If you don’t laugh, you will cry.

It has been another week working by myself because my builders have been away in Toronto, in Ontario, attending another trade show. This is the last show this year and therefore it is hoped that there will now be no more interruptions to work on my cabin. Toronto is a three-day drive from here and so they are away for ten days. For me this is very irritating because they should be helping me with the work and I believe it is difficult to justify all of them being away. But, it is what it is and I believe that by making my frustration clear to Owen Kenney, of Creekside Log Homes, the boss, some clarity has now been achieved. 

Contrary to my belief, I have just been informed that the factory in Kellog in Idaho has not yet started to cut the SIPs for the roof and because of this and other reasons, that I won’t go into now, I have decided to abandon the aspiration to put a SIP roof on the house. Instead, we shall be constructing a conventional roof, which will have the same thermal value (R40). One advantage of this is that it eliminates the risk of the large SIPs not fitting together accurately. This has always been a concern of mine as the roof is really quite complicated, particularly in the area of the Dodgy Valley, which even my builders had difficulty in grasping, until I built the model for them. It also means that we can get started shortly after they all get back from Toronto and the materials, which are all standard building products, are acquired.

It has therefore been a hot and tiring week working by myself but, nevertheless a satisfying one in terms of achievement. I have continued the process of staining the interior side of the logs and by midday Sunday I had put two coats on all of the upstairs logs, the prow and the kitchen on the main floor, and the whole of the garage. All that remains is about 2/3 of the cabin main-floor logs, some of which I cannot do because all the French Window doors are leaning up against them. This affects one wall (on the south side of the cabin) and I won’t really get access to it until the doors are put in place. This, of course, has to wait until the roof is put on, otherwise the woodwork on the inside of the doors will get wet and water stained.

There is some water staining on the interior side of the logs, particularly in the garage, but the stain has all but covered it up and what remains serves to add character to them and is pleasing to the eye.

Inside the South Gable where the master bedroom will be and ...

… the en suite bathroom.

The Prow (note the lake at full pool). The logs are actually all the same colour. In the photo the angle of the sun hitting the logs makes it appear that the logs on one side are a different shade - then aren't. The centre left is the closest to the true colour.

La cuisine

The garage.

I also added the framing for the final wall to the garage entrance to the cabin.

I am aware that there are those amongst you who read this blog, who take as much (if not more) interest in the comments I occasionally make about what I will loosely call the “Dream”. It is now almost exactly a year since I arrived here in Canada and I suppose it is as good a time as any to take stock of where I am. I won’t be offended if most of you just stop reading at this point and wait for more news of the cabin-building project in next week’s blog.

For those still reading, you will recall (if not go to the first blog posting) I came here to seek a new beginning, to rebuild my life, to find, as I enter a new phase of my life, a balance between the practical realities of the material world and the transcendental philosophy of shedding dependence on material objects and values and being closer to the natural world in its rawest state.

I am sorry to disappoint the purest transcendentalists amongst you but, as I have said before, it was never my intention to become a hermit living in a cave or a yurt. I want the best of both worlds and believe that I can achieve that here. Full achievement is still some way off because first I must finish building the cabin and once that is done I will be free to focus more on trying to achieve the balance (OK compromise) I seek. The limited exploring of the mountains and forests that I have done so far has confirmed for me that there is enough wilderness close to me here to give me the contact I need with the raw, natural world that I want to get closer to. There is even more further afield that I am eager to explore and look forward to the opportunity to do so in the coming years. For now, contact with it locally has already changed me in ways that these words poorly express.

The wilderness has slowed everything down. I now have time to notice things, time to allow the natural world to have its effect on me, to feel the experience not just to see it or to hear it. I have time for the flora and fauna (and people) that, I all too seldom had in the past. I see the animals and the plants differently now. Having wild deer and other animals in my yard everyday has made me familiar with them. I am sensitive now to their movement, to their curiosity, to their fears and wariness, to their instincts, just as they have become accustomed to me. There is a mutual respect for them in me now that has surfaced from a long period of latent dormancy.

A new awareness has woken within me. Every day I check for signs of new visitors, my ears are attuned to recognise familiar sounds and to listen out for unfamiliar ones. My senses are sharper. I can sense the changes in the mood of the forest, the presence of a predator, an impending change in the weather, even before it comes over the mountain behind the cabin. Without wishing to sound completely barking mad, I can communicate with some of the animals on a basic, fundamental level. My robins for example know me well, they are content for me to approach quite close to their nest and to work around them. The gofers and chipmunks don’t talk to me but they know I mean them no harm and they know when it is lunch-time and there might be some crumbs going on offer.

And within myself, I have found a new calmness. There is a healing power in the wilderness which has helped me to let go of the painful past, to see once more the happy one. Despite the solitude, that can often distort the real world, the wilderness has slowly helped me to see things from a different perspective.

In Ancient Greece they used to say that, if you are sad it is because of your past; if you are worried, it is because you are uncertain about the future; if you are content it is because you have neither regrets nor concerns, and; if you are happy you are either in love or you are mad (maybe both). They also taught us (although you won’t find it many text books) to laugh at ourselves and our gods which, I have always thought was good advice. Laughter is often the best medicine, for surely, if you don’t laugh, you will cry.

So where am I on this Ancient Greek scale of contentment. Well, I guess it is somewhere close to content but, there is still love in my heart and the wilderness has helped find and nourish it. So I must be happy, maybe a little mad and learning (slowly) not to take myself too seriously.