Moving day! When we made the move from Calgary in July 2005, we have been staying in this 5th wheel trailer, located on one corner of the property. Our homesite is about a 1/2 km away. Not having a 5th wheel hitch, we employed our neighbour Jamie. Here he has us hitched up and ready to go, we hope…

And there she is. She tried to get away a few times but Jamie caught her and here she be, settled in beside the cabin. 'Home Sweet Home' for the next month or two until the cabin is done, uh, well, at least enough to move into. It will probably be years before it has it's final touches completed, things like wallboard, flooring, baseboards, ceilings, all that nice stuff. In the meantime, maybe we'll start a new trend with our 'au naturel, plastic covered insulation' walls. But, at this time, anything is better than living in "Tin Lizzy", I hope she didn't hear that…

The black item on the pile of wood is the wood stove pipe. It will attach to the black piece in the middle on this side. Someone added a small wood stove and it keeps the trailer nice and warm. Too warm mostly, the door is flung open quite often so we don't roast, no sense in feeding the bears…. wonder what happened to the previous owners… bwaaaa hahahaha!

Here's Jamie. I think he's laughing at me taking too many pictures. Was having a little trouble with the zoom lens and caught his cap, his elbow, the wheel, then finally got this one, phew!

Here's the solar battery shed (on skids) being hauled using our truck. A tweek here, a tweek there with the chainsaw to adjust the skid so it would pull easier, and away they went.

Is this funny, or is it just me? It looks like the shed has had one too many and is having trouble getting home…

Oh, one of them recognized home in the distance and made the right turn. There's the cabin in the background, the beige pointy thing ahead of the truck (I beam with pride :) )

Kerplunk, and there it will stay. Far enough away that we won't have to listen to the sound of the generator for 2 hours most days. Hmmm, the yard is taking on a look of it's own isn't it?

And you guessed it, the answer to the drainage item from the linen closet issssss, the humble towel. It acts like a wick and removes any water that collects on the unleveled floor of the cabin. As long as the bottom of the towel is lower than the floor, it works. Now we don't have to fire up the generator, vacuum the water up, and lift heavy canisters of water out the door. Gee, I wonder what I'm going to do with all the extra time on my hands now….

Here we have a shot of our actual homesite, with the 5th wheel moved next to the cabin. That's bags of insulation on the right.

I had mentioned I was going to show you how the roof rafter went up but we got going and before I knew it, it was up… It did go up in 3 sections and went quite smooth except for the bows/twists/curves & knots in the wood, %@*&!. Took awhile to tweak a few pieces and even then we weren't happy with them. Andrew had done quite a bit of "eyeing" each piece to make sure he avoided the worst pieces, but a couple did sneak through somehow and caused a lot of frustration, but, we're still married.

Andrew went to town, and the waiting begins…

Here comes our worldly goods in that semi trailer. We had stored it on Jamie's property while he built the road into the homesite. Oh was this nice to see!

The semi, in it's parking spot near the cabin. Now we can rummage through and discover our wordly goods all over again. Hah! More like, "what did we bring this for, mumble mumble…." Is that a clothesline on the right?

I love clothes dried in the open air, that fresh outdoor smell brings back memories of my mother hanging out the laundry (a few decades ago). And with the wind, they are soft and wrinkle free (not that I ever iron anyway). But, there is a downside to a clothesline in the trees…. we have to put up with a few bugs. You know, you put your pants on first thing, have breakfast, then head out to start the day and you thiiiiiink you feel something, you check, yes, there's a bump, you try to see what it is and OMG!, the pants are dropped on the driveway, a 2.5" beetle is promptly extracted, heartrate starts to slow down, you look around to see if anyone saw you, but you're safe, this isn't Calgary. But, you imagine the forest alive with laughing wildlife (Far Side cartoons). The beetle? Their tough shell does a good job of protecting them, and he walked away. Can hardly wait for winter though, no bugs in, well, the laundry…

We decided to break ground for a garden this fall and here's Andrew with the rototiller. He had to hang on pretty tight as there were loads of roots that pulled him every which way. We kept it to a small size, about 12' x12' for now, and hope to expand it next summer. Gardens grow very well up here I'm told, due to the long daylight hours. Think I'll only have one zuchini plant then…

That's a big root Andrew pulled from the garden patch. The soil is mostly clay, with about two inches of topsoil. It is a nice humus though and we have a pile of it, from bulldozing last winter, that I hope to add to the garden next spring. Had also hoped to expand it a bit more before the ground froze, toooo late! (I'm writing this on Nov 6th, the ground is pretty solid in most places already)

And the gable walls are up and wrapped. Andrew has the gable ladders (overhangs) to add to each side of the cabin yet.

