Friends, family and co-op members came to visit !

Yah our friends, family and co-op members came to visit and bless the land! Yah!! Thanks for the fun and hard work everyone!

Site work, battens, drains and the Big O

First task to begin our build is to mark off the borders of our site. We put in battens on all four corners.

Adam is giving a perspective of the size of our build site !

Last year the tractor roughly levelled our land which left little gauges where water pooled we though it wise to build a trench and lay down a Big O to drain our land and prep our foundation.

Adam had a little fight with a big rock that refused to budge! The concrete saw cut a channel into a rock to large to remove. We think it might actually be a part of the earth. Adam makes the cutting look fun but that saw probably weighs 50 pounds.

Workbench & Kitchen Table

We decided that to prepare for the house build having a flat level surface would be very valuable so we put together a workbench.

The first thing we built with it was a kitchen table. Since we took turns cooking, Adam felt this was an important priority. I must say a level cooking and cleaning surface has it's benefits. Why didn't we build this earlier!

Permanent rain water collection!

Sourcing water is a high priority as we need it for washing and concrete mixing in the future. Since we have a permanent shed now we can collect rain water off of it.

We are still getting our drinking water from our neighbour though!

Back on the land - Solar Array !

Well we are back on the land and this is how it looks!

Our first project was adding a second compost pile. Our compost outhouse survived winter - WOO HOO!

Adam lend us his solar panels so we built a solar array! Woo-hoo more power than we know what to do with. Thanks Adam and the SUN!

Recycled Snow Shed

Up here at Lake St. Peter, the locals tell us snow loads can be quite troublesome for trailers. You could get more than 7 feet of snow. We were concerned for our trailer so we decided to build a snow shed. Well given that we just cleared/leveled the land and snow maybe upon us soon, this will probably be our last endeavor on the land - sigh - the build hasn't even started and we will have to head back to Toronto to make more money for next Spring.

Anyways we decided to build a pole barn with a truss roof, because we had some nice tree poles from clearing our build site and we had some used 2x6x8 lumber donated to us from a friend.

At a party we mentioned to some friends about our pole barn and they offered up some of their used galvanized roofing! Woo-hoo recycled shed!

 Dash in a precarious position! Yikes!

This was a scary moment. To see that two can of those trusses we built on the ground could actually stand close to square and straight was a relieve! Phew!

 I had to show proof that I was actually helping on the ground! :) !

Thanks Greg! This was a three man job and we were glad we had a burly great (in more ways than one) Dane with us!

Half the roof up! Woo-hoo!

Finito!

We did end up buying the hardware (screws and nails), plywood joins for the trusses, and the strapping wood that the roof is nailed to. Total cost for shed was about $300 - thanks to all our friends who shared their leftover used materials and labour!

Brush Pile Bonfiles!

After clearing the land we had lots of brush piles everywhere.... soooo on the suggestion of a Greg - we burned it all!

To make sure we were clear of trees we burned it on our newly leveled build site. The second photo is what happens when you throw in a small spruce tree.