Spring is here now
and life is popping up everywhere I look. It truly is a wonderful
time of year and I look forward to talking about it shortly, but it's
time to wrap up winter first. In the winter it seems that not only
does the pace of the natural world slow down, so did the pace of our
personal lives. I don't mean that in a bad way, it is a time of rest
to some extent. Maybe I'm just used to a lot of fast change in
recent months and maybe even the past few years, but there wasn't any
of that during the period of this post. We got a new car, got snowed
out of work a number of times, I did a lot of improvements around the
property, and most importantly the green card process with my wife
concluded. All important things, but nothing that altered our day to
day realities. Anyways, life has been good so here goes:
People always
complain about winter in the northwest (well, everywhere I
suppose...), talking about how long and gray it is, but I work
outside most every day and I see the sun frequently. This is some
late December sun on the mossy cliff our house is built on, days like
this are not so uncommon.
I'm a big fan of
nature watching as anyone reading this blog probably knows, and
although I actually know an embarrassingly little about them,
watching the birds outside my windows gives me great pleasure. I put
up bird feeders when we first moved in, but for whatever reason it
took months for birds to start using them. That said, these days I
often see probably 10 different types of birds a day at my feeders,
often a dozen or more at a time, and need to refill the seed daily.
I guess this is my “old man” activity.
New Years! I had
some sparklers to light at midnight on the deck with Marijke, and we
cooked up some traditional Dutch new years treats on the stove. It
wasn't exactly a big party here on Shaw for us, but it was fun to
mark the date at least.
So this is how I get
to work every day. Living on one island and working on another
presents some obvious challenges, and I can always take the ferry
between islands but the schedule is limited and inconvenient. Then
again, my boat isn't exactly easy… what I do is carry the small row
boat from where I keep it next to the road down to the water, paddle
it to the dock float in Blind bay where I keep my motor boat, pull it
up onto the dock and then hop in the motor boat to take the mile long
journey, no matter the weather, in my 12 foot aluminum boat to Orcas.
We leave a car on Orcas that I can then drive to work once I'm on
that side.
We weren't a water
family growing up, our time was spent in the mountains. Although we
did some nice river and lake trips, saltwater wasn't really on our
radar. Out here of course it is a daily feature of life and even
when the weather is terrible I love being out on my little boat;
feeling every wave, seeing different wildlife and living in the
moment, alone on the water.
….And sometimes I
see other interesting things from my boat! (A few days later the
boat was righted and towed way for repairs)
Even with the
mountain of wood I split to get us through the winter, by early
January it was clear we still needed a lot more. Our house is old
and poorly insulated, it has huge single pane windows, the wood stove
is old and inefficient (and a fireplace insert at that) and the wood
we did have, much of it was a bit on the soft side from sitting so
long before we moved in to get it under cover. That said, on 80
acres we had plenty of trees to choose from, so I spent half a day
taking down, bucking and splitting some small standing dead firs,
tossing them in the van and stacking them in the woodshed. I'll have
a truck eventually, but I'm always happy and impressed with the
usefulness of my full-size cargo van!
Another of the great
old trucks on the property, on the list to be hauled away.
With winter usually
comes storms, and with storms usually comes interesting tree work.
While there was less than I expected this winter, we did get a few
jobs such as this maple that split out (you can see where it broke
from behind the cab of the machine) and landed on a tool shed. The
excavator is a pretty new tool for the business and it's been a huge
help for this kind of thing.
The other thing that
comes with storms of course is power outages. Being prepared for
extended events due to storms, natural disasters or human caused
disasters is something I always keep in mind and I've got systems
ready to handle at a moments notice. One evening during a predicted
wind storm the power did go out and I sprang into action, setting up
the generator to keep some lights, the fridge and a few other things
on, as well as the portable propane stove, and jugs of clean water
(since I don't have a 220 volt generator to run the well pump yet).
Once all our emergency systems were in place…. The power came back
on. Oh well, at least I was ready.
One day we had a job
taking down a decent sized fir that was too close to the customers
house, and while we carried most of the wood away, honestly we
weren't so keep on carrying the biggest part up the stairs. What we
did instead was ask if they were interested in turning the remaining
curved log into a bench, and after doing it they were so happy with
the bench they decided to redesign that part of the yard to make it a
key part of the garden!
Looking down towards
Eastsound and Canada in the distance.
New car time! Up
until now Marijke had been driving my piece of junk $1,500 Ford
Explorer, something that was literally an 'extra car I had laying
around', and it was time for an upgrade. So we headed into Seattle
and did the predictable thing, bought a used Subaru Outback. I'm a
huge fan of the practicality of all-wheel-drive wagons, I had a
Subaru Impreza in the past, and at one point my dad, brother and both
sisters were driving AWD wagons at the same time as well! (three
Outbacks and a Volvo XC). The car is in very good condition, it's a
Limited so it has leather, heated seats and dual sun roofs, and
Marijks is very happy with it.
Breakfast with my
uncle Steve, who we stayed with while in Seattle.
That day also
happened to be Marijke's 30th birthday, so while doing our
'mainland grocery shopping trip' I bought a little cake and surprised
her with birthday candles while we sat in my van on the ferry back to
the island.
Fence work in
January isn't always pretty! This was more livestock fence building
at the monastery and the ground was a soupy mess but we got the job
done.
Playing at work.
My commute home from
work is pretty awesome when the sun is shining, but even when it's
not I still enjoy it. Until I started commuting with this boat, I'd
spent very little time on salt water. Sure I've done some sea
kayaking trips, spent a little time on sail boats and so on, but now
I'm on the water a few days a week and I love it. It's peaceful,
there is a lot to see and experience along the way and it's a whole
new world that I get to enjoy.
