Welcome to Paradise

Reflections 4

Welcome to Paradise

The most interesting dwellings in this country, as the painter knows, are the most unpretending, humble log huts and cottages of the poor commonly; it is the life of the inhabitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their surfaces merely, which makes them picturesque;

Thoreau

With winter fast approaching, a sense of urgency sets in. The question which is foremost in my mind on these cool late autumn days concerns my preparedness for what’s about to come. Am I really in a position to handle the onslaught that an Ontario winter can throw at me? If the winter is kind and not too harsh, then I am reasonably certain I am ready but what if it’s a severe winter with record breaking temperatures and snowfall? Do I have what it takes to make it through several months of the worst that my mind can conjure up?

Time to take stock and what better place to begin than with a detailed description of what has not only been my home for the last three months but will, I hope, protect me from the elements over the approaching winter.

 On first appearance the building is not especially attractive, in fact, it might be considered to be downright ugly. The siding is unfinished horizontal tongue and groove siding naturally weathered grey through exposure to sun and wind and rain. The upper section of the South side is finished with the most unbecoming, half sheets of plywood, baby blue in colour.  The shed roof, having seen better days, is coated with tar, cracked, and looking as though it is in desperate need of repair. Doors and windows lap pear to have been salvaged with no concern for aesthetics but merely as protection against the elements. 

...

The interior... is equally lacking in sophistication. The hydro poles which anchor the entire building and are the primary support of the walls and roof have been painted a bright fire-engine red and are, consequently, the most in-your-face feature of the interior. The walls are covered with panel board, as is the ceiling, and all are painted white. That’s it, red and white... Definitely not going to win any awards for interior decoration here but for now it appears to be more than capable of staving off the elements and if it keeps me warm and dry then there is all the time in the world for prettying the place up.

The small ‘L’ extension of the concrete base is the original kitchen, accounts for forty-eight square feet or about one third of the entire footprint of the building and contains a counter with sink, a cupboard and hutch, a couple of shelves and the ice-box embedded in the wall as well as the original entrance door.

The main room contains my loft bed with sofa bed below, an Ikea chair, a small set of drawers with a book shelf on top, several shelves added by me, a cedar chest for linens and a tiny closet which I built shortly after arriving. I also installed a skylight where the old chimney exited through the roof.

...

As a slight diversion I feel obliged to offer an explanation on the use of the word ‘cabin’ to describe my new home lest I be accused of deliberately misleading the reader. In the minds of many, most I would argue, the word ‘cabin’ calls forth a romanticized image of a small, rustic building often built with logs hewn from the surrounding bush and with connotations of nature, the pioneering spirit and Canadiana. It’s the log part which is problematic here, and thus, misleading. The only thing even remotely resembling logs on the original building are the eight vertical and three horizontal hydro poles which form the basis of the frame. On the other hand, it is a cabin in everything but appearance; it is tiny and rustic and romantic and, for me at least, it has the connotations of nature, the pioneering spirit and Canadiana.

Habitable buildings, homes, are known by all sorts of  monikers; cabin, shed, shack, and hut come to mind, each of which comes with its own mental images. House is somehow empty, lacking in detail, boring and only slightly more descriptive than building. It also has an urban ring to it and detracts from any character or unique properties that the home may possess. My house in the woods simply doesn’t cut it. It deserves more than that, something to capture its unique character. 

One of the more defining characteristics of the building is its shed roof, twelve feet on the high side and eight on the lower end, but a shed is a secondary building, a place where things are stored, not a domicile where people actually live. That leaves shack but, just as a cabin connotes an overly idyllic mental image, shack goes too far in the opposite direction bringing to mind a tumbledown, ramshackle derelict of a building hardly fit to be considered a home. In actual fact, in its construction, the building is closer to being a shack than a cabin. However, it is solidly built around the eight sturdy hydro poles anchored in a one hundred seventy-six square foot L-shaped concrete pad and although not the most attractive of buildings, it is still a notch or two above being labelled a shack. Hut falls into the same category.

I have been known to just refer to the building as “My little place in the bush” but that gets tedious after a while. And so, at the risk of sounding pretentious, I shall continue from time to time to refer to my new abode as my cabin. Problem solved.

Thanksgiving

While I’m writing I may as well use this opportunity to record the events surrounding my first big social event in the new digs, Thanksgiving weekend... The final count was ten overnight guests, eleven counting Cassie, and in order of arrival included, Lisa, Cassie, Jenn, Marcus, Tia, Mike, Dany, Chuck, Art, Doug and Sharon. Add myself and Bancroft Eric to the mix and we had an even dozen for dinner...With two exceptions, Doug and Sharon, everyone arrived throughout the day and evening on Friday. 

