Fire!

...in the woodstove.

Barb and Laura came to see the cottage for the first time on Saturday, November 22nd.

It was a cold day so we tried to warm up by making a fire in the woodstove. Evidently, it takes more than an hour or two for the woodstove to heat the place. We hadn't planned on staying any longer, so we left before it was able to do it's job.

Pictures on Flickr

To see a slideshow on Flickr, go to :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32917079@N07/sets/72157623883858903/

I'm here!

Finally! I made it! What a journey that was.

Sorry I'm so late, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

I've been standing around in a field south of Ottawa for the last two months, waiting to be delivered.

Early Monday morning I climbed aboard a couple of big trucks for what was to be a three hour trip from Moorewood, Ontario to my new foundation overlooking tranquil Petit Lac Cayamant, in Quebec.

As luck would have it, one of the trucks broke down on highway 416 and part of me had to spend the night in Arnprior, Ontario, while the other part of me made it as far as Bryson, Quebec. Not a comfortable way to spend the night!

Throughout Tuesday, with snow falling off and on, many people worked hard to move me into position. The job of sliding me onto my permanent perch was finally finished late Wednesday, a clear but cold day.

I love my new home. Surrounded by tall white birch, cedar and pine trees to protect me from the wind, I'm facing north so the sun will always warm my backside.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I'll try not to sound like I'm bragging.
First, you won't believe how many windows I have. Four really big ones adorn my front wall in my great room with cathedral ceilings. In the back, you'll find three comfy bedrooms for country air induced deep sleeps. There are a lot of things that make me special, but one of the greatest is my screened porch. It lets you enjoy the best of both the indoors and the outdoors all at once. And the interior is finished with the warmth of cedar.

On cool fall nights or during winter visits, you'll love the heat from my Osburn 1600 woodstove, in the corner of the great room. This was just delivered and installed today.

Now, over the next week, they'll be working to finish up some of my roofing and siding. Then I'll be ready to host many many years of cottage life in this wilderness setting.

In the meantime, I thought you'd like to see a few pictures of my big arrival.

Backing half of me into position along side the foundation:

I was pushed along these "I" beams and lowered onto the foundation:

This woodstove was installed today, November 20th.

Facing the lake.....

My designer poses for his first picture with me..

A patio door will be installed to separate my great room from the screened porch.

And the kitchen area in the great room..

My main entrance on the east side, future site of a deck.

I want to thank all of you who believed in me and sent positive thoughts my way. Check back later to see a video of me crossing the Picanoc River!

Patience Patience ARGH!

Alright, so no cottage yet. It's a long story about a bridge repair estimate that is double what the Association can afford, a 70 ton crane, and time running out before winter sets in.

So now, we're looking at the possibility of going over the bridge as is, as long as we can get the clearance from the engineer.

If we do, it should all go down - oops - across on November 10th.

Not much more to say except stay tuned...

Some Good News!

I was up at the lake for the day yesterday. It turned out to be a very nice fall day despite the forecast. It was also really quiet. There was no one else at our end of the lake. I chopped some wood, packed up our tent for the season, did a little fishing from the dock (no luck) and finally tried out the hammock Barb bought me for Father's Day. I had stored the string hammock we bought in Mexico in the outhouse since last year and when I opened it a few weeks ago I found that mice had chewed huge holes in it. I'm happy to report the new one works just fine.

Speaking of good news, there are encouraging developments on two fronts of the cottage project:

The foundation is now completely finished and looks great. Have a look:

And I dropped in on Brian, the Secretary of the Property Owners Association, for an update on the bridge situation.


The engineer came to do an inspection yesterday morning and has made specific recommendations for repairs. It seems it should be within the Association's budget but we'll know more on Wednesday when an estimate is expected from a contractor. Both the engineer and the contractor are friends of one of the other property owners and are keen to help. Even better, this contractor might be able to do the work Oct 1st to 3rd, the week before the cottage is to be delivered.


Finally, I wasn't the only one who seemed to think he was alone at our end of the lake yesterday. To reward you for checking in on my blog, I thought I'd share this picture that I took using my telephoto lens of one of our neighbours going for a swim with no clothes on. Those of you who secretly, or not so secretly, appreciate wild and crazy living may be comfortable scrolling down. For others, you may want to stop right here, unless your curiosity is too much to BARE...

Wild and Crazy

Delays - And a Troubled Bridge Over Water

Now we were getting tantilizingly close to welcoming the stork, a crane actually, delivering our big bundle, when we heard there was a two week delay. The new date was to be October 3rd.

