The Move: Part 5 (In which I actually start to move my stuff and myself, but it's far from over...)

We had a wicked spring storm yesterday in Nova Scotia. Howling winds and quite a lot of snow – hard to say exactly how much as the earth was scoured bare in places with 2-foot-high drifts in others.

I'm preparing to move my living quarters to Wholehearted House this weekend – for 2 reasons

1. My cat is coming
2. I have firewood at the Tiny House and I am almost out of wood at the big, old house where I have been renting

My cat
Yes, I have a cat. He arrived as a stray last fall at the home of a dear friend who felt sorry for the poor, half-starved kitty, but knew he couldn't afford to keep two cats.

Well, I'm a cat person who's been a long time without a cat. And, this cat was orange. I have never had an orange kitty - black cats, brown tabbies and a white cat with grey splotches - I've always wanted an orange one.

I can't have a cat where I rent because my landlord is allergic, so my friend agreed to foster this little waif, with me covering food, litter and vet expenses. Knowing I had a cat to house was one of the things that motivated me to find a home of my own.

I named my cat Salinger, after the great J.D. and I've had lots of visits to bond with the little fellow. He's gone from a tiny mite to a strapping man-cat in the past 6 months. He's been neutered and wormed and vaccinated. He's cuddly and snugly and smart - although with an unfortunate tendency to try to eat things he oughtn't. Curiosity has almost killed this cat a couple of times.

Now, my friend has to move next week and rather than make Salinger move twice, I've decided to step up my move into the tiny house. 

I got my bed and armchair up there on Monday ahead of the storm and I'll be going to pick Salinger up from his foster-poppa on Saturday and Sal and I will move in to Wholehearted House together. 

We hope the kind friend who saved Salinger's life will be able to come visit soon.

Woodpile Wisdom: 6 things I learned about woodpiles this winter

This was the first winter that I was in charge of my own woodpile. With my housemate turned into a mostly absentee landlord, ordering, stacking and burning the wood was down to me.

"Get six cords," my housemate told me.

"Six?" I thought. "Isn't that a lot?" And when it arrived, I thought it even louder: "SIX?!?! That's a lot of wood! I'll never burn all that! Surely we didn't burn six cords last winter!"

But I gamely stacked it all, with a little help from my friends.

The woodpile in all its glory last September/October.

Then I covered it with plastic sheeting and felt smugly ready for winter. 

What followed was the hardest, snowiest, coldest winter I had seen since I moved home in 2010 (which admittedly, is not a very long time – but it's also been the hardest, snowiest, coldest winter that people who have been here all along have seen since the early 90s).

Here is the woodpile now:

The ravaged March woodpile.

I learned many things about woodpiles this winter. Here is some of my accrued wisdom. I hope you will find it helpful.

1. Always shovel the snow away from your woodpile. It may seem like a lot of work, but it's worth it. Also, if your plastic sheeting reaches the ground, keep it free of snow or it will freeze to the ground and trap your wood.
2. You can't burn wood that is frozen into the ground. (See point #1)
3. If you are covering the pile with plastic sheeting or a tarp, do not leave gaps between the stacks, at least not at the top of the stacks. Ventilation is all well and good, but at the top of the pile, gaps must be bridged by the plastic/tarp and those bridges trap will trap snow, which will melt into water, that will turn to ice. It weighs the plastic down into the gaps, pulling the plastic off of the top of the pile from the edges in. 
4. Make your woodpile small enough that you can reach to clean snow off of the top. By the time I realized my well-ventilated pile was trapping snow and losing plastic coverage, there wasn't much I could do about it because my arms were too short to clear the centre of the pile.
5. Build strategically to shed snow – like a pyramid, high in the centre and sloping down to the outsides. 
6. Always get more than you think you need! With the bitterly cold temperatures this winter, I have been very glad to have all 6 of those cords! Thanks for the good advice, roomie!

Today, the temperature hit a high of +4 and I gladly went out and tried to sort out the woodpile. Some of it is still frozen to the ground, but I freed the trapped plastic sheeting and covered the side of the pile that was bare in the picture above. A couple of sunny days and it should all be dry and good to go. And that's good, because I'm expecting a few more chilly days before spring.

Body Wisdom (Worktoomuch? Well, you'd better cut down a little then)

Body Wisdom

I have some challenges in the area of body wisdom. It's never really been a strong suit.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to climb higher, run faster, eat more sugar and stay awake later than was good for me.

