October 24 Home and dry and resting before Ben's 4th birthday

So we got back. A day late because I couldn't finish all the jobs I wanted to do. So, who cares? We can travel when we want. Just delayed it 24 hours which gave us time to protect the plants in DC's garden, build shutters for the 7 screened-in-porch openings, install a couple  of security cameras, pack up our kitchen and get on the road to Central to get credit for all the bits and pieces we didn't use. Then on to an evening with Anna and Conor (and Jelissa?) and Logan. Feel very old  talking to these 20 year olds... Then an easy drive to Notre-Dame-de-Portage where we had a solid but not spectacular meal in the Auberge de Portage (incidentally full of female clients presumably using the spa facilities during the day and scoffing by the fleuve at night...) Great to be back speaking French and in a room full of francophones...

Someone in St Peter's asked me if Quebecers were really different: the answer is yes. A big yes.

And how come we always have rain driving up the St-Lawrence? And a big storm in Edmundston too. Pottering along at 90 kph with the trailer-box behind full of tools.

The B and B looked like a 19th century cottage, but it's only 12 years old, made with recycled wood and full of elaborate  kitschy bric-à-brac. The owner, Yves Ponsard, comes from this bit of land. His parents are still alive and living just below him. Beautiful view of the fleuve.

Then back into Montreal and traffic and resting in a great bed and getting ready for the trip to Toronto and Ben's 4th birthday.

You can see the difference in the views from windows in the two places where we live. I like both. It's good to be back with a lot of people and their problems. Good not to be working in the chalet 8-hours a day.

Planning for next year and by Monday Wayne will have our security cameras working and we'll be able to see what we built.

The cart that did it all

 

Rue Perrault from the front room window in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue

 

Lake Bras d'Or from the bedroom window

 

Master bedroom and morning light

 

The Master bathroom with finished floor and walls

 

The Campbell room with 5 coats of protection

 

That's Cara surveying the scene...

 

Isn't that a lovely floor?

 

Deborah second day on her knees to keep this pine white

 

Main room at night after sanding, painting and varnishing

 

16 October and we're connected at the house

So here we are in the new chalet, floor newly stained by DC on her knees for 16 hours while I worked on cutting battens, fixing drains in huge rains which now go into our cistern to provide us with water, and we are connected. Enrique from the Dominican Republic 24 years ago comes down with Robert from Newfoundland, both working for Seaside the internet provider and puts up an antenna to pick up the signal from Chapel Island, the Mic Mac center of worship to Saint Anne.  So this is the first message going out from this modem: we are in Cape Breton, by lake Bras d'Or and connected! This place in the woods is alive with connection. Now we'll install a couple fo cameras to be able to look at the place on our i-phone.

October 12 and near the end of the year's effort

For those readers who are still with us as we finish the second season building this chalet in the wilds of Cape Breton, I can only say that your patience is matched by my own as I slog through 8-hour days, measurements, counter-measurements, improvisations, saw by saw... And I hoped you've enjoyed the images and words as much as I have the experience. This has been, is and will be a summation of the very physical life I led as a rugby player for all those years. I am enjoying my strength and stamina again. Not quite invincible, but ready for the bears.

Time to get ready to go back to Montreal and Toronto, and Benjamin's 4th birthday,but not until we have this house in livable shape (water, electricity, internet and heat). We have applied for insurance as of next Wednesday, we have Seaside coming to connect us to the internet so that we can monitor the house from a distance, we have water now as the rain is being processed through three crocks and our electricity is buzzing along its wires. We have a new stove and dishwasher and an old fridge. We have a few beds and chairs. We can live here now!

The gutter installers do their job in 2 hours: an impressive display of relatively simple technology. If I were to attempt the same job, it would take me a week and I'd probably screw it up. I'm busy applying the battens to the boards, regretting that I UNDERestimated the amount of wood we'd need. Hope Mike Higgins has the same wood for next year. I need the same again, 2500 linear feet!