Doug and Sharon’s arrival on Saturday was, without doubt, the single most memorable event of the weekend. As the day, and then the evening slipped by everyone’s concern over their absence increased such that we were all quite concerned about them...

Much too our relief, at about 8:30 the faint rumble of two approaching motorcycles weaved its way up through the trees to the house. Several of us rushed down the drive to see if they needed help and to warn them that it was a hazardous trip up the drive which was covered in wet greasy leaves. Sharon opted to have Mike bring her bike up as she’d had enough riding for one day and didn’t want to tempt fate by dropping her bike part way up the drive. The sight of the two of them, when they got to the top of the hill, will remain ever imprinted on my brain. Both were sopping wet from head to toe and obviously chilled through to the bone. As happy as we were to see them, they were nothing short of elated at having arrived after a very long and arduous ride. It may have been at this point that the true meaning of Thanksgiving was most clearly acknowledged by everyone present. Doug was by far the worse off. It was all he could do to pry his hands off the controls of his bike. I think he summed up how he, and probably Sharon, felt as he emphatically insisted, over and over again, that he would not be “...repeating this fucking trip again, ever!” He also managed to communicate, through chattering teeth, that there was a bottle of whiskey in his saddle bag and that he would be most grateful if one of us would dig it out so he could get some of it in his belly ASAP. 

We wasted no time in ushering the two of them into the house where we helped them shed their cold, soggy riding gear and pulled some chairs up to the stove for them. Doug got some whiskey into him and I believe Sharon had a brandy. After an hour or so, their spirits improved and they were finally able to relax and maybe even laugh a bit at their experience, but just a little bit mind you.

Apparently they’d been on the road for over nine hours thanks to a couple of wrong turns, and much of it was in the rain. 

Water, Water Everywhere

Tuesday, October 8

Framed and hung the outside door today and despite the fact that it was too big to allow for a proper door jamb it went up well. In fact I was very pleased with it, especially since I’ve never hung a door before. I also removed the window between the main house and the addition and that too proved to be an easy task. This is where the new interior door will go so it will have to now be enlarged to allow for both the new door and the side window. 

At about 3:30 the well rig arrived and they started drilling right away. After some discussion about placement of the well, they convinced me to drill as close to the house as possible. I’d originally thought that the parking lot along the drive might be a better spot as it was at a much lower elevation but they, the two man crew who were operating the rig, said that didn’t necessarily mean that the well would end up being any shallower because the water table probably followed the lay of the land anyway. In the end though they said it was entirely up to me. The thought of having the well just a few steps from the front door was all the argument I needed to give them the go ahead. Not unexpectedly, they hit solid granite after about two feet and it was shortly after that that they left for the day. They were kicking up a lot of dust so tomorrow they will be using water to keep the dust down as they drill. While they were here I gave the guys a tour of the place which took all of about two minutes, and explained my plans for a back-to-nature lifestyle. The younger of the two showed a lot of interest in and seemed somewhat envious. .The older guy turned out to be a bit of a character. During the tour he let one rip, loud enough that he had me half expecting to hear the echo off the surrounding hills. He just carried on as if nothing had happened. His partner also explained that the old ‘fart” as he so aptly called him practically owned the entire town of Palm Rapids – owns a combination convenience/liquor store plus several other businesses. They’ll be back tomorrow about 8:00 to start drilling. Another major step towards independence/self-sufficiency is about to become a reality.

Wednesday, October 9

Drilling is now underway. They guys arrived, as promised, at 8:00 and had the drill operating within a matter of minutes. As I write this, they just completed the third section which means that, at twenty feet per section, they are at sixty feet. Tom says his well is sixty-four feet although when I mentioned this fact to the guys they said that they drilled the well and that it was closer to forty. All of this may or may not be relevant to the drilling going on here of course but I can always hope. Anyway, I’d figured that sixty feet would be the best case scenario and since that hasn’t panned out this is when I start sweating. It’s now 10:45 and buddy tells me they are working on section number seven which means we’re approaching one hundred forty feet. Now I’m starting to get really nervous. 

11:52

Struck water at one hundred thirty-nine feet. There appears to be a strong flow, estimated to be in excess of ten gallons per minute or “enough to run a small hotel” as the old fart put it. So the well depth is right about in the middle of my best case/worst case scenario as described by the guy who gave me the original quote. Not bad. The guys have gone to town for lunch which gives the well time to settle and will allow them to measure my static level, the actual depth at which the water pressure will maintain the level of the water in the drill hole, when they return. This will, in turn, determine what I’m going to do for a pump. According to my research a twelve volt pump, my first choice since it won’t be too much of a drain on my electrical setup, is only useful to a static level of fifteen feet or less. Anything more than this means that I will have to go with a one hundred twenty volt pump which will be too much for my system. Here’s hoping.

4:15

The static level is approximately forty-five feet. Back to the drawing board.