So I notice, as you probably have too, that I have been a little quiet here on the blog-site? You must be wondering what we have been up to?

So, since our last walk across the Dead Marshes we haven’t done a lot of exploring until yesterday. Our days have been pretty low key; get up, pray to the sun gods, make a fire, tend the fire, make coffee when the clock finally signals that it is no longer an ungodly hour to perform said task; wait, wait, wait until Luke and the dogs get up; celebrate their waking by making breakfast! Go out with the dogs for a lil scout about the place. Then, make a great big, fat fire!!!

After the morning routine I’ll go out and putter around in the orchard, clearing up some deadfall, clip down some lil fellas; there are far too many of them to allow them to grow. Well, truth is, they are growing so tightly together they would never amount to anything anyway so off to the fire with them. A few select pines will be allowed to remain, ones that are already established but the rest have to make way for fruit trees. I have lately been thinking that I might also put in some raspberry-type bushes, blueberry, gooseberry, currant bushes- we’ll have to see what the soil is like and what it will support. And whilst Lumberjack Luke is cutting down trees, we will have to collect a fat lot of them to build us a fence to keep Mother Nature’s critters out of the orchard. Somehow I don’t think Bear and Sam’s ritual Bark-a-Thons will keep the animals at bay.

As I mentioned, we often, well, daily actually, pray for sunshine! Even if, as dawn grows to day and the stars fade away to a bright blue sky, we still have to pray to the sun gods as we have discovered that those bright blue mornings mean absolutely nothing! A blink of an eye and the clouds, appearing out of no where, sock us in! Then again, other mornings we get up to gloom and doom and then VOILA, brilliant sunshine! So we have learned to live with what we get, moment by moment. And what and how we do things really is determined by the sun. I posted on Facebook this morning that I would love Mr. Sun to stick around long enough to dry the load of laundry that has been hanging since our last sunny day which was…bah! I can’t even remember when it was!  Oh…shhhhh…there is Mr. Sun now, poking out over in the south east! We mustn’t scare him off…I’ll type a lil quieter now, if that’s alright with you?

So yea, that’s a big thing; when to do laundry. Or as is the case, when NOT to do laundry. Next trip to the Big Smoke and we are going to have to invest in more socks and underwear!  And I know that using the shower uses fuel but I think both of our bodies are making a stand and demanding a return to daily showers! Another big consideration is how to cook. If the sun is shining I am free to use any of the lovely electrical small appliances stacked up in my “appliance garage” and the cooking is free and easy! Well, almost; there is still the matter of all the washing up and let me tell you, when I get to cooking/baking, there is scads of washing up to be done! If Mr. Sun does not grace us with his presence then I use the stove and burn precious fuel; I try to keep stove-top cooking to a minimum but, truth be told, I find that a bit….no, a lot…difficult. You see, cooking/baking is WHAT I DO. It is what keeps me sane. It is what I LOVE to do. Okay, as I typed that a thought went fleeting through me head: “I’m going to have to find a new hobby to keep me sane” and I think I have an idea what it might be! I’ll tell you about that in a minute but first I HAVE to tell you about the Lunch I cooked yesterday. Oh yea, we have decided that large meals will be at Lunch Time which allows me to cook by daylight and not candlelight; my eyes will thank that decision! Right, Okay, so people on Facebook have been posting Sweet and Sour This and Sweet and Sour That; I can’t even tell you the last time I had Sweet and Sour Anything! One of the pitfalls of being a Vegetarian in a non-Vegetarian world. So I googled it. And folks? Yesterday I made absolutely delicious Sweet and Sour “Meatballs” using Chick Peas. Which also afforded me the opportunity to try that aquafaba Meringue recipe I have seen floating around Facebook. What’s aquafaba, you ask? The liquid drained off of the Chick Peas. And yup, the Meringues are AHMAZING, but the Star for the Day was definitely the Sweet and Sour “Meatballs”; I’m salivating just thinking about them!

