A Second Blast of Winter

Snow on driveway

A walk in our forest to visit our Arbutus trees

Driveway??? LOL

Have to hike up and down like a Swiss mountain farmer.
Here transporting the replacement inverter for the off-grid system.

Ice art.

Interior Painting - a Pleasant Occupation While It Is Freezing Outside

I should really be working on building the concrete foundation
for the solar array, but the ground is frozen solid and it is cold outside.

A good winter project - interior painting where it's warm and dry.

All of the posts and beams will be painted white.
The tongue and groove decking has been pre-stained in a
transparent white.

Carefully working along the edges.

Part of the ceiling in the hallway.

Part of the lintel and ceiling above the desk in pure white.
The walls are a slightly warmer white.

Large posts and beams above the hallway and entrance to the kitchen.

Working on the Solar Array - Cutting and Drilling Aluminum

The solar array will consist of 15 panels in five strings. Two strings
are shown in this design extract from the 3D model.

The total array will be about 26’ x 10’ or 8.5m x 3m and 
produce a maximum of 4 kW of power in full sun.

A carefully worked out cutting plan resulted in minimum waste.

Using the industrial-strength saw in Karl Hamson's workshop.
A great help.

A total of 125 pieces had to be cut.

Great to be able to work at an industrial-strength drill press
to drill hundreds of holes.

Ready for drilling.

Drilled, and ready for transport.

These angles will be used to tie the structure together.
The plan is that the whole structure will be bolted together
like a giant Meccano Set - if I cut all the pieces to the right length
and drilled all the holes in the right place.

Winter Has Arrived

Winter has definitely arrived.

White on white.

View from the kitchen window - 1

View from the kitchen window - 2

Behind the house - the Inukshuk

Behind the house - the Arbutus tree

Behind the house.
Fortunately we don't have to use this little house any more!

Looking down our steep driveway to the old cabin.
We don't risk driving down in these conditions.

This Anna's Hummingbird tanks up on energy to keep warm.
When the light strikes the throat feathers at just the right angle
the iridescent colours come alive.

The same bird.

White on white

Judy going out. Walking down to the road to be picked up.

Walk through the winter forest.

The tracks highlight the driveway through the forest.

Quite a snow cover weighing down the branches.

Cedars in the winter forest.

This sign is at the beginning of the steep part of the driveway.

Winter is Coming

On November 14 we experienced the Supermoon. This happens
when the moon is closer to earth in its orbit than usual, and the
moon is especially bright and large as seen from earth. This
and the next pictures were taken at 1:30 in the morning.

Supermoon

In late November the Inverter failed during the night
and we lost Power to the house. Because we are off-grid,
the inverter, together with the battery bank, is our power supply.
Without the inverter we could feed power into the house
directly from the generator, which we did for a couple
of hours every morning and evening. No power for the rest
of the day. Somewhat tedious.

This is part of the inverter, the electronics that control everything.

Taking the inverter apart. The culprit was the
power unit, the clear metal box in the cabinet.
We finally received a replacement power unit
2.5 weeks after the failure. Installed it and
it is running again.

Evening by candle light.

Judy sings in the Pender Island Choir. This picture is from one
of the evenings of the Choir's public Christmas Concerts.
In addition to the choir, there were also performances of the
Youth Choir, the Youth Orchestra, and a superb Youth Violin Group.

The first snow of the season. More is coming tomorrow.
BC is in the grip of an arctic outflow. We are glad to have
a good wood burning stove to keep us warm.

The driveway can get icy in the winter. Fortunately this happens
seldom. To be safe, we decided to park the car down in the forest
below the steep part of the driveway.

Conditional Residency Permit Received - We Are Moving In

Building a temporary kitchen in order to receive the conditional
residency permit.

A simple kitchen counter - later to be used in Judy's garden shed.

A simple shelf unit.

It is slowly beginning to feel like the inside of a house.
Still many things to be completed.

Judy loves her new Italian pro stove, a Bertazzoni.

Also installed the extraction vent over the stove.

All the kitchen appliances are in place.
Bertazzoni gas stove, Liebherr fridge, Bosch dish washer.
The finishing will come later.

Even the window bench is beginning to take shape.
Just need to add wood trim and a mattress.