With the leaves off the trees, the poplar remind me of a porcupines back when he's defending himself. Now the spruce trees get to show off though, and it feels like a different walk along my route. I went a bit further this time and found beaver dams, one after the other. They have built along the creek quite a bit and don't seem to be stopping any time soon. Guess the baby kits need to establish themselves somewhere when they leave home, and there's lots of room left yet. Where this picture was taken, there's remnants of many old beaver dams, so the beaver have been up and down this creek for a long time. Looks like they may be moving back in. That's great. Since we don't have a tv, we'll have live entertainment watching these little creatures.

Did you ever wonder what's in a beavers dam? You'd be surprised. This one has branches, twigs, grasses, leaves, a patch of mud (still don't know how they get it there) and even rocks! Can you see a couple of them, they are about 5" across, and heavy, how do they do it?

I mean, look at those rocks, they are huge! And there's a whole lot of them in this dam. If you know how it's done, please drop me a line as I don't think I can wait until next summer to find out how they get them there. Curiosity'll not only kill the cat, me as well... If I don't hear from anyone, I'll ask my neighbour Jamie and let all you "cool cats" know how it's done. Ha ha, waaaay back in the 60's, that was a slang term for cool people, aaaah, ha ha ha ha, oh we were sooo cool…back then it was cool, now, cool cat means very cold cat meowing at the door wanting in...

Another dam, this time a big dam. I didn't go far as it's literally a bushwack to get anywhere along the creek. There are so many downed trees from the wind, that it's a real workout to go a short distance even. Will investigate further along later, if the snow doesn't come too early. I love walking in the cold fall air.

I did find a very active beaver site and here's a skid trail they are using to haul branches into the water. This one was wet so I disturbed their work in progress that day. Stayed just long enough to get a few pics and left asap. We have something in common. We are both trying to finish building our homes before winter arrives. And they have to also get their food cache built up. Wonder if they know if it's going to be a tough winter? They have been very busy at this site…

Here's McClinty standing beside a large poplar tree the beaver are working on. I should go back and see how they are doing, but stay far enough away just in case "their and my" timing is, well… Squash… "Oh how she loved to go to the creek to watch the beaver at work"...

Poplar bark anyone? Here's a tree a beaver dined on not too long ago. This tree must have had something special tasting as it was the only one of many downed trees that was chewed on both sides, see the wee teeth marks? This again is in the active beaver site, where I think I'll try that zoom lens again.

Here's the overhang (ladders) I was referring to earlier. They took quite a bit of work. The horizontal boards are 4 feet across and then 24 inch braces are in between them. This gives more stability to the overhang for winds & snowloads. Now we are ready to start putting plywood on the roof.

Here's Andrew, head in the cloud, putting the first sheet of plywood on, only 39 more to go…

This is the attic with sun streaming through the rafters on the south side. Looks like there might be a show with that chair facing the covered window. (It reminded me of Sunday nights when my mother would let me stay up later, & could hardly wait to get seated to watch the Ed Sullivan show. Maybe Topo Gigio would be on that night. Remember when he'd say, "Kissa me goodnight, Eeeddieeeee".)

The "cabin" looks pretty big really. That's Andrew on the roof, getting his harness rope in place.

And here's the north side with it's first row of plywood, roofing paper and slats that need to be added for the sheet metal roofing to attach to. We might be moved in before Rememberance Day, my fingers are crossed. As I write this, it's November 6th, eleven more days to go. It's -7 outside the 2" walls of the 5th wheel trailer, and we are going through wood faster than planned. Should we get more wood, or keep going on the roof, scratch, scratch…

Roof it is. Here's the south side, it's almost prepped and ready to apply the metal roofing to. That's a 45 degree angle Andrew has to walk on while he's working, I'm glad it's not me. He's also wearing a safety harness, attached to a rope, attached to the truck. "We need bread honey, where's the keys to the truck?"

I just asked Andrew if he keeps the keys in his pocket while he's up there, nope… I should see the rope attached to the front of the truck so I shouldn't drive off with him in tow, at least that's the theory behind tying it to the front of the truck...

And it's here we leave you, in suspence, like the famous season finale of "Dallas" years ago… is he breathing?