When I first moved
to Shaw island, I expected to stay the summer helping my friends grow
veggies and hit the road once winter came, heading out into the
unknown and living on the road as I had done for most of the two and
a half years before. What happened instead was that I fell in love
with the island and the lifestyle. The next major change of course
came a bit later, that I met and fell in love with Marijke and we
were married shortly after. I've been living on this tiny island for
nearly 4 years now and I'm certainly not the same person as when I
came here. It's not that my personality or values have changed,
maybe just my direction and goals, and that the fire I had inside me
during my 20's has become more tempered, like going from wild
gasoline flames to steady glowing coal. Maybe that's just in our DNA
when we hit our 30's, I don't know. I still dream of heading out on
adventures at times, and I expect there are still a few ahead of me,
but it's just different now. I've got a wife, two cats and a house
full of stuff. And I don't feel like it ties me down, it is what
makes where I am “Home”. My most important goals now are to have
a strong relationship with my wife, buy a piece of land to shape and
beautify, create and build things: both useful and simply for the
sake of art, and to continue to take time to recognize and appreciate
all that life has to offer, both large and small.
Is that just a
pretentious way to say I'm getting boring? I don't think so, but who
knows. All I can know for sure is that life is pretty excellent
these days. In this post I finally bring summer to a close, settling
into our new (rental) house and then spending a few days at the cabin
to change the scenery and hike in the mountains.
I can't imagine a
job where I work indoors, I just can't. Maybe if I become crippled
or something… This was “just another day at work,” but the
location was pretty excellent, a 200 acre estate overlooking the
water and the Olympic mountains in the distance.
Blind Bay is part of
my morning ritual, driving along its edge on my way to work it sort
of tells me what the day ahead will hold in terms of weather, because
it's the first place in the morning I'm no longer in the forest and
can really see the wider world around me.
Most of the time my
boss and I find ourselves working at houses in the woods, so this was
a somewhat different day, working right on the edge of Eastsound. We
were there to deadwood some big firs, where the first branch wasn't
for about 60 feet and the views were pretty cool.
One of the many
things that was left behind in the house when we moved in was a
waffle maker, and it is something we have gotten a great amount of
use out of. I'm not sure how the idea began, but other than a few
times when we have been gone, we have had waffles together every
weekend, our little tradition that we hope continues until we are
old.
Old fields near the
preserve. In the distance you can see one of the countless old
orchards that seem to be everywhere on the islands.
Yet another great
thing about the new property we moved onto is that I have my own shop
space! This is an 'in progress' photo as I was cleaning and
organizing the place, but it's great to have a nice dry space to
store tools, work on saws, build things and be loud and messy. Still
on the wall was a calendar from 1973!
Another day at work,
another tree. This one we were speed-lining branches to the chipper.
What that means is that you have a rope that you move up the trunk
as you go, and using a sling to attach each branch to the line, you
cut it free and the whole branch to slides down the rope directly to
the chipper. It's a great technique when you have the space for it.
At the same time, Dave was using his crane to haul away some logs
from an earlier tree.
By now it was the
end of September and although the sun was still shining, it would be
time to start using the wood stove soon to heat the place. There was
a big pile of firewood rounds already sitting in the driveway when we
moved in, and an old carport right next to the house would work
perfectly as a woodshed, so Marijke and I got to work splitting and
stacking. The carport was so shaky you could move it with one
finger, but I added some cross-bracing and fixed that right up. Much
of the wood was old and punky, but there seemed to be plenty of it.
Fog rolling off the
fields and into Blind Bay as the sun comes up. Always puts a smile
on my face.
The clean-up of the
property has been continuing (a project I am not a part of) and a lot
of progress is being made. I think old cars and stuff like that are
awesome, and I'd love to see someone take every single piece home and
lovingly restore it, but the fact is that will never happen. The
only way to deal with a mess on this kind of scale is what is
happening right here: crush and cut the cars up, haul them to the
scrap yard and melt them down to something useful again…
It's not often we
have social activities on other islands, but a friend of Marijke's
invited us to a concert and to spend the night at her place on Lopez.
