Electrictiy and Internet (A tiny home/land development report)

On Tuesday, I was working in my office in Bridgewater when I was tagged on facebook in a post made by my Most Awesome Neighbour saying that there was a lot going on at my land.

What! Gasp! The power company!!! Hooking me up!!!

Amazing.

I had not been given a heads-up call the day before so I had no idea. I wrapped up my work as quickly as I could and headed home, where I chatted with the extremely cordial crew leader. They already had the poles in and all that remained was to string the line, make the connection to my shed and then turn the power on up at the road.

Flabbergasting.

The power company did have to cut down one of my crooked trees, sadly. It hadn't been marked for removal by the power company's site inspector, but the crew felt strongly that the tree jeopardized the power line – and I could see their point since it was tall, dead and leaning in direction of the line.

See that leaning dead maple tree behind the truck?

I had wanted to leave it standing because it was so beautiful, but it's beautiful on the ground, too, and will make a wonderful bench for reading and picnicking. 

I have power right now. No more watching my laptop battery count down into oblivion. No more careful husbanding of my cellphone battery. This feels extremely – well, powerful.

The first thing I did, once the power was hooked up, was to call Eastlink to invite them to come hook me up with a high-speed Internet connection. The woman I spoke with on the phone was not the most helpful (she sounded like she had a terrible head cold and didn't seem like she'd be very with it at the best of times), but she took my info and set  up an appointment with a technician for Thursday morning, which is pretty quick. I wasn't complaining.

(The second thing I did was break my $0 booze budget and went and bought myself a bottle of bubbly.) 

And I was very glad to have a glass of bubbly inside me when I received a "confirmation" email from Eastlink that had me at a completely different address, even though I had confirmed the address several times with my call centre compatriot.

Another call to Eastlink ensued. I got the address issue sorted out with someone else and I got to keep my Thursday morning appointment.

I was all stoked to post today that on June 30, 2016, about 5 weeks since there was only a space cleared for my driveway and dwelling here, I have a home, a shed, a garden, electricity and Internet access.

But not so fast there with the bubbly optimism, Mac. Here, finally, is an example of things not happening as quickly as I'd hoped. My Eastlink visit this morning was anticlimactic. The technician needs a different crew to install a tap (tack? taco?) up at the pole on the road so that he can do the rest of the installation.

They should be able to do that sometime next week. In the meantime, I am close, but no cigar.

Oh well. A few more visits to my office in town may be in order, but that is no hardship.

And on the plus side, today I received my deposit back from the province for the work on my driveway. I was told that could take up to 6 months, so 4 weeks is cause for celebration.

On the map (A tiny home/land development report)

It has been another busy week!

Since the shed was finished a week ago Thursday, this week has been a week of inspections and legitimization. And also a week of sweet peace and quiet, now that the genny and nail guns have moved on to other projects.

The (almost) entirely finished shed

I'm developing an affection for the cascading nature of this process. Each step leads to the next.

NS Power came to inspect the electrical work on Monday and issued a connection order. They told me that I would have power within 10 business days. No word from them yet, but ostensibly within the next 6 business days, they will come and install poles and lines and hook me up! After that, I can contact Eastlink and hopefully get high speed internet hooked up as well so I can work seamlessly from my tiny home.

The municipal builder inspector came and okayed the shed on Wednesday which meant that on Thursday, I was issued my civic number. I think I can be officially declared a civic number nerd – I was SO excited about getting it.

Salinger pretends not to be excited about our civic number. But he is. You know he is.

There are two reasons why I am excited about my civic address. One is the sense of permanence it gives me. Even though I won't be living here this winter because I can't afford to build a winterized dwelling yet, I still have the sense that this is my forever address – something for which I have been longing. As soon as I can get myself properly set up, I will get to stay here as long as I like. I can't be evicted or impacted by anyone else's decisions about the place where I live. I will be only at my own whims – and of course, the whims of the VERSE.* I can't even find words to express how desperately I've been longing for this. Security. Refuge. Shelter from the Storm.

And of course, getting a civic number is tied to getting postal service. I have been a postal nerd for many years. I love mail. I haven't been getting or sending much personal mail lately, but I plan for that to change.

I've had a big dilemma this weekend deciding how I want to have my mail delivered – I was given the option of setting up a mailbox, clustered with my nearest neighbour's box close to the top of my driveway, or receiving my mail in the community box down the road. There are many pros and cons to each option – The personal mailbox would be close and homey and convenient, individualistic and fun – but it would also need to be shoveled out and set back up every time the snow plow knocked it down. The community mailbox is about a 20-minute round-trip walk, or a 6-minute bike ride, or a minute-and-a-half by car, so that would either prompt me to get more exercise (a good thing) or drive needlessly (a bad thing). I wouldn't have to shovel it out or occasionally re-erect it. And it would be more secure, which is probably important, given that about half of my clients still pay me with cheques sent through the mail. The community box is more generic and corporate-feeling; it doesn't have any personality, but its setting is fabulous – next to a lovely little bridge over the Petite River.

The (sun-drenched) Petite River by the community mailbox.

