Living in a Small Space

When we get our land purchase finished and a well in place, the next thing to look at will be housing. We've already got a tent, but that's only good in nice weather unless you want really whiny kids. We also have the trailer that Steve built and we used to move across the country. It's built on an old travel trailer frame and has a plywood roof and walls with a double wide door at the back, a man sized door on one side and a window. It also has a pop up tent top with some sleeping space. So using that is an option. It would need some insulation, a waterproof membrane and roof covering and possibly we'd replace the canvas walls on the pop-up with insulated wooden panels. Another option is to build a small cabin.

Numerous plans area available for free or low cost on the internet and since many also include engineered drawings you can use them to get a proper building permit and do things legally. For temporary use or movable structures though the options are much more varied. One constant among all the cabins though, is good use of space. There are many creative ways of using your space well but the first thing you'll need to do is pare down your stuff so that you don't have lots of junk cluttering up your small space. Then you'll need to plan for making the most efficient use of your furniture and other fixtures. Here are some great furniture pieces in the video, and you can certainly take the ideas and make them work for you! We don't need to buy all expensive furniture to put in our tiny house, you can build good quality things yourself. Do a good job and you'll surround yourself with things that you love and appreciate. Anyways, here are some ideas:



Anothe place to look is IKEA. Especially in their discount section. You can't always find a deal but you never know what will be there. The nearest Ikea to us is probably in Moncton, there isn't one in Nova Scotia. So we'll be building from scratch. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm going to feed and water the chicks and then off to the chapel for our weekly craft get together. It's also Steve's birthday today so I'm going to write him a letter. And I'm reading The Hunger Games so I need to finish it and get on to our bookclub selection which is my choice this month. I chose By The Banks Of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Permaculture and Land Choices

With the idea that we'll be living a long time on this land, and leaving it to our children to farm, the choice of a good piece of land is really important. Yes, we can amend soil if we need to and we can dig wells and plant trees. But some things are permanent. We can't make a stream or river appear out of nowhere. We can't drastically alter the shape of the land or the slope without doing real damage to the soil structure. In fact, even the direction it faces is an important consideration.

Our plans include:

barn, house, root cellar and greenhouse construction
raising livestock and vegetables
planting permanent fruit and orchard sites

Animals can live anywhere there's adequate food water and shelter but having good pasture for them and an easily accessible water source just makes life more pleasant. Before we get any animals we'll need some secure housing and fencing and establishing a good mix of grasses is easier to do before animals arrive, so we'll be looking to fertilize the soil and overseed if necessary. We'll know more once we test the soil and see how it grows in the late spring.

Any permanent crops like fruit trees and bushes need planning ahead of time too. Choosing a site that's got air flow and isn't in a frost pocket, with good soil depth and fertility, these and many more things need to be considered before you head for the nursery.

We'd like a thermally efficient home, facing south if possible and one that makes good use of solar gain. By that I mean it will allow sunlight into the home to aid in heating and we'd like a hot water heating system on the roof. That's Steve's baby! It doesn't take much to make your home more efficient, just a little forethought and planning. We turn our beehives to warm up with the low winter sun, why not our human house? We're still exploring the possibility of getting planning permission for an alternative building method like strawbale or cordwood for both out home and out buildings. Research continues and we'll first start by building a barn or workshop to test our skills. And I've got to talk to the powers that be to get an idea of the hoops involved before hand. Hey, forewarned is forearmed. And we've never dealt with Annapolis County so we'll ask some discreet and anonymous questions before making plans.

But the very first things we have to do are these:

Find land and make an offer.
Confirm our financing and complete the sale.
Drill a well.
Arrange for a temporary electrical service.

Yes, we're staying on grid for right now and for ease of construction (using electric tools) but in designing and building a house we want to allow for the possibility of being energy independent. Not even using propane. Wood cookstoves and woodstoves in general are a good option for almost all the properties we've looked at because they have woodlots that we can manage. The same goes for construction, using cordwood as a method of building is good because it makes use of available resources.

And yes, you drill a well before building any structures. Why? Because occasionally it'll turn out that the best location for a well is under your house or close to a septic field. So do the well first, then the septic where it won't pollute your water supply (has to be done by certified companies in NS but we're going to see if any of the work can be done by us to save money) and finally the house and out buildings. Even though we don't plan on using the septic tank much if at all, we still might need one in place. I'm not sure that you can put a new outhouse on property here, but I'll find out.

