Time… there never seems to be enough of it in the world. To my shock and horror, I find that it has been almost an entire year since my last blog post! It has either been too boring or too busy. Days melt into weeks that slide into months and suddenly a year has passed so quickly that I barely have time to turn around and look at it. However, today… I have time!

Today, I am going to take you on a quick tour of the other half of the year on our property… So take a seat, grab a coffee, and enjoy the ride.

July 5th, Pete and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. Friends of ours treated us to amazing fish and chips from a local food truck. Life has been such an adventure with this guy… 2 kids, 7 different spaces that we have called home, 2 different provinces, and so many people along the way that we have met and get to call friends. Amazing!

Pete’s boss graciously let us borrow his capstan winch for us to pull logs out of the forest (This tool has made it to the top of our “MUST HAVE” list). Josiah and Zahra helped so much this year with splitting and stacking wood for the winter. I’m so thankful that Pete was able to get the wood shed complete that spring. Burning wood this past winter was a breeze! We estimated that we had around 6 cords of wood chopped and stacked. It’s now mid March and we are almost done our pile. The plan is to start splitting logs next week. Spring weather has come early this year (2025) in the Maritimes. Hopefully we can get the majority of the pile done before the bugs wake up.

The garden around the house was amazing last year. Everything filled in like crazy! It was beautiful! One of my favourite things is to watch the gardens grow. I get excited every time something new starts to blossom.

Last year I did something I had never thought I’d do… I kayaked in the ocean! I am a scaredy cat when it comes to being on a small vessel on deep water. The ocean is amazing! I love admiring it from the beach, I enjoy even swimming in it from time to time, but kayaking on it is a different story. All I could think of, laying in bed the night before the excursion, was that a shark would eat me. I battled with anxiety all night! So much so, that I overslept my alarm that morning and was an hour late for meeting my friend. She assured me that she has done this countless times and there was nothing to be afraid of. I squeezed my hips into the narrow hole onto the seat, found my balance, and settled into the rhythm of paddling. It was a beautiful morning. The ocean was calm, the sunrise was stunning, and we spotted a few seals along the journey. I survived!!! After getting home, Pete was not impressed about the whole thing. Together we looked at the shark tracker… and sure enough there was a great white shark that had been hanging out in that bay for a few days. It was even reported by some locals on FB that it had eaten their dog! Needless to say, that put the fear right back into me. From now on I’ll stick to kayaking on lakes and rivers. At least there I know I’m on the top of the food chain.

We had some fun projects that were completed that made living in our tiny house that much more enjoyable. Below you can see Pete framed and (mostly) completed the area under the stairs. There is a space for the dog crate, space for electronics, and space for a few tools and paint that we need to keep warm during the winter. The area behind the TV is meant to be a pantry one day. However, we ran out of materials at that point. Hopefully this year I will get some shelving and a door.

My parents came for a visit for a week in September. Grandma showed Zahra how to cross stitch and Josiah and Grandpa had fun going on mini bike adventures. Dad and I decided to build me a kitchen island to replace the small Ikea table we had been using. I had been desiring more workspace in my kitchen. And boy, has this island been quite the improvement in our house!

Fall had arrived and so did our need to come up with a better way to dry our clothes. Pete had been contemplating for a while about how we could do this better. For 2 years we have been using a folding rack. Though it has been useful, it was getting annoying to have to constantly move it out of the way. Peter came up with a system of pullies and rope connected to a wooden rack. It works so well! You first lower the rack down, put your clothes on it, then pull it up and secure the rope to a boat cleat. Every house needs one!

The final project of the year was the installation of the septic system! We weren’t sure if we’d be able to squeeze in the project by the end of the year. But we did it! Every last dollar, dime and nickel was saved for this project. The company that installed it was amazing. They squeezed us in the last week of November. Literally, the day after they finished up, we had our first snow fall of the season.

November 30th marked the last day I’d ever have to clean out the buckets for our composting toilet. The new toilet was installed… and might I add, works amazing! I’m so thankful that I didn’t have to deal with cleaning the buckets this winter. This winter turned out to be quite the doozy as far as snow accumulation.

2024 was such a full year. Family, projects, friends and adventures that we will never forget. Pictures only offer a sneak peek into all the things that happened, mostly centering on projects around the property. What the pictures don’t show is how our family has grown closer. The kids can hardly be called kids anymore… they are teens bounding towards adulthood. This year Josiah has enjoyed working with his hands and learning about engines. I don’t know how many times he has taken apart the mini bike engines. Zahra has excelled in her art. We have even added a page on this website to show off her skills. (Click HERE) Through out this last year, she had her art in the local museum along with other homeschool students, one of the local news papers featured her artwork, and she had some pieces for sale at a local cafe. Over the winter she has been hard at work creating more pieces of art to supply the cafe and hopefully have enough for a proper show.

Finally, we ended 2024 with a big snow storm on Christmas Eve. The South Shore hadn’t seen a white Christmas in years! It was pretty spectacular. I decided we should take some family pictures to mark the occasion.

What a great way to finish off 2024!

And what now?? What has happened so far in 2025? Well…. I think I’ll leave that for another blog post. I am going to put a date on the calendar to make sure I get it done. Stay tuned! If you haven’t already subscribed to the blog… I encourage you to do so. That way you will get notified the moment I publish a new update.
P.s. I am still bugging Pete about making an update video for YouTube. We haven’t forgotten… we just honestly haven’t found the time between work, projects and family life.