the house site

Our friend David Rousseau has been working on a design for our house, with lots of input from us of course. Today we marked out the floor plan on the site just to see how it works.
You'll need to enlarge this shot (just click on it) to see the pink tape that marks the house perimeter. Basically the design is in a V formation with a deck between the two arms of the V. In the foreground is a gap in the tape that marks the main entrance from the carport. To the left is the kitchen, beyond that the dining room. Then there will be french doors opening onto a deck between the two arms of the V shaped plan.

The wire drum in the middle is where there would be a spiral staircase to the second floor.

The living room will be a few steps down from the rest of the house with a SW aspect looking across the field towards the tent in the far corner.

This view is from the centre of the house with the dining area on the right and the kitchen beyond.

At the back of the house there's a master bedroom, bathroom, small office and laundry/mud room.

Upstairs will be a multi purpose room (spare bedroom etc) and a small bathroom.
The carport would cover where my truck is parked.

This is just a concept at this stage, but I think it has some interesting possibilities. I think the deck between the two "wings" will be a very nice spot to sit out in summer time.

I also like the big, "sunken" living room which will have a in-floor heating and a nice wood stove. Mmmmm cosy!

Lots of discussion and fine tuning before we settle on a final plan. But this is a great start.

walk in K'was Park

This little guy was looking decidedly sleepy.






This huge Douglas Fir Tree has a secret door in the trunk that could take you pretty much anywhere you want go...

I took a video of the tree and put it on YouTube. Here it is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGm2W8jz4SE









This the view over K'was Lake from Pierre's memorial bench.
While sitting there, I composed these lines...



Satori is an
all and/or nothing thing!

Attachment is dead. Liberation is alive.
That’s how you know the difference.

Find a high place and look down.
The fresh perspective of distance below you
Is very powerful.

End of summer

This Stellars Bluejay is one of many who like to feed on hazel nuts and anything else they can find around here. Taken through the trailer window.


Sowing winter rye seed. I'm using a gadget I found in a junk store in Vancouver and bought it for its curiousity value. In the back of my mind was this exact scenario, sowing seed on my own land. The way it works is you load the seed into a canvas bag, a small lever opens and closes the feeder slot that lets the seed drop onto a rotating plate with blades that throw it out to the sides. It actually covers a "swath"about 10 - 12ft wide in one pass. The winter rye is a compost crop that gets ploughed back into the soil in spring. here's a link to little YouTube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL00L4cuiTw






Here's the driveway after the ditches were back-filled. If you look closely (click on the photo to enlarge it) you can see an old bath tub that was used for watering livestock. Not sure what to do with it but I'm loathe to throw it out.

Harvest Festival

Yesterday was the Linnaea Harvest Festival which I attended and enjoyed. It's held at Linnaea Farm which is an organic gardening school. There used to be a school on the same property but it closed this year due to lack of enrolment.

Linnaea is a special place. It has been there for years and continues to inspire and nourish people on this island and way beyond. People come from lierally all over the world to study here.

Naturally the gardens and orchards are wonderful but I was also intrigued to meet John who lives and works there as a traditional tool maker and woodworker. He was demonstrating how to use a spokeshave and had on display some neat elbow adzes and draw knives he had made.



This doe and her two fawns were quietly feeding behind my trailer when I noticed them and took this shot through the window. The fawns still have some spots but they are growing fast. I really enjoy having deer around here and only want to keep them out of the garden and away from fruit trees.






And.... here is a dark brown garden plot, thanks to the efforts of Dan the Tiller and his Troy-Bilt machine. (redone on the left). On the right is David Rousseau's big backhoe which he has been using to back fill the utility ditches -- the final step of the long painful process of putting all our electrical and water lines underground.

The next step with the garden is to plant a crop of winter rye which will get ploughed into the soil next spring. Believe it or now I actually have a gadget for planting seed, which I will try to photograph in action and post here in a week or so.

Apple harvest

Today I "harvested" the apples from our three apple trees. As you can see the crop was meagre but beautiful! There two varieties, one is a pale green and the other has nice blush. The flavours are wonderful! Unfortunatelyt the trees are diseased and well past their prime and may need to be cut down to avoid contamination of any new trees we plant.

Today at the market I met a woman who was selling locally grown apples. She and her husband have made a study of local varieties and sell nursery trees.

It would be great to a have a few trees in the ground this fall....

Dan the Tiller

Here's Dan getting to work with his big TroyBilt tiller.








He found the grass heavy going in spite of the scything I have done.

But it was a nice cool September day and he got about two thirds of the garden area tilled, at least a good first pass.

Meanwhile I finished getting the electrical caution tape in the ditches which are now ready for final backfilling. Yeah!

Labour Day

This field of stubble represents a significant amount of labour on my part using the scythe. Beats going to the gym!





Ditches back filled to 6" of ground level with the electrical caution tape in place. The last step is to backfill the ditches to ground level. Hopefully this will be done by the backhoe!




















Table still life... our tomato plants have done remarkably well in spite of the severe neglect they have endured. Last night we ate oysters we picked off the beach at Galley Bay where we went for a sail yesterday. I bbq'd them and we shared them with Annie and Noella. Yummm!