House Projects and a New Fence

Once upon a time there was a princess who loved hot baths. The princess was a free spirit and spent many years as a gypsy, often on a sailboat with no bathtub, alas. The princess never gave up her dream of luxuriating in a jetted 6' tub in her new home.  And it is slowly happening.....

Jim made a wheeling dolly so we could move the tub around easily.

First test fitting.   OOOOOOO!

Of course, nothing is easy, especially when you're ensuring the tub sits properly.

Roll the tub away and start working on drywalling.

It's hard work!  About this time that we  decided that someone else will do the rest of
the drywall in the house when we finish the bedroom, office and art studio.

Last fall Jim primed and painted the long corner boards, which will be mounted outside.

Ramp is now well attached to the house.  

Our latest project involves putting a deer fence around the perimeter of our property.  This will allow us to uncover our zen pond, plant apple trees and blueberry bushes, grow flowers and enjoy more of our land.  Jim's back is injured again so he can't do a lot of physical work right now.  He's pretty frustrated but we work at things as we can.  The fence is labour intensive and time sensitive but we're getting there.  It won't be long until it's growing season again.

It's 120' across the lowest part of our property.  We cleared a lot of brush to make room.

It takes about 1.5 hours to dig a 24" deep post hole. I'm the fence hole queen.
This fence will have a gate  in it.   Jim and I work together on this project, as usual.

No more alder!  We're going to move the bamboo (on the right) into the space where the alder was.
We're also going to add more soil to the lowest areas to create more land for a food forest.

Life continues and we enjoy what we're creating.  

Cheers, until next time.

Jim and Tricia Bowen

Clowning Around, Art Abounds, October Gardeners, Fresh Fish

It's not every day you run across a couple of clowns.  Well, we did on the ferry a few weeks ago.  Not sure where they were coming from but likely they were at our local elementary school entertaining the kids.

Besides running into clowns, we enjoyed a fall full of artistic endeavours, the great outdoors, harvesting veggies in October and watching unbelievable sunsets. Enjoy.....

We bought two halibut from our local fishermen.  Jim butchered the fish so we had 16 meals wrapped.

We also purchased two huge tuna. Jim set up a youtube to learn how to butcher a tuna. 

Another 16 meals!  These days we eat either halibut or tuna once a week these days.  Yum! 

But wait, there's more. We also bought the juiciest fresh spot shrimp a couple of weeks ago and ate like there was no tomorrow!

The garden provided us with cucumbers right into October.  We also pulled parsnips in November.

The new home of our mock orange.   

ALERT: We're revamping our entire yard with deer proof fencing but that's for another blog.

As part of the fence changes, the left part of the cedar slats with the pots underneath will
be taken down and the cedar slats on the right will be extended to our cherry tree and beyond.

Full moon over Rough Bay, while waiting for an 8:00 a.m. ferry in winter.

We brought seaweed and kelp back from the beach to add nutrients to our soil over the winter months.

We added grass clippings in October to also add nutrition to our soil.

We made a bit of time for art in early November, before Jim's heart attack.  We both donated pieces to the Sointula Resource Centre annual on-line auction and were very pleased to help with the fundraiser.

Here's a salmon that Jim created.  You can see his tools and sketches.  And there's the whale's tale, which I painted and donated for the auction.   As spring approaches we'll see how much time we have for art...

In early November Jim bought his 'last' boat.  It's a perfect aluminum runabout with a 15 horse motor in mint shape.  We expect to do lots of exploring the less accessible beaches of Malcolm Island with it.

Jim backed it in right next to the driveway where it'll spend the winers.  
We'll likely pay for moorage for a month or two in the summer.

I enjoy creating small pieces of art as well as big.  

We  had a white Christmas this year!

Trying to root dew berries in the window for planting out in the spring.

Love the sunsets!

Until next time!

Tricia and Jim Bowen

Six Cedar Projects, one tree - no waste!

Of course you know about the amazing tree to closet project.  What you might wonder about is....what did we do with the rest of the cedar that wasn't part of the closet.   Well, here's our answer.

A local buck checks out the left over cedar once we had what we needed for the closet.

1:  The Closet, of course

Jim's carving the four amazing lengths of cedar into a most unusual and unique coat closet.

Afternoon sunlight gives a golden glow.

2. A entryway bench with shoe storage built inside.

3. A future coffee table

Two usable rounds were cut off the length and left outside with metal roofs to shield them from the rain. One becomes our entryway bench and  shoe storage.  The other piece will be turned into a coffee table.

Jim uses metal wedges to start his slice.

We protected chunks from rain while we processed them.

Debarked, insides ground out, and a quick grinding across the surface.

First time bringing it into the house for a rough fitting.

Once Jim finished his measurements, the pieces were returned to the tent for storage again.

4. Cedar slats for our porch.   

These left over lengths have been shaped and tuned up a bit.  They'll be screwed to the left side of our porch, near our cherry tree and help keep wind and rain off of the porch and give us a bit more privacy.

!

What's the old saying..."Don't try this at home!"   As if!

5. Making chips for our cedar path. 

  

You never know what you'll find at our local recycling depot.  A couple of years ago we stumbled across an old school paper cutter.  Jim added a wooden base so that the whole thing fits across the wheelbarrow.  Voila, a cedar and grass chopping and collection system!   I've used it A LOT and it works great.  

I'm proud to say I chopped all off the cedar for this cedar path.

6.  Warm nights with cedar firewood

Not all, but a lot of our firewood comes from the old cedar tree too.  There's also our own alder, cherry and non treated offcuts.  Our Pacific Energy stove will give off a wonderful heat and light....once it's installed.....

 Think that's everything.  I love cedar!

Cheers

Jim and Tricia Bowen