Have you ever broken a bone?
…however, I did destroy a Sthil MS250 chainsaw bar and chain. This weekend.
Our neighbour, MS, helped me take down the other half of this leaning, dead, ash (that’s smack dab in the middle of our future BCB&B build site). I have a 15’ poker-straight length that can be milled. The rest, long term storage for firewood.
I removed the saw’s head to prevent further injury to the chainsaw.
…and then it’s July 2023. The clean up begins. TS and I clean up our GTA condominium suite, follow the mantra (when in doubt, throw it out), and begin rental-accomodation hunting (up on the North Bruce Peninsula). To casual Bruce Trail hikers: please respect the signage for our property. Expect to encounter heavy machinery at 368 Lindsay Road 40.
PN is grateful that TS is recovering so well post knee-surgery. TS is becoming an Fe-womyn with all of those various (borderline sadistic) physiotherapeutic exercises (Gus [from the clinic], if you’re reading this, I don’t know whether to thank you or curse you).
While I want to spend a week at the site (during our break), that will have to wait until TS’s knee heals more. Sure, I’m all gung-ho about trudging into the lot — solo. That’s a bit too risky. I cannot rely on my neighbours to bail me out if I do something stupid (they ARE called widowmakers for a reason, eh).
In the meantime, TS is making ~600-900 wolf biscuits for our wolfman & his pack (MS, we’re looking forward to our next visit; it’s possible we can meet you 1/2 way for a dawg-treat exchange).
Last item: when Evolve Builders visited our site earlier this month, they took additional images of our roughed in build-site. I’ve sprinkled those images in on our website. The annotations are my own and does NOT represent the views of our contractor, eh.
We’re optimistic that our well will be sunk before the deep snow piles up (see image, courtesy of Evolve Builders Group [Melanie Scott, designer]).
When TS & I move up to the peninsula, we expect to pay a lot for broadband internet service. Off-grid. Our property line is at least ~1000 m from the last utility pole. Link to CBC article.
I am very aware that I earn a fantastic salary, posess excellent medical benefits, and a have a pension fund that can’t be beat.
I have the luxury of retiring in June. My CUPE colleagues — no.
My colleagues in CUPE (especially in caretaking, as a CYW, or performing EA duties) often do the same tasks as I do. Cleaning up labs? De-escalating students in crisis? Tutorials? Restorative justice? Classroom supervision? They’re in the thick of it — just like me.
CUPE education staff are also thrust into high-risk learning environments. The caretakers I know also have to clean up disgusting messes left by teenagers. Caretakers are on the stop-watch, and must complete their backbreaking labour during the odd hours of the day.
Ontario Federation of Labour. Educate yourself here (link).
CBC Ontario. When my peers do get some (measly) pay increase, it’ll be gobbled up by basic living expenses. Grocery bills. Educate yourself here (link).
TS returned from her knee surgery. Now. Now the rehab begins…
You are looking at my 2nd attempt at making a full-sphere image of our driveway at the build-site. My iDevice did its very best at knitting together images into an image bubble. Yes, PN is wearing red wooly socks in his Birkenstocks. TS is accepting of my fashion crimes.
PN & TS also cut away that risky blind-spot on the West side of the enterance (so that we can avoid the locals who bomb along that gravel road).
To my students & colleagues: don’t speed like a maniac down such roads. These speeders cannot stop in time. If they fish-tail and Tokyo-drift off the side of the road… there’s no way in hell they are getting their vehicle out. Trust me… several winters ago, I got my hoity-toity SNOWKAT (Toyota Tacoma) into the median. And it slowly slid off the embankment. Despite my 4WD, I had to get towed out by a neighbour who happened to drive by (and then THEY got stuck).
Oh, and if one were to injure oneself in a self-imposed MVA (motor vehicle accident), it will take the ambulance 1/2h to reach that victim… and another 1/2h to return to the nearest ICU (tiny hospital at Lions Head, somewhat bigger trauma centre at Wiarton, helicopter EVAC might be possible from that site [with the victim possibly footing the bill]).
…leads to a roughed-in build site! See the attached images, eh.
Revision: Ah. So THAT’S how one inserts images. Oy.
…well, hard. A grove of slow-growing oak, maple, and ironwood (yes, that’s a real Ontario tree [I’m using this tree atlas to identify my plants])… are challenging me. I thought I would be able to sharpen my saw’s chain every 3 days. Nope. The chain skates on the media! Daily sharpening. Daily!
I won’t be burning the straight, unblemished logs. They’re piled on a flat deck… single layer. I’ll be picking up a jig that I can attached to (a second?) saw so that I can try my hand at making lumber. To give away? To make tchotchkes? To turn on a lathe? Give TS and me your ideas, eh.
Additional information about trees? Visit this site: https://www.ontario.ca/page/tree-atlas
…that green branches and fresh leaves play holy hell with small chippers & shredders. I blocked up the mechanism 3 times before I walked away from it in disgust (TS is more savvy than me about the unit… I end up jamming branches and stuff into the hopper… and look like Wile E. Coyote on top of one of his spinning-blade ACME contraptions [sorry TS… do as I say, not as I do]). After de-energizing the system and pulling the hopper apart 3 times… I gave up.
We crawled back to MTC and are recovering from the grind. This is fun. Right? RIGHT?! Ow, sore.
TS & I were able to get back into the zone while clearing the build-site. Yesterday, TS was able to rough-out the new ATV trail from the build-site to her soil-operation. Me? I just smashed and crashed my way hither-and-dither using our Polaris! I strung a trail-line from our starting point to the soil-operation.
This morning, I was far more confident with my chainsaw and was able to safely bring down more trees (without huffing & puffing & tripping-stumbling). My Stihl’s MS261’s chain didn’t skip off the bar (as I’m properly tensioning it). Safe, sane, and productive work with a high-performance saw? Nailed it.
TS, the super-ant (AKA ‘The Mad Lopper’), has piled up a stack of branches that will be processed tomorrow. She’s also filling in the rock fissures (exposed after removing the juniper) with punky logs. Now that we are spending more time in the future back yard/garden, we can chip and shred deadfall and material in situ. I’m just not butch enough to haul the bush buggy over rocks & crevices to the soil-operation (despite using an ATV to haul it).
…to the bush. I’m optimistic we learned a few lessons from our last session. We’ll have to DIY our own bush-buggy-platform for the wood chipper. King City Trailers gave us good advice, had SOME stock, but couldn’t sell us a ready-made option. Still, I’d recommend them to you.
Meh… we’re planning on pushing another ATV trail around the buildsite so that we can easily move green-matter to the soil operation. SR told TS that we can grab our wheelbarrow from the school shipping container.
…bug bites, nicks and scratches, sprains/strains/soreness, poor sleeping arrangements, and a wee bit of heat exhaustion. Oh woodlot… PN & TS will spend our holidays merrily toiling away on you!
I’m (PN) a self-proclaimed weekend warrior, gentleman forester, and a (safety-conscious) goofball with a chainsaw.
…on the future build site, septic field, and (hopefully before the new year), a well. Let’s harvest the biomass before the bulldozers clear this area. Evolve Builders is our contractor, so we are able to reduce our overall woodlot impact.
Black Cat Bed And Breakfast 