Initially very disappointing, it turns out this may have been a lucky coincidence. You see, when the cement trucks came to pour the concrete foundation, their 32 tons of weight was a big strain on the bridge across the Picanoc river ( see picture in earlier post) and one end of the bridge sunk about 8 inches. An inspection revealed that one of the steel stringers compressed the timbers that make up the crib at that end. It was known that the timbers had suffered water damage over the years and would have to be replaced at some time. But now the repairs need to be done before the crane can cross over to lift the cottage components into place. The good news is that the property owners association, responsible for the bridge, is moving quickly to try to get it fixed and they have some money in reserve for just this eventuality.

Meanwhile, word came today that Guildcrest Homes has started building the cottage in their factory.

If everything goes smoothly, the cottage could be delivered as early as October 6th. Realistically, I'm expecting it to be the week of October 13th.

Stay tuned..

Some pictures to share

Laura's first kayak adventure on Petit Lac - August 31, 2008

Our daughter Andrea's first visit to the lake - July 2008

Showing off my building permit as we break ground with Doug Zacharias Construction - August 2008

I love old farm buildings. You go by these along highway 301 about 20 kms before the lake.

This was taken from our clearing

No longer Just a Dream

No longer just a dream. No longer just a drawing. We have something concrete. They poured the foundation this past week and I went up to do an inspection yesterday. Seeing the base for our cottage makes all the ideas, concepts and drawings start to come to life. And just two weeks from tomorrow, on September 22nd, we will see the cottage lifted into place.

They still have to pour the basement floor. That should be done tomorrow. It is six feet high, and includes a walk-out door on the front. We decided at the last minute to add two small windows for ventilation and some natural light. It will be a great storage space for kayaks, paddles, life jackets, tools and such.


Here are some pictures I took yesterday.



I took this while standing on the front wall, looking towards our driveway

Below, in the foreground you can see one of two sonotubes that will support the screened porch.



This is the front wall of the foundation, where a door will provide direct access from outside.

Ode to Dew Dock Day

I built my dock last Saturday

A Dew dock

It's a Dew dock

Brother Mark came out to play

and helped me build all day

Oh the Dew dock day

Oh the Dew dock day

We took a break and it went astray

The Dew dock

The Dew dock

We had to put our beer away

and catch the Dew dock/quai

The floats assembled!

Ready to paddle into position

The finished product

The rusted sledgehammer - a family heirloom

For more on Dew docks, visit:

http://dewdocks.com/

Update July 2008 - We're Building!

written July 22, 2008

First, appologies to all those of you who have been checking for updates only to be disappointed. Things have been moving ahead at a crazy pace over the past few months.

Although the original plan was to build a cottage about 5 years after buying the land, that plan was buried deep in the snow over the winter. And this was the winter for burying plans in the snow if you wanted to be sure you would never find them. Now we're building THIS YEAR! It's true. Crazy, but true. After doing some research, we decided on the easiest approach - a manufactured home. It will be built in a factory and delivered to our site in sections in a convoy of trucks. We looked into three companies and Guildcrest Homes is the winner. Of the three companies we spoke to, they offered the most comprehensive service, and were more receptive than the competition when it came to special requests. I'll admit too, that they were a little bit less expensive, at least until we added on the screened in porch, cathedral ceilings and the crystal ceiling fans. Check out their site: http://www.guildcrest.com/homes/trailhead.aspx

I looked over dozens, if not hundreds of cottage plans over the winter, but I didn't find anything that fully matched what I wanted. So I designed the cottage myself. Drawing and re-drawing plans kept me busy during the breaks from shovelling snow. Check out the results:

Front elevation: extension on the side is the screened porch with weatherwall windows.

Here's their site:http://www.weatherwall.com/

So we will wake up on September 23rd cottageless and go to sleep fully cottaged. Even though it is a relatively simple path to build a cottage, there will still be lots of work for us to do. We've decided to finish the drywall, install the flooring and paint ourselves. Then there will be power and water supply needs to address. It's all very exciting.

My Kingdom for an Outhouse!
written January 29. 2008

As you can imagine, when you start a project like this, developing completely forested land into a lakeside retreat, planning is important. Obviously, priority number 1 (and number 2, in a manner of speaking) is to build an outhouse.

This seemingly simple endeavour serves as a useful warm-up for building the cottage. Many of the same questions arise. Where to put it? You can’t build it too close to the lake. There are restrictions about that. And you don’t want the outhouse to be where you might ultimately decide to build your cottage! It shouldn’t be the centerpiece of your landscaping when people arrive at your place, but you don’t want it to be so deep in the bush that anyone who needs to use it in the middle of the night will need to wake an escort to guide them (especially when that escort is me!). And then there is that all important decision: build it yourself or hire someone. Well, sometimes you get to do both, as was the case for me.