I have to say, the thing I liked best about the aquafaba Meringues is that they didn’t taste like egg-whites! I don’t even like the smell of egg-whites. I am thinking with aquafaba, French Toast may be back on the Menu after a 36 year absence!!! But first things first, the “meringues”

Okay, went off on a food tangent there! Sorry ’bout that. Nah, I’m not! It’s what I am passionate about. But I digress, I was saying that we had not done a lot of exploring since the Dead Marshes. Well, actually, I have done a lot of scouting on my own, just here by the Earthship- down to the Lake Point, down the front just below the orchard (where I had my last big fire) and along the trail to Moose Hollow. By scouting, I mean, assessing the amount of work that needs to be done to make the dream a reality. Seriously, sometimes I come in from my scouting trips and just curl up on the recliner because I am that exhausted just thinking about it all!
Anyway, yesterday when I got up in the wee, dark ungodly hours of the morn it was snowing. And it was still snowing when everyone else woke up. A lil snow was not going to stop us from going for a walk though. To the Boathouse. We haven’t been over that way in ages. Luke bought a giant D-saw that he has been dying to try out; guess he didn’t like it that much as he left in behind in the Boathouse! I think Luke was scheming the whole time; what he REALLY wanted was to walk around the lake! It HAS been freezing, rather below freezing most days this past week so I reckon the ice is thick enough? To be safe we could just stick close to the edge, right?

What fun! So nice to have finally seen more of the property…I think. Man, I think the blow downs and dead fall around the Earthship was thick, you should see the other side!!!! What a tangled web. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shelob was in residence over on the other side; it did have a bit of an eerie feel to it. Or maybe that was me just being a scaredy cat? I have to admit, the ice didn’t sing out once! Bear thought he ought to give me some grey hairs though since Benny and Alex are no longer in residence to oblige; our dare devil dog would wander out onto the lake! Again, I’m pretty sure it’s frozen solid enough but, well, you  know, Bear is not known for being a lean fella.

Next up? I look forward to the lake being frozen through and through so I can go and check out the lil islands! On that note, I will leave you today with this lil slideshow.

Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/JiWh9KGby0U

While the sun may not have been shining here at Brittany Lake, we are thankful for the freezing cold temperatures! Everything is starting to freeze over. We are keen to be walking on both the creek and the lake but for today we were happy to break a trail across the “Dead Marshes”! What we thought was an old house turns out to be more of a barn-like structure. And we discovered a lot of holes…who would dig random holes in the ground? And why? Also found a lovely …well, what would have once been a lovely old Chev 1300 pick up truck! I’m a Chev Girl so I really appreciated that find! I’d almost like to haul it over here and put to use in a landscaping capacity. Time will tell.

We also thought there might be another structure of some sort over there but while the Dead Marshes are pretty frozen solid, over at the old homestead things are not so frozen as everything else.  We will wait until we are certain everything is frozen over before further investigation of the old homestead. I must say, the mouth of Brittany Creek is gurgling with life over there! I absolutely love, love, love the sound of running water! All the more reason to find an easier way to get over to the other side of the creek on a regular basis; easily enough done in the winter but not currently an easy thing to do in any of the other seasons. There is a road going over there but it is rife with blowdowns and remnants of the fire that came through here a number of years ago; Bear and I simply cannot get through it all. Luke and I will just have to, chain saws in hand, blaze a clear path to the old homestead! If we could make a non-sinky way across the Dead Marshes we could easily short-cut our way across. Meh, clearing the old road will give us more of a workout. That said, this morning was quite the workout! So glad I had my trekking poles!!! My lil feet, encumbered by big boots, managed to slip, slide and slither along in Luke’s rough trail.

We were supposed to come back from our walk and do a burn in the orchard but we were all too tired! I sat down with a good book (GoT) for a few minutes but then decided I better get a few things done before I DO have to go back outside to work on clearing the orchard. Yes, it is a lot of work but it’s kind of fun. I have discovered that I am kind of, sort of, a firebug! I love the sound of the crackling flames! Love the intense heat coming off the burn piles. And love, love, love the smell of the fire. What’s not fun is slipping and sliding as I try to drag gigantic trees (Okay, gigantic to me; you’ve seen me, right? 5 foot nothing!) up, down, along the banks of the orchard. To be honest they are long trees but not heavy trees as they have been drying in the sun for a season or two; they ARE awkward to move though. I actually love that they are so light because I can sometimes hoist a whole tree up onto my shoulder and carry it to the fire! Paul Bunyon’s got nothing on me!