As we were in the ferry line on Shaw the guy who runs it overheard
we were going to Lopez and asked if I could fit three kayaks on my
roof rack. I'd never done it before, but I said I probably could and
asked why. As it turns out, a group of 5 tourists had been camping,
got cold and tired, and with the weather the way it was, were in no
shape to paddle the rest of the way to Lopez where they rented the
boats from. Luckily I'd be heading right past the rental shop, had
all the straps I needed to tie down the boats and the space for 5
extra people and their gear, so we put the three boats on the roof,
the people and their gear in the back, and headed off. It's always
nice to help people out, and always fun to know you are prepared for
unexpected situations!
Once on Lopez, we
met Kristina and got a tour of the beautiful property/farm she lives
on. I've been lucky enough to visit some pretty amazing places in
the islands, and even so, this one stood out as being particularly
nice. It had wonderful gardens for flowers as well as food, spaces
for community events, a Waldorf school yurt, cool old barns, had
goats and sold goat cheese, and much more.
The event we were on
Lopez to attend that evening was a funk band playing the community
center, so in the evening we headed to town. We were by a fairly
wide margin some of the youngest people in the crowd, it was mostly
people in their 40s and 50s, but on Shaw they would be in their 70s
and 80s, so I guess that makes the audience relatively young! The
band looked a little silly if I'm honest, but the music was fun and
the crowd was dancing, so it was enjoyable and certainly not the kind
of thing we get where we live!
Marijke and our
friend and host for the weekend, Kristina. We went for a walk near
town, then headed to the ferry home.
Ok, maybe this is a
little cheesy… These are berries from the madrone tree, and I just
thought they had a cool color to them. Apparently they are edible,
but I've never tried them.
Our matching cars in
the car port. The structure really isn't big enough for two cars,
but I wanted to try. With one vehicle, it leaves a great deal of
covered storage space and is yet another excellent feature of the
property. Now I know cars are perfectly fine just living outside and
uncovered, but honestly having a car port is really nice… and it
gives me plenty of ideas for the kind of car port I hope to design
and built some day when we have our own land.
So the house was
built in back in 1968, and back then it must have had a hell of a
view. Being just below the highest part of the island, sitting on
the edge of a cliff essentially, and facing directly west towards the
setting sun and San Juan Island I'm sure it was a sight to see. In
the intervening decades the firs that were all logged off have
regrown and completely closed in the house and the view. What's the
point of living on 80 acres when can't see any of it? So anyways,
this was the view from the deck when we moved in, and reclaiming some
of the view was going to be a huge project but one I was looking
forward to.
Luckily there was an
obvious place to start removing trees, and by cutting down just two
of them, I was able to open a view between the house and the meadow
below. Suddenly, we were no longer just in a dark hole in the
forest, things were opening up again.
As always, my eyes
are always open for interesting creatures… Never seen one of these
before on Shaw, not sure what it is actually.
Living in a tiny
cabin was great and all…. But it sure is nice to be able to host
friends when they come up to visit.
I'm not sure if this
qualifies as 'great things left behind by the previous owner' or
'junk left behind by the previous owner,' but there was a large pile
of cedar shingles next to what was now the woodshed, and cedar
shingles make perfect
kindling. Easy to split, uniform size, catches fire
easily, and so on. Here is
Marijke's pile after a short session with a hatchet.
Long
ago I joked to Marijke we would have to buy a Dutch flag and fly it
at our house, so as a surprise I ordered one online and put it on the
wall in our porch area. She got a good laugh out of it and it's
still there today.
Using
my boat to commute between Shaw and Orcas for work is awesome, and
provides me with stunning scenery like this frequently. Can't say I
miss sitting in traffic one bit. (That's Mt Baker in the distance by
the way).
I've
been keeping my boat on a buoy in Blind Bay, meaning I have to use a
rowboat to get to it from shore. It's a little bit of extra work,
but worth it until I get a better place to keep my boat. This
fiberglass rowboat Marijke is rowing was freebie.
Another
fine example of the beautiful trucks all over the property.
As
the summer ends and fall begins, my work on the view project
continues right along. I'm only taking firs, all the maples, cedars
and underbrush is staying. I clean up each tree as I go, burning the
brush and moving all the wood off to the side. It's a huge amount of
work and I'm doing it all by hand, but not only do I enjoy it, I've
really improved my tree falling skills in the process!
Our
house on the hill.
So
a very fun thing about this project is the immediate satisfaction it
provides. Each tree makes a large difference and going from the wall
of trees as you stand on the deck to this view here feels great.
