Can you believe it!? We started our firewood just over a week ago, and we’re already done!!

As you may remember, Jeff’s truck is still broken and can’t pull a trailer, so there just wasn’t any way we were going to be able to get out into the woods to cut our own this year. Luckily we have 1.6 cords left from last year, so we put in an order for 4 cords, tree length, from our wood guy a few months back. Last week he delivered!

Our friend let us use his yard out of town, which was awesome and so kind, so we didn’t have to process it all in town and bother everyone with our chainsaw noise for hours and hours.

Here’s us checking out the delivery:

This wood is so fabulous. Almost no bark, only one or two charred pieces, and the rest is all dense, yet dry and light, spruce. We were able to buck it all up in just two days (not consecutive days because, ouch, this is a lot of work), and take it load by load into town.

There was plenty to split, maybe close to half! Jeff did all the splitting with our electric splitter and I did all the stacking. It’s hard work, but it is satisfying work. Every piece I picked up and threw 2-4 times before it stacked. That’s a lot of bending over and picking. Not gonna lie, I’m pretty sure I have the hamstrings of an Olympian now.

We have 4 racks inside our fence for firewood, which hold about 4 cords. They are just wooden pallets, one under the bottom and one on each side with a couple cross pieces to hold up the sides. I stack each rack 3 rows deep.

Here’s when I had just one more row to finish.

Finished in August! I’m pretty excited about this!! This should be plenty of wood for our winter.

Everything’s broken

It’s been a rough summer for us. Jeff’s truck has been needing repair for a year now. We’ve made several unsuccessful attempts at a fix, and now we’re working with our insurance company to just get it fixed for good. The parts are back ordered and it will be another 4-6 MONTHS until we have it back in tip-top shape. This has really cramped our summer, our wood harvesting, any vacation hopes, Jeff’s adventures and hunting plans.

And camping. Our camper blew out a hub which seized the axle after our one and only camping trip this summer in early July and it was limped back to town on 3 wheels. The mechanics at our local shop said it would be best to replace both axles, since one had to take the weight of two that day, and they finally got them in and went to replace them for us, but they were the wrong size!! A summer without our camping trailer 🙁 Which ended up being okay, since the truck isn’t able to pull it now anyway.

Luckily we have one toy left. A brand new boat and motor. We had to buy a trailer for it, to make it easier to transport around, and luckily my truck can pull it! Last weekend, in between wood bucking days, we decided to take a good adventure out on the boat. Jeff loaded up and while he’s hooking up the gas and battery to the motor, I stand on shore, ready to shove us off.

THANK GOODNESS I did NOT do that until he had the motor running this time, because it wouldn’t start! Our brand new motor, used what, 5 times this summer so far? Just click, click, nothing.

Battery seemed good, everything was connected. After many troubleshooting attempts we just loaded it back up and drove home, dejected. Imagine if I had pushed us off the shore? We’d be halfway to Alaska trying to unhook those oars from the sides to fight the current and hope to get back to shore!

Jeff had just about enough of this bad stroke of luck, especially with mechanical and electrical things, that he was none too impressed when his power arm chair stopped working on the same weekend. While his foot rest would come up, it wouldn’t go back down!

While the chair is still on the fritz, I have good news, and that is the boat motor is fixed! Jeff was getting a pallet ready to ship it back to Whitehorse. After talking to the place where he bought it on the phone, he tried a few more things they suggested. It turned out to be a loose positive wire connection inside the motor! It was just so slightly loose that he tightened it just a wee tiny bit and it was fixed!! YES!

Still walking

I continued to walk 5km every day this past week before work! Even in the rain!! Yeah, I’m impressed with myself too! Here are some pictures from this week’s walks. It’s starting to be pretty dim when I head out at 6:30am!

House Painting

Like all houses in Dawson City, historical or not, our house has wood siding that needs to be painted eventually. Our house paint has been peeling off in places so we decided to hire someone to paint it for us because our summer is too short and we have enough other things to do. The quote was just so high though, so we decided to do it ourselves, at least a wall at a time. Jeff scraped, pressure washed, and sanded the back wall by our back door and then we got a coat of primer on it.

It sucked. And took days. So it was most fortunate that the painter walked by and offered a much lower price. YOU ARE HIRED!!

She’s been here for a few days with her son and his cousin and they are just flying through the job!

We went with the exact same colour for 3 reasons:

  1. The garage is the same colour pattern and doesn’t need painting yet.
  2. We were planning on painting it a wall a year because.. well painting sucks.
  3. Then we don’t have to pick another colour and make a mistake.
  4. And a bonus #4, we won’t need any sort of colour approval from the town’s historical committee.

She’ll be all done this week probably. Although it is late August, so if you know our climate, that means it is our rainy season! It’s been raining when the weather forecast even says there is a 0% chance. Not real downpour soakers yet, just rain here and there.

Farmer’s Market

We’ve been hitting the market every weekend. Mostly for the B.C. fruit truck that brings up fruit and honey and nuts and corn. Jeff’s been eating local beets too (yuck) and I usually buy cookies from the same Jamaican vendor every week who always has a new treat to try.

The BC peaches have been fabulous. We’ve also had plenty of corn on the cob, local arugula, local beets (not me), local potatoes, beans, and carrots. Also from the fruit guy we’ve had nectarines and plums. I think the peaches have been the nicest treat!

The only thing we’ve grown for our own consumption this summer is plenty of cherry tomatoes and some herbs.

Well, that’s enough updates for now. I’m going to sign off and drool with regret at that table of pies that we didn’t buy.