Okay, short and sweet today. Hope you enjoy the photos!

https://youtu.be/aUIlCiLMPFU

Okay, so we have been socked in all these days; I’ve lost count of my sunshine-free days. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Sun shows up but he modestly hides behind a cloud and when we aren’t looking he might pop out for a few minutes. This morning looked so promising! Beautiful sunrise, clear sky, Mr. Sun, strutting his stuff and then BOOM! Gone! Gone! Gone! Now we are enveloped under a thick blanket, heavy with snow.  Mark my words, tomorrow we are going to wake up to a fresh dump of snow and not the paltry 5cm we had this past week; it’s going to be a THICK blanket of snow!

With no real sunshine and all the conservation of power that can possibly be mustered the batts are still on the low side. Not so low as to cause concern but Devin (former owner and Earthship extraordinaire guy) was here yesterday so Luke took advantage of all his knowledge and had him go over the generator with him.  Not that it really worked; though we didn’t discover that until Devin had driven off into the sunset – yes, Mr. Sun peeked out yesterday, albeit under that security blankie of his!  Devin was still the star of the day; he brought us two more 100lb tanks of propane!!! Now I have 3 100lb tanks for the kitchen and 2 100lb tanks for the hot water.

But even better than that, he brought us groceries! Now when I did my $1000.00 shop on October 30 I was totally winging it; totally winging it! Had I have known then what I know now I would have bought a butt-load more canned goods, zero freezer product and many, many more candles! How I have missed green vegetables! I was steering clear of purchasing canned vegetables because I grew up on them and hated them 😛 Blech! Upon the advice of one of Krick’s friends I DID order French Style Green Beans, Asparagus Tips,  Mushrooms Stems and Pieces, a bunch of canned legumes since it seems I can never used any electrical appliances, and the item I have been craving for weeks now, CORN! Oh my, a dozen cans of niblet corn.

And that is really what this post is all about. Canned Corn.
You see, I couldn’t wait to dig into it! So this morning rather than Pancakes, Oatmeal, Fried Eggs and Toast, or Fresh Scones…none of that would suffice today because today I have corn!! So I made a creamy smooth polenta, threw in half a can of niblet corn and a handful of fresh blueberries. Sigh. (eyes closed, imagining all that goodness in a single bowl)
The polenta was velvety smooth; the kernels of corn crisp and bursting with sugary goodness when you bit into one; the blueberries, sinfully silky, exploding with sweetly sour juices; the sweet BC honey seeping into every nook and cranny in the bowl offering a touch of sweetness to each and every bite. Breakfast was freaking orgasmic this morning, my friends, freakin’ orgasmic!

ps… please don’t ever let me forget to get corn again!

We had such great plans for adventuring this Long Weekend! Yesterday we drove down to the Chilko River to get some drinking water. There has been a lot of wind happening since last weekend so we expected new blow-downs; we were pleasantly surprised to only come across a few! Devin came up last Tuesday which totally surprised us as it was blowing a gale and we knew there were a lot of trees to cut through to get to us!  He was definitely a welcome sight! While Devin cut through a lot of blow-downs on his way up to us, we cut them back a bit more and cleared them completely off the road. It was a long trip for water.

Today I woke up a lil under the weather and that put a kabosh on our plans. We were going to take the boat out on the lake today. It turns out that it was probably a lil too windy to do that anyway, so no real loss. I had a lay down while Luke fired up the old Ford! He drove it down to the boathouse and back; he had Bear and Sam with him but they didn’t like the cab so they eventually just rode in the open pick up! Egad! Glad I wasn’t there to witness that.

After a much needed rest I got up and slowly got around to doing lil things around the house. I have come to the conclusion that with dogs about? I am never going to have a clean house again! I am starting to think we are going to need to build those boys of ours a deluxe dog house and kick them out!

