An Amazing Life

We have officially landed a year ago. We began this journey long ago but finally realized the first step of moving here... how has it been a year already? Its hard to believe how much has changed! Sally and Ruby are both older, stronger, smarter and more lovely than when we started. We have watched them bloom here. Fostering their love for the outdoors and in the summer, their love for the ocean. They have gotten so big and my heart swells at the beautiful people they are becoming. Justin has laboured, sweat, swore, bled and worked tirelessly to clear our space so that we have enough room for not only a driveway and a home one day, but a shed, our garden, a lumber yard. One day we hope to have an Alaskan Woodshed to store our burning wood, our wood splitter, and our wood chipper. Also on our minds are more garden beds and a green house as well as a cottage. We have the materials for the most part as Justin has been diligent at collecting and storing materials to...

The beautiful garden beds are built, filled with soil Justin procured from our land somehow and are planted. Sally helped me plant all our soon to be delicious food and Ruby tried to unplant it all until her Grandma came to take her to play. It was a sunny afternoon and we got it all done in one shot. Even the herb spiral is in! Now all we have to do is wait and water it. Good thing we got a lot of rain today - that should help things along. Before planting and filling After the beds were filled and the ground was raked and wood chips were spread out. Planting is also done. Our herb spiral

Last week we put our permit for our driveway in. This week, we had a visit from an inspector to look at our land and make sure that the visibility to the road was sufficient and that we weren't too close to power lines etc. Today, we got our permit! We can build a driveway!!! Yahoo. We will have heavy equipment to flatten the property, build a culvert, get some fill and spread it out and whammo... a driveway. Sounds easy but it will still be quite a bit of work. This is where our driveway will go!   Justin has been working to get all the logs off the property and stored away for future use. We have so many logs now we have our own little lumber yard. It's going to be so great when we have our saw mill and can create our own 2x4s (or what ever size and shape we want). His hard work will pay off and save is so much money in the future!!! Our lumber yard Work has also started on our garden beds. Justin has been peeling the bark off ...

More progress!! Justin has removed almost all the stumps that are in the way for our driveway. We can now put in our application for a permit so we can get our driveway put in. It's all coming together! before After I've even managed to put in some time this past week! Justin and I planted some boxwood Shrubs along one of the paths behind the shed. It's looking nice, I think! Small changes like this seem to all add up and we have a couple spaces that are nice where we can roam around with the girls. Sally and Ruby both like to be in our space and we try and spend sometime there everyday. Ruby loves to help. All our trees are blooming and the property is starting to come alive. We have frogs and tadpoles in our swamp (Sally calls it Mugwamp swamp). We are going to be putting in some garden beds soon for our food garden. I am also going to be creating a herb spiral so we will have all sorts of delicious foods to eat.  Lots happe...

Spring here is wet, wet and more wet with some wind and then more wind thrown in for fun. We are ready for better weather. It's coming I am told but we've been waiting all April for it so I am inclined to think that we will be wet for a while still. Ruby has turned 1! How fast that year went. It was filled with so much excitement and joy - we could not imagine our lives without our yelly, curious, growling, happy baby. She is busy as she is running and climbing but she is so happy, claps when excited and has a few words like ball and woof. She loves being outside, nursery rhymes and her sister. We had a celebration for her and she was surrounded by love - it was wonderful.  Easter was low key and quiet but we celebrated with family and it was nice. The Easter bunny came and hid so many chocolate eggs, Sally was pumped.  Work on the property hasn't stopped. Justin has been burning and chipping limbs (of which we have piles and piles). He has since put...

I've been joking the past week about the fact that we don't quite have a driveway, because we can't drive on it... but we have a way. Our property has opened up and is accessible from the main road. Wow!  (November 2, 2021) (March 16, 2022) What a difference 5 months hard labour makes?!? Plans are commencing for a driveway as that is the gateway to all things. We need a driveway before we can get a well in or septic or power or a building as we need access to be able to dig/deliver/pour etc. It's been remarkable to see this all come together.

So much progress has happened, it is slow and steady. The work is grueling and labour intensive. Things are taking shape, however and we should be sitting in a really good position for when spring comes and we need to start putting up buildings, putting in amenities or digging swails. I have managed to go out for a few hours and help justin, leaving Ruby and Sally with my mother-in-law. I was on branch stacking duty. It's uncomplicated and easy enough work, and it was awesome to get out and help in some small way. It was also nice to be able to get some physical activity in that wasn't just going for a walk. Things are looking awesome, the sunlight is coming through the trees now and our spot has revealed some truly beautiful views. It's amazing how a beautiful place can grow more beautiful with each passing day.  (before this week) (After this week... sorry for the finger in the shot) The weather has been interesting. Periods of wind and blowing sno...