July 25th - wrapping it up

Today we started wrapping the house in one inch thick foam insulation. This is just the first step in making the house energy efficient. There will also be thick fiberglass insulation in the 6" deep wall cavities, plus under the main floor in the crawl space. Even the concrete slab in the living room gets a layer of high density foam insulation under it.

Tonight I walked the trail through the woods to the coop store. (I was out of granola... a dire emergency:) Along the way I took this photo of Hague Lake just before sunset. Today was "Floatopia" on the island in the lake known locally as Turtle Island. Lots of young folk paddle or swim out there for a day of music and whatever kids do these days when their parents aren't around;) It sounded like fun from the shore...

July 21st

Waiting for the sun - July 16th

Rain in mid July is not unheard of in this wet coast climate, but still it is unusual. And as far as building a house is concerned, it's a pain. Until we get the metal roof on everything inside the house is wet. So getting that roof on is a priority, but we need the roof to be dry so we can measure it for the roofing (walking on a sloping wet roof is not advisable). Snookered. Similarly with the exterior foam insulation; it's sitting there ready to be glued on, but we need the plywood to be dry so that the glue adheres properly. One project we can move ahead with is shoveling the pile of gravel into the living room to raise the floor level before we pour the concrete slab. Luckily, Elgin is coming up here for a few days to help out with this and some other work... splitting firewood comes to mind.

Anyway, tomorrow is Cortes Day, the island's annual summer festival. (it was supposed to be today but guess what... postponed because of the rain.) We're keeping our fingers crossed and gazing anxiously skywards looking for a break in the clouds...

Apples and Deck

After a wonderful weekend getaway and sailing adventure to the Vancouver Island Music Festival in Comox, today, Mike and I were back at it framing the deck in front of the house.

Last night I took a walk around the property to check out the fruit showing on the apple trees  and was pleasantly surprised to find there's lots of it! Last year there was hardly any and were talking about getting rid of the trees and replacing them with new, young ones. The orchardist we talked suggested waiting a year and I'm glad we did.

Sailor's run ashore

OK I admit it... now that the weather is finally improving it's getting harder to stay focused on the house building project. Especially when the likes of my buddy Ken aka Captain Easy shows up on his sailboat with musician Dave Phillips as crew.


Here we are prior to setting off to a wonderful beach bbq with some sailing friends, some Cortes islanders and some visitors from down under. Dave and I hauled our guitars along and kpt the music flowing almost as well as the wine and the chat;)

Apart from being a very decent singer/songwriter, Dave proved to be a willing and capable worker. Here he is relaxing after a hard day's labour on the jobsite.  Check out his website at www.davephillipsland.com. 


This weekend I'm taking Gwyneth down to Comox for the Vancouver Island Music Festival. It's a 30 mile sail and the weather is looking not too bad. I'll let you know how it goes...




Meanwhile, back at the ranch... we got the "bump out" window more or less framed. Ken and Dave put a coat of stain on most of the facia boards. So progress is being made...