Regardless of how I feel, I do like to try to get my Steps in every day. My very patient husband Luke ambled along beside me on the way to the Boathouse, pulling out lil trees along the way; it’s what kept him busy while I slowly made my way along the path. Now the trail to the Boathouse is no where near 10K Steps so we walked up along the lane to the D in the road where we picked up the rough trail to Moose Hollow. Luke and I sat on a fallen tree (no shortage of those) while Bear and Sam had a frolic in the long grass and, of course Bear HAD to go for a wade in the pool! We picked our way from Moose Hollow back to the trail that goes along the front and kept going right past the house, continuing on down to the point. We would love to get beyond the point but there are just so many old blowdowns that neither Bear or I can manage all that leg lifting! We did go farther than we have been before, so that is something. The sun started to go down as we made our way back to the Earthship. Good timing!

Now we are all tucked inside and the wind is picking up dramatically for which we are thankful. We haven’t had much sun the past few days so we need this wind to boost our batts which are sitting high 70’s-low80’s thanks to SOMEONE leaving not one, but two kitchen lights on all night a few days back! We have been playing catch ever since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00IVSL6Ysko

So this morning we walked down along the front heading south-ish. We were almost to the end of the trail (it leads up to the lane) but then we decided to stay off the laneways as Bear and Sam’s paws would get super mucky as it is not as cold as we would like it to be. So just there, before you get to the lane, there is an almost invisible trail to what we have now dubbed “Moose Hollow”. If you could see it, you would know why we call it that; it looks like the perfect place to catch a moose stopping in for a graze and a drink from the lil pool of water which is well protected from a somewhat shabby stand of grizzly old pines. And tough suckers they are too; they survived a forest fire which felled lesser trees. Anyway, we think this is where we are going to catch a glimpse of a moose.

We ventured along to the second pool and tip-toed through the almost-but-not-quite frozen grasses, carefully seeking out safe spots to allow our feet to rest for a split second before proceeding with our next precarious step.  Once we got out of that bit of marsh and onto dry land the going was a lil quicker as we followed an old trail. We were just meant to go to the end, peek around the corner and then turn around; curiosity got the best of us and we carried on as the old trail was proving quite reliable. Oh, if only I could have foreseen how the trail would all but disappear a mere 50 metres ahead I would have turned around there and then.

The trail on dry land soon vanished. Bear was happily splooshing and splashing about in the tall grasses, picking his way along; Luke followed suit, though trying to keep to slightly drier mounds. “That’s all you have to do, Deanna; just put your foot on what looks like a solid clump of grass and it’s all good.” Yea, right! Now, I’m going to tell you a lil secret; I actually HATE putting my foot down, ahead of me, if I can’t SEE what I am going to be stepping on! I have trod on too many freakin’ scary things over my lifetime to trust my feet! And it doesn’t help that I have been watching Lord of the Rings and our marsh reminds me of the Dead Marshes that Frodo and Samwise Gamgee had to pick their way through!!! Gives me the shivers just thinking about it! So you can well imagine that near the top of my list of trails to build is one out around the spit and back home…there and back again.

Now IF everything was as frozen as I had hoped it might be at this time of the year, we could simply walk over the frozen marshes! Don’t ask me why THAT doesn’t freak me out; it doesn’t. I suppose it is because my foot will not disappear down some dark fathomless hole but will easily rest on top of the ice. I can’t wait until the marsh and creek freeze over! There is an old homestead just over the creek that I am dying to explore. I have half-heartedly tried twice along a totally dry land route but the old blow downs were just too much for Bear. Our Bear is quite the trooper; he will give his all to get over, around or under  blow-downs but there comes a time when he’ll just look at us and we know he is done. Samwise, Mr. Agility, NEVER has a problem going ANYWHERE! His agility never ceases to amaze me!

Once we got back to the fork in the path and headed home Bear and Sam surprised a flock of grouse! Eight or nine birds flew off with Bear and Sam in hot pursuit! There were two who thought they would play dead but then Sammy was upon their hiding spot and they flew off too! I think they gave Sammy a fright and he was determined he was going to get ’em! Ah, if only he had wings! Bear was way long gone, still chasing the initial flock. The boys definitely got their exercise in this morning.

I have to say, what a lot of work! On the plus side? I am currently sitting at 32, 266 Steps!!! At breakfast this morning Luke told me that he had cut a good amount of blow downs between here and the Boathouse; but I didn’t clear the cuts off the trail, he said. Oh, right. That’s MY job.  So once I had cleared up the breakfast dishes I got dressed to take the dogs for a lil walk down to the boathouse and would clear the trail as I went.