Early in the spring of 2007, I went to the local library to research plans for building an outhouse. library.  I chose  a design and adapted it, mainly to simplify it so it would be easier to build. At the same time that I was planning my project, I tried to contact someone in the area of the lake who would be able to come in with a backhoe to dig a good size hole. The soil is very rocky and the project would be completed much more quickly if I could hire someone with the right equipment to do that. When I called one of the local contractors, I was speaking to his son Roger. I explained my project and he told me he could build the outhouse. I asked some questions and he assured me it would be no problem as he had experience building cottages. Well, when he offered to do it for a reasonable price, I decided to go for it. It would save me a lot of work. Besides, if he had experience in construction, how much could he screw up an outhouse project. Well, I was about to find out.

I was pleasantly surprised when Roger called to tell me he had finished the outhouse in mid-June, just a week after I contacted him. I thanked him gratefully and raced up to the lake the next Saturday in excited anticipation of inaugurating our new facility. Now I know I have led a somewhat sheltered life, but every outhouse I had ever been exposed to was situated over a hole in the ground. And I had stipulated in our agreement that the hole should be a minimum of six feet deep. Evidently, Roger thought this feature was optional. The hole was about two feet deep! That was one problem but not the only one, sadly. There were several ..uh .. design flaws. While many of these could be tolerated, a couple would impact directly on the functionality of our new structure. Now, my friend Roger is about my height, 5’8’’, so I was a little more than surprised to find that he had built my outhouse for someone seven feet tall. You see, the toilet seat was so far from the front of the bench that when you sat down you couldn’t bend your knees and your legs had to stick straight out. Obviously, this wouldn’t allow customers to get much traction, to say nothing of the comfort factor. The second major design problem with the outhouse was the floor. Every outhouse I have ever visited had one thing in common: The floor stopped at the bench, allowing for free and unobstructed flow from the seat area down to the hole, whatever the depth of the hole. Our outhouse was very special. We had a complete floor that continued under the bench, right to the back wall. However, in recognition that the building could be used as an outhouse, there was a 12 inch diameter hole cut into the floor more or less positioned below the toilet seat. And to assist with your aim, there was a bucket with the bottom cut out inserted into the hole in the floor - a crude kind of funnel. “Roger” I said, imagining cries of “Daaaaaaaaaaaaad!” when someone failed to hit the target, “I don’t know about your family, but without wanting to be indiscreet, the people in my family aren’t as good an aim as you may have been lead to believe.” So he agreed to make the necessary adjustments. First he moved the toilet seat forward on the bench. He had to improvise some hardware though, as the bolts to secure the seat to the bench broke.



You can see from the picture that this left a potentially dangerous situation. Full marks for creative use of beer caps though!






Then he cut the hole in the floor a little wider and tried to dig the hole deeper – he got to three feet. So eventually I had to take charge. I replaced the bench with the right measurements for the average person. I cut out the floor beneath the seat to allow gravity to make its full unobstructed contribution. Then I found a local resident, Ken, with a backhoe and he came in and dug a proper hole and pushed the outhouse back over it. It wasn’t quite perfect yet though. Digging the hole deeper caused the sides to cave in making the hole wider, so wide that the rear of the outhouse almost fell in the hole. In the end, many people had a hand in this outhouse....project.

Thanks to Billy for helping me clear the path through the mess of fallen trees. No one works harder in the bush than Billy Two Sheds. And thanks to Doug, who helped me secure the building and prevent it from falling into the hole. We finally have a fully functioning facility. I hope you'll make this your excuse to invite yourself up next summer.



Here’s an interesting side note to end this post: Ken, the backhoe owner, turns out to be Tim’s brother in law. And his cottage along the Picanoc River is where Tim and I launched our canoe on my very first trip to the Lake nine years earlier.

The Long Awaited Somewhat Facsinating(?) History


Written October 07. 2007

Sorry for the delay in getting back to my blog with the promised "fascinating history". Note to self: when blogging, as in all else, don't oversell. I have been lying awake at night thinking up some history that could live up to the billing. Hopefully, this will have been worth waiting for. But first, thank you to all (two) of you who suggested names for our place in the bush - lot 30. We are also considering Tom's suggestion, the MONEY PIT, which didn't register when he wrote it. He is proving to be closer to the truth than I care to admit. We've paid our first property tax bill and association dues. We acquired a shed/outhouse and a picnic table that would just knock your socks off - the picnic table I mean! Anyhow, the jury is still out on the name so keep those creative juices flowing and those suggestions coming. BTW, you can enter as many times as you wish.

