Far from the madding crowd

The weather forecast for last week was pretty awful and therefore the contractor laid his boys off for a week. They hadn't had a break since Christmas and as a break for Easter was due anyway, it was a fair call. Of course, that didn't take into account the reliability of weather forecasters and, true to form, last week the weather broke early and for most of the week it was fantastic.  By Wednesday, I finally put away my long Johns and stripped down to a T shirt and had my faithful old Slouch hat on, on most afternoons.

Mark was the one worker who didn't go away and so I managed to pull him out to the site on three days.  Owen and Kevin also came out on Friday and we managed to get two of the large valleys in place including the 'dodgy' valley, as it has become known, on the rear of where the garage and main cabin roofs meet - see the photos, its much easier than trying to explain. We also put in all five short rafters from the main beams down to the dormers and with those in place and the final sanding and replacing of the screws on the gable end, the framework for the roof above the bonus room (garage) is now complete - hurray.

There is still a lot of work to do to finish the main roof and on Friday we discovered that one of the valleys for the prow has a lot of rot and therefore will have to be replaced before we can put it in. We may also need some more timber, especially for the 'jack' rafters which go down to the valleys.

The first and ....

... second short rafters down to the dormers in the bonus room, which together with the finishing touches to the gable end render the roof framing above the garage complete.

Next up was to put in a short rafter above the prow beam and ......

.... and one down to the beam that comes in from the garage to show us where the tops of the valleys are going to be.

Then the north gable of the main cabin was extended down to meet the roof above the bonus room and we were ready to put in the 'dodgy' valley which ....

... after much fiddling about to work out the angles, went in surprisingly easily.

Finally for this week, we put in the valley on the other side of the 'dodgy' valley and Bob's your uncle, as they say.  Actually, this was easier said than done as the valley was very heavy and four of us were required to carry it into the great room from where we pushed it up onto the top floor. My back, bye the way, is much better and I hope it will not be long before I can pull (carry) my weight again.  So I should say it took three and a half men to put these valleys in place. 

I had an admin day on Saturday and got in some much needed groceries.  In the evening Ron phoned and invited me to join him and some others from Wardner to go out to the mud flats and watch 'a bunch of rednecks' (his words not mine) bogging their trucks in the mud on Sunday. This, I was reliably informed is an annual ritual, and is a great spectator sport.  On Saturday, apparently, there were several hundred participants and spectators and the partying went on until two o'clock in the morning. Today, Sunday, there were fewer people but is was still fun and we drank sodas and beer and cooked hot dogs over a camp fire while we watched all the lunatics doing their thing. 

There were some serious .....

.... and some not so serious vehicles on display.

Sometimes, even the serious ones managed to bog themselves in, .... 

... much to the appreciation of the onlookers.

On my way back from getting my groceries yesterday I saw John Sheppard, the homeless man, on the side of the road outside Cranbrook and gave him a lift back to his camp site. I felt guilty that I hadn't bought him any supplies. He is planning on moving in about two weeks time and, as he hadn't seen it yet, I drove him up to the place where he is moving to, so he could see what it is like. It is a very pleasant spot facing south west, overlooking Ha Ha Lake (actually a large pond) across the Ha Ha Road. It is four kilometres from the Highway but it is a much nicer spot than he is in at the moment and he won't have to go into town everyday to get water. Ron is also going to lend him a bicycle to use to get from his accommodation to the Highway, from where he can hitch a ride into town. As I said to him. Every cloud has a silver lining.

I thought that this week I would publicly answer a question that has been posed to me privately by several friends in recent weeks. The answer, I am sure, will be of wider interest because I imagine there are many others who, have been thinking the same question but, have been too shy to ask. Am I still enjoying this project or, is it becoming a lonely chore? Let me be very clear about this. Building this cabin in the wilderness of British Columbia is one of the best, most enjoyable, interesting and stimulating projects that I have ever undertaken. It combines a number of themes that, coming together, are providing me with the opportunity of achieving something that, for me, is quite special.

Building a log cabin was a dream, the origins of which go back a very long way but, which had faded as the years rolled by and was in very great danger of being lost on the pile of things that we are going to do 'someday' but, somehow, we never actually get around to doing. So too with the desire to live closer to nature. And not the nature of neatly manicured pastures and meadows or rough moors of the English countryside, as beautiful and wonderful as they are. But, the nature of the wilderness, of mother earth before man stamped his indelible mark on the land. Nature, where you can still feel the rhythm of the untamed wild on a scale so vast that it is humbling just to look at it. The nature of a wilderness where living in close proximity with the flora and forna is not with the comfort of being at the top of the food chain.  Where feeling alive is in harmony with your surroundings and peace is found far from the madding crowd. A wilderness which is receding every year but which is still here for us to enjoy.

True, there are challenges, worries, frustrations, mistakes, lessons learned. True, there is a price to pay, and we are not talking money here. True, it has taken me out of my comfort zone at a time in life when many are thinking about settling into easy retirement. True, the path that brought me here was a painful one. True, there are risks and fears. True it is taking longer to build and costing more than I planned. True, I miss Sarah and the children. True, there are feelings of guilt.

But. Challenges bring out the best in us. Nothing worth having comes without a price to pay, and we are not talking about money here. Stepping out of our comfort zone means we are experiencing something new in life and isn't that what it's all about. In every adversity there is an equal and opposite benefit, it only needs to be found and with every crisis there is an opportunity. It is not what happens to you in life, it is how you deal with it. I expected delays and anticipated cost over-runs so, disappointing and frustrating as they are, they are not a surprise. As a product of the English boarding school system from the age of eight, I have been well prepared to face solitude and there is so much here to keep me amused. Guilt, you will appreciate, is between me and my maker.

So the answer to the question is, an unequivocal no, it is not a lonely chore.  I am thoroughly enjoying the experience of building the cabin and I look forward to enjoying a new lifestyle close to the wilderness when it is finished. It is also a source of great pleasure to share this experience with you through this blog and it will be a greater one to share this wilderness with you in the future.