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House Building Flashback

I had to do some house repairs today so was reminiscing about my house building experiences. Here’s some early photos of the building of our $500 house. You can see our story in my first post HERE.

I was actually replacing the three support posts today. The first time in 35 years so not bad. We definitely lived in the woods and didn’t want to cut down any more trees than necessary which, looking back, made it kind of dark.

Looking to the front of the loft

Looking to the back of the loft and center pole

Center pole

Center and ridge poles with strapping

Cat and Mouse

I cleaned my computer today which meant sucking up almost half a cat’s worth of fur out of the keyboard. My cat’s favourite place to sleep is on the hand that I use to move my mouse about which gets very tiresome as she isn’t a lightweight cat.

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Forgotten

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Sunset in the Forest

Oranges in Winter

These are our wonderful Calamondin oranges. We have a small potted tree that we lug outside, to be ignored, in the Summer and bring indoors, to be pampered, in the Winter. It seems to like how we treat it as it is now loaded with small oranges. The fruit never gets very sweet but it is very tasty and we use it as a zest or in cooking for flavouring.

Kiwi Closing Time

Time to roll up the leaves and hibernate for Winter

“Wondering Where the Lions Are”

A cold day here today so I decided to play inside. This is a table that has been in my family for many years. As a young boy at my grandparents, I used to make forts underneath it, always intrigued by the lion carvings. It is now in our house and every so often I am again caught up by the carving. I think of the long forgotten and anonymous craftsman who must have laboured many hours on his creation and remind myself to take time to appreciate his handiwork so his work was not in vain.

One of the lion feet

Lion corner piece

Drawer pull to the ‘secret drawer’

Flower in the small if the lion’s back

I believe the table is called a library table and family lore says that it once belonged to the first Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A MacDonald but unfortunately there are no papers to confirm it.