Techniques I'm using to build cabin alone

Walk-behind Billy Goat brush mower is my tractor

Garden cart fitted with 2x4 braces carries 4x8 sheets

Two-wheel dolly lets me move a bunch of 2x4s at one time easily

 We started from absolute scratch at our retirement cabin on Red Lake. As Brenda likes to  relate, we had to machete our way through the bush just to get out of the boat. This wasn't a previous cabin site that had some cleared land. It was virgin land, and as far as I can see, was never even a campsite by any of the First Nations that lived in this area for 10,000 years.

It took us two weeks just to clear a place to pitch a tent and make a trail leading to that spot. We then lived in the tent for two summers while we brought in a dock, made a secure landing on shore for it, and built what we call a Dockhouse, since it is near the dock, but will really be a guest cabin. It gives us a comfortable place to live while we build the main cabin, something we could have completed last summer had we not got run off by forest fires for nearly a month.

I have done all the carpentry by myself so far and probably will finish the project the same way. Ironically, one of the reasons I am doing it like this is because I have a bad back. You would think that would make me want to lean on friends and relatives all the more but the truth is I can work without hurting myself best when I'm alone. I go at my own pace which is admittedly slower than other people. 

One of the big considerations in avoiding back aches was how to get all the building materials from the boat, up the hill and 200 feet to the cabin. It started by making a plywood sidewalk to level the area nearest to the dock. From there our son, Matt, with a shovel and wheelbarrow, two summers ago excavated a bit of the hillside where the cabin was to be located and used that material to level an equal distance with soil and rocks. So, we have a pretty level trail all the way to the cabin site. That means we can roll things, rather than carry them. In fact, after bringing in an estimated seven tons of building material for the entire cabin last fall, I can say I never carried a single thing other than a short distance from the dock. Lumber, 4x8 sheets, I-joists, steel roofing and siding, windows and doors, all were rolled. The only exception was the 32-foot roof trusses. For that I had the help of Stan, Jan and Ben from Eagle Falls Lodge who had brought these ungainly items out to us in their 40-plus-foot pontoon boat. Thank you, my new friends!

We also got a big help from our friends the Moningers when they let me use their approximate 26-foot pontoon boat to bring out the lumber and sheeting. Thank you, Bob, Rosalie and Tom!

We've also had help bringing things up the hill from our cabin neighbours, Lee and Dale, and from Brian over at the camp.

And finally, thank you to Northwest Timbermart who not only loaned me a work boat to start the summer but also brought their Zoomboom machine to set material from the lumber truck directly onto the boats. Wow, what a time-saver!

The actual building, however, I have been doing alone. I'm finicky about the foundation. If that isn't right, nothing above it will be either. Our cabin site is sandy and for those conditions I hand dug holes for 18 foundation posts set two feet deep. Eighteen-inch foundation pads were put in the bottom of each, all leveled. Above this I placed 6x6 preserved wood posts, with a nub carved at the end to fit into the foundation pad depression. I wrapped the posts with heavy plastic that prevents frost from gripping on the sides and also stops bugs like carpenter ants from climbing up. The pad depth is shallower than what I would do when working in clay. There I would have gone 3-4 feet. Clay is known for spectacular heaving by frost.

People wonder what the frost depth is at Red Lake. In cleared-off places like a street, it is about nine feet! But under a cabin, especially one where the snow will be undisturbed (we won't use the cabin in the winter) it is just a couple of feet. In sand, which drains easily, it should be even less.

Brenda has said she has stayed married to me for the past 47 years because none of my buildings have mice! I thought that might be a good name for a construction company: No Mouse Cabin Construction. The trick is to have a secure foundation so the building doesn't "walk" with the frost, pulling wall plates loose from the floor. 

Another trick I have learned is to skirt-in the foundation so that all the foundation posts are hidden from the sun. In the spring, the warm sun will melt the ground on the south side of the building first. If any heaving has taken place over the winter, the south side will drop lower than the north and the building will start inching downhill. I have seen buildings without below-frost foundations move about a foot per decade. 

My foundation should be below-frost but just to be sure, I skirt everything as well.

I-joists in place

Completed cabin floor and roof trusses are covered for winter. Sides have temporary skirting

Also built a shed last summer. It will become the site for solar panels and batteries, as well as generator seen here under overhang

Who's responsible? Who's to blame?

The answer to the first question is, "I am." It's the answer for me and also for you, no matter who you are and, curiously,  no matter what the question is. It is also the key to living a full and contented life. Intrigued?

