Arrival of Winter

My love for winter comes from deep within.  I love to reminise on the memories of being outside for hours at a time during my youth.  What I mostly remember about the season is the feeling, the smell, the visual appeal, and my dutch rosie cheeks.

My heart feels like it's going to burst when the snow falls in thick waves.  For some reason, dusk in the winter has this incredible hold on me.  The still silence, with only the wind whistling through the bare and evergreen trees.  The dusk snowfall.  If you're still enough you can hear it coming down.  This time of year is serious.  It's survival of the fittest with the animals, and survivial of emotions with humans.

If I could disappear into the wildnerness for all of winter and the preparation with autumn, I would be so happy.  Being in the cabin feels like I'm in the wilderness, and I am.  It almost feels like being in the womb again.  In this insulated warm womb.  Except, I can peer outside and see slow life going on around me.  Slow life like seeing the winter birds feeding at my suet.. perhaps I'm making them dependant on my offerings.  Slow life like an oak leaf hanging on to it's branch.  Slow life like hibernating animals and slow heart beats.

My senses come into full swing when a thought of winter crosses my mind.  The smell of fresh snow, and of fresh air.  The air smells clean.  Deep breaths of cold freeze your nostrils, pain your lungs, or make them stronger.  It's the deep breath of winter air that feels like a renewal for the new and changing seasons ahead.  A fresh start internally.

The low winter sun rises in the morning and the flakes on the ground shine like crystals.  You've never seen anything so true to colour.  Sometimes it can be blinding.  The low winter sun shines through me like no other time of year.  It fills my heart and brings me happiness.  My body needs that sunlight and reacts more intensely because of the lack of sun I receive during winter.  There seems to be nothing more beautiful in winter when we receive a snowfall overnight and you wake up to pine, spruce and cedar boughs weighed down with the heaviness of snow.  Reminds me of being in Algonquin Park for a winter hike with the proposal of marriage from my husband.  You could hardly make it through the trail the boughs were weighed down so much.

Lakes, ponds, rivers and creeks freeze.  We tie up our skates and hit the ice.  Hard, cold ice.  Nothing is more fantastic than spending a day outside with friends and family with a warm fire, hot drinks, a toboggan down the hill, and rosie cheeks.  A visit to the waterfall on my husband's family property is a very spiritual experience any time of year, but I love having a fire there when the water is frozen.  I love the snap of dead cedar branches and the quick warmth they give by burning fast. Light wood.  Blocked by the gusts of wind coming off the hills in the fields, the waterfall in the cedar woods is a sight and experience.

The first Christmas that my husband and I were together, he made me a wood duck box.  Every year, we hike out to the creek where the home is with fresh wood shavings and change the bedding in the box.  It's such a wonderful task.  How happy those ducks must be when they return in the spring to find their beds have been made and their sheets are clean.  Winter's exciting what with the new activities I've been introduced to, or the confidence I have being outside for long periods of time.  Being prepared and warm enough.  That can make or break you.

North is the direction of winter.  That Northern pull.  It's in my blood and in my spirit.  I love you old North.

Cobi Sharpe

New Autumn

Autumn came fast at the T.S.  B and I returned from our honeymoon in Europe just in time to see the Autumn colours.  It was spectacular.

We have been working very hard since our return.  We built a new addition, insulated the floor with spray foam, blocked all of the soffits so that we don't have the noisy starlings getting into the attic, we purchased and installed a new Pacific Energy super efficient wood stove, installed a new chimney and piping.  We have put plastic over the windows, spray foamed drafty areas and put gaskets over the electrical outlets.  We have packed all of our belongings into plastic storage bins and moved them into the new addition.  We have hooked a rain barrel up inside on the top floor because the outside line from the barrel is starting to freeze.  B's dad dug us a pond a little closer, so we might be able to pump water from the pond into the barrel on the top floor, rather than hauling it from the house in a barrel with the tractor and then pumping it inside.  Let's hope we've dug deep enough that the pond won't completely freeze.  Having that water access closer would be a life saver.

We had moved out for 2 weeks during the deer hunt, and are now back with a new layout and a decorated Christmas tree - our living Norfolk Pine!

I am really looking forward to winter, although it seems pretty slow coming.  Temperatures have been abnormally high this time of year.  We haven't even had an 'official' snow fall yet.  To me, that means 2 cm's falling to the ground.  We had a light dusting last week, but that's about it.

We are very warm and cozy in the T.S. right now.  We think there is enough wood to last us all winter.  I hope!

We are extending our family at the end of December.  We are welcoming Pickles, a chocolate point Siamese cat.  We're hoping she'll be a great mouser, because we have a mouse problem!  I am very uncomfortable with the idea of poison, and we've been wanting a pet for a while.  She's going to fit in perfectly with us.

Aside from all of that, we have attended a workshop on being your own general contractor for straw bale buildings.  It was very informative, and the information will be useful when the time comes for B and I to put our building plans into action.

Before the depth of winter, we are meeting with the conservation authority to see if there are any issues with installing a culvert on our property to allow us to build in our dream location.  If there is an issue, we'll have to think long and hard whether we want to build so close to the road.  We also have to have the local excavating company in to give us a quote on our options for a driveway.  If all goes well, and we are allowed to put a drive back to our dream location and it isn't going to cost us too much money, then we'll start putting a floorplan together for our home.  I have made dozens of these.. I guess it's just finding the right one to suit our needs.

The first lighting!

Building the addition

The new layout