Anyways the sun is shining again and so I'm going out while I can. Then I've got to mop floors in preparation for Kate's party at 5pm.

Have a good day.

Elizabeth

Very Quiet Neighbours

Stephen and I found another Annapolis Valley Property to go look at, and despite the snow and my bald tyres, I drove out there today. It's not a bad location at all with the lot being fairly regular and rectangular with one corner belonging to the lot next door. From the road the cleared land slopes south to a brook and then north up the hill which is mixed forest. The road is fairly quiet, being off the valley floor and away from the major roads, but it's still close enough to town for supplies and to have customers within easy reach. Since we know the price of fuel is just going to keep going up, being closer to town is important if you plan on selling produce as a part of your farming business plan. And yes, even people who are self-sufficient have some sort of a plan. We experiment along the way, but we have an idea of where we're going too.

I won't give you all the details of the land...look how well that worked out for us last time. I'm going to take the advice of some friends and just say "tell you all about it once it's ours". I will tell you about the neighbours though. It's just out from the village, and I use that term loosely since it's maybe a closer collection of 2 dozen houses, and has one home across the road, one next door that can't be seen from the road, and on the other side is a small church and cemetery.

So here's the kicker...how do we feel about having a cemetery beside us? In Nova Scotia, they're all over the place. From small family ones to great big community ones, cemeteries are everywhere. Not like in BC where many times they are hidden behind hedges on the outskirts of town. It's something you get used to, same as the number of upright stones instead of the modern flat ones. I like the upright ones, it reminds me of English churchyards I guess. It's an interesting thing to think about though because I already have a very over active imagination and I don't imagine living beside a cemetery will help much. But I'm also religious and having a knowledge of what happens to people after they die, I'm not much worried about ghosts. Still, I think that side of the property would be better suited to an orchard than a yard so we'll plan accordingly.

I think this place will work for us. It's got cleared land, decent soil, no chemicals for a few years at least and running water. Time to pray about it and think about making an offer. Any thoughts you have? Oh and here's another question. If you knew someone had bought a piece of land, kept it for 1 year without doing anything to it, and then they were selling it for 25% more than they paid for it, would you offer them close to what they paid originally? ie. If they bought it for $45k and were selling it for $55k, would you offer them say $47? How much can you low ball a property without being rude and insulting?

Spring has Sprung a Leak...it's snowing.

Well Winter had returned, for a day or two anyways. It's cold, windy and snowing right now and won't go above freezing today. Hard to believe that this time last week it was 27 degrees!

The hunt for property continues. I'm supposed to be going to look at a place today that seems to be promising but the realtor doesn't want to show it until Saturday so I guess I'll go by myself. If the roads are ok. It's not too far out but my tyres really are in bad shape.

I've got other things to keep me busy...getting ready for Katie's birthday party for one thing. And I'm supposed to take her out for her birthday dinner tonight as well. I'm not sure that I'll be going to the city after all this week so that should give me some extra time at home to get things sorted out around here. The kids are off to school so I actually have a warm and quiet house right now...perfect timing for mopping floors!

The new chicks are doing ok. I couldn't put them in with the other chicks because of pecking issues so they have their own little place instead. I need a new feeder so that's on the agenda for today. I'll be planting tomato seeds too.

Hope your spring is more colourful than today's black and white weather in Nova Scotia.

Good News and Bad

Hi! Sorry everyone, it's been a busy weekend of gardening, chick raising and everything else we have to do, so I haven't had time to write.

Here are the highlights....

The chicks are doing great and are growing very quickly...time for a bigger box!

We threw Steve a surprise birthday party on Friday when he came home from work. He got some new tools, a popcorn popper and a huge popcorn bucket for his favourite snack. In fact he and Meghan are in the kitchen now popping kernels! Lots of Meghan and Kate's friends were over and since they all call him 'Dad' anyways it was a fun little party, and he really was surprised. I think he liked his 3 eyed purple monster ice-cream cake too.

Saturday we had our gardening class which was a nice time to get together and share knowledge and tips. It's great for me to learn all the local wisdom of gardening here in the Maritimes. Thanks ladies! And Steve worked on getting the tiller tuned up and running.

