Friday, Mayr 23rd
Finally, spring!
It's about time we woke up and gave some sign of life... at the urging of a some of you who demanded a new chronicle. I have to say, we weren't as lazy this winter, compared to the previous ones. For one thing, our "new" old tractor with a snowblower got a lot of mileage. It was the perfect weather to practice, plus we never had to wait our turn for the road to be cleared, what a pleasure! The shovels were also quite busy, we had to clear the roofs on the garage, the shelter and the house before the thaw and rain started. There was over 5 feet of snow on them.
This year we hadn't planned any work since past experience had shown nothing got done during the cold season, but this time, a few litlle things got taken care of. Alain covered a couple of the smaller walls with wood and the chinking was done to stop the air leaks between the logs ont top of the tire walls. We tried 2 methods, one with a low VOC commercial product that costs $75 per tube and the other with home-made lime mortar. Guess which one we liked better? and it wasn't just the money issue. Although the Sansin product is nice to work with and we would use it for outdoor applications because of the superior elasticity, we favored the lime mortar for the indoor walls. It's a lot less messy to clean up for one thing.
There was very little improvement for the temperature inside the house this winter. I still find it too cold in the morning during the few weeks when it's frigid outside, 10C isn't conducive to getting out of bed! That's why I made drapes to close off the front section of the first floor and Alain installed plastic sheeting in the windows on the second floor. For next year, we'd like to install clear polycarbonate, 4" on the inside of each pane to keep the view but improve insulation. We also want to replace our old wood stove with a "rocket stove and mass heater" with integrated cooking surface and baking oven.
I also have to talk about our earth floor since it wasn't finished in my last chronicle. We simply love the texture, soft and a bit unevent under our toes and, to our great surprise, relatively warm compared to the cement floor on the first level. On the other hand, the boiled linseed oil finish was an eye opening experience of the worst kind: what is sold in hardware stores, contrary to what the label says, isn't boiled linseed oil. It's raw linseed oil that's been treated with toxic chemicals to acquire the same properties as if it had been boiled! My asthma really acted up, especially since it was impossible to leave the doors and windows open 24 hours a day because it was late in the season. You absolutly have to use the wood finishing oils sold in natural products stores... lesson learned.
We had many requests from future builders to see the house and learn from our experience. In March, we held a one day visit/seminar attended by 4 people and more should show up to learn hands-on this summer. It seems there will soon be more earthships in Quebec, even one just a few kilometers from ours according to the town's urbanist. I saw him when I went to renew our building permit following our first tax assesment that stated that the house wasn't finished, accompanied by a letter asking us to renew the permit.
Problems with water again this year, it must be our karma. We have an excellent spring that feeds the house, but the capture, transport and storage have been causes for headaches. No freezing this winter, but when the snow melted, surface water seeped into the cistern adding undesirable bacteria. We'd been discussing changing that reservoir for a while now and decided to go ahead by buying an 1000 liters cistern, recycled from the food industry. It was installed quickly in order to get our drinking water back online, we'll have to stabilize and insulate it before next winter.
And before the black flies come out, I hurried to fulfill an old dream of mine: planting fruit trees. I've been a fan of Ken Taylor from Windmill Point Farm for close to 20 years. I had read an article in The Gazette where he spoke of his vision of agriculture: how encouraging only a handful of productions like cows and corn, pigs and apples just didn't make sense because you end up with overproduction and having to subsidize the farmers. He gave the example of asian pears that can yield around $1000 per tree; over an acre you get 500 times more than with corn. Anyway, I wanted a few trees to become more self-sufficient and feast on delicious fresh fruits. We bought and planted one of each: plum, cherry, apple, grape and heartnut. We'll add another apple tree for cross polination this fall. I have my eyes set on a very old tree at Centre Pierre Boogaerts with plentiful Russet apples. I should be able to dig up and transplant one of the many side shoots.