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Excavating…
Pete has been busy making everything flat… check it out!
Monday 
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Tuesday 
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Wednesday 
Wednesday -
Beauty in the Woods
Today, Pete is scheduled to recieve the excavator rental. He has also planned to camp out on the property tonight in the hope of conserving fuel (because we all know its too much right now!). Together we spent the morning making sure he had everything we could think of. This will be his first experience “camping” out. It won’t be legit camping… he”ll be staying in the container on one of the twin matresses… so he already has it better than most campers. He has the charcol bbq and a whole
He should have no problem out there. And I’m sure we will get some silly footage out it for the YouTube channel.
After getting him out the door, the kids and I finished up schoolwork, ate lunch and went for a quick walk at Pine Grove Park. Right now it’s the best time of year to go walking there. Everything is green and all the rhododendrons have started flowering. I couldn’t stop taking pictures!
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Cutting down the hill.
Lately the days haven’t been all that eventful. We’ve partially cleaned out the container to make it easier for us to access the yurt in the back. Pete found J’s drone. This led to all sorts of experimental flights with the Osmo camera mounted on it (Video footage of the property from the sky will be out later this week!). Pete also decided to start figuring out the best way to get down the hill. The first line he came up with turned out to be too steep. It’s so hard to tell when trying to plot it out with trees in the way. Once some of the smaller trees were out of the way it was much easier to see that we needed to make the slope longer. Cutting the new line down was the job for today. It went way faster than the first try. A bonus was that he was able to get all the cutting done with only one battery on the chainsaw. The newest battery that Ego sent out as a replacement is a huge improvement from the others.
Since there isn’t much for me to do while he cuts down the hill, I spent the time filming and taking pictures of the forest. It’s so beautiful in the forest right now! The trees are growing their leaves, there are little flowers ground on the forest floor, and I spotted a few mushrooms as well. Mushrooms are one of my favourite things to find on our property. Last year I started photographing the different kinds I’d see on our walks. Hopefully this year I’ll be able to capture more! Soon the forest will be lush and over grown with foliage for the summer.
Until next time!
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Digging out roots.
Roots… Trees need them grow nice and tall. They feed the tree, keep the tree standing in blustery winds, and help keep soil in place so that other vegetation can benefit. However, roots are no fun when you are trying to put in a foundation. We as humans have learned (the hard way) that our buildings need to have their own “root” system. That “root system” will look different on every construction site. We have chosen a prefab concrete pier foundation foundation. Turns out it is cheaper to get these from the local concrete yard than it is to pour your own footings!
We started digging out the roots with our backhoe just before we left for vacation. (If you follow our YouTube channel, you will see what Pete was able to get done in “The Beast” video.) Unfortunately, upon our return, we discovered the backhoe was struggling to work properly. It turns out its going to be a costly fix. There is still lots to do as far as digging out roots, moving rocks and grading the area for the house. It’s been an unfortunate set back on the build.
Don’t you worry though, we will push on to get this job done! Pete has arranged to have an excavator dropped off at the end of this month (Thank goodness we were able to find one available during this busy time of year). This works out perfectly with the materials for the foundation set to arrive around the same time. Everything seems to be a bit of a wait to get at the moment. So we will just have to wait patiently. And I can tell you, that is really hard to do when our little corner of the earth is starting to warm up so nicely.
Until next time!
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Prep For A Day…
Today, I thought I’d share with you what a morning looks like as our family gets ready to go. The day usually starts with a good cup of coffee and breakfast. Then we get our butt in gear and get prepping for the day.
Don’t forget Otto! Pete takes care of gathering the camera gear and work equipment needed for the day. The kids are responsible for the items they need to keep themselves busy as well as their water bottles. I am in charge of the food.
The menu for a day is as follows: Macaroni Tuna Salad, Bran muffins, apples & chips. And coffee to go for Pete and I.
I don’t know how this became the staple food choice… but it has. I made this combo once and became the favourite “must have” food for when we are working. Maybe it’s more filling then the average sandwich?
Anyhow, I thought it would be fun to share the recipes. Click on a picture to be brought to the recipe. 😊
Raisin Bran Muffins 
Tuna Macaroni Salad That’s it for now… hope you enjoy the recipes. Comment below to let me know if you tried them.
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Battery Packs Arrived
Greeting everyone! Since my last post, work on the property hasn’t been very exciting. Pete has been cutting the trees and the kids and I have been piling and burning the brush. It’s been pretty tricky to get the fire started these days. This week we’ve had 2 days that were workable, the rest have been cold and raining and the next few days will be just as bad. The weather report promises sunshine on Sunday. So you can be sure we will be back out there cutting, piling and burning.