The more I think about it, the more I think that I will opt for the community box, but once I'm living here permanently, I plan to set up a box at the top of my driveway too – well off the road, out of the path of snowplows (and therefore also mail carriers) and use it for miscellaneous pick-ups and deliveries from friends and neighbours. Maybe I'll even establish one of those cute little free libraries...

This week has involved some DIY stuff for me. I installed my civic number by the side of the road and installed the door knob and deadbolt on my shed all by myself. Neither job was very smoothly or elegantly accomplished, but they were accomplished nevertheless.

This has been a good week. I've been appreciating the heck out of the weather. I have been appreciating the heck out of my neighbours, my community, my cat. In general, I am appreciating the heck out of my little woodland retreat. This is the perfect place for me to be right now. My emotions have been all over the place this week. I've been very up and I've been very down. I'm ending the week feeling a bit fragile and sad. But there is fluidity to my emotions and that's important. I'm not feeling stuck. The best thing of all is that I feel like I have a safe place to be however I need to be. That is priceless.

* VERSE=Very Enormous Random Swirl of Events

Body Wisdom #6: Hot flashes, shame and sugar

I've been having a hot-flashy bunch of mornings, waking up at 3 or 4 or 5 because I'm TOO HOT.

I'm discovering for myself an interesting correlation between the hormones that make me flushed and feelings of shame.

Shame is a hot emotion for me. It starts with a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach: an uncomfortable, unsettled, roiling feeling that spreads up my chest, arms and face in a blush of heat and colour. Shame-faced, as they say.

For me, hot flashes feel a lot like shame. The only difference is that hot flashes don't start with that feeling in the pit of my stomach.

What's particularly interesting to me is that days when I'm having a lot of hot flashes also seem to be days when I am more likely to do or say something that causes me to feel shame. I've been wondering about how the mechanics of that work. Do the hormones make me more likely to say or do things I could feel ashamed of, or do they make me more likely to feel shame about something that I have said or done?

After much consideration, I think that what's going on here is that my discomfort is acting as a catalyst for my behaviour and the ensuing shame. Hot flashes are uncomfortable. So are many other peri-menopausal symptoms, like depression, down-spiralling self-regard, lack of sleep/fatigue or feeling like you're about to burst into tears for no reason. I also believe that a heightened sense of "not belonging" might be a peri-menopausal symptom, in the same way that it is often an adolescent one.

I think it is a pretty basic instinct to discharge discomfort by pushing it away: sending a harsh email or flippant text, making a mean joke, gossiping – essentially making one's own discomfort be about someone else.

Last week, for instance, I told a joke that seemed funny in my head, but landed with a THUD. And then the other day, I found something slipping out of my mouth that – well, if someone had said something like that to me, I would have felt so angry and judgmental. I realize now that both instances were knee-jerk reactions to feeling like I didn't belong. Both times I felt very ashamed afterward – afraid that I had been insensitive or inappropriate and either hurt somebody's feelings or ticked them off or just simply acted like a real jerk – like someone I don't want to be.

Both times I went and ate a large amount of chocolate afterwards.

And then I felt better. Well, I felt less ashamed. I did feel physically queasy, so it's probably more accurate to say that I felt both better and worse at the same time.

Making the connection between sugar and shame felt enlightening. I suppose since shame is the fear of not belonging/being loved and eating sugar simulates feeling loved and comforted for me, it makes sense that eating sugar would soothe my feelings of shame.

Sugar is a bandaid.

Sometimes, bandaids come in handy. They are great at temporarily protecting an open wound. But what I've been thinking more and more is that the hope of healing those wounds lies in leaning in to my discomfort and doing a better job of owning it.

This is a rocky time for me, and also a beautiful time – a beautiful, rocky time. I feel lucky to be where I am, to have the option of a lot of solitude and quiet and space to be where I'm at. And when I'm in a situation where I feel uncomfortable or like I don't belong, I am encouraging myself to lean into my discomfort, to breathe and to own that I feel how I feel and that that is okay, that I am still safe. And when I don't feel up to doing that, I am giving myself permission to step away – or to burst into tears – or more likely, to step away and then burst into tears.

This is going to be a struggle for me. It will require me to be much more vulnerable that I'm comfortable being. I hope I can accept myself where I'm at and feel compassionate for myself moment to moment. In all of these beautiful, rocky moments.

The shed: Part 3 (A Tiny Home/Land Development Report

It's been a busy week! Saturday and Monday were wrapping and shingling.

By Tuesday, only the back and edges still needed to be shingled:

 

Yesterday, the shed was basically completely finished! There are only a couple of little touches left to be added. One week from nothing to beautiful shed – amazing!

This morning, the electricians came and did most of the work needed to hook up power.

The meter case being installed on the back of the shed

The roof sprouts wires!

My mostly-assembled electrical panel

Of course, there are still quite a few stages to complete.

The electricians will be back tomorrow to complete their work.

The shed will be inspected on Monday.

The power company will come to install the power poles and lines and then hook the shed up with electricty. I've been told to expect that I should have power in two weeks – or less! Super-exciting!

