Kid's room

So, this past week Jamie and I have been spending our time packing and lathing, lathing and packing as we get ready for the plasterers to arrive next week. Most of our belongings are now packed up and moved into our white storage tents and we're gearing up to move back into our RV, yurt and tents. And Jamie has been covering all of the walls with long, thin strips of lath - most of it created from leftover wood scraps from the building process last year, and near the end he's had to resort to buying long boards to cutting it up. Needless to say, it's been a time-consuming process, but I think even just the lath looks gorgeous, I cannot imagine how fabulous it's going to look once it's all plastered up!!!!!



These are a few shots I took from the kids' beds while I was putting them to bed, I was loving how the lightbulb was shining through!!!!!

This last shot shows the wall that we're going to create the triple bunk bed on, and then to the left of the tree, you can see where the interior windows will be placed, allowing for natural light to come into the room.



More photos to follow, for now I'm packing us all up for a weekend of Brownie camp with Tiegan's troupe. Because we're CRAZY that way!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekend camp with Guides

We headed into the big city of Ottawa for a weekend camp with Kea's Guide group. Usually we camp in cabins at the lake, but we were meeting up with penpals from another group in Quebec, and they really wanted to tour the nation's capitol. So we took in the tulip festival, the Museum of Nature, toured the Parliament Buildings and the Mint.........it was go go go and I'd seen most of it, but I was really impressed by how enjoyable the tour of the Mint was!!! Highly recommend checking that out if you're in town.




We stayed at the Youth Hostel downtown, which is within an old prison. Pretty neat place - you stay in cell blocks, and all over the place, there's tidbits of history written on the walls. I'd love to do a couple of the tours they put on, but perhaps best not to do it with a gaggle of giggly 9-10 year girls!!!!!



This scene cracks me up - in the morning you're meant to strip your beds and put the sheets on the laundry pile - this is what happens when two troupes of Girl Guides invades your hostel!!!!!!
And finally, couldn't resist a bunch of mug shots as we headed out the door!!!!!! Fun place to stay, and so central to downtown - perhaps we'll book a couple of nights in a jail cell for all of our friends who come to visit - a great way to see all the sights without the drive in and out of town:-)

And now that I've avoided work for a bit longer by updating my blog - back to helping Jamie get lath on the walls, and to packing up and moving out. Monday is the big day for the plasterers to arrive, so we're under strict deadlines..........I'll post more photos soon!!!!!

House Photos

Okay, so we've had so many requests for photos of our house building that I've FINALLY compiled a bunch of them in one place, and have published a wee slideshow of our adventures so far. The idea is to eventually have write-ups including more details about our choices and about the process of timber framing, straw baling, clay plastering, etc. And I'm sure Jamie has a few photos he'd like to highlight too, but for now this is what I"ve gotten done. This website is BRIMMING full of good intentions - most unrealized up until this point but perhaps this summer it'll really take off?!!!!! For now, though, check out the 'House Building' page on our www.thosewhowander.ca website!!!!!

A friend shared this on her facebook account, and I thought it was pretty appropriate. Definitely gets you thinking about how wacky our society can be!



Life here is busy and full, and as always I have a bazillion photos and stories to share. Soon, I promise, soon:-) Happy May to you all - I hope that it is MUCH drier where you are!!!!!

An evening bike ride before bed

The black flies are out, which means evenings tend to be best spent indoors. Unless you're under ten and OBSESSED with biking as much as possible. I spent ten minutes outside, to get a few shots, and then high-tailed it back inside. On the rare sunny days (who knew it rained ALL THE TIME here?!!!!), there's very few black flies, but now that it's raining every single days, we have a plethora of the little buggers out here. Future plans include creating bug tenting large enough to encase our house and a couple of acres of land!!!!!!!!

Friday morning at the library

I was taking a workshop with a photojournalist (David Trattles) this weekend, and part of our assignment on the first day was to take our camera out and capture people, but trying NOT to look through the lense, and capturing some motion. I had a lot of fun playing around with different angles, and came away with many more photos than this, but I thought you might enjoy a wee glimpse into our Friday morning ritual (which, of course, tends to be rather Keane-focused, because, well, look at this kid - he's so adorable you just want to eat him up! AND I can enjoy his book throwing antics without having to clean up after him, a perk of not being his parent!!!!!)

More than just mud pies.....

So, as we gear up to move out of the house and finish up all of the interior walls, we decided to bring Andrew (our local natural plaster guru guy) in for a day of experimenting. Jamie has been cutting up lathe from scrap pieces of wood leftover from the build, and stapling it wall spaces here and there. We decided to finish up one full wall with lathe to really see how it would work out, and decided to do the one in the front entrance as it's a full, uninterrupted wall and also in a space that wouldn't create too much chaos while we're still living here.

The kids had a lot of fun making paste from the clay, to which straw and sand was added. This was thrown, smeared, and pushed onto the wall, handful by handful, until the wall was completely covered. Then it was troweled to be flat and smooth, and finally rough-cut marks were placed onto it so that the final, thinner coat will stick more easily to it. A couple of days of fans and sun ensured a quick dry, and now it looks FABULOUS! I'm so excited to see the rest of the walls get done:-)
















This is a shot of the backside of the wall.....it will be hidden by lathe and plaster when we're done, but it was neat to see how the mud 'key-holed' into the lathe!