Yesterday we worked pretty hard on the property. Everyone was tuckered out and slept in this morning. Therefore, I decided to make the family a nice big breakfast to get our day off to a good start. On the menu was pan fried potatoes with eggs and left over sausage with fried onions and peppers. I was met with big smiles and lots of gratitude over the yummy feast. And boy, was it ever good! After breakfast, Pete settled into video editing while the kids and I got started on schoolwork.
Random Fun Fact: did you know that Play-doh was originally invented to clean coal soot off wallpaper in the 1930’s? (The things I learn whilst teaching)
After school was done, I checked my email and gleefully discovered that our batteries arrived at the shipping depot. We had ordered these things back in December from China. These batteries has been the biggest gamble in this whole adventure so far. Pete had found this company through Alibaba. All of the communications with the representative took place through WhatsApp. So when I was told to do a bank transfer of a large sum over to a random company in China, it was a bit nerve-wracking to say the least.
At the beginning of January, we were told the batteries were on a ship headed to Montreal. We could expect them to arrive within 3 months. March arrived and we got an email from a local representative in Toronto saying the crates were in Montreal. She helped us with the customs process and arrangments for getting them to Nova Scota. Last week we got the email that they were on their way. And today, they were ready for pick up! Feels like Christmas!
Pete and I jumped in the van and made the trip into town to pick them up. We had a few other things to get while there; Canadian tire for a socket wrench, Walmart for cooking oil, and then staples we found a good deal on a new selfie stick! (Score!) We had fun testing the new equipment on the way home.
Peter filmed the whole process… us getting the crates, him unboxing them, and his initial impressions. (I think they look beautiful!) You will have to keep an eye out for that video in the next coming days. With all the rain expected I’m sure it will be up in no time.
Until next time!
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Cut, Pile, Burn, Repeat!
It feels like a never ending cycle. Cut the trees, pile the brush into a corner, burn said brush and repeat. This cycle has been made a bit more frustrating with the burn restrictions in Nova Scotia. At 2 pm they update wether or not it’s safe ro burn. There are 3 stages: green for burning between 2pm-8am, yellow for burning from 7pm – 8am, or red for no burning at all. Luckily, it’s been green in our area for the past 2 weeks. However, there has been a lot of rain as well! This makes it extremely difficult to get a fire started.
“The dance of the burning tree” Today was a good day though. Not too windy, nice and sunny, and the wood was dry enough to get a good fire started. So we started the cycle… cut, pile, burn… repeat. We have learned this past week that we can keep feeding fire until 4pm, then we stop and let it smolder down to fine coals. This timing has us leaving around 6pm to get home and make supper. By then everyone is tired, hungry, and ready to go home.
Pete thinks we only have a few more days like this and we should be done with the area for the Yurt. At that point, we can get the backhoe going to pull out all the stumps. I look forward to seeing level ground soon!
Taking a rest by the fire. -
Special Delivery!
Today it came! Oh my! So excited!!!
We ordered starlink back in January. They estimated that we’d get it by the fall. For us that would work perfectly. The summer would be busy enough with building etc. Any videos we make could be uploaded later at my in-laws. We imagined we could make it work without internet.
Last week we got an exciting email that was notifying us that it was ready to ship! And now it’s here!!! We have internet BEFORE we have a house! Crazy!!!
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New mugs!
Pete and I really like our coffee. Bringing our coffee to the property when we are working is a necessity! Lucky for us, our sister in-law owns an engraving business and had a plethora of mugs to choose from.
We sent over the “Clearly East” logo and had her engrave it for us. We love them! Now we are all set for drinking our coffee and showing off the logo that I created for Pete’s YouTube channel. Lol!
If you want to get your own mug or water bottle engraved with your own special design, check out her website here.
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Learning New Things
March break has arrived in Atlantic Canada. Kids everywhere are out of school… except mine (technically). Today we took a break, pilled into the car and got out of the house. On the agenda today was a visit with friends (who by chance are also yurt dwellers), a visit to Canadian tire and Bulk Foods for necessary supplies, then off to the property to learn how to use the new Osmo action camera and gimbal.
This was my first time ever using a gimbal. Pete tried to help me out by giving me the manual to read while we drove. However, that didn’t work out to well. If anyone knows what it’s like to drive in Nova Scotia — the roads here are so windy, one gets pretty sick if you don’t have a strong stomach. I gave up trying to read pretty quickly! Pretty sure I’d figure it out as I went.
Once we got to the property, we unloaded and got straight to work. Pete started working on falling trees while I went down to the river to see if I could work out how to use the gimbal. I managed to get a few good shots, but I’ve gotta say, that thing is going to take lots of practice. Thank goodness for editing!
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