A BC lexicon of three words

An interesting facet of living in a new place is acquiring the local wording... Here are some we learned in moving to BC...

Pro-D day - not a tough one, but on Ontario we called it a PD day and if you use that here, people are confused.

Stuffies - again, not hard to understand, this is what we call stuffed animals like Teddy Bears.

Gym Strip - what students wear for gym class, e.g., "go throw on you gym strip and do 10 laps". This one makes no sense to me.



A sunrise is still called a sunrise though.

Location:Horsefly, BC, Canada

Chipotle

I just came across this video/ad made by Chipotle, a restaurant chain in the US (and apparently there are a few in Ontario) and I just had to share it.

Here's to going 'back to the start'!  Happy New Year!

The Cabin - Part 5: The Roof

In the weeks since I last posted, I spent one weekend fastening the rafters, and the next weekend Damon, plus my neighbors Reiner and Florian, came over to help add the strapping, then the roofing tin.


Where the rafters are exposed, where they extend past the end of the building, we had the strapping laid out contiguously so you can't see the tar paper under the tin. It's gives those spaces a by warm look.


Today I nailed some 1x2's to the inside of the rafters to hold onto our blockers, which we need to fasten next. I'm glad we got the roof on before the snow really started.

Location:Horsefly, BC

The Cabin - Part 4: Posts and Beams

We woke to a foggy but beautiful morning.



Today Damon came back and we were joined by my friend Florian. We set the final logs up, placed the porch posts and put up the roof beams.

While Damon finished up the logs, Florian and I braced the posts after setting them onto threaded rods. These allow me to adjust their height later, as they are perpendicular to the logs, and though logs will shrink across the grain over time (and drop my walls as much as a few inches) the post won't shorten.


Getting that last beam up onto the posts was a little tricky, but we were successful the first try (after measuring many many times on the ground first). You can see a bit of the cut-out detail on the ends of the beams.


The posts are fastened to the beams with pegs that run through the mortise and tenon.


Next - the rafters...

Location:Wiseacres, Horsefly, BC

The cabin - Day 3: The Trench

It's been a few weeks since we could do more on the cabin project, but we made come great headway today.

My friend Matt came over with his farm-size Kubota and used the backhoe to dig an 18"-wide by 30"-inch deep trench from the house to the cabin. It was amazing to watch the skill needed for what might seem to be a simple job... And it brought out way more dirt than I'd expected.


According to Jim, our local electrician, Telus recommends a foot between their communications lines and any power lines. The 18 inches leaves us some room to play.

I plan to run phone, Ethernet and a satellite cable through a conduit.

Location:Wiseacres, Horsefly, BC