We all feel the most positive about those things in our lives that are under our control, when we are the "captains of our own ships."  We feel negative when things are out of our control, when we are "victims." 

Now let's look at what responsibility means: response-ability -- the ability to respond. No matter what the situation is that we are confronting, the ability to respond is under our control, and that's a positive thing. When we accept responsibility for everything in our lives, we are sitting squarely in the captain's seat.

So, I am responsible for climate change and I am responding by replacing fossil fuels with solar electric as fast as I can, by telling my auto dealer that I won't buy another car from her until she has a suitable all-electric model, by preparing for the forest fires that climate change is bringing with increasing frequency and ferocity to my region. I have also written my Member of Parliament and told him we need the same bold action on climate change that we saw his government take on the pandemic. Let's go!

Oh, and what about that second question? Who's to blame? It is a meaningless concept and an utter waste of time. Blame is the assessment of guilt for something that happened in the past. Guilt is the cesspool of human emotions and the past is gone.

Yesterday's history.

Tomorrow's a mystery.

Today is a gift.

That's why it's called The Present.

How do you get a cat out of a tree?

 

And what do you do when that cat is a full-grown lynx?

This beautiful cat was patrolling around the bush line by our house today looking for rabbits when he spotted a red squirrel beneath our bird feeder. Squirrel and cat went 30 feet up a birch tree in a blink but then the squirrel leapt to a larger poplar tree nearby where it flattened itself and remained motionless on the opposite side from the cat. Eventually the lynx backed down and went on its way.

'Don't choose extinction'

 

That was on a sign that was carried by one of the thousands of young people who traveled to Glasgow, Scotland, last week for the COP 26 summit. It pretty much sums up the situation: change our system of energy consumption in a big way starting right now or perish. There is just no time left.

The world leaders at the conference seemed to recognize the gravity of the situation but the young people were skeptical and for good reason.  The same politicians have said the same thing many, many times in the past and then did nothing. 

Our choice couldn't be more simple: Do we want to start an Age of Enlightenment or a Dark Age?

If we choose Enlightenment the world as we have known it will be saved. We will begin to live within our energy means and eventually the atmospheric heat storm we unwittingly ignited with the Industrial Revolution and the internal combustion engine will subside. 

If we choose the Dark Age our world will be run by Feral Morons who will always act with mankind's worst inclinations. We will spiral ever-faster into the abyss.

Solar water pump worked perfectly

 

We connected the solar system to our Shurflo water pump this year and it worked perfectly, despite the dismal skies due to forest fire smoke.

The photo shows the solar panel fastened horizontally to a wood stand. The inverted black plastic tote contains a charge controller, 12-volt battery and the pump. The black box seemed at first to be too hot for the charge controller so we added some ventilation holes that let the heat out. We also put the charge controller under another smaller inverted box just so water could not contact it. Both boxes are simply set on the dock where incoming air can come easily through the cracks between deck boards.

The suction pipe shown here is one-inch but it had to be necked down to 1/2-inch to fit onto the pump fitting. Outlet is also 1/2 inch, Pex.

There is no pressure tank to this system, although it is possible to add one later if needed. The pump just has a built-in pressure switch. The pump instantly turns on when a tap is opened and turns off when it is closed. The pump provides four gallons of water a minute which will probably be adequate for the big cabin without needing a pressure tank. The shower, for instance, will require no more than 2.5 gallons a minute and we will likely use a water-saver shower head that uses just 1.8 gallons. 

The line from the pump to the dockhouse is 100-feet and there is lots of pressure at the single tap we have inside. It remains to be seen if the pressure will be the same at the big cabin when it is finished next year. It will be about 200 feet from the pump and, more importantly, will be perhaps 10-feet higher than the dockhouse spigot. The height from the pump to the final destination, called the head, is critical for pump performance.  If we find the pressure is too low at the main cabin we can always install a pressure tank somewhere in between -- like in the dockhouse or maybe in our new shed. Then the pump just needs to replenish the tank which provides its own pressure. It would be lovely if we didn't need the tank. It's just one more thing to have to plumb and to drain in the fall.

Our other solar appliance -- a Unique fridge -- didn't work as well as the water pump. We simply couldn't get enough solar charging through the heavy smoke for it to run without some generator assisted-battery charging. Two hours a day of charging seemed to do it. Early in the summer when there was less smoke the solar system worked fine. A lot of the problem is simply the orientation of the dockhouse and its position among the trees. The new main cabin will be in direct sunlight most of the day.