Once I became an adult, the main things I tended to overdo were food, booze and work.

Getting older took care of overdoing the booze (well, mostly anyway), the food is a work in progress (more on that later) and the last thing to come to the table is work.

Worktoomuch? Well, you better cut down a little then.

It's easy for me to overdo working. For one thing, they pay me to work and just like anyone else, I need money to survive. For another thing, work sits in positive semantic space in our culture. When I work hard, I'm rewarded with approval as well as money. I once told a boss, "I come for the paycheque, but I stay for the praise". And finally, as a freelancer, there is a temptation to "Never Say No". If you say no, you might not be asked the next time.

I do a lot of digital typesetting of financial reports. And that means I have a "busy season". A lot of companies have their year-end on December 31 and therefore, a regulatory deadline to file their annual report by March 31. Which means that February and March can be very, very busy months for me.

Sometimes I work 10-, 12-, 14-, 17-hour days for 40 or 50 days in a row. I don't work much the rest of the year and so, it seems like a fair trade.

This year, though, my body is telling me working that much is not good idea.

Overloaded!

A few weeks ago, I had a rough couple of weeks personally. Someone very close to me had a life-threatening illness (much better now, thank you) and the relationship I had been in for the past two-and-a-half years broke up.

That, in combination with 10- and 14-hour work days, using the trackpad on my laptop with my (dominant) left hand, was enough to make all of the muscles in my left shoulder seize up.

I didn't even notice at first. (See above where I say body wisdom is not one of my strong suits). It wasn't until I had a shower and the water felt funny on my left shoulder that I realized that all of the skin on that shoulder was numb.

It's the strangest feeling and one that I've never had before.

Treatment

I hoped it would just go away on its own. I gave it a couple of days, went for an already-scheduled massage, but instead of getting better, it got worse, with the numbness radiating down my left arm into my hand. I did a little Google diagnosis (adding a new word to my vocabulary: Parasthesia) and briefly flirted with the idea that this was a sign of MS or a severe anxiety disorder, before deciding that the simplest answer was probably the most likely: stress > tight muscles > pinched nerve > numbness.

I booked an appointment with my osteopath.

The osteopathy treatment helped, though the prediction that the numbness would go away in "a few days" has not come true. I'm due to go back for another osteo appointment tomorrow. In the meantime, the numbness has been joined by a "nerve itch" in my left earlobe and on the left side of my neck. It's a horrible sensation, an itch that is INSIDE the tissues, so that scratching does not offer any relief.

Slowing down

Last week, I turned down 4 new jobs. A couple of years ago, I would have taken at least some of them and added a few hours on to my already-long days. The trouble is that I've already committed to typesetting about 500 pages in the next three weeks. Along with doing work as needed for my non-financial clients.

How will I get through this?

• I bought a mouse so I can use my right hand for more tasks and rest my left
• Work at my awesome ergonomic desk (Because it was so cold upstairs, I had been working downstairs by the woodstove,with my arm at an unhealthy angle)
• Take frequent breaks
• Put heat on my shoulder several times a day
• Continue going for massage and osteopathy as often as possible/necessary
• Try to get more sleep (not always easy with that nerve itch which woke me up at 2:30 this morning *shudder*)
• Try to stay positive – know that this will heal given time and the end of the "Annual Report Season"
• Start making plans now to avoid this sort of injury next year (with my expenses decreasing thanks to my new tiny home, I should be able to work less)

The Move: Part 4 (Surprise!)

Wholehearted House is home!

When we failed to move the Wholehearted House a couple of weeks ago, I resigned myself to moving her in the spring. I was disappointed, sure, but it wasn't the end of the world. I don't have to move out of my current rented home until May 31, so I felt I had lots of time to get an alternative sorted. 

Moving her in the spring would be more awkward, and less pleasant than having her moved by Adam, but Adam is going away and that was an end to it. I remembered to accept the things I cannot change and let it go. 

And then, today, as I was driving home from town (where I did mundane things like visiting the osteopath and getting a rock chip in my windshield repaired), I received a text message from Adam, informing me that he had been to inspect the driveway at Pennybrook and thought there was adequate traction to move the house and would I like to?

Yes!!!!!!!!!! I replied, with about that many exclamation marks. 

And so, at about 2:45 today, Adam arrived in West Dublin, towing my tiny home from her previous location in Green Bay.

