Construction: Week 1

Mumma, for why all these changes?

Well, after months of planning, designing, stressing, worrying and lining up contractors and estimates and quotes, the ball finally started rolling last week. 

I had found a contractor to pour the slab for my foundation, but I couldn't find anyone who was available to do the excavation. It feels like the entire south shore of Nova Scotia is madly building, trying to get things done before the snow flies and contractors are busy, busy, busy! I feel lucky to have found the great bunch of contractors who've agreed to work on this project, but I struck out trying to find a excavation contractor who was available, affordable and with whom I felt comfortable. And without the excavation work, nothing could move forward.

Luckily for me, my friend of the amazing chainsaw skills has myriad other skills and offered to do the excavation work I needed to have done. Not that he's not extremely busy, too, but he made the time so that work at my place wouldn't be held up – a tremendous and generous gift to me.

The first task was "scrubbing off" the organic matter, dead and alive.

It was a perfect opportunity to take logs that had been cut over the past year and a half to make way for the driveway and power lines and load them on the trailer to go off to be milled into useful lumber.

One of the limbs had to be removed from old Father Maple so that the big trucks would be able to back right up to the form. He remains a stately, if somewhat less crooked, presence. 

We had to have a couple of loads of shale delivered.

And my friend brought tons of gravel in his truck and trailer, too... 

...much of which we spread by hand using shovels, rakes and buckets.

I got to drive the excavator when the right-rear wheel of the truck went over the edge of the driveway and the truck had to be assisted back onto solid ground.

The awesome slab contractor loaned us his transit level so we could check how level the pad was as we spread the gravel. 

A DEEP trench had to be dug for the well line to go out from the house. You never think how deep 4 feet is, but it's deep enough when you're trying to dig through rocky South Shore Nova Scotian soil! 

I'm not going to lie to you, I melted down more than once last week. I felt so overwhelmed. I wished that I had never had the temerity to think that I could organize having a small cabin built for myself.

Days were spent leveling ground, moving logs and getting gravel in place. Despite being worn out by the work, I did not sleep well, waking up in the middle of the night with anxious thoughts like, "What am I doing?" and "Why did I decide to do this?"

There were some shaky, miserable hours. Fortunately, a number of people close to me provided moral support and tangible help, often exactly when it was needed most.

And there were some exiting moments, too. I invested in a chain saw and used it for the first time ever! And I drove the excavator. And I worked: healthy, outdoor, physical labour.

As the work progressed, I started to feel better. Excavation was hard – it felt like we were ripping the land to pieces. Fortunately, after ripping it apart, we started to put it back together again. And for me, as that happened "Why am I doing this?" and "What am I doing?" transformed into "I am doing this."

The definiteness of that is a lot more comfortable than sitting in the unknown of doubts and second guesses.

And since I am doing this, I want to embrace the process. After several wobbly weeks, I've come to understand that if I want this house to be built wholeheartedly, by people who are kind and easy through the process, that means that I have to find kindness and ease in my heart, too.

Otherwise, there is no point.

This construction project requires Salinger to be vigilant and alert. On Friday, when all the machines had gone away for a bit, he had to have some serious naps to recover from all of the excitement.

Less Crooked, Less Wooded

At the same time that I've been stressing quite a bit about this building project, things are moving forward. 

A little over a week ago, my dear friend who is an artist with a chainsaw came over and in about two hours felled six large trees – two dead and four living – all too close for comfort to the site for the house (especially with all of the big storms that we can expect to keep threatening the Atlantic coast). 

Two spruces felled meticulously right on top of each other.

The smaller spruce was riddled with ants. All the more reason to be glad that it's no longer towering over where the cabin will be! 

The spruce that got taken down by my compost pile was a giant. It's hard to count the rings exactly because the ones in the centre are so tiny, but my guesstimate is about 120 years. *bows head*

The giant on the ground.

There is quite a comfy spot to sit in the branches of the downed tree.

