the Framboise Manor crazy porch saga - Part 1

first off - sorry we haven't posted in a week, nor read, nor commented on your blogs. it has been a bit of a busy week, we've been winterizing, digging trenches and working on our porch! plus we had a kitchen party on saturday night (awesome fun!) and bingo on sunday (5 and a half hours of wanting to die - bahahaha!).

anyway, back to the porch. we have a 18 X 8ft deck/step on the side of our house. if it was enclosed, it would make a great addition to our tiny house. right now, when you walk into our house, you enter directly into the middle of our cramped, tiny kitchen! if we enclose the deck, it would provide us with a mudroom as well as a place to start our seeds in the spring. here's a pic:



notice all of the trellising? that was the first to go.



some of the boards on the porch were rotten and needed to be replaced.



other spots needed some quick re-enforcement. several spots on the floor had to be jacked up as well.



then we did some framing all around the porch.



and framed two doors to put one in at each end. wait until you see what we are planning to do for the rest. it's going to be pretty interesting and we are doing it on the cheap which is always a good thing!

i'll be stopping by everyone's blogs and catching up on your posts this afternoon.

the Framboise Manor monster bed!

we have a confession to make...we are bed hogs. like hogs. it is almost sinful!

however, when we first got together almost 11 yrs ago (our 11 yr anniversary is Jan 19!), i was 30 and jambaloney was 36. we had both spent our adult lives up to that point sleeping in large beds - by ourselves!!! prior to living together, jambaloney had a queen-sized futon and i had a king-sized waterbed.

when we moved in to our first place together, we tried for over a year to learn to sleep together in a king-sized bed. neither of us was getting any proper rest. i roll around in bed all night long and often end up sideways or upside down when i wake. jambaloney doesn't roll around so much...but he does have a thing about having blankets and with me rolling around so much i tend to steal the blankets. so we sat down one day and had a frank conversation - we needed 2 beds!!!

it was the smartest thing that we have ever done! we each got a queen-sized platform bed and mattress, pushed the two beds together in the middle of the room and have slept happily that way for the last 8+yrs. we each have our own bedding as well so there is no chance of someone waking up shivering all the time - teehee!

anyway - here at the Manor we only have 2 small bedrooms. and we gave away one of our beds and mattresses before we left the city. for the first few months of being at the Manor we were sleeping together on one queen-sized mattress on the floor. but at least we had our own duvets. because of the shock of getting here, near freezing to death and all of the other craziness that happened last winter - our bedroom was not at the top of the list of things to worry about.

but we eventually got around to dealing with the "bed" problem and created a ton of extra storage in the process! i told you that we are bed hogs so don't be surprised to see this:




here's a bit of a better shot:



yep - that's a hand-built platform bed that spans the width of the room. on jambaloney's side (window side) is a queen mattress and mine is a double. but as he is not a roller, we often wake up with him squashed against the window and me laying sideways across the two beds - it's awesome! we love our "bed" room....pun intended. yep it is a room full of bed! and it is also an awesome place to go and flop during the day and yak and make plans. you can find us sprawled on that monster at just about any time.



the great news about building your own platform bed is that you can choose the materials and build storage space into it - something we are severely lacking at the Manor. have a peak:



we built the base of the bed using 2 X 12s, like rafters, and then covered them with 1 X 8 slats about a half inch apart. the bed is 9ft wide and 7ft long. underneath the bed there are 8 compartments - 2 small ones of 4 inches wide on each end of the bed, and then 6 compartments that are 12 inches high, 14 inches wide and 7ft long. you can stuff a lot of stuff in a 7ft long compartment...and the compartments are big enough for me and jambaloney to climb under to retrieve stuff.

this is an excellent place to store preps! and because we don't want to broadcast our preps to the world, i cleared our preps out from under the bed, and just put some stuff there to show the height and what you can store and whatnot. we have plastic bins and buckets with lids and can store much stuff in those and put them under the bed.



yep - a monster bed and an excellent, hidden place for preps! what could be better?

(we also plan to build a headboard with shelving and shelves all around the room. we just haven't gotten to it yet!)

Happy One Year Anniversary, Framboise Manor!

...well, we are few days late. our one year anniversary here at the Manor was actually on December 4! oh well - we are always a few days or weeks late for everything around here! so we will celebrate our anniversary today with many trips to the hottub, building a frame on our porch so that we can enclose it (wait until you see what we have been up to - it's awesome and so redneck it will make MDR blush!), putting fresh sheets on our huge bed (still need to share our home-made bed with tons of storage underneath), reading our books and a nap.

there will also be much gazing at the beautiful Framboise sky.

if you get the chance at some point today - raise a glass for us. coffee, juice, tea, soda, bourbon or scotch will all work well. we can't believe that we have been here a year already - it has been an awesome adventure and we look forward to the coming adventures!

