Clearly East

Building Our Homestead

  • Beyond the Horizon

    Beyond the Horizon

    Welcome to Clearly East! This idea to create a YouTube channel and a blog has been on our minds for a few years now. We have been big followers of different channels through out the years of other homesteaders, tiny house builders, and different cross country adventurers. Now it’s our turn to share our adventure as we build up our little homestead in eastern Canada.
    This week we venture into the unknown. As Peter finishes up working at his current job to make time for the intense building season, we have no idea what lies ahead. Starting any new project is always filled with excitement. However, it can also be filled with concerns for how it might turn out. Many times things never go as planned.
    We are jumping into this project at the most risky time in our history. Events in our world today are making things very unstable. Globally, we are looking at potentially another world war. Locally, gas, food, and building supply prices are in extreme flux. This will make it even more challenging as we will have to find creative ways to get the job done.

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  • Ice Cold

    Ice Cold

    January has been so cold here. We have seen -23°C a few days here in January (and that’s not normal!). Every weekend since we picked up the Beast we have had snow storms. It’s been very discouraging not being able to get back and work on things. Last week we saw some plus temperatures. This paired with lots of rain helped to melt the snow.

    We finally were able to make it there this past weekend. It was still pretty icy though so we couldn’t make it all the way up the driveway. We trudged through the snow the rest of the way. Since we couldn’t bring the generator in to warm up the Backhoes engine, Pete worked on adding grease to the Beast’s joints. After he was done we took a hike down to the river to see if there was still ice.

    The river didn’t disappoint! There was still a good thick layer of ice across the surface. We all had fun slipping and sliding along the ice. One day we hope to be able to play hockey out there. The river just so happens to be the perfect width and length for a good game.

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  • The Beast

    The Beast

    During the Christmas holiday we found a perfect gem of a machine! We dubbed her “the Beast.” On a good day it was located about a 20min car drive from our property. Due to the holidays we couldn’t find a company to float the machine, so we decided to drive it. We chose to do this on New Years Day. Turned out to be the perfect day to drive it on the side of the road. There was barely any traffic! 


    It took us 1.5 hrs to get it from point A to point B at a snail speed of 10km per hr. It all felt so sketchy… but as it would happen there was no issues with the Backhoe. Instead, the van that I was driving, lost its muffler!

    Here she is… home sweet home! Can’t believe we actually did this! 

    As Pete got to work learning how to work the Backhoe, the kids worked on gathering sticks for a small bonfire. His mom and dad came to check out the machine and stayed to help cut some trees down. We had an amazing time all together. Looking forward to seeing all the things we can do with the new machine.