ecopoë

I recently learned that the people who were going to help me on my first shed build are not going to be able to do it in June like I had thought. So, I’ve been drowning my sorrows in throwing boards with a lot of nails in them around for the last couple of days on part of the site where a previous cabin was destroyed and left to rot. Here is a “before” shot of the site.

That was Sunday May 31st at 7:30 pm right before I started the job of sorting and organizing the wood, the salvage and the waste. It was up to 34°C during the day, so I decided to wait until it was cooler to do such a dirty job involving heavy lifting. The story I heard about this land is that there was someone who had built a cabin here, but someone ended up squatting on the property, so it had to be pulled down. Such a pity. Such a mess!

I worked until 10 pm and then into the next day, and had to stop when I got to the big structural beams that were feeling too heavy for me to lift on my own. So, here is the “after” picture of where I’ve managed to get it to so far.

The post on the concrete block in the foreground was completely buried in the previous picture. Earlier today I started loading the garbage on the site and the wafer board that is visible in the bottom left quadrant of the above photo into garbage bags. There is a special place in Hades for this material. It was so friable it was disintegrating in my hands as I was trying to pick it up, and sending up gnarly clouds of dust (yes I had PPE) and yet the stuff wont rot because it’s laced with industrial chems to prevent it from doing just that. So, it gets all over and contaminates everything in a situation like this where it was just left on the site for years. You can’t burn it either because is illegal as it would release toxic formaldehyde gas and dioxins. The only option is to take it to the dump. This is one of the reasons why I will try my best to avoid such products as we go into our own building phases. Full cycle cradle to cradle LCA all the way. At least to the extent that is possible. It’s a work in progress.

Today the wind is picking up. This is my weather forecast for the next week.

I’m really in for it. A week of rain! Seven whole days! And the wind is shifting. Like in Mary Poppins, when the wind shifts around here, you know there is some kind of mischief or drama afoot. When it comes from the NW, you can chill. But when it shifts to the SE, then you’d better batten down the hatches if you are camping with tarps or else you could be in for some really nasty surprises as I have learned the hard way in the past.

I bought some new tools that I was hoping to use up here, but power tools and rain are not a great mix either. My first thought when I woke up this morning, knowing the forecast, was maybe it was time to throw in the towel. It just wasn’t going to work out for me this trip. But then, I had my breakfast of champions below…

…(which, if you know me is very anomalous, and this is not an ad, but I picked up the creatine and the magpop in Powell River on the advice of Claude when I asked what I should get for extreme muscle soreness and fatigue lol). After that I did a walkabout on the property, and decided to try and install some tarp shelters that I could potentially use as a makeshift shop to do some work while it rains.

There is a high chance with the winds around here that this is going to be an epic failure like my episode with the “tarp dragon” when I was camping with my lo two years ago, but hopefully I learned something about what not to do from that, and I will head higher up in the trees where it is less windy to stake out my spot and start mounting the tarp after I finish this post.

Before I say anything else, I want to note that I have a peculiar issue with posting from here as my iPad (that I am using to write this) has a scant bar of wifi, but because I take photos on my phone, I realized today they have not been syncing. So, I have very few photos on my iPad that I can use. Argh! So, I will try to resolve that tomorrow and get some more photos up…

Today reached at least 34°C! In the shade! I contemplated going for a dip in the ocean, but yesterday I spent hours out on the water untangling my buoy line (a story in itself) and re-setting up my boat pulley lines (another long story), so I felt the pull of the land more today. This morning I managed to have a shower and do a huge load of laundry by hand, so I almost feel civilized.