Ah now for some history.

After the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age...

JUST KIDDING!

If that's what you find fascinating then you've come to the wrong blog.

Seriously now... In August 1998, I was going on a canoe camping trip for a few days with my good friend Tim. We planned to go to Algonquin Park and were all set to leave when we decided to call to make sure they had some interior sites available. Disappointed to learn we were out of luck, Tim recovered with a suggestion that we go to Petit Lac Cayamant. As a gym teacher, he had taken groups of kids there and said it was a pretty spectacular place because of its completely natural state. We would camp on one of the islands. To get there we would launch our canoe from his brother in law's cottage on the Picanoc River and portage up a stream to reach the isolated lake. After two short portages, we started paddling into the main section of the lake, and it was every bit as beautiful as he had promised. Several islands, bays and a few natural beaches, combined with the virgin shoreline throughout gave the impression you were in a provincial park. We spent the next two days fishing, swimming and paddling around exploring the many bays and narrows that make up the 6 kilometer long lake.When I returned home, I declared that even though I never thought I'd want to buy a cottage lot and build myself, if ever lots were being sold on that like I would find it very hard to resist.

Two years later, I was very excited when I saw an ad for lots on Petit Lac Cayamant. The timing wasn't good for us as we were in the middle of a move, but I told a few friends and one of them, Warren, did buy a lot and so did his cousin, and his neighbour. Warren was kind enough to let us use his lot over the next few years and I never lost hope that one day, we would own a place there, even though all the lots had been sold.

I kept in contact with the developer and in the fall of 2005 I learned that 19 more lots were going to be created and sold. When these became available, we rushed up to take a look and made our deposit for lot 30 without delay. Although it faces north, it is the most level lot, has a large frontage of 276 feet and because it is relatively small at one and a half acres, it was among the lowest priced lots. The day Barb and I first viewed it we saw a beaver swimming along the shore and so we suggested the name "Chemin des castors" for the road that was cleared to our section of the lake.

Although the deal was only finalized in April 2007, we were able to have a driveway and clearing made in the fall of 2006. I had to leave the house at 4 a.m. to meet the machine operator at 6 a.m. because they were leaving the area at 10 a.m.





It was amazing to see this powerful machine accomplish so much in the 4 hours with the big shovel.

Here is the driveway we cleared. This is taken from the road.

This is the view standing at the back of the clearing, looking towards the lake.


This spring, Barb found a large deer antler sticking up through the thin layer of snow in the middle of our clearing, surely a good omen. We've had a lot of fun at the lake already, with friends Barb and Doug and our nieces Rowan and Charlotte visiting this year.


Rowan and Charlotte came up for a day in September, 2007.
















Sisters comtemplating nature

We brought our canoe to the lake in the fall of 2006 and in 2007 we bought two kayaks, all of which have been used extensively this year.

















                                                              Barb tests the waters in spring















                                                  Greg explores the beach after paddling to the peninsula


Barb and Doug's almost synchronized paddling.













Did I mention Hammock Time!?






And oh yes, we had an outhouse built this year, an adventure that deserves a separate posting - coming soon.

First, You Buy a Lot

Written April 21. 2007 in Neil and Barb's Cottage Project

Now Its Official - Proud New Owners. Yesterday, April 20, 2007, We finally signed the papers and handed over the big fat cheque to become the owners of the 1.5 acre waterfront property an hour and a half north west of Ottawa. This blog will share all the exciting developments on our big adventure.

Here we are pictured last summer in front of what is now our quiet wilderness retreat, for now only known as lot 30, until we come up with a name. Send your suggestions for a name by using the comments feature.

Here are some more pics to help you get a feel for the natural charm of the place that enticed us to take the big step.

This was taken from the middle of the lot looking towards the lake. The lot is unusually flat for the area and slopes gently near the water.

Early in the morning, here is the view from the shore of lot 30, looking west! Not bad eh?

This was taken in August 2006 when good friends Tom and Joy came up for a day and brought their tandem kayak. This sand bar, about a 15 minute paddle from lot 30, is one of four or five natural beaches around the lake.

About three kilometers before arriving at lot 30, you cross the Picanoc river. This was taken from the bridge.

NEXT:Stay tuned for the fascinating history, starting with Neil's canoe trip in 1998, and the fond memories that are already in the books.