A bird in the hand

This little treasure ( a yellow warbler) flew right into the window of the trailer this morning and ended up pretty stunned. S/He was conscious though so I gently picked him/her up hoping the warmth of my hand would help. And it did! A minute or so of me sending good healing vibes through my hand and the little one was ready to fly away. Yeah!!!

Settling in

Getting comfortable in my trailer is priority number one right now. Especially as there's nothing much else for me to do until the workshop foundation is finished. So I built this deck. Eventually (soon I hope) it will have a canopy over it of translucent corrugated panels. This will replace the now wrecked roll out canopy that collapsed in the middle of the night last weekend giving Danielle and I one hell of scare!


Here are the two big concrete tanks for the septic system, installed by a crane truck in the very neat holes Robbie Driediger had dug. Believe it or not, he has asked me to at least partially fill them with water so that they don't float! Seems it's not unheard of where the ground is clay and rain water accumulates in the holes.

And that is a distinct possibility because the weather forecast is for about 5 more days of rain. No fun!

Travelling up. Moving in.

A pit stop in Buckley Bay on our way up island. As you can see my truck is loaded up with stuff. On the rack is our new kayak and my extension ladder. Oh yes, the babe is Danielle!






Robbie Dreidiger's artistry... two deep holes for the septic tanks separated by a neat "wall" of undisturbed clay soil.

 


The chicken coop is now the tool shed! We raked and shoveled and swept it clean and then banged nails in the wall for the garden tools as my lovely assistant is demonstrating;).






This guy was found wandering back from Manson's store on the forest trail. He looked a bit lost so we took him home for a cup of tea;)

POURING THE SLAB

On Friday May 21st a load of readymix concrete was delivered to our workshop site for the foundation slab. The truck had to take two ferries to get here and by the time it arrived, it had to be poured right away.








Here's Romney Shipway and his crew filling another wheel barrow load.









The finished slab.









Romney the artist at work.

SAILING GWYNETH TO HER NEW HOME

I just enjoyed three days of on Gwyneth, delivering her to Cortes Island, her new home port. It was mostly fine weather but also mostly head winds which means a lot of motoring. Anyway, I had a good trip and a wonderful visit with some new boating friends in Lund, Steve and Barb Mohan who have the Carlotta, a Bristol Channel pilot cutter and Jim Sepkowsky who owns a Nova Scotia schooner called "Maryke Violet" which I discovered was orignally called the William A Moir and built by Ben Heisler in Chester, NS. I knew Ben and the WAM as she was known, when I first came over from England in 1967. It was quite a surprise to find her here!


Here is Gwyneth approaching the entrance to Cortes Bay after a fast sail from Lund.

Progress on May's Garden is proceeding very well. Robbie has started on the septic field and Romney Shipway is doing the foundations for the workshop. It's great to see things starting to happen!

The Workshop

Here's a sketch of the workshop we plan to build this summer. It will measure 16ft x 30ft and will incorporate a separate storage area where we can keep stuff until the house is built. There are garage doors on one end and a long open but covered area for storing firewood (we'll have lots of that) equipment, vehicles etc.

David standing in the south west corner of the workshop site which has been cleared and prepped by Robbie Driediger.

This pile of alders from the site clearing has been bucked into 10ft lengths prior to being cut and split for firewood. By the look of it we have at least one winter's worth... The slash pile behind will need to be moved so that it can be burned in the fall, after fire season is over.