After the sun went down a bit I decided it was time to do some more work around here. Since it is taking us a while to determine what our bunkie and eventual more four season cabin design will be, we need at least a wee shed, shelter, shack, shop, studio structure to be able to escape the elements while we are here.I have been busy the last few days clearing a site to build said structure, and make a sketch of what that could look like, but since I have sent that to my neighbour who might help me build it, now I have a bit of extra time to do something else. So I decided it was time to clear the garbage wood on a plateau down by a gully on the land where a little cabin used to be, but was pulled down because apparently someone was squatting there back in the day. It is quite a mess of decaying lumber and particle board and littered with nails. We have already done a lot of cleaning out garbage up here and have brought at least 3 boat loads of garbage to the facility in Powell River. But I figured it was finally time to tackle the beast, and so I put on my safety glasses, leather gloves and steel toes boots left over from when my daughter went on a trip to Dominican Republic years ago, and I went over to do that around 7:30 pm.

When I got there it seemed pretty overwhelming as there was wood and waste strewn around a site at least 40 ft long, but I was determined. Banish the mess! Free the land! So I started on the debris farthest up the slope and worked my way down. I made a pile of lumber and wood that might still be salvageable that is nail free (which had like only 2 boards!), and a big pile of wood that has nails, a pile of garbage, and a pile of wood that could potentially be burned, and I managed to actually get through most of the debris strewn about the site. There was a bit left, but my back was tired and it was getting hard to work safely without setting up lights, so I finally called it in around 10:00 pm. I have some before and after pictures of the site I will share when I can.

Although it can be scorching during the day, it dropped down to about 10°C again tonight. “Feels like 6” says the weather report. My tent is in two vestibules, so at night I close the central flap to help keep it a feel a bit warmer in my zone. One of the things I debated with myself before coming out this spring was whether to get one of those canvas tents that you can put a little stove into.I also pet the screen of a few camping cots that I could set up in my fantasy glamping scenario. Every night I kick myself… Or, according to family systems theory, I should say that the part of me that likes the comforts of life (Miss Comfy) kicks me that I didn’t do that. But the part of me (Miss Frugality) that descends from thrifty farm folk wanted to make the most of what we already have and save the monay for actual building. And another part of me (Miss Ecology) also reminded me that part of my design criteria for the land is to keep material waste to a minimum if I can. So those annoying bishes won out, and now grumpy Miss Comfy has to wrap in a bundle of multiple blankets and sleeping bags to be warm at night. And so I popped a chewable cherry melatonin and washed it down with some magnesium citrate water prior to coming to bed, and I lie down in this glowing orb on a cold shore, wrap the fleece blanket around me, get into my sleeping bag, pull the wool blanket on top and, in spite of my love for self debate, am half way to dreamland before I put out the light, with a smile on my face.

It’s 12:30 am, and I’m currently sitting in a white mesh tent with hastily strung, solar powered, yet dim LED string lights meant to look like Edison bulbs barely lighting my keyboard. It’s pitch black outside so I can’t see out past what feels like a mesh space pod, and every now and then the wind lifts a side flap or something scurries nearby and I get a lovely dose of fight or flight adrenaline.

Luckily my wonderful neighbour who has gone out of town is allowing me to use his wifi as my land has very spotty service, if any. So, I’ve been trying to revive and update this blog for the past day (well more like the past 10 years, but that’s another story) so I can get off a screen and back to this living on the land thing I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks. I managed to register and find a host, as well as import my old blog over to this platform here yesterday, but so much of it has been lost in translation, and ever since I’ve been wrestling with weird formatting and ugly fonts and other minutia to get it at least somewhat presentable. While I was sitting here just now though, it felt like something came up and nibbled or scratched my toe. Mouse? Other more dastardly creature? It’s pretty much a black vortex when I look down towards the old deck slats after staring into the glow of my iPad screen, so it could be demon claws peeking through the cracks in the firmament for all I know. So, regardless if it is mouse or ghoul, I think that is a sign the land is telling me to leave well enough alone and go over to my tent and go to bed.

So, here is my first inglorious dispatch from a dark and moonlit shore. When I said I want to tweak my fonts again, quoth the land, nevermore! (At least for tonight!)