Spring is here... sort of.

Spring is here but it has been hard to tell so far. The strength of the sun is making itself felt when it's out, but it hasn't been out much. Despite the weather, I have been outside and busy working on the house among other projects. Spring is a busy time... If you're interested in what I've been up to, I'll get into it "below the fold".

This was the scene at the very end of April. After a week of melting temperatures, a sudden snow storm dumped a solid 18 inches of heavy, wet snow on us in less than 24 hours - it was waist deep in some spots. All this cool weather this spring has triggered a lot of comments in the vein of "Gee, whatever happened to global warming?"... if only it were so simple.

The Truth Comes Out - Corb Lund

While I have continued to push hard at making progress on our house project, as I have alluded, there have been other projects to think about lately as well.

The house:
Insulating the exterior walls and hanging Typar are now complete, framing in and installation of soffit material is almost complete, air-sealing of the exterior walls is complete and framing of the insulated drop-ceiling is in early stages. Soon I will be enjoying some time away from my "day job" and am hoping to get a good start on hanging up some siding.

Soffit in progress. After boxing in the area under the rafter tails with 2x3, I began nailing up my soffit material. For soffit material, we opted to use 1x6 tongue and groove pine. We also opted to leave the t&g pine unpainted - being that it is sheltered from the weather and the sun, we decided to let it go au naturel. To vent the attic, I stapled up aluminum insect screen before installing the t&g boards - more on this detail another time.

Much of my airsealing work is now complete with the basement and mainfloor walls being almost entirely done. As I have come to expect, the 3M 8067 tape I have been using has proven up to the task.

A new blog:
"The frog that jumped out" is a new blog launched by Ugo Bardi, Professor of physical chemistry at the University of Florence that is dedicated to the subject of communicating climate change risk. Global climate change is an issue of great importance to me and I am privileged to have had some involvement, however small, in the development of this blog. I also hope to be able to contribute some material to this blog at some point in the not-so-distant future so if you are curious to see what I have to say on the subject, check it out. You can find a link to "The frog that jumped out" on the "Links and resources" page of this blog.

There is an anecdote that if you put a frog in a pot of water and bring the water up to boiling slowly enough, the frog will end up being boiled alive because it can't perceive the constant gradual change. While this may in fact not be true, it provides a useful metaphor for how we humans seem to be "sleepwalking" into potential disaster.

Chickens:
Jess and I have decided to increase the length of our "to do lists" this year by raising chickens (laying hens). We now have seven pullets (three of the Red Cross variety, and four of the Columbian Rock Cross) in our "brooding box" that are gaining weight fast - I'm going to have to hurry to get their coop built before they outgrow their current house.

One day old chicks. Just little fuzz-balls on the first day, but with the tiny beginnings of some wing feathers on the morning of the second day.

One week old pullets. It's amazing how quickly they grow, not just physically, but also in terms of behavioural complexity.

After rushing to build them a larger brooding box, I have about five weeks or so to build them a coop. Some people have asked me if maybe I should have waited for a better time to get chickens. My answer is that like having kids, there is never really a perfect time - better to get on the learning curve sooner rather than later.