There is a lot more to go, but being able to have that sense of open
space on this side of the house, a real feeling of the cliff we are
perched on, being able to see the colors and textures of the
different trees and grass around and the incredible sunsets makes all
the work totally worth it. We are also starting to see the other
island in the distance as well now, which is pretty cool.
The
firewood splitting is going well also, and it sure is satisfying to
watch the shed fill up like this.
By
this time it's mid-October and we have lived in the house for just
over two months. The spring and summer have been wonderful but also
grueling with everything that happened: Marijke coming back to
America, getting married, cleaning out an entire house, moving and
truly beginning our life together. Burned out isn't the right
phrase, but we were both in need of a change of scenery and
a little escape. So we planned a long weekend at the cabin,
intending to hike in the mountains as much as possible, and set off.
The
calm waters and sunset made for a spectacular boat ride to the
mainland.
We
arrived in Seattle fairly late, stayed with a good friend of mine and
set off the next morning, but not before hitting up Vera's
in Ballard for some old fashioned diner-style breakfast. Marijke
thought it looked just like the old American movies (it is a bit of a
time capsule) and there were even a pair of cops getting breakfast
and a server who didn't care much pouring us weak coffee, haha.
Before
heading to the cabin we swung my my parents house to say hi. My dad
is currently working on a little shop space in the back yard.
Obviously he also likes to build things and be creative, I guess it's
clear when it comes form in me…
Heading
east, over the floating bridge and into the Cascade mountains.
Not
long after leaving Seattle, we had arrived at the cabin. The last
time we were here was a few months back when Marijke had just come
back to America and before we were married. This has always been a
special place to me, as I spent so much time here growing up, and I
imagine it will continue to play a part in our lives for a long time.
As always, I am very grateful to have a place like this to get away
to.
Being
October, the fall colors were in full swing, and while the weather
was a light drizzle much of the time, there were some fantastic bits
of sunshine in between.
A
bridge made from a crooked log as we made our way farther up the
valley. It had been a very rainy few days, so water was flowing
everywhere. In many places the trail was simply a stream, so it took
a lot of effort and attention to try and keep dry.
This
was our turn-around point for the days short walk. I forget how many
years ago it happened, but a while back there was a large avalanche
down this slope and huge numbers of trees were simply wiped away.
It's pretty cool, when you look at the other side of the valley it
also has a ton of trees pushed over in the same direction, lasting
evidence that the avalanche went down the valley with so much force
it went two or three hundred feet up the other side!
The
next day after breakfast we drove out of our little valley and to the
Snow Lake trail head. This is a well known and often extremely busy
trail, but for good reason. It is very close to Seattle and it is
probably just about the most stunning hike you can get to within an
hours drive of the city. Lucky for us it was mid week and raining,
so there werent too many people around.
The
lakes outflow is the coolest I've ever seen: a log jam and a narrow
slot between the stone, dropping out of view into the neighboring
valley.
At
about lunch time it began to rain harder, so we stopped to eat on the
other side, admiring how the cliffs lead straight to the lake and the
snow and ice hung above, waiting to be replenished by the soon to
arrive winter snows.
After
a beautiful but rather wet hike, it was nice to have a warm cabin to
return to and we enjoyed dinner, beer and a movie on my computer.
The
last and final outing on our little day-hike get away was to go
towards the Kendal Katwalk and the Pacific Crest Trail. Because that
section is at the very top of a ridge, that meant our hike was
literally just walking up hill for 6 miles, haha. Most of that time
was in the trees, but as the sun came out and burned off the clouds,
it sure was beautiful.
Crossing
a boulder field on the trail.
The
weather was cool but clear and the rains from the previous days were
still working their way downhill.
Eventually
we finally reached the point where the trail comes out of the trees,
into the rocky peaks and were greeted with an awesome view of Mt
Rainier in the distance.
I
love being in this kind of environment and Marijke was certainly
impressed as well. Coming from a flat country, this kind of thing
sure is different from where she grew up! In the end we turned
around before reaching the Katwalk because it was very cold and we
were running out of time, but it was still an awesome hike. I can't
wait to return in the spring/summer to the area and take Marijke on
some overnight hikes!
We
spent the next morning taking it easy, doing a few projects around
the cabin and returning to Seattle where we hung out with my good
friends Dan (who also hosted us again, thanks!) and Brendan.
The
next day we had breakfast at the same diner in Ballard as before, ran
our 'mainland errands' and caught the ferry boat home to the island,
where it was time to relight the fire and warm the house up again
after our time away.
