Thanksgiving 2013

This is Kevin taking a shadow selfy and enjoying a Thanskgivng sunrise. We had so much to be thankful for this year: good food! amazing weather! roof! walls! wood stove! long extension cords that bring power from the power tower! cute dog! cute partner! and last but not least the 70 PEOPLE WHO HAVE HELPED US OVER THE YEARS!

many thanks to:
jesse patrica billg dale coe pere deedee marc matt janice alex don lewis willy molly jose sara pancho pat winram the Swiss family of three whose names we can't remember! cath naomi maddy jordana terry+2 sonia chris nitin brad alpha blake shawn sean louise nessa miles suzanne doug rohini jodi bill mike john kevin n grady christa kevin l annie simon jerome eric rick courtney eric jan rich rj miss kim derek yael birgitte lora drew waylon / frances / kristen

July flies by

July has gone by so fast! We got the initial inspections done, found a set of stairs floating in Howe Sound, built decks, grew tomatoes, ate great food, rescued Ralphie when he fell off the dock, trampolined up a storm and enjoyed every minute of the amazing weather. 

Just to summarize where we are:

• the initial inspections by the engineer and the permits people have been done which means we can now begin the wiring, plumbing etc.
• the exterior is completed except the gutters and interior of the breezeway
• the decking (except the interior of the breezeway) are completed
• the tomatoes we are growing are delicious!
• Fresh grown mint and bourbon go very nicely together

Big thanks to Maddy, Kristen, Brad, Sean, Nessa and Matt

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is upon us although you wouldn't know it by the weather. We have a lot to be thankful for this year as in each of the past several years. Thanks to our friends and family, without whom we would not have been able to build a cabin on Gambier Island.

We will be heading to the cabin this weekend for Thanksgiving turkey dinner on Sunday. Let us know if you would like to join us for this feast - we would love to see you.

Sonja and Kevin

The Shingle Best Weekend of 2012

How many puns can people make using the words shingle and shake? About as many as the hundreds of nails that were used to put up the shingle siding on the power tower!

In addition to the many bad puns our long weekend also featured

 trampolining

swimming

 boobytrap

and nature bingo!

ready to take the plunge

getting crafty!

We also had lots of neighbours and visitors coming to check out our progress. I am getting quite practised at our '7l cabin tour.' If I had to summarize the things I emphasized most about our building journey they were:

• Start with things you love. In our case, it was the land first, then the windows which we built the house around.
• Find some common ground that will shape your decisions.
• Create a good base camp
• Enjoy the process!

Big thanks to Mike, John, Maddy and Blake and our land partner Bill who brought the beautiful cedar shakes from Vancouver island,

Synchronized swimming and the beginning of the end of the scaffolding!

Another lovely weekend for Halkett Bay Builders!

Mike and Ralphie on the roof and breezeway

Maddy finishing the painting the window sills brown

We put our salvaged corplast on the east wall of the power tower. Now both sides of the tower have a nice diffused light during the day and a great glow at night.

and we got started on the siding for the power tower

What's missing from this picture? Scaffolding!! Sometimes taking something down feels like almost as big a deal as building something up! Taking down the scaffolding off the west wall of the cabin felt like a HUGE step forward!

And we still had time for fun and leisure

Lora studying to be our tree expert

Lunch time!

Lora and Kevin practising for the Halkett Bay Synchronized Swim Club!

What a fun and satisfying weekend!

Big thank yous to Mike, Maddy, Lora and her amazing gazpacho, Alex for coming over to finish his Chinese checkers game, Mother Nature and/or global warming for the amazing lightening light show.

Meteor weekend

This week we had visitors from Korea, Alberta and East Van!

Jan and Rich stopped in on their way back to Alberta to lend a hand with the roof and the siding

Sean (Shawn?) was visiting from Korea. He's a friend of Brad's and interested in doing a film project on sustainable building.

Highlights were the ukelele music, stargazing on the trampoline, swimming and Brad's impressive backflip. Thanks again to Brad, Shawn, Jan and Rich, the sun for shining and the Perseids Meteor shower for putting on such a great show!

F(ant)astic weekend!

Another VSOP* weekend with great help from Pere, Deedee, Sonia (not me, the other one!) Alpha, Brad and Nitin.

Major accomplisments include installation of door hardware on the second floor, our very first drywall, the moving of the plastic shed and the discovery and destruction of a nest of carpenter ants. Nature highlights included deer, vultures, snakes, mice and a disturbingly large spider. Entertainment featured more Boobytrap, swimming, lots of food,  lively discussions of new technology, trampolining and bocce ball.

Alpha and Sonia show off their handiwork on the door

*visible signs of progress

See the whole Summer 2012 photo album

Thanksgiving at Halkett Bay

Here's how you have Thanksgiving Dinner Halkett Bay style:
First you build the kitchen

IK2 (interim kitchen #2) was set up in a few hours while the turkey was soaking in brine. You can see a video of the stove moving here https://picasaweb.google.com/WaylonFrederick/October122011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMr0uczNkKeBpQE#5662861663197560306 (Geek note -- why doesn't Blogger let me embed my picasa videos when they're the same company?) By the time the turkey was ready to go the stove was set up and I did some of the rest of my prep while power tools and a great work crew of  Kevin, Waylon and Mike kept me company. It was my first time cooking a turkey on a BBQ and my first time cooking it breast side down, not to mention having the kitchen built around me but amazingly IK2 and dinner all came off without a hitch.

