Thanksgiving

We needed this long weekend. We had lots to do before the "real" cold weather arrived and this was our shot. Carol would give the new stove a workout preparing a turkey dinner with all the trimmings for our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. We chose the first day of the holiday weekend for the big meal so we could take advantage of the leftovers the rest of the weekend! We would get the big ladder in and put the 45 or so remaining batts of R40 insulation in the cathedral ceiling. Vapour barrier installation would follow but was not quite so critical as retaining heat was the main focus.

Saturday morning, I was up and at it early. I put the plastic on the wall behind the TV and then went outside to see about moving the shipping pallet that originally held our windows. At 11 feet long and almost 4 feet wide, it would make a good floor for a small woodshed. I rigged a sling around it, picked it up with the tractor and moved it over to the north side of the house, by the back door. It would need to be solid and flat so I had to cut a number of 4 foot lengths of 2x10 lumber to shim it level and oriented it the way I wanted. It would be equally easy to access from the back door and the end of the "driveway". This would ease delivery of the unsplit logs from our chainsawing expeditions. We had bought an electric log splitter on sale at Canadian Tire and found that it worked well when positioned on the back deck, adjacent to the woodshed area.

The shed would need to keep the rain and most of the snow off the wood so it would burn nicely during the cold winter months. I envisioned the building with 3 solid sides and a sloped roof with an overhang in the front to help protect the opening. I framed it all in, making sure to keep it all plumb and square and built the roof separately. I shingled half of the roof to save time later and to keep the weight down to something that Alex and I could safely manage. After installing the half inch sheathing on the walls, we hoisted the roof up, screwed it down and stood back to admire the fruit of our labours. It came out well, in my opinion, and should serve to hold enough dry wood to get us through about 1/4 of the winter months. The remainder we would have to store under the deck.
Back inside, we set to getting the big 4'x2'x1' thick batts of insulation in the ceiling. We had decided against using scaffolding to do this as we had a bunch of furniture inside already and it would be too crowded. So, from the ladder, we could put in 6 batts before having to move. Once we had developed a system, the work went quite quickly, and we finished work on the south ceiling easily.
Alex and I then went out to get as much wood cut as possible before Carol had the dinner ready.
Dinner was great! Everything looked and tasted amazing...and the Leafs won! Sadly, in the late game, my Flames were extinguished. All in all, though, a wonderful day with lots to be thankful for.
Sunday, we finished the insulating! Yay! I managed to finish the shingling on the woodshed later in the afternoon and we all had enough turkey sandwiches to keep even Carol happy.
Brian Foley had arranged to meet us on the holiday Monday morning to show us a few spots where there would be some easy-to-get firewood (we think that the neighbours are worried that we'll freeze to death this winter!) and Brian Jr. even felled a pine beetle afflicted tree for us. Of course, it fell right across the road, eliminating going back the same way, so we followed them over to their house so Brian Jr. could sharpen our chainsaw chain, and so we could wish Louise a Happy Thanksgiving.
After returning to our house, Alex and I went back to cut up the giant pine tree. The freshly sharpened chain made the cutting easy and we quickly filled the pickup to overflowing with 20" lengths of varying diameter. Returning to the house, I went in to get going on the vapour barrier while Alex set to splitting and stacking all the logs. The little splitter worked awesome, and even logs up of 16" diameter easily succumbed to its powerful embrace. It took him several hours, but Alex was able to split and stack it all in the shed. No freezing to death this month for these city slickers!