Ontario

Who Knows What Tomorrow Brings?

Tiny House Ontario, is always in transition.  When I go back there in the morning I think that Leo will have some things done there.  I am not 100% sure because I have not reached him.  I hope he will have the rest of the siding up as well as the eves trough, j-trim and facia.  If he was there, I have to fix the cloth porch.

If everything above is done, as far as the rest of this year goes there are a few small plans which I would like to see done.  This is to hook up the rain barrel and hook up the solar system.  We may also install a stove, but this has yet to be seen.

Left on the agenda for next years are some big jobs, such as, the well and pump install, the hickory floors cut, hand hewn and installed, the kitchen install and the stone patio with walkways.   I already know that I want to have a small clay oven on the patio but I saw a photo today which makes me believe that I may also need to have an arbour on this patio.  I would strongly prefer that the pillars be from fallen trees from my land and that the arbour have a canvas water repellant roof.

Any thing I have forgotten or should consider?

 

 

 

Categories: Cloth Porch, Forest, Money, Nature, Off Grid, Ontario, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario | 2 Comments

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

My husband returned very late last night form his business trip; actually, he came early this morning at about 2:30 am.  This morning we slept in until 10:00 and I still feel really pooped and irritable.  All very normal for me if my sleep schedule is interfered with.  I am a terrible candidate for shift work because just with this one weird night of sleep I feel sore and somewhat breathless.

There was also some work to do here on scanning my art work.  This can only be done from my husband’s PC… for some reason the scanner on our HP does not like my Mac.  This took us until 3:00, my husband scanned and I resized and so forth here on my own computer.

Getting stuff done often takes more time than you truly want to give it.  Particularly when it is stuff that you don’t want to do.  Did you ever notice that it takes a lot of time to do dishes and sweep the floor, but it does not take a lot of time to have a beer with your friends?

What this all boils down to is that I am staying put in Hamilton today and will leave after rush hour tomorrow for THO.  This will allow me another day to try and catch the injured feral mother cat and her babies, or at minimum feed her another time.  It also means that I can enjoy the air conditioning here before heading into the heat.  Sadly, it means that I will miss seeing Bear the Tinker at the Delta Fair… Bummer.

As for the dollar short… I am always a dollar short!  Isn’t everyone these days?

I hope you all enjoy a great day!

Categories: Art, Family, Money, Ontario, View | Leave a comment

Emily Carr’s Supper

It is my last day in Hamilton so I put it to good use.  I went to have a look at the Emily Carr Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.  It is on until October and costs only $10 to go and see it this fee also allows you admission to the rest of the gallery.  If you don’t have $10, the gallery also has FREE nights on the first Friday of each month for those readers who have a very tight budget, but still want to see the show.

One of my personal favourites, Scorned as Timber, is there.  I always hoped to see this one day face to face instead of just in books or on line.  I did not know it was there, and when I walked in and saw it, I was stunned.  I sat in front of this one for a long while.  Truthfully, photos don’t do it justice because you don’t see the movement in it the same.  It is breathtakingly lovely!

I really liked the experience I had today.  I should add that  I also particularly enjoyed seeing Zunoqua of the Cat Village.  Oddly enough, I never caught the humour in this image until I saw it today.   I was also surprised to see that the gallery both rents and sells original contemporary works.  I do not know if this is new or if I just failed to notice this before.

After seeing the show, I walked over to the Jackson Square Farmer’s Market and purchased some fresh produce to make dinner.  I have a few things in my own garden here but not enough to hit all the colour groups.  I bought some white eggplant because I thought they might be interesting.  Pretty isn’t it?  I think Emily Carr would have liked this for dinner even though she was a meat eater.  Probably more so if someone else cooked it.  She got so sick of people eating up her time on chores when she ran the boarding house “House of All Sorts”.  Anyway, as for my dinner, it is in the oven, and I bet you that it looks even better when I finally get it plated.

Along with these veggies, I also purchased some fresh whole wheat pasta, grape seed oil, kohlrabi, freshly made pesto and some pine nuts too because I like to have a few whole ones.  I am cooking all of it and will mix it all (except the kohlrabi) together as one huge roasted vegetable salad.

As for the Kholrabi… I boiled it and then burn it a little and reboil to carry the smoke through – add grape-seed oil, good quality wine vinegar, fresh ground pepper and salt.  Yum.

Don’t worry, I won’t eat this all alone!  My husband is still in Kentucky but will return late tonight so we will have a late dinner of nice fresh food.  It will be cooled by then too so nice on a long and hot day.  Yum, me thinks!  Some for dinner  – and left overs for the road.

Categories: Art, Emily Carr, Family, Food, Magical, Ontario, Simple living | Leave a comment

Tank Girl Diversions

I am heading back to Tiny House Ontario tomorrow in the early morning.  I understand that we have had enough rain there to keep things going for another day or two so this is good.

I was hoping that when I returned that I would not have to get on my Tank Girl gear and start fighting Water and Power for Our share.  Glad that dystopia was diverted… at least for the time being.  Frankly, life will be easier at THO when we can get a well in.  Though, I do know that I could not water the whole forest and the loss of those trees makes me really unhappy, even though there was nothing realistically that I could do to help them.

For the time being, I head back soon in the slightly softer Tank Girl suit and keep on keepin’on.

Categories: Dog, Drought, Ontario, Time, Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment

Going Batty!

NEWS: it is raining at Tiny House Ontario and has been for some number of hours according to those who are living nearby.  WOOT WOOT!  I will worry less now!  Sadly, I think even a solid week of rain will not make a lot of difference to farmers at this time; the rain will still save a lot of trees, I hope!

When I was last there a few days ago sitting out on the cloth porch we watched through the cloth on the other side.  There were praying mantis insects under the solar LED porch light and they were collecting the night light bugs.  We have a lot of night bugs.

As a matter of fact, when I lay down at night, with my head in the window, the sound of hopeful mosquitos who are trying to get through the screen and vampire me to death is astonishingly loud.  Hundreds of them, I would guess, smell me.  Apparently, they think I am quite the tasty treat…

In discussion about the large number of mosquitos I came to the conclusion that I might just be able to do something natural to impact this a little bit. I am not sure if it is as simple as build it and they will come, but even so a young friend of a friend suggested building and bat house in order to help with decreasing the mosquito population.  This looks totally simple!

I don’t have any 4×4 boards at THO at the moment but they are not too hard to come by.  Another problem is digging that deep in the forest because of roots and also because of the limestone.   Still, I think that it might be fun to have some of the little winged mice nearby and it will be great if this works and it decreases the mosquitos!

A bonus too is that I also have lots of small bits of steel so I can give them a very posh roof that matches THO!  😛

Thank you, Cameleon, for the idea!

Categories: Cloth Porch, Environmentalism, Food, Forest, Nature, Off Grid, Ontario, Tiny House Ontario | 2 Comments