Divide and Conquer

On the afternoon of Saturday September 2nd, I stayed on the property and worked all day.  It is the Labor Day Long Weekend, and it is very busy out at Nordegg.  There is was a steady parade of cars and ATV's going back and forth on the road all day long.  Families were out at most of the cottages, and many of the short term rentals had guests.  Nordegg Days was going on in town, but I preferred to avoid the hoards and just put my nose down and went to work.

I spent most of the afternoon splitting firewood.  I worked my way through the middle of what is left of my big log pile, dividing it in two.  I split something like a dozen wheelbarrow loads of logs and stacked them all up on the pile over by the guest cottage.  I started this pile last fall, but never got around to finishing it.  I didn't finish it this time either, but it has more than doubled in size.  I hope to find a little time later in the season to split the two small piles of logs that remain.

I now have five moderate to large sized piles of split firewood at the property.  This is enough to last for three or four heating seasons.  Much of this wood is quite wet, and it needs to be split and dry for at least a year before it can be burnt.  I still have three piles of cut logs over by the guest cottage that need to be split.  Plus there is lots of deadfall and standing dead trees that have to be cut up as well.  It's lots of work, but essentially free heat in the winter months.

Earlier in the day I did a whole bunch of small projects in the guest cottage.  I cut up the chrome tile edge for the kitchen, and installed it on the walls above the kitchen cabinets.  There were a couple of spots where the plywood sheathing that I installed for tile backing is a little deflected.  So I put some filler on in these areas to level it out.  One of my upcoming projects is to install a tile backsplash.  I will be doing the same in the bathroom, but have to figure out our medicine cabinet first, so I set aside some chrome trim for later.  Then I cut in the remaining two cold air returns.  We need to allow air from the main floor to flow down into the crawlspace, so that it can be re-heated and re-circulated by the furnace.  There is no fresh air intake from outside on a forced air electric furnace.

Later still I applied more filler to some of the screw holes and joints in the subfloor.  And after that I installed a bunch more vinyl tiles in the dinette.  This was my sixteenth day out at Nordegg and I spent most of those working in the cottage.  I accomplished a lot on this trip, and look forward to returning soon, with some additional materials, to carry on.