Backwoods Wife

{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ Valentine's Edition

 

A valentine for Mommy and Daddy from Hendrik.

{pretty}

The week leading up to Valentine's Day and Emma's birthday was a busy one.  We tried to stop and enjoy the roses along the way though. :)  My sister Christen and I found these lovelies at our local grocery store on Sunday, we split the bouquet between us.  Aren't the colours amazing?  These photos have not been enhanced, nor has a flash been used, this is their natural splendor!

 

 

 

{happy}

Dwayne and I went out to a formal event on Saturday night.  We have friends who are part of the RCMP and thought this a great chance to visit with friends, have a night out together, and have an excuse to dig out formalwear (we were hunting around outside in -20C looking for the storage bins containing our suits and formal dresses!).  Sadly, I didn't take a photo of us dressed up.  Silly!

 

 

 

{funny}

If I dig out my camera, so does everyone else.  Here are my sweet, funny girls taking photos too on their play camera and iphone.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

{real}

There is real progress happening in our yard these days.  If you look past the heart decorations on the window you will see menfolk milling lumber and splitting logs in preparation for the addition we will putting on soonish.  Yay! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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House planning

Well, we are trying to decide whether or not to build a new house or build an addition on to our existing house.  Right now, we are leaning towards the latter.  Less time and energy to get it done and get moved in!  I have house plans in my brain right now.  I'm always on the lookout for ideas.  Our lovely local bookstore is changing hands next week, and as such, the current owner is trying to sell as much inventory as possible before the sale of the store.  A visit yesterday yielded a happy surprise - all books 50% off!  YIPEE!  I purchased a few books that I had been drooling over for a while.  Here are some of the books I've been perusing lately.  Some bought yesterday, some not!

A new home for Digger and Henry

Over the past couple of days Dwayne has been working on an outside pen for Digger and Henry(among many other things!).  Today the boys moved in!  Henry seems to prefer it outside, Digger has been hiding out in the little house.  I'm with Digger, the mosquitoes are THICK today.

I spoke way, way, WAY too soon

Oh the mosquitoes.  It's like we're camping.  The other morning I woke up at 4:30a.m.  This may not be out of the ordinary for some people but it certainly is for me.  Just ask Dwayne or my parents or my sisters or practically anyone else who knows me.  Brutal.  Dwayne woke up shortly after me and by 5:15 we decided we might as well get up seeing as we weren't going to be sleeping anyway for all of the buzzing and insect killing.  There were clouds of them in the house. We spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out where they were coming in and filling in any little gaps that we found.  Then we drank a lot of coffee.  Then we waited until nightfall to see if we had improved our situation. Well.  There was slight improvement but still a crazy number of mosquitoes getting into the house.  Today there was more inspection and sealing up around the outside of the house.  Again we have to wait. As I am sitting here typing I am being swarmed.  I think I have found the source.  They seem to be coming in through a small gap above the picture window in the living room.  In log homes you need to leave room above the windows and doors for settling and shrinkage of the logs.  The space is filled with fiberglass insulation and covered with wood trim which seems to be fine in the cold but not enough to keep the mosquitoes out.  Dwayne is spray foaming the outside of the window right now and hopefully we will see a marked improvement. Tonight will tell.  Wish me sweet, mosquito free dreams!

And we have power!

Tonight Dwayne hooked up the the wood gasifier to the battery bank and gave them a bit of a charge. We can officially make electricity from wood scraps now. We're generating our own power from wood and cleaning up our property at the same time! :)

Wood gasifier

As of tonight we have a working wood gasifier. For us laymen, that means that we can run a gas burning engine off of wood scraps. The engine, in turn, will be used to charge our battery bank. Essentially the concept is this: scraps of wood=electricity. Apparently the technology was used a lot during World War II when there was a petroleum shortage. Dwayne found directions online and has been building the gasifier with assorted metal containers and automotive parts he had lying around. I will get him to dictate a post to me one day so I can better explain how it works.

Bye bye buckets!!

No more buckets! As of last night all drains were good to go. Toilet, sinks, washing machine, all in normal working order. The shower sealer is curing as I type and by week's end we will be able to shower at our own house. It is so nice to turn on the taps and not worry about how full the 5 gallon pail underneath is. It is so nice for Dwayne not to have to be slinging buckets all day long. :) We are pretty happy around here!

Grouting the Shower

Yes, spring is here and our septic system is thawing out after a very cold, very long winter. We had trouble with our leaching pit freezing partway through the winter and as a result we have had running water but have not been able to drain it through the pipes. This has meant Dwayne carrying out bucket after bucket of wash water every day. It has also meant that we have not showered in our own house yet! When we first moved in our hot water heater had not yet arrived. Then the hot water heater arrived but the installation kit was back ordered. For MONTHS. Shortly after the installation kit arrived our septic system froze up. Since December we have been showering at my parents' and my sister and brother-in-law's homes. We have really appreciated being able to shower, believe me, but it will be nice to shower in our own home, both for us and for our families as well. All of this bucketing has been quite time consuming and each shower trip takes roughly 1-2 hours depending on how many errands we tag onto the trip. The leaching pit's thawing will give us the gift of time and Dwayne's burly arms a break. The ground is also thawing nicely and soon it will be thawed deep enough down that we can bring in some heavy equipment to dig up the system and bury it deeper to prevent freezing next winter. A day or two of work will well be worth it come October!

Carpentry 101

Mystery solved!

Today our plumbing was acting up again. Now we think we know why. Dwayne remembered an incident from this summer when he was driving the loader near the vertical access pipe for the septic tank. He saw the vertical pipe move when he drove past it. His theory is that the underground drain pipe was popped out of proper alignment with the tank when the septic tank shifted due to the weight of the loader. Right now the pipe narrows where it butts up against the tank underground instead of keeping it's 4 inch diameter.

Once the ground thaws Dwayne plans to dig a hole over the affected area, cut the pipe, fit a longer length in, and secure it with a connector. Then the outflow pipe from the house will stick into the tank instead of just butting up against it. Until spring we'll probably have to do a weekly pipe check to avoid the problem. We also noticed the problem occurred after we accidentally bought 3-ply toilet paper instead of 2-ply.