Editorial note: I linked to Tilia Builders in part 2 of this series, but didn't link to them again here and they deserve huge thanks and big shout-outs for their impressively quick, high-quality, extremely beautiful work! 

Also, here are links to Part 2 and Part 1 of this series for anyone who missed them.

The shed: Part 2 (a tiny home/land development report)

The shed is going up in double-quick time! I can't believe how it is springing up right before my eyes!

Tilia Builders have designed and are building the shed for me. Tilia is owned by my friend and neighbour, Liam and his friend Michael. Liam played banjo at my 2012 CD release party for Blackbirds, so we go way back – in relative terms for my life here in NS, anyway. And my friend and neighbour, Dave, is working with Tilia. So Liam and Dave have been here for a couple of days so far. And yet again, I am counting myself lucky to be working with professionals who are not only stellar at their jobs, but who are also fun to chat with during coffee breaks. 

Between our wait for the building permit and the vagaries of the weather in a typical Nova Scotian spring, the first day of construction was Thursday.

The all-important building permit – worth the wait :-)

From the ground up.

Dave braces the first wall

Liam cuts the first rafter

And they get 'er in place. Smile!

Yesterday, I had to be away while work was happening here.

I went off to help clean the soon-to-be home of a dear friend of mine who is moving back to Nova Scotia from away. After that, I did some desk work, finished preparing my taxes, filed them, paid them and then went out for supper with a friend – the last treat of that sort permitted in my budget for a LONG time. But it felt necessary to mark the filing of my taxes.

I came home to this sweet beauty!

Here's a shot from the doorway up through the rafters

And here is Sal rolling in the dirt and sawdust this morning. Mmmm, deliciously gritty!

By the time I got home yesterday evening, Dave and Liam had wrapped up their long day. But I found my amazing friend had stopped by to move some logs that were in the way of the staging for the shed and to re-block my trailer and get it all level. We had just gotten the tiny home into place the day we moved it and did a quick job blocking it. It had a little lean to the right and to the back. Now it is totally level and super-well supported. Just check out these gorgeous hemlock blocks:

I woke up this morning to sunlight through the maple leaves outside the window by my bed and a view of the corner of the new shed. It was sweetly silent, the birds taking a little break from their morning songs. I felt so supremely lucky. I feel surrounded by community support and blessed with solitude when I need it – which is often, these days.

But not much solitude for me today, as I am off to the West Dublin Market for breakfast. And then to not one, but two, concerts with my mom. Lucky, lucky, lucky!

The shed: Part 1 (a tiny home/land development report)

It's been a very busy week since my last update.

The building permit for the shed was approved on Friday.

On Sunday evening/Monday morning, we staked (and then adjusted) the location for the shed.

The location of the 8x10 shed

There were a couple of oak and spruce trees in the area that will be directly covered by the shed, so a little tree transplanting became necessary:

Save me from the shed!

Relocated to a peaceful new home on the forest floor

On Tuesday morning, a fellow came with the pole-digger machine (I hope you are impressed by my grasp of technical construction language). He installed a post at each corner.

Nowhere near as noisy as I thought it might be

The posts look like this. The platform at the top is adjustable to enable the builders to level the floor.

X marks the spot. Put building supplies here.

And they were put!

Construction begins today. We are hoping that the forecast for three days of clear weather will hold.

Meanwhile, all of the limbs/trees that were marked for removal by the NSPower surveyor have been limbed or felled. I've called NSPower, they've updated their work order and at some point (I have no idea when), they will send a crew out to install the power poles.

How does it feel?

It has felt like a pretty overwhelming week for me. I've been having trouble sleeping (partly due to excitement/anxiety and partly due to my peri-menopausal inability to regulate my body temperature), so I'm tired. And with the deadline (for self-employed people) fast approaching, I've been preparing my taxes. Fortunately, for the first time a can remember, I actually have money ready and waiting to pay my taxes (Thanks, YNAB!) but that doesn't make the bill feel much more welcome. I'd rather be able to spend that money on my own home. But: roads-schools-hospitals-social safety net, as I remind myself every year. I like to think that's where my tax dollars are going – and not to military spending, corporate welfare and/or some corrupt fat cat's summer home. But I'm sure it's a little of column A and a little of column B and there isn't anything I can do about that. I'm lucky to have work and I'd rather feel grateful that I'm able to make a contribution to our collective well being, than resentful that I have to hand over all of that money.

On the plus side, I'm enjoying a brief lull in my work. I've only worked 3.5 hours so far this week and that has been a welcome break. I overdid it with work this winter. It is very tempting to do that, since I have all of these big plans that require a lot of money to execute. To be honest with myself, I'm going to overdo it with work this summer, too. And doubtless next winter. And next summer.

So it's been nice that this week has been more about my land – making an enclosure for my compost heap (zipties! pallets!), planting things in my garden (the pea plants are up!), transplanting trees, fixing Salinger's back door entry (zipties! pallets!).

Salinger has also had a mixed week. There have been a few D-O-G-S here, accompanying various folks helping with projects. This has naturally been upsetting and has resulted in Salinger making himself scarce for long periods of time. But he's been coming back at the end of the day, so that's good.