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!