Sunday, October 10th
The fall color festival is almost over and the hunting season is opened, we have to keep Tara tied close to the house. The harvest is done, canning is under way and we're getting ready for winter.
Unlike last year, we managed to get a lot more done around the house this summer. The kitchen counter is installed and even though the drawers are still missing, temporary shelves make the space functional.
We took advantage of Jonathan and Maxim's visit in August, to apply the last coat of mud upstairs and in the kitchen. We were joined by Annie, Sebastien, Jacob and Stephanie to practice our lime plastering skills on the outhouse that is now all white. Thanks guys, it was very pleasant to share your youthful enthousiasm and to get you to taste my witches' recipes ... (I reeeealy have to find the time to add a food section to our website!)
We were also very lucky to welcome Caroline who's been travelling on her bicycle since last spring to visit all kinds of ecological homes. She had some experience with lime plasters and lent us a hand with the wall on the second floor. Since it's impossible to plaster such a huge space in a day, we used inlaid mirrors to delineate smaller sections. We had bought a pile of 2' round mirors at a garage sale a few years back and had planned on making a light path through the house, but it's so bright already that it would have been blinding to have such large reflective surfaces. So, we cut up the mirrors into small pieces that we glued to the wall before spreading the plaster coat. Lime plastering is quite a difficult technique and the first sections cracked some, but as we got better, so did the results. We'll probably have to redo the very first section or at least patch it up. Since it's at the end of the wall and altough we put up curtains to filter the sun, it dried too fast and cracked the most. If Caroline's adventures interests you (and you can read french), go to her blog where you'll also find lots of pictures of her journey.
Looking back on a spectacular summer: sunny and warm, everyone was happy... unless, like us, they had no more water. Early in August, the spring dried up and we had to tap into a catchment lower on the hill where the water isn't potable because of surface water infiltration due to enormous rocks around it. Fortunately, the torrential rainfalls these last couple of weeks have brought things back to normal and we again have drinkable water on tap. It's funny how city dwellers don't realize from where or how things arrive and leave their home. I confess I didn't think about it that much ten years ago, aside from turning off the faucet while brushing my teeth. People often comment on how hard it must be to live like we do, but what you don't realize is that when we have a problem, we can act to fix it. In town, when there will be no more water on tap, you'll be in deep shit..
On this profound thought, I'm heading back to the kitchen: 2 bushels of apples to turn into canned applesauce and kim chee to put into jars. Don't forget to visit the photos section to see all the improvements.