Ship Shaping the Cottage

What a fab evening! I’m toasty and happy!! Tonight I stayed at my cottage until 7:30…puttering around, ship-shaping the cottage, shoveling and installing oil lamps (4 downstairs / 2 in the loft). The oil lamps REALLY create a LOT of light…not enough to read by, but enough to tell the difference between green beans and asparagus ;) Overall, I’m very happy with the lamps. Eventually I want to buy a trawler light…a large and very bright oil lamp that is used on sailboats. The trawler lamp will throw enough light to read by. For now, these will work great.

Last week when my wood guy, Norm, delivered wood, he told me about this cool electricity-free wood stove fan. He uses one on his stove and he said it makes a HUGE difference than simply convection heat. I found the Caframo Ecofan found here at Amazon. Check out how awesome it is! The fan allows the stove to work more efficiently, thereby uses less wood…which means less money. I ordered the fan tonight. I’ll let you know how it works!

Before I left the cottage for the night, I built up a good bed of coals and then loaded with wood, closing off the air inlet. I’m heading out there in the early morning to see how the coals fared in the night. It will give me an idea of how it will burn. Even with tonight’s calm wind, the chimney draw was AWESOME! The chimney is 1’ over the peak, but Sean was a little concerned with the “Tower of Love” and the tree coverage that I may not have the best draw. So far seems to be great. I’ll keep testing it and if need be, I’ll add another section of chimney.

So far, my nightly exercise consists of shoveling the driveway and the roof. Some of my friends and family think I’m nuts to shovel 150-200’ (I’m eyeballing the distance until I measure it) of driveway, but honestly I like to shovel and it keeps my kayaking arms in shape! It only takes me an hour and I can manually move up to 8” of snow in the same time as I can with a snow blower. Sean said I made quite the impression with the neighbors by shoveling my drive way. He said it showed them that I’m self-reliant and not afraid to really work around my place…a good first impression to the ‘hood! I’m also shoveling to see how long it takes me so “in a pinch” if I have to dig myself out, I know what timeline I’m looking at. I’m sure by the end of the month, I’ll be hiring the neighbor to plow. Eventually I want to buy a snowblower. In the meantime, I’m having fun!!

The neighbor at the end of the road, Glenn and his wife Vera, have lived back here off the grid for 20 years. On Sunday while Sean and I were working, I saw someone outside my window. I jumped and pointed out the window to Sean, “Someone’s here!” Sean looked out and said, “Oh that’s Glenn from the end of the road”. Glenn is about 70 years I’d guess, with no teeth and a weathered leathery friendly smile and a shy quiet way about him. He checked out our work and offered some roof flashing if we needed it. We chatted briefly about the weather and wood and then Glen was gone as stealthily as he had arrived. After Glenn left, Sean said I must be special because it took Glenn about 5 years to show up at Sean’s place! I just grinned!!

Life off the grid is good!