Off to Port Hawkesbury to get the floor sander which almost gives me a herniated disk: 90 pounds at least. I can see why it works: it brings a huge weight to bear on the wood being sanded. Gather up our last supplies, then back to the Cape to admire the lake and eat steak.

Life is okay really. Not eternal, of course, but pretty good.

That's our water supply coming off the roof behind these excellent installers

 

That's as far as I can go in 2012: I ran out of wood. Didn't count all the battens!

 

Don't you like his ladder? Never fall off that one

 

Then 3 Cape Bretoners came one morning to add a 66 foot gutter

 

With 2 inch battens it looks like this

 

Now we're on the south side looking over the lake

 

The chalet is emerging from the clay where we sat and dreamed two years ago

 

The MB checking the rain crock and the cistern crocks receiving the rainwater from the 64 foot roof

 

The MB installing the rain crock

 

This will be the vegetable garden: see the rain crock up at the end of the house waiting for the gutter to be installed and for RAIN

 

The new look chalet. Stone gone from in front

 

One gable wall covered

 

One gable end nearly done

 

Getting there: finally the wood goes on

 

A little rain a little pain

So Janet and Wayne came up for the weekend and we spent Friday cutting into the last big jobs. The playful backandforth banter of this ideal married couple was better than CBC radio. I could listen to their dialogue all day, and did. Even funnier than my script with Deborah.

We decided to tackle the Westend gable wall which hadn't had any attention at all, not even tyvek. It has more than strategic importance because it houses to screen-in porch and overlooks Deborah's award-winning monumental garden.

So we tyvekked, strapped, tar-papered and built a dividing line at the base of the top triangle to accommodate our 10 foot planks and Wayne was deeply disappointed to only complete 1/3 of the surface. But what can you expect if you have to learn how to do it before you start? By the time you get to the end you are racing along. And I explain that now it represents only a good day's work to finish and shows me what I have to do down the other end. We even managed to complete the tyvekking on the other gable wall which I hadn't managed to cover by myself. And I was able to install the fascia metal sheet along the south side so that we can now put on the gutters. Rain in the cistern!
I'm blogging here in Sydney at Mary-Anne's home where we're hanging out with Patrick while she treks off up to the highlands. It's pouring and I can't wait until our drains are directing all this water into our cistern. We really needed a couple of day's rest, with Deborah straining her back sanding overhead beams and I slamming my ribs down on the bathedge.

Amazing though what a couple of days can do to restore muscular energy. I can now actually imagine finishing everything we want to do with the house in the next 15 days. And even enjoying the 16-hour drive back to Quebec to get started in on a hard 6-months Premiership soccer, Cinéma du Parc, trips to Toronto and Ottawa and, why not?, Thanksgiving in Princeton and New York with David and Rosemary.

The frog in the well on September 24 2012

Apologies go out to the frog which got caught in the well and almost ended its days there. I was unable to catch it in a bucket and it was not able to defy the mathematics of jump up and fall back which seems to preoccupy most of the websites which come up when you ask how to rescue a frog from a well. Try it: lots of frogs in the well.

Well, the Cape Breton downpour filled the crocks and I was finally able to lean down with Michael's fishing net and scoop up the exhausted frog which immediately slipped through the mesh. Did this three times and this is not a fish story. Finally, I decided to catch the frog and flick it up in the air out of the crocks which I did and the flying frog just disappeared into the clay and brush. Didn't even thank me.

Sorry, frog. Very indecorous. We both looked ridiculous.

On the other hand, the 3-foot crock for catching rainwater is in place and I did manage to fix the faulty wiring in two light switches, sand the beams of the bedroom door, prepare the last wall for putting up boards and install a toilet with its wax ring and fix a basin to the wall. Not bad. Getting quite good at this.

Commenting: here's how to comment if that's what you want to do.

Just been through the commenting issue with Mary-Anne and we've solved the problem: just double-click on trhe "No comments" link and bingo you can leave a few comments. Check out my observations on Mary-Anne trying the new toilet in the chalet.

Mary-Anne right behind, lolling and defrosting