IK2 uses what will be our permanent kitchen which we bought off craigslist last year so even doing the dishes was a new experience. What an amazing Thanksgiving! Even the weather cooperated!
Lots more photos here. Thanks Waylon for the great pictures

https://picasaweb.google.com/WaylonFrederick/October122011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMr0uczNkKeBpQE

July/August 2011

This summer is going by faster and slower than we anticipated. Putting on the siding was tremendously satisfying, as was the first pee in the newly installed toilet. (But I think I will actually miss that long walk/run up to the toilet shack.) We had a grand vision of getting it all done in one shot but we did manage to get the guest cabin mostly done and it's beautiful. The closer we get from idea to thing the more amazed I am at what we've accomplished, even though sometimes it feels like we'll never be finished.

I realized how negligent I've been in the photo department when I looked at Maddy's beautiful pictures of the island this summer. She's not only a great friend and builder, but she's been our chief documenter as well.

OMG double rainbow!

A rainy weekend with amazing rainbows and very satisfying progress on the guest cabin roof. 

It was very pleasant to come up and find everything so clean and organized thanks to the hard work of Pere and Didi. 

and the warm fireplace kept everyone cozy when the rain got too much

I took some photos of the disc golf course 

and hope to post a photo guide to the course sometime soon. In the meantime you can see more photos on our picasa photo album. 

summer2011

Big progress, bocce and brownies to die for

A great weekend at Gambier with many thanks to Louise, Sean & Mike for great food, good progress and bocce mania.

We invited a new term: "real-time design" for some of the modifications and adjustments that get made along the way. Installing the window on the second floor was a perfect 3.0 -- e.g. the third time we tried to complete this aspect of the building. The first time we got the measurements wrong, the second time we got the measurements for a sliding door (which we didn't yet have) right but decided to use a window (which we did have) instead. The many discussions around this reminded me again that the 'logical' criteria in our design philosophy is almost entirely subjective! Maybe logic is the thing that balances out all of the other values, the simplest path to meeting the most needs. Anyhow, we used a window we had left over and we didn't have to buy a door and we rebuilt the wall so we wouldn't drive ourselves crazy with wishing, years from now, that we'd taken the time to do it right the first time.
So that's logical right?

The geek in me was helpless to resist the animation possibilities of these two photos of Sean. It would be smoother if I did it in Photoshop but not bad for the first animation generator I googled. Click on the picture to see it in action.

From Jun 2011

In addition to the installation of the window we did a lot of tidying and sweeping in a space that everyday is feeling less like an idea and more like a real cabin. We had music on the deck for the first time thanks to the sweet sound system Louise brought. Mike made brownies with a cream cheese filling from his cooking muse, Nigella Lawson, and she did inspire him to greatness. The weekend was all about keeping the carnivores happy: Sean brought the bbq to life with some amazing juicy burgers and Saturday night we went Ukrainian with sausage and perogies. 

The daisies are out

From Jun 2011

and the weather on the ride back was fantastic! Thanks again everyone for a rockin' weekend!

Big Build 2010

Big Build 1 2010

There are only part of the pictures from our 1st big build of 2010 (more photos coming). So amazing! The roof was put on, the water was warm and the company was great.

Many many many thanks to: John, Sean, Suzanne, Doug, Maddy, Jennifer-Lee, Blake, Nitin, Chris, Sonia, Frances, John O, Jan and the good dogs Jasper, Willy, and Ralphie.

Big Build #2 2009

Huge thanks to Patricia, Bill, Jesse, Dale, Co, Maddy, Sonia, Chris, Kim and Derek, Rich, Kevin N. You all rocked!! Thank you thank you thank you!

VSOP Weekend

VSOP (Visible Signs of Progress) Weekends

These past two weekends have felt both laid-back and quite productive to me. Maybe it's seeing things gradually take shape...like the tiny sprouts of Maddy's garden popping up, what seemed impossible suddenly also seems possible at the same time...

Highlights & Accomplishments

• Concrete pads in for the front deck, which will also be the scaffolding during our first big build
• Concrete pad for the final railing on the power tower
• Maddy's Garden & the installation of the Lee Valley drip irrigation system to keep it alive.
• Loft & ladder built in power tower (which go very nicely with the beds we built last week)
• Our first home decor purchases...Ikea lamps for the power tower!
• No signs of mice in power tower!
• Great food including real Montreal bagels delivered fresh from MTL (served with lox and cream cheese) fresh crab, BBQ chicken, grilled portobello mushroom sandwiches & bumbleberry pie
• Fort Compost (aka the compost bin) survives its first week against the raccoons
• First swim of the year prize goes to Mike!
• And to top it off, on our way back from Halkett this week, we scored a great stainless steel sink and countertop from Craigslist, which I think is a 7/7 on the 7L List (Low-cost, long-lasting, logical, loveable/liveable, low-impact, local, and lots of uses.) OK maybe it doesn't have lots of uses. But it's still a pretty cool sink/counter.

Special thanks to Mike for his continued help, Pat for the fresh crab, Maddy for the garden & Carmen for the painting and bagels and Craig for starting that list.

HB Summer 09

Maddy's garden + Fort Compost

From HB Summer 09