth it or not. The sink we bought didn’t have holes for faucets, nor did it have a strainer basket. We weren’t too concerned about the faucet holes as we aren’t likely to have any faucet for a while. A new strainer basket cost $20 for the cheap one. The sink cost us $45. I could have bought a brand new sink for $100 that included holes for the faucet and strainer basket. Add some tax in there and you start to wonder if it was really worth the savings. Things to think about if you ever go to the Re-store for building materials.

Now for the counter-top we decided to use a 19mm (3/4 inch) piece of plywood with red oak veneer. One sheet of that will set you back $85 so you don’t want to mess it up. I cut out the piece to size for the counter first.

I scribed the hole for the sink from underneath and then cut out the hole for the sink as well.

Voila! New counter-top. Well, almost. The counter then went out to the staining and finishing department. I can say that it has been stained and had two coats of varnish put on it. The next step is to put a thick coat of epoxy on it to make it durable and waterproof. We have the epoxy, but it is sensitive to temperature and humidity so that part has been put on hold until things dry up and warm up a bit.

So it’s been a slow start to the year. We haven’t planted anything in the garden yet either because it’s been so cold. Last night we had a low of 2C (36F). Yes, we had a fire. They say we should be safe for planting after the full moon in June, which is this Friday. We can only wait and see at this point.

The Beauty Of Winter

Well, here we are in January 2017. A new year has come and there is much to do. Unfortunately, we don’t generally get a whole lot done on our building projects during this time. The weather greatly reduces your willingness to work outside.

That being said, the weather has been rather interesting this year so far. It’s only January 5th, and we’ve seen quite the gamut of weather activities. I have pictures for your viewing pleasure too.

Let’s start off with January 2nd, which was a rather spectacular day. It was bright and sunny, not too cold. Kat and I decided we should take advantage of this and go for a walk through our forest. We strapped on our trusty snow shoes and ventured forth.

The picture above I have shown numerous times in different seasons and weather. This is the road that will eventually become our real driveway up to the top of the hill where we plan to build the Earthship.

We headed up the hill and we were quickly reminded what it is like to break fresh trail in powder with snow shoes… up hill. We made our way to the top, stopping every so often to enjoy the view of the sun on the snow and examine several sets of animal tracks that we came across.

We reached the top of the hill, where we have a little meadow with a pond and I suddenly realized that my phone was no longer in my pocket. After a moment’s panic, I retraced my steps and found it sticking out of the snow.

With phone recovered, I snapped this next picture of the pond with some rabbit tracks crossing it.

The fields of snow in the meadow in the sunshine were quite lovely.

Here is a lone spruce tree looking very Christmas-y.

On our way back down, I took this picture of the sunshine in the forest.

All in all, a very good time. The sky was pure blue that day, which is rare this time of year.

It did not last either. That evening, the clouds rolled in, the temperature actually rose and we received a dumping of ice rain that night, so when we woke up the next day, everything was coated. I don’t know if you have ever experienced ice rain, but it does things like this.

The ever green trees get it even worse.

This is what it does to your vehicle.

And your bird feeder.

It does make everything glisten like crystalline glass.

It would look even more awesome if the sun had been out, but alas, that was not the case.

Oh, we’re not done either. It rained more that day as well, then the temperature dropped that evening and it snowed. So, imagine what wet iced tree branches do when they get snowed on. Actually, you don’t need to imagine, I can show you.

Those are the same branches shown above, but with snow added on top of the ice. Here also is a picture of that same spruce tree from above, but now also covered in ice and snow.

Needless to say, it was mighty beautiful. I walked all around taking several pictures, trying to take it all in.

Beautiful though it may look, it is really hard on the trees.

There were a lot of trees that were bent over or broken, or large branches having fallen off. I’m sure there will be a lot of trees killed by this. It is both beautiful and deadly to behold.

The big white birch behind the trailer looks mighty awesome, I must say.

Same road as before, but frosted white now.

So that was yesterday, but the fun doesn’t stop there. It snowed some more last night. But as luck would have it, for a while this morning the sun was out and I ran outside with my phone to capture some yet even more amazing shots.

Sunshine through the trees.

Sunshine on the snow drifts.

It all lights up so wonderfully in the sun.

I really like this last one. Lower branches not in the sun with ones that are above them.

The weather here has not stopped. The temperature just keeps going up and down like a sine wave. Here is a shot of our weather forecast for tonight and the following days.

It’s almost like a Katy Perry song.