Well, turns out Sammy doesn’t like it when I go wandering off into the bush without Luke! I got about 500metres down the trail and no Sam! Man! I called him a few times; waited, walked a few more metres towards the boathouse; called the rat again, to no avail. Bah! I had to head back towards the house to see if he had gone home before checking down by the marsh. I got to within seeing distance of the lane and there was Sammy’s head bobbing along, Luke in tow! Luke said that the thought Sammy was pulling a Lassie – “Timmy fell down the hole” so he was coming to investigate. Since he was now part of the walking party we carried on, chucking debris left, right and centre…well, not centre because then we would just have to move it again! Once we got down to the lake I simply HAD to tidy up  the boathouse a lil bit, HAD to! Meanwhile Bear and Sam were helping themselves to a well deserved drink from the lake. Clever Sam drinks from the edge of the lake, one paw held up so it doesn’t get wet; Bear on the other hand marches straight in up to his belly! Thanks, Bear! You KNOW how much I love to towel you down!

We walked back up to the house; Luke got stuck into work, I got stuck into housework and then did a bit of knitting. The sun did come out today so the greenhouse was cooking-hot! The extreme heat was putting me to sleep so I took Bear and Sam for a walk down to the lake. When we got back Luke said that he was going to go and do some cutting. Great. When he takes time off during the day to do much needed chores I have to be the Grinch come the dark of early evening and crack the whip. “Luke, you have a few hours at the computer still. Can I make you some tea to help with that?”

Anyway, back to the boathouse trail, leaving Bear and Sam behind because they are not so smart when it comes to axes and chainsaws. Sammy is currently sporting a lil cut above his eye because he ran straight into the axe that Luke was carrying!!! Okay, so, back to the trail and allllllllll those blowdowns! So, so, so many! The standing dead ones….well, know blown over, are super light and easy to handle. The green ones that tipped over at the roots or were crashed into by a bigger, stronger tree are HEAVY! I have to keep reminding Luke to cut the green ones into smaller chunks so I can heave ’em off the trail! We were doing so well and then the chainsaw ran out of juice! Bah! we were so close we could tasted the victory! Luke likened it to a World of Warcraft dungeon: we had cleared all the trash and have only the last boss to take down. I have to tell you, that last tree, right by the boathouse? It’s a BIGGY! Toppled over right at the roots. And a tangle of branches to work through to get to the trunk. Oh, I just can’t wait!

So all that walking plus all the lifting and throwing of tree lengths garnered me a crap load of steps today! And if you know me at all, you know that I LOVE seeing big numbers on my Fitbit! Wahoo! But now I feel challenged to put in the same amount of Steps every day. While I would love to I just don’t think it is doable…at least not until Luke gives me a refresher on how to shoot a gun. Oh, and the fact that we need to get a few guns! You will recall that we often hear wolves and on Sunday we went for a lil walk just down at the end of the marsh and came across some rather large wolf prints.  I would have liked to have believed that they were off in the distance, but they are pretty much on our doorstep!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed our lil slideshow of our day at Brittany Lake. And sorry that the Lumberjack one of Luke is so short. I have learned NOT to wear my glasses when working in the bush but that renders me pretty much blind when it comes to photos and videos.

First off, why do we call it the Boathouse?? It’s not like it houses a boat. Really it is a Lakehouse. But is really a “house”? It’s pretty tiny! But it is completely glassed in so no bugs when you are down there. It has a lil patio. It has a tiny lil woodstove in the event you want to do some ice fishing, I guess? It has two built in bunks…not sure what shape the mattresses are in? It has its own single solar panel so you can run a light in there. No cooking facilities or anything though. And no washroom. Anyway, we think it’s cute.

After the windstorm we had we thought we better go and check on it, make sure it was a) still standing and more importantly, b) that it was still there!  We imagined there would be a few trees down along the way but we were not prepared for just how many trees were down! Oh my word! It normally takes us about 15 minutes to get down there; yesterday it took 40 minutes and my step counter dinged 10,000 Steps about 100 metres up the trail on the return trip on account of all the extra work involved in getting around, under, and over the blow downs. And of course we tried to clear as much as we could by hand but the truth of the matter is, it is going to take an hour or two of chain saw work to clear that path!