Happy Anniversary Framboise Manor!

maybe jumped the gun a little...

oh man! the shaking, rattling and rolling...and raining began again about a half hour after i posted my last message. by 11:30pm - the power was out again! dang nabbit! but as the power had been on for several hours and the fridge, freezer, sump-pump, etc. were all fine - we weren't too worried. however, when we called NS Power and they told us that the power wouldn't be back on until 2pm today (it is 12pm right now) - jambaloney went out and got the generator set up, brought up our kerosene heater and lamps, i quickly grabbed some food out of the fridge and we set up the hotplate. we were going to wait and see how long the power would really be out before worrying about the fridge/freezer.

so there we were huddled together on the couch with blankets wearing 3 layers of clothes, talking and laughing together in the middle of the night. he had a rhum and coke, i had a glass of red wine. and then we started talking about all of our preparations for the storm and how we could handle them better next time.

jambaloney has several different sized Ryobi battery-powered flashlights and several batteries which we always keep charged. we keep a drawer filled with emergency candles, lighters and matches. we have a triple-tap RV generator extension cord that we can plug any 120v appliance into, if need be. we have our hotplate for cooking, as well as our propane bbq - the bbq also has a single burner that can be used for cooking. we always have 4 18l jugs of water on hand...and with 2 Berkey Filtration Systems and two rainbarrels - water is never an issue. we have a 2300btu kerosene heater and two oil lamps - although i don't like the kerosene heater nor the oil lamps - both put out an amazing amount of heat very quickly. last but not least - we have about 15 different places that we can go to between our two villages in the event of the power outage lasting longer than just a few days. Fourchu is on a different grid line than our town so if it came down to it we could go there, or people there could come here. and if it ever got really bad - we have friends in several other places on the island - some about an hour away - some almost 2 hours away.

some things that we thought of and talked about to better prepare us were mostly related to food. as we knew about the weather bomb ahead of time, and when a storm hits its hard not to notice - one of the things that we will do in the future is take 2-3 days worth of food out of the refrigerator and put that food in a cooler down in the basement. as well, we will be sure to put frozen freezer packs in the fridge and freezer before a storm for just in case measures. yesterday and last night all i wanted was fresh veggies because we could not open the fridge/freezer - isn't that always the way? we always keep a bowl of fruit on top of the fridge so we had fruit but of course - i wanted what i couldn't have! we have tons of canned food and whatnot but it just wasn't what i wanted.

another thing that we thought of was when we think we can potentially lose power, jack the heat up in every room so that the ambient heat lasts longer. we certainly didn't freeze or anything but we were chilled and that is not fun. the ambient heat of the house lasted for several hours last night but started to cool quickly by early morning. that's when we got our blankets out and cuddled - cuddling helps!

we always have seasonal BOBs in the house and a large bin in the back of the truck that stores additional stuff like extra coats and mitts, socks, blankets, first aid kit, food, candles, etc - the usual stuff. if it came right down to it - we could have gone out in the truck and started it and gotten warm. and there is always the Vandura (we really need to stop using it as a shed!). when not full of crap - the Vandura has it's own propane furnace and stove, as well as a sink, a fridge and a composting toilet. it is currently filled with crap but also contains blankets, food, first aid kit, etc.

all in all - the storm wasn't too bad. Craig and Stephen joked about the winds not being as bad as in hurricane country, but they were the worst winds we have experienced so far! add to that that we are right on top of a hill, with a 1000ft road for the wind to come barreling up and belt this little cottage and we sure are glad that we don't live in hurricane country!

anyway - we stayed up all night because neither of us could sleep, talked, laughed, joked, had some serious discussions, checked back with NS Power several times and did the dance of the sugar plum faeries when the power came back on at 7:42am. the crying started at 7:44am when the power went back out again! i called NS Power and the automated message said that power had been restored to our area. i transferred to a live person and as they called up our address, they could see that our power had not been restored. they said that in their best estimate we would get our power back at 2pm today. again, true to form, our power was back on at 9:45am.

back in the city, we had solar-powered hot water and rarely pulled from the city's water. we have planned since we got here to get a full solar/wind-powered set up here. we have planned to implement the first stage of that set-up this spring. there is a company here in cape breton that does free estimates and has several different payment options. being that we are on a cleared hill, we get beautiful sun most days but always have wind. we are looking very much forward to getting a full solar/wind set-up and will provide all of the details as it happens.

then we won't have to worry about power outages ever again!

shake, rattle and roll

and that's what we've been doing ...all day! we experienced a serious weather-bomb today - as did all of the Atlantic provinces. these were the worst winds we have ever experienced - we got gusts up to 100km (60m) for several hours - it really felt like hurricane country and i don't even know what hurricane country feels like!!!

we lost our power at about 1pm...called in to Nova Scotia Power and made a report...called back for an update about 15 mins later and were told that the power should be back on by 6:30pm. and true to form, we had our power back at about 5:15. we really hope that someone at Nova Scotia Power reads this blog, as we would like to give them a big shout out! Thanks Nova Scotia Power!

the Manor shook, rattled and rolled all afternoon, all while being pelted with sheets of rain. we climbed on the couch with flashlights and read our books - we needed flashlights as it was very overcast and gray. then we went for a nap.

anyway - we had just put in a chicken casserole at 20 to 1pm and hoped that by leaving it in the oven until 2 that it might have cooked. no go! so it was sandwiches all day! since the power is back - we have another chicken casserole in the oven - we can't wait to sink our teeth into this one!