As you might remember from The Move: Part 1, there were several challenges to face on the way up to the tiny home's new home. The first was a sharp curve in the lower stretch of the driveway. Adam approached it slowly and tried three times to find a good angle that would keep the trailer's wheels away from the ditch, but the curve was inflexible. In the end, we inched along and counted on the delicate strength of these stems to hold the wheel on the road – and they did!

The next big challenge was coming up the final stretch of hill. There was a big rock that the trailer rose up on – after it had almost bottomed out, coming within 1/4 inch of the rock!

And, then, there was a low branch to clear. Scratch, scrape, snap! We lost a small branch, but we made it through with the chimney intact and in place. 

A little maneuvering at the top of the hill and we got the trailer facing south(ish) and pointed at the Pennybrook festival stage. (See the giant awning waiting to be unrolled? There is going to be some sweet VIP seating there this summer)

I had my very first hands-on experience with a jack today as Adam and I jacked 'er up and got 'er level. We assembled the stove and stove pipe and she is good to go. 

I want to move in to Wholehearted House RIGHT NOW, but I have too many work commitments that will keep me tied to my Internet connection and on-grid electrical connection for a couple more months. Plus, I have to sort all of my belongings and prepare to part with about 75% of them. 

Stay tuned for info about my giant sale and music show on April 26th at the West Dublin Hall when I will sell off all of my unwanted belongings!

The days are long, but the weeks are short

Does this happen for you, too – that you notice that your experience of time is completely relative?

I find that my days usually feel long and by that, I mean they feel full of moments, sensations, memories (new ones being created, old ones being remembered), thoughts, feelings and generally being fully alive.

But, at the this time of year, the days feel loooooong. I get stacked up with desk work and work 8-, 10-, 12- and even 14-hour days. Sometimes my days are full of so much work for so many different clients that by the end of the day that I can hardly remember what I did at the beginning of the day.

And yet, the weeks are short. It's already the third week of February. Almost my birthday. And the back of winter – this terrible, stormy, miserable winter – is broken. I can feel it, in the increase in rain storms over snow storms and the increased frequency of warmer days over colder days.

And it's a good thing too. My stock of wood is running short and so is my temper.

The ever-shrinking and very snowy woodpile.

A Little Banjoy: Rising Appalachia - Remember What You Told Me

It's been a while since I posted some banjo music for you all. These folks were recommended to me by Adam Kirk, who created my Tiny Home.

Rising Appalachia are amazing – love the blend of banjo with beat boxing and hand drums. SO GOOD! Enjoy!

The Move: Part 3 (In which the Wholehearted House does not move)

#movefail

We couldn't move the tiny home today, either.

Everyone pitched in yesterday to try to clear the driveway and there was a decent freeze last night, but there was too much snow and hard-packed ice – and not enough traction.

Fortunately, we were sensible enough to realize the futility of the task at the outset and didn't even try to move the house. If the truck alone was going to spin out on the hill, there was no way it could make it up hauling the trailer.

With two more feet of snow currently falling, the project of moving the house has been postponed to an undetermined future date.

I was so excited. And now I am understandably disappointed. However, I'm on a pretty even keel, after working through a lot of my worries and vulnerability over the past couple of days.

My sense of proportion is intact. This is just a small set back. Wholehearted House will get moved, eventually, one way or another.

And I wasn't planning to move myself into the house until April or May, so I still have lots of time.

This is the first drawback I've encountered with the tiny house. A conventional house generally comes with a piece of land, but a tiny house often needs to find a location and be moved there. I've been lucky enough to be invited on to the land of some good friends, but getting the house there, especially in winter, is another matter.

On a brighter note

My disappointment was soothed by a visit to Wholehearted House in its current location. It's looking wonderful (why didn't I remember to take pictures?) and I believe it's going to suit me down to the ground once I get it moved and get moved in.

I've contracted Adam Kirk, the fellow who did such an amazing job on the conversion and sold the tiny home to me, to make a few additions. He's built a tiny-perfect closet and several beautiful shelves since my last visit. We also did some more orientation today, including a lesson on how to lower and raise the massive awning that extends out to one side.

It may not be up on its hill yet, but I can already picture it there on a bright, sunny, summer day, awning extended, breeze blowing through all the windows and me lounging out front takin' 'er easy.

Ah, let the winter storm winds howl – I'm staying in that summer day for just a little while longer...