From the perch pictured just above, there is an excellent view of this crooked pine. We left this tree standing as it is obviously leaning dramatically AWAY from the site for the house and is highly unlikely to fall on top of it. 

Two steps forward and one step back: my clothesline had to be dismantled temporarily, as it was attached on one end to a maple tree that was leaning sharply toward the site for the cabin, a maple tree that can be seen here lying at feet of the other end of the clothesline. Installing the clothesline was my first DIY project on this land and it has been consistently useful;
I will miss it until it can be set up again.

Salinger was surprisingly unfazed by the changes. He seemed happy to be the conquerer of the newly felled trees, including the "clothesline maple" pictured here.

There is much more sunlight now in the Crooked Wood. It feels a bit odd, but I'm sure I'll get used to it – and I'll be especially glad to be less shaded during the brief winter days...

Last week was a hard one for me.

I felt really crappy about deciding to kill those beautiful trees. I didn't expect to feel that way because I didn't feel anywhere near as bad when we felled many more trees to bring in the driveway and the power lines. Not to mention all of the firewood I've burned to keep warm throughout my life, each chunk of which came from a beautiful, living tree and to be honest, I never really even thought about it...

Perhaps my overall state of mind, my anxiety about the build, is what made me feel so guilty and sad about these trees. Or maybe I felt so bad because I knew these trees. I've lived here for two summers now and those trees have been some of my closest neighbours.

They were beautiful. They were my elders. They were here first. And I had them removed because they were in my way and because I could. They grew here for sixty, eighty, a hundred+ years and then each came down in a matter of minutes.

And although we honoured and embraced them before they were felled, and although they will live on, becoming furniture and/or hugelkultur beds and/or firewood and/or beautiful decomposing logs and brush that will nourish this land and give life to other trees, to fungi, mosses and insects, I mourn them. (Their deaths have made me look at some tricky questions around my own sense of entitlement, but I think I'll save those thoughts for another blog post).

As things stand now, "Them's history," as my Nana would have said. Fortunately, I'm recovering from feeling guilty and sad about deciding to cut them down. I'm doing this – I'm making a permanent dwelling for myself on this piece of land and there is no point feeling bad about it. Since I'm going to do it anyway, it's better to do it with love, gratitude and celebration than with self-doubt and regret.

This attitude adjustment has arrived just in the nick of time: we're breaking ground today. 

It's my happening... and it freaks me out

So, uh, I'm building a cabin, yeah?

Well, I'm not building it. I might contribute some amount of work to the project, but mostly it's going to be built by other people.

People who know what they are doing.

And that's a good thing.

So far, I am finding this a tremendously complex and daunting process. There are so many different people who need to do so many different things. Estimates have to be requested, acquired, considered and selected for each element of the project.

Decisions must be made.

I confirmed my third contractor today – and I am having a full-on anxiety meltdown.

I'm not entirely sure why. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? It can all get horribly fouled-up and I'll wind up with a bunch of debt for no actual building or a building that I can't live in and I will have to declare bankruptcy and lose this land, my shed, my un-winterized tiny home on wheels, the new building (or some unfinished part thereof) and have to start over from scratch. 

Well, that's not so bad, is it?

Afterall, it's only money and security and the comfort of feeling like I'm good at modern life. I think I can live without all of those things. I think I have the resilience to come through this if it's a massive disaster.

But, I hope it won't be.

Please, please, please, don't be a massive disaster.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Stay calm... and build a cabin

It's been a while since I posted here.

For one thing, I've been underwater with a big desk-work project for the past 6 weeks.

But for another thing, I have been feeling nervous, stressed and a bit fragile. It's challenging to put myself down in pixels when I'm feeling that way. It can take me a while to figure out how to express myself. Also, it's a whole lot easier not to say anything and let others assume that I am just over here, doing my thing: calm, cheerful and collected.

