I am so excited because spring is here!

I can see snow mold everywhere that the snow has melted, there are huge puddles of water and enormous amounts of runoff, and the beach is open for travel!

Spring also has a downside though. Our beach access has nearly completely washed out and we can no longer get up the bluff. Just check out how much ground the water has washed out in one day!

For a while we had a three foot waterfall, but we managed to divert most of the water for now. This is going to require a lot of work to fix, and probably more mechanical concrete. The water also washed out unbroken antique bottles to add to my collection, so there was a tiny upside to the damage.

The cabin is also absolutely stuffed with plants! Corn, squash, fruit trees, peas, beans, cucumbers and herbs. Not to mention potatoes waiting to be planted and mushrooms growing in bags.

And just look at this beautiful sunset, after 9pm in April!

I’m so excited for all of our summer projects to start soon. We’ll be taking out some trees, installing solar panels, fixing the beach access, moving the garage back off the bluff, and making a second try at getting a well in. Not to mention finally finishing installing the windows and the rest of the roof! We also need to plant the garden and find places for all of the permaculture food forest we are putting in. Its a lot, and summer here is so short! We have a 90 day growing season without greenhouses or row covers, so the second the ground is warm enough we have to move fast to get things in.

If we get everything else done we might even get to a wind turbine and a pole barn to park vehicles in.

Here’s to spring, and the seasonal SAD’s finally going away!

 

Here is the second of the guaranteed yearly blog posts, where I compare what we accomplished of last years goals with our goals for this year. I know this one is a little later than normal (we are 4 months into the year already, can you believe it?!) But we accomplished a lot last year, and I’m excited to see what we get done this year!

Our Biggest Goal Last Year

We were hoping to get the new cabin fixed up and moved into. One thing we did was camped here during the summer while we worked on it, and finished it out enough to live at over the winter! We will officially be living here full time for a year in May! It’s still a construction zone and has lots of projects we are still working on, but I consider this goal from 2022 complete.

Goal #2 Water

We were hoping to a rainwater catchment system set up, and that did not happen. But all in all, that’s totally okay because we got water another way. We found a natural spring on the property that has continued running all winter long. I’d say goal #2 was accomplished, since we did have water all winter without needing to haul it from the creek.

Goal #3 Garden and Greenhouse

We had a tiny test garden that did wonderfully, and planted some apple trees and perennials last year. No high tunnel though. This goal will be moved to 2023!

Goal #4 Animals

I was hoping to get some ducks last year, and that didn’t happen. But my ducks will be arriving this year in June. That’s one goal that I know will be accomplished for 2023.

Other Goals For 2023

Along with the goals for a garden, greenhouse and animals moving to this years list, we also have goals to complete our solar set up and finish more of the cabin interior. We have all of the parts for solar finally, as we purchased bits and pieces as we could afford too.If I get really lucky I might even start gathering stuff to get bees (affiliate link) in 2024!

There are a million tiny projects that will be going on around all those big 2023 goals, but things are moving forward at this new cabin, and we love living out here!

While living in an unfinished dry cabin might seem like a strange and impractical idea, living this way over winter was probably one of the best decisions we’ve made for this cabin. It offered a unique opportunity to live with the space and better design the future layout.

We’ve made about four different plans for utilizing the existing floors and rooms, before settling on one. I think we have finally settled on a layout that doesn’t waste any of the space. Since this is a dry cabin, our choices weren’t limited by electrical wiring or plumbing already in place. That let us think about and test many layouts to find what worked best for us.

Design Changes

Our original plan included a master bedroom on the second floor, two bedrooms on the third floor, and a bathroom on the main floor next to the kitchen. Then we decided to make the second floor a living room because it was too big for one bedroom. That would have left the girls sharing a room though. Finally we’ve decided on having dining and kitchen in the open main floor. Our room and a pantry/battery bank will be off the entry hallway.

Where is the bathroom you ask? Outside, where its always been! Well, almost anyway. We have plans to build an attached greenhouse, so we will have bathroom and biogas septic unit out there. It’s also the best place to fit a shower big enough for Kyle. For now, we’ll keep using the outhouse and showering outside year round. Though in winter that means hauling the instant hot water heater in and out to use it. We’ve done it for 7 years, what’s another one, or two, or three!

Now that we have a final layout, we can start wiring and plumbing where the kitchen will be.

There’s something special about knowing that every inch of your living space was designed by your own two hands. I’m so excited to have the cabin be the dream home I’ve been imagining since I first laid eyes on it!

Hello all! I’m definitely a bit late in this post. Usually I write this in December, but I was a bit side tracked with other projects and hadn’t gotten around to it until now. But here it is, and I haven’t abandoned the blog, I promise! We’ve been very busy working on diversifying our social medias, adding videos to all our channels, and making summer plans. I’m excited for the next chapter in our adventure out here!

Now that that is out of the way, on to the meat and potatoes of the post! I’m going to be showing our “Best Of 2022” a little differently this year. We made huge strides in our video editing and posting, so I thought I’d share our top video posts from around social media rather than written posts on the blog.

When we first began adding videos it was very much Kyle’s project. I wasn’t fond of being on video so it was a big step outside my comfort zone. Now I’m finding the hardest part to be remembering to set up cameras before we get to work!

Without further ado, here are our top videos!

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Check out our “Best of 2021” here!