Saturday afternoon we met a lovely couple from Annapolis who might be able to help us finance the purchase of a property. They understand about organic farming and the amount of work it takes to have a successful farm. Super nice! Now for the bad news...the property we love looks like it was sold earlier that day to another party. So now we have 2 choices...wait and see if that deal falls through before April 20th or look for another property. There are others around of course, so I think we'll hedge our bets by seeing what else is out there in our price range. There's no point on dwelling on what we can't have...we just have to pick up and move on. But since the decision to purchase a piece of land is a permanent one for us (we're never moving again) we want to make sure we get the place that's right for us and our goals. I've got a short list already...I think that I'll be doing some driving tomorrow to check out some places now that the snow has melted off them. And Steve has been very optimistic too that while we probably won't find as large a place again in our price range, maybe we can find something with more cleared land which means less initial work for us. He's got a good point. So if you hear of anything for sale that's 20-120 acres, suitable for farming, in Annapolis County between Greenwood and Paradise and under $50,000, please let us know. One property we've been looking at for a year has recently had another price drop down to $53,000 with a house and 62 acres...Steve likes it because it's a reno instead of a full out build so that's less work for him. Something to think about. There certainly are options out there and we just have to pick the right one for us. We're open to any advice you can give us, please leave a comment.

Hope you all have a great week to come.

Greenhouse 2012

This year we're going to have 2 greenhouses. One is 20'x10' by 9 feet tall and is a re-used frame from a portable shelter, it's located in our borrowed garden space in Wilmot. The other will be just your regular old poly tunnel greenhouse like we've built in previous years and approx 20'x10'x8' and made using water pipes for the ribs. The covering is 6 mil poly otherwise known as vapour barrier and this slightly smaller greenhouse will be located beside our house in Greenwood.

To keep the plastic securely attached to a frame is always a challenge so this year we're going to try making water pipe clips for that greenhouse along with the plastic being attached to 2x4's along the bottom and weighed down and the other one will have wooden boards along the bottom sides of the greenhouse with the plastic rolled around them and stapled on. We'll then weight it down with sandbags or earth to prevent the wind from getting underneath and causing the plastic to lift off. The eds vary between greenhouses so I'll take some pics today and show you the progress we're making. I'm teaching a class in the Wilmot greenhouse on Saturday afternoon so I'll make that one the priority. The one at the house will be used for getting tomato seedlings going and it won't need to be up for another couple of weeks. The weather is going to cool down to seasonal temps again now and there's snow in the forecast for next week so obviously I'm not going to be keeping seedlings outside yet. They need the warmer temps of indoors to germinate.

Chris has a half day today so he's going to come and help me with pulling over the poly and fitting on one of the ends. It should be fun. It's a lovely sunny day, much cooler at 11 degrees but it's still warming up. I've decided that Spring Cleaning is the order of the day so I'm currently washing all the blankets and hanging them out on the line to dry in the sun. It's gusting up to 50 km/h though so I've got clothes pins every 6 inches and I'm keeping an eye on everything to make sure that things stay attached to the line and don't go sailing onto the roof or the neighbours houses.

It's SO WARM!!

Today was 27 degrees, and yes, I got my first sunburn. Just a little pink and itchy on my neck, face and forearms. I think it might be time to break out the sunscreen and sun hat. Hard to believe it's March in Nova Scotia with weather like this!

We got the plastic taped together for the greenhouse and tomorrow we'll get it all ready to go over top of the frame. Should be fun if it's breezy like it was today!

The chicks are growing by leaps and bounds. They're still small of course but the amount of food and water they're consuming is increasing rapidly. Speaking of which I should go check on them as they're making lots of cheeping noises. This is probably their last night in the house.

They're all fine. Cleaned and refilled their waterer and they've still got clean food. I think that once they have a drink they'll all quiet down for the night. Maybe if Meghan turns off the light it'll help as well.

I'm just in the middle of making a rough map of the property in Victoria Vale to show the lie of the land. I'm not the best at drawing so hopefully other people will still be able to read it and find it useful. We're still optimistic that we'll find a way to buy it. Like I mentioned the other day...I'm going to have to sell an awful lot of tomato plants! Well, that's partly what the greenhouse is for, to help them along once they're a reasonable size and once they are re-potted ready to sell. Does anyone know what the going rate for heritage tomato plants is?

Anyways, I've got to run. Well not run...sleep!

Have a lovely night or day, depending on when you read this.

Elizabeth