Forest Treasures, Seashore Cedar

Not far from our property sits a lovely overgrown forest.  This is a special forest, though, with hidden treasures at every turn..

The other treasures are from the forests and the sea.  Our Seashore Cedar...

For a year now we have been searching for cedar logs on the beach but they had to be between 6' long and 12' long.  And believe it or not, we found plenty of logs or pieces of trees that fit the bill.  Our local beaches are our playground and we love getting out and exploring.  So...we've created over 260 slats to make a portion of deer fence very visible but very private.  We often took lunch along and made an afternoon of it.

All of this wood came from one huge piece of cedar that was sitting on the shoreline at Port McNeill.
Jim cut it into packable pieces.  We tied a rope around each piece and hoisted it up to street level from the beach.
We loaded it into the back of the pick up truck and still made the ferry with time to spare.

The big pieces were cut down.  Then Jim located the split with the metal wedge or wedges. 

Assorted tools used for splitting cedar.

Then he switched to wooden wedges and continued prying open the right split in the cedar to create either a usable slat, chipping material or firewood. I usually help by holding and passing wedges and we get into a good rhythm.  

We cut 45 slats from that one huge cedar slab from that Port McNeill beach.  The slats will be noticable from the road, provide us with some privacy, look amazing and they'll naturally weather over time.

Our stash of slats, split from driftwood cedar logs we found during the last year.

Sam's Place Beach on the north side of Malcolm Island.  A four wheel drive truck is pretty
mandatory to get here but it's worth it! This is becoming a favourite beach for us.

Occasionally we stop and smell the flowers....and if we can't smell them we sure can admire them.

This is what a sunflower looks like close up.  Check out the patterns formed by Mother Nature.

Mitchell Bay at the east end of Malcolm Island.

Can't forget our most recent glorious sunset from home. Days are slightly shorter now so we're savouring every moment.

Words to live by.

Jim and Tricia Bowen

Reworking our Driveway and Drainage

We always knew that our driveway needed some help so Delwin came back in June and July to work with with Jim at creating a vertical rock wall between our driveway and lower house level, creating a sump to handle torrential rain runoff, placing posts for our fire storage shed and digging drainage troughs to take torrential rains safely away from our house.

Can they see me up here on their driveway?

I'm sure I'm hidden now...I'll watch them rebuild the driveway from here...they'll never see me.

Delwin, always at ease in his bucket, getting ready to smooth things out and move things about.

Lost the porch so Delwin had lots of room to move his equipment around.

Jim and Delwin used shorthand signals back and forth re each rock's carefully planned placement. 

Last thing they wanted to do was nudge the house with a massive rock!

Jim ran all day working with Delwin, on 3 separate occasions.  Sore, hot and tired each evening.

Improvements are happening. The driveway is 17" higher than before and the more gentle slope looks great.

Jim used a heavy, vibrating compactor to pound the gravel down across the whole raised surface.

On June 21, as we began the driveway work, I slipped on a small pile of hardi plank siding and broke my left arm just above the wrist.  It wasn't a bad break and I'm fine now. Needless to say I had a steep learning curve in becoming ambidextrous.  Learned what I could do and what I needed help with. Jim was very patient with me and helped whenever I asked.

For a number of weeks Jim worked tirelessly in my 'absence' to move loads of rocks and gravel around, raked paths and banks, cut back overgrown grasses, planted more seed and sifted piles of dirt.  I did almost all of my normal activities but backed way off on house construction of any sort while my arm healed.  Since it's now August we'll take it a bit easier and enjoy summer life on our island.

Of course, we had to tear off the old porch for 2 weeks of driveway chaos.  Then Jim built a new ramp. 

Access restored at the higher grade.
This simple ramp allowed an idea to germinate about our future porch and how it will attach to the house.

Did someone say there was dirt to move and rocks to move??? 

And places to put that dirt! We're both covered in a thin layer of dust by day's end.

If I hide here watching them maybe they won't see me either...

The rooster and his two or three girls continued to visit us all through July, inspecting Jim and Delwin's progress on a regular basis.

A lunchtime torrential rain caused this damage in about 30 minutes. 

Because we were redoing our drainage we weren't prepared for this rain.  It was swift and unforgiving.
It will take some time to redo the paths, fill in all the erosion and remove some debris but we'll do it.

Looking straight down from the porch at the newly erected rock wall and what flowed freely through it during the rains.
That's a large rubber mat half hurried at the top right from dirt and gravel that came from the road down our driveway.  

