Blogging about music, family life, the outdoors, unschooling and everything else

for more than a quarter century

Category: Out on the property

  • Upgrading the trail

    Upgrading the trail

    I began working on a connecting trail from our property to the linear park below almost three years ago. I hacked in a goat-path of sorts: narrow and full of switchbacks. It changed my life, in that it made one of my favourite running trails a mere 3-minute scrabble from my door. But it wasn’t a…

  • House progress

    I really love our Nelson house. When we bought it I was sold on it as an investment, a fixer-upper, but I think I’m falling in love now. It has a really nice feel to the living space. It’s open and light and airy during the day, and yet at night it feels cosy and…

  • Pergola completed

    Pergola completed

    With lights and wattle railing panels installed.

  • Pergola

    Our “new” deck is almost five years old now. I always had bigger dreams for the square apron that extends towards the trees, but at the time we opted to put up a minimalist railing for safety reasons. Of course that had the effect of eliminating all the urgency of doing something else with the space. A couple…

  • Trail-building

    Trail-building

    Armed with three hand-tools — a mattock, a rake and a saw — I have been gradually building a trail from our yard to the Galena Trail. For years I’ve been frustrated by the can’t-get-there-from-here dilemma that separates me from my favourite running trail. We planted a geocache down on the trail more than ten…

  • Garage: before

    Garage: before

    We’re building a garage. Well… no, more to the point: we’re having a garage built. An important procedural distinction, one which will likely ensure the timely and effective completion of the project. The aging carport will come down. A year ago, expecting it to collapse under the weight of a fairly ordinary snow load, I…

  • Dandelion syrup

    About 6-8 cups of dandelion flowers yielded about 1 cup of packed yellow petals. We mixed this with 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of water, brought to a simmer and allowed to cook for an hour or so, gradually reducing in volume to a syrupy consistency. Then we added the juice of one…

  • Hello, trees

    Fiona and I have been visiting the trees in the forest that surrounds our home recently, appreciating them anew as they emerge from the snow and prepare for a new season of growth. Yesterday we checked out the red cedar bark, which we will use for basket weaving. Years ago the kids did a workshop…

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