it rained a lot as well but the basement didn't flood and the sump pump is now going at a full-tilt boogie. i will try to make my rounds to everyone's blogs this evening and if not, then definitely tomorrow. i hope that everyone is well.

because all is well that ends well!

a different kind of hellhole - a trench!

jambaloney here!

our basement (which you don't get the privilege of viewing until later ;-) leaks like a sieve. part of the problem is the fact that the concrete foundation is crap and part of he problem is the ground around the manor slopes TOWARDS the basement. in addition, the ground here is very dense, full of rocks and hard packed. so all of the water that can get into the basement, does. oh yeah, it's a moist climate we have here, and lots of rain!!!

we have a sump pump that does it's job well. last winter the pipe outside froze when the cold weather hit, i woke up one morning and the poor pump was grinding away, but not moving any water, so i bought a flexible hose to replace it and would go down to the basement every night, unattach the hose from the pump, blow the water out of the hose and unplug the sump pump...i know, i know... not a great use of time or nerves.

when my step-dad ted was here in june, i was relaying my woes to him and telling him that i hated relying on the sump pump because when the power goes out, it's usually crap weather so the basement fills with water, up to a foot + at times. i hate power outages, i am constantly checking the basement. our generator is hooked up now so i am not so worried, but is is a pain all round.

he suggested that i could dig down below the footing of the foundation and run a 3" pvc drain pipe out to drop off at the front where our driveway is. this would provide permanent, passive drainage.

unsupervised one morning, ted started the task at hand. we had a busy summer/fall so i never got back to it... now i am getting back to it. a couple of weeks ago i went out to start again, you can see the beginnings in the pic below.



ted dug down about 2 1/2 feet. my plan is to get a drainage trench dug to his level before the ground freezes for good, i should have until Jan 01. here are the tools: rock rake from my grandmother's, trenching tool that ted brought the head for with him in his visit, small shovel, pick, large shovel

i first ran a line about halfway and then began to go further, about 3 " deep:


here is another view. the hose on the left is the sump pump hose that i lengthened for the summer (previous owner left TONS of flexible pvc behind), the one on the right is our gray water outflow (which i also lengthened, it used to spill into the front yard and smelled terrific after several days of dishes, now it goes to the ditch on the road)


here they are going downhill past my first pass:



and finally down the slope of the hill at the front:



this is our driveway, you can see that the hill is pretty steep:



i went out one more day to make another pass, then it snowed 10 inches. after a couple of warm days a melting, i went back at 'er last week.


the drag about this project is the trench will be over 50' long - here is a better view:


looking down our driveway, the end of the trench will be the red circle:


back to work, fist step, pickaxe about a 10 foot swath, 3" deep:


next, use the trenching tool to gather it all up in a pile:


this tool is awesome, like an indestructible ice cream scoop with a handle. ted got it at Lee Vally Tools :


i dig the loose dirt out with the big shovel and move on down the line:



by now i have realized that the trench needs to be a bit wider than the large shovel for this to work properly, so the trench needs to be wider, it's nice and straight though!!




back at the ranch, the hoses come out of the foundation in one hot mess (that blanket is insulation, when i get this all working properly, i am going to build up the soil around the foundation, for now, it's ghetto):


i at LEAST, diverted the sump hose into the trench to get it running downhill, no more blowing out the hose this year!!!


i disconnected some of the gray water hose and put it into the trench too, when i am not working on the trench, running water will help me along:


here is a different view of the diverted hoses:

and here is a view of the overall progress so far:


not bad, but a long way to go, both out and down. this is heavy work! at least by the time the ground is frozen, all water will run downhill and no more freezing. next year i will complete the trench and install a permanent pipe that will drain the basement without a sump pump forever. stay tuned for updates!!!

cheers!

People, Food and Bookcovers or Something - an insightful, inspiring post by my friend Humble Wife

*i have the permission of the author to put up this post*

my friend, Jennifer, Humble Wife, from Double Nickel Farm, has been there almost right from the beginning when we made the switch to try and live simpler lives and become more self-sufficient. her blog was a great find for us and we learned so much from her, her family and the way that they live their lives. she leaves inspiring, uplifting, funny and wisdom-filled comments on all of the blogs she visits. she has been a beacon of light for me during several dark times - some of which she knows about, some of which she doesn't.

i would like for all of you to visit her blog. specifically, this post called "People, Food and Bookcovers or Something" - she hits on so many levels of so many things that i keep re-reading it because every time i read it, different ideas pop into my head. she writes like that all of the time. and shares her life and her family with her readers. she has insight and wisdom - and if you do read her post - please take the time to check out her archives - she has been blogging for many years!

if you are interested in reading what an intelligent, Christian, homesteading, homeschooling and wonderful helpmate/wife is willing to share about trying to be a good wife and mother while living a simple, self-sufficient life - you will love her blog. and even if you are not interested in all of that - please read this one post. as jambaloney says - she uses pre-conceived notions of vegetables in order to describe how people become boxed into stereotypes.

i really loved this post. i hope that you will check it out.

thanks Jennifer! for everything!