I have not been that calm. I have been feeling very challenged this year by the process of trying to get my tiny cabin designed and built. These are uncharted waters. I don't know what I'm doing, or how it's going to get done. I hope I'm going to succeed, but at the core, I just don't know and for me that stirs up fear and anxiety.

The dream

Then, this morning, I had a dream.

I was walking in New York City (which, FYI, is where my dad was born/grew up and is one of my personal, life-long "happy places"). It was November and I was wearing my winter coat. It wasn't quite cold enough for a full-length wool coat, so, I kept overheating, especially when I went into buildings. So, I kept taking off my coat to stay comfortable. And I kept losing it. With my wallet and phone in the pockets. Each time I realized it was missing, I would retrace my steps and ask if anyone had seen a black coat. And each time, some kind person would have kept it safe and would hand it back to me with a smile, with my wallet and phone right where I left them.

Then, while walking down a street in midtown, I randomly encountered the daughter of some friends of mine (who I was supposed to look up while I was in the city, but hadn't yet contacted). We started chatting, then some friends of hers bumped into us and we all decided to go to a restaurant for drinks and a snack. On the way there, I got separated from the group and lost them. In real life, that sort of thing would be very upsetting to me. In my dream, I took it in stride and kept walking, relaxed and enjoying the experience of being in Manhattan. Eventually, I found the restaurant they were in and was able to rejoin them.

The reality

This dream feels like a timely message from my unconscious mind.

Basically, I am being reminded that things are going wrong and going right all of the time.

That is the nature of the chaos of this world, a world where things continually happen – and don't happen – either because they were put in motion/stopped by one of over 7.5 billion people, by one of countless butterflies or for no particular reason at all. Our human brains try to impose order and meaning on the VERSE* so we can pretend we are charting a course from where we are to where we want to be (or at least keeping our heads above water), but we are kidding ourselves if we think that we are able to control more than a few of the variables, let alone all of them.

My project to build a cabin on my land this year feels like a complex task that is exposed to many forces beyond my control. It feels like there have been a lot of delays and missteps. Unlike last spring, when everything fell into place seamlessly, quickly and with minimal effort (despite my lack of knowledge and understanding), my process this year has felt choppy, raw and uncomfortable. Last year, it felt like the VERSE really wanted me to get settled on this piece of land, but this year, it seems indifferent – or perhaps ambivalent.

I have been trying (very trying, as we joke in my family), but at this point in the process, there are still several vital pieces that are not yet in place. And we are supposed to break ground this month!

Of course, there have been some exciting and serendipitous moments, too. I have people on my team who I trust implicitly. I have friends who have been rock-steady and generous with their support. And I have had opportunities to grow. I have braved asking for help – help getting unstuck, help handling my anxiety, help with many tasks and pieces of information. And some – not all, but some – of the time, I have been met in ways that have reinforced the things that I am learning.

The trouble is that the things that aren't working have been looming large while the things that are working feel hard to hang on to.

I have been stressing and sometimes even catastrophizing. And I have been taking things personally, feeling like it is my lack of ability and knowledge, my mistakes, my poor decisions, that have been at the cause of every difficulty. I have been dwelling on the very real possibility that this is not going to work, that I am going to #fail. That's not a very fun place to be. Doubt (and even worse, self-doubt) are bad company.

Gratitude

And then, this dream.

The first half of the dream says loud and clear – trust other people. People have your back.

The second half of the dream says – stay relaxed and keep the faith. Connections will happen organically. And even if pieces fall apart, they will come back together. I can find enjoyment in the process. I will get where I'm going, even if I don't know where that is or how to get there.

I feel gratitude that my unconscious brain knows (far better than my stressed-out conscious brain) how to navigate this process. And I love that it cared enough to take me to New York last night to show me the way.

In closing, a favourite New York photo – a mosaic of sea turtles swimming (effortlessly ;) in Houston Street subway station.

*VERSE = Very Enormous Random Swirl of Events