Friday, October 6th 2006
Wrapping up for winter!
The main jobs are nearly done and we're officially shutting down the worksite for winter. The West wall was completed last week and Alain had a surprise for me last Friday. He put up a vertical log wall with a beautiful heart shape in it. It's the East wall, just to the right of the door he finished yesterday.
We were lucky again to get lots of help the last 2 weekends. Christine and 6 of her friends helped us move all our things back into the house. They also filled the last few tires on the West outer wing and Diane and Guillaume completed the tongue and groove of the ceiling planks. Last weekend, Annie showed up with 2 friends and we cleared everything that lay around the house.
The mechanical shovel came Tuesday, a day late... but to our relief, the boss did the job himself and he's really skilful. It was quite tricky to do the infill in the back and especially on the East side. We couldn't figure out if he'd be able to get all the way around with that monster and we had to get the slope coreected so the surface water would flow away from the house. We did all that and now have plenty of space to install our compost bins and ice cellar. We also moved our future bath closer to it's final destination. We're still debating wether to use that pink rock as a bathtub since in this case, the thermal mass will play against us. We may have found a way to keep the water warm: we'd make a "rocket stove" to preheat the stone...
Steve was here that day to have the shovel make a road up to the site he chose for his house. He hasn't decided how and when he'll build but it's a big first step! It'll allow him to camp there next summer to start clearing the brush and figure out the best spot for the house.
I forgot to tell you we had visitors last month. TV5 is doing a story on us that should air at the end of October. The french show, "Tu m'étonnes!", is on Tuesdays at 7PM.
Has you probably have guessed, the chronicles will become less frequent during the cold season. Those of you who are on our emailing list will be advised when something new comes up. If you're not on it yet and would like to be, send us our email address. THANKS to everyone for the help and support. We sailed through summer on an incredible wave of positive energy coming from you all.
Have a nice and cozy winter!