Bear is so …such a helpful fella. So back in the Valley, Luke would go bushwhacking up in the Chilliwack Lake Valley, using a machete and an axe to make lil trails. Bear liked to get right in there and help move the cut branches. Well, yesterday all Bear’s learnin’ came back to him and he tried so hard to move trees off the trail! So, so, cute. I mean, really? Just one of the reasons we love our Bear.

Okay, so I put together a lil slideshow for you but of course there is an upload limit on my wordpress account so I built the slideshow on youtube. Now if you know me at all, you  know I take a gazillion photos of food and yes, some food pics made it into this slideshow; hey, you have to have a good breakfast before embarking on a full on walk to the boathouse! Well, Luke had a good breakfast; I had a fruit pie but it wasn’t really a pie: it was a fruit sauce that I dumped into a pastry lined tart tin because I had left over pastry the other day when I was making Curried Vegetable Pot Pies. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that it looks like pie but it really wasn’t, okay? Okay.

First off we were going to go for brunch at a nearby, well, relatively nearby Inn but after that windstorm on Friday and Saturday we knew there would be trees down all over the place! Yesterday we went down to the boathouse; the normally 15 minute walk took us 40 minutes! Good news is that the boathouse is still there.

Alright, so we cancelled the Brunch idea and thought instead we might go for a lil drive over to Tsuniah Lake…just up the road from us, right Tony and Ryan? Well, we got to the end of our “driveway” which Luke cleared of blow downs yesterday and were almost immediately hit with wall after wall of blow downs!!! We inched our way forward, slowly but surely. You know they old saying, Rome wasn’t built in a day? Well neither are roads cleared of all the fallen trees unless you have some wonder machine that allows you to do the work that much quicker. You see, Ryan? I need me a lil chainsaw! I did try to cut some of the trees with a D-Saw but man, that was slow going! I soon laid down the saw and just shifted stuff once Luke had cut the trees into manageable chunks for me. One thing I did discover is that standing dead trees are much lighter than “healthy” trees. Can’t be all that healthy if they are now laying on the ground now can they?

So what I am seeing on the land is remnants of a forest fire that ripped through here 13 years ago. There are so many trees just laying their like kindle. And then there are all these brave lil pines trying valiantly to grow, grow, grow; the problem is, there are just too many of them! We need Ryan to come up and help us sort out this problem. I don’t even know how to build a burn pile! Or how to light one, for that matter. When I used to work in the bush with my Dad and my brothers we used to use old tires but I don’t think that is very environmentally friendly so I am going to have to think of something else.

I am hoping that we can use some of the blow downs for building. We need to build a lean-to for firewood. I know that we said the fire only gets turned on for ambience on Christmas Day but the truth of the matter is that if we don’t get any sunshine, which we have not had any of since we have arrived…okay, maybe 3 days total; anyway, if the sun doesn’t shine then the greenhouse doesn’t get hot which means we have to build a fire to keep the plants warm through the night.

Another thing I want to start thinking about building is a small barn so that we can get some animals! I REALLY want a couple of horses. We live very close to a wild horse preserve; Devin said if we were game we could just go catch ourselves a couple! Okay, so I said I want horses but that doesn’t mean that I know a single thing about how to care for them let alone how to go about catching one!  We also hope to have some goats, just because they are so cute! They can give us a bit of wool but that is all we will take from them. And finally, we would like to have some chickens. To lay eggs, not to eat.  Now I talk about all these animals and I have to tell you, when we were walking over there today, just to the north west of us? We saw some pretty big wolf tracks!!!!!

Righty oh. I am rather exhausted now. Think I’ll put the jug on to boil and make a cup of tea.

Have a great day!

Some critter was scouting about the place last night. When Luke and Bear went out in the middle of the night Bear took off after something…

This morn when we went out Sammy tore off down towards the creek; straight over the embankment! I thought I saw something scurry over the bank and then we think we saw a beaver in the creek!

Anyway, it’s a gorgeous sunny day here at Brittany Lake!

A lil vid