Delwin's back again and this time he's brought along an auger to make holes for poles.  It's big, heavy and noisy but they keep going until all eight holes are dug.

Phase 2 - placing deer posts as wooden supports for our future firewood storage structure
which will be built right next to the driveway with a roof that accentuates the house roof.

Delwin worked easily with Jim to ensure each pole was in the right position.  I love watching them communicate so well together.

The sump, which will help to direct water to the buried runoff pipes.

Delwin dug a deep trend to hold two 4" pipes to take the rain runoff away from the house and down the edge of the property.   Next week...we'll be putting in the underground runoff pipes and filling in the trench.

We took full advantage of Delwin's help and asked him to give Jim a hand unloading our galvanized
siding, which will look spectacular and industrial around our future front door and porch.  

After Delwin left, Jim protected each pole hole from loose dirt while he moved earth and gravel around.
Later the tea towels were removed and fine sand and gravel were pounded in around
 the base before water was added to help it all settle.  

These 8 posts will hold our firewood structure.
It will likely be built in the next year or so.

Work to be continued...

Tricia and Jim Bowen

Creating a Zen Pond in Paradise

Since our home is on a significant slope we get continual water running from further up the mountain behind us. We relocated and buried all the perimeter drains in late January, which created a tiny constant trickle into the vegetation at the edge of our property.  Since then we decided to make Pond 1 right below the end of the pipe.


Birds loved it right away. But...we realized that it was going to be outside our deer fence and not that visible to us, consequently.  So...Jim envisioned Pond 2.

Of course, to create a peaceful, natural pond on the lower slope, we had to first dig up about 100 feet of pipe, elevate it, shift it sideways, fill the soil the old trench, fill soil in underneath the pipe and then fill soil in above it!

Perimeter drain relocated; the rocks temporarily held it down while we filled earth in around it closer to the pond.

Our implements of destruction on our upper bank. 

Lost count of how many wheelbarrows of dirt we packed from the top of our property to the bottom.  LOTS!
We shaped our driveway this summer so the soil would have been moved anyway. Better to make use of it on our property.

Jim's new sled worked really well to move huge boulders into position around the pond.  Now it's in a location visible from the house, future deck, future porch and garden.

Jim made this great sled to help transport heavy rocks.  We take it to the beach to handle larger boulders.  Works great!

Thank you sled! Those boulders were way to heavy to move any other way.  

Pipe is buried with new soil. Great location for viewing from everywhere.
The tarp's hiding the dug out pond. We're not ready for it to get wet yet on a rainy afternoon.

Ah, good old rock collecting, or should I say boulders!

Once Jim had the size figured out he ordered a vinyl pond liner.

Patience, Grasshopper!

And patience Jim had!  This was a work of art in the making, a labour of love. 

Rocks were sorted into sizes and shapes, pea sized pieces were separated from bigger stones.

Mother Nature's assortment never ceases to amaze us.

Every single piece of rock, boulder, pebble was hand placed by Jim.  I helped lots with moving of dirt and rocks
behind the scenes but only Jim's feet touched the inside of this pond.

Sifting round pea size gravel from beach rock we collected. 

We added a sea of driftwood above the pond for stabilization as much as looks.

Brian and Campbell were putting up siding so they helped us out.
They used the stone boat to move our feature slab into place.

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This slab is our finishing touch.  Sometime in the future a nice bench will find its way to this perfect zen space.

The pond, newly filled with fresh water from the natural artisan spring that
flows through the pipe and trickles into the pond. 

We uncovered the pond for all to see on August 10 then put the plywood back on top to protect
all of Jim's hardwork from the sure footed deer that prance through our yard.  The pond will now stay covered
until our deer fence is erected.  It's on the list...

We love hearing the ever present trickles of water and watching lots of birds take full advantage of our creation.

This pond and garden are both a labour of love and we're so thankful that we have all this land! Here are some shots taken the spring.

The trailer is gone but the cherry tree stays!

New transplanted forest pine and hemlock take root.

Deer foot moss and a bit of salal we transplanted from the forest to our lower bank. 

So far, it looks like it's taking root.  It's a great ground cover near the forest.

Our porch cherry tree, full of blossoms and newly formed cherries.  We shared them with the birds and deer.

Who knew we would be doing all this yard work! Next year, after the deer fence is built we'll build raised planters and start growing our own veggies. We've already found a nice place for an apricot tree and lots of berry plants.  We can hardly wait to start planting!

Happy Gardening!

Jim and Tricia Bowen