More fun storm work!
This was a pretty cool job, the tree was poorly rooted and blew over
in some moderately high winds one day. After removing all the
branches, most of which were on the roof, we put a pulley in a nearby
tree and another rope-redirect on a truck, then managed to use a
second truck all the way on the other side of the house to lift the
log up and away from the house. It was pretty tricky rigging but
worked out perfectly.
I've been getting my
shop in order and hanging rusty tools on the wall for decoration.
Having this space to keep tools and work on projects is awesome, I
never want to live without my own shop again! (but I'll probably
have to when we eventually move...)
It's only late
January and still pretty cold. As a result, I'm burning a lot of
wood and keep needing more.
Visiting some horses
as we walked around the loop road.
A calm day on the
water. This is Blind Island and the Orcas ferry landing in the
distance.
It was at this time
Austen and I started working with a new guy at work, also named….
Austen. He is a cousin of my friend out here, grew up around trees
and logging, worked a number of seasons cutting trees for the forest
service and has been with us ever since. It's nice to have another
young capable guy on the crew and he's a lot of fun to work with.
Aww, my wife found
me a skull!
I love to create
things and while I wouldn't go as far as to call myself an artist, I
certainly do enjoy creating art. In the middle of our driveway
turn-around there has been this bare space that was bugging me for a
long time, so I came up with something interesting to put there
instead. I cleaned and leveled the space, collected rounded stones
from the quarry and laid them out in a spiral, from smallest to
largest, in the center of this cluster of trees. After that, I
collected moss from all around the forest, and filled in the space
between the stones.
Here is the finished
product, I'm very happy with how it turned out.
And another thing
just because I felt it looked neat… This is a piece of firewood
that had a huge amount of dried sap on it. If you look at that
concave spot above the dark black end, you can actually see what is a
1” thick chunk of sap. Once put in the woodstove, the piece
ignited in quite a spectacular way.
Another beautiful
day, boating home from work. It's been so long since I had to take
the ferry boat to work I almost forget what it is like. I did enjoy
the community/social aspect of taking the ferry because it's such a
part of island life, but the schedule is just plain inconvenient.
So people sure
complained that we had an especially hard winter this year and
normally I'd say people just like to complain, but this year they
weren't wrong. Up to this point we had a few cold periods and
dustings of snow, which in itself is rare, but in early February we
had our first period of snow that lasted a couple of days. Because
of the snow work was called off (driving big trucks on snowy roads is
a bad idea if you don't need to, etc) and I spent a few days being
lazy on the couch and stoking the fire. Rare behavior for me… The
birds sure were coming to my feeder though, as it was the only easy
to find food while the ground was covered.
Of course snow makes
for some beautiful scenery and it was combined with some wonderful
blue skies.
Once things melted a
bit, it was back to work. There was still some snow on the ground
while we were out cutting, and as I was climbing a tree doing a
removal it began snowing again. I'd never climbed in the snow (to be
fair it was light snow) before, so that was a first!
With more snow
coming down it was time to get home before things got worse. As you
can imagine, boating home wasn't the most appealing prospect ever,
but oh well, gotta get home!
I'd say there was a
good chance I was the only person out in an open cockpit boat that
day…
Not used to seeing
this, our house covered in snow.
Now this is how to
spend a snow day, sweatpants and cats!
And the warm fire.
The snow stayed on
the ground for a few days, but as soon as it was gone, it was easy to
find signs of spring if you looked. It was still only early February
but we had the first few daffodils popping out of the ground.
Nice weather made
for some great walks at the preserve.
It was at this time
we finally began letting our cats outside for the first time, and
while Sem is older and fairly reserved, Baxter here is young, curious
loves to explore and climb trees.
Mt Baker, a ferry,
ducks and the Shaw landing as I boat home for the day. Yah, I love
my commute.
Believe it or not I
don't only do things outside (though it is my preference). I also
spent the winter trying to perfect my home office, including building
nice wood stands for my computer (a laptop that sits upright behind
the monitor) and my screen.
Baxter and
bald-bellied Sem, sitting on top of the piano.
The float where I
keep my boat does go dry or nearly on especially low tides and this
was one of them. Also, proof not every day is sunny and bright out
here!
In my quest to
reclaim some of our views, the process isn't just about seeing sky
but also about featuring the landscape and other trees. We have a
ton of firs around here that are crowding the mature big leaf maples,
so I decided to open the view out our living room window to this moss
covered maple, and give it some more space. Looking out the window
at this tree now is one of my favorite views we have.
The purple leaf plum
in front of the house is starting to bud. Spring is close!
Marijke and I
decided to have a fun day on Orcas so we took the boat. The water
was a little choppier than usual but it was still a lovely day.
Hiking on Turtleback
and admiring the valley below.
Shortly after, I was
at work on Orcas when it began to snow, again. We could tell it
wasn't going to let up any time soon and that we had better stop the
job and get home before it was too late. I had most of the island to
drive across, and the road was absolute chaos. Not that the snow was
really that bad, but people just don't know how to handle it and
weren't prepared for it. There were cars just parked on the side of
the road everywhere and cars in the ditches all over the place too.
A friend I know was passing the other way and warned me that farther
along, the entire road was blocked by an accident, but I may be able
to get around it on a back way. Somehow the back road was clear (I
think most people were too scared to take it) and I made it to the
ferry landing, stopping to rescue a little old lady who was stuck on
the way. I later heard that something like 35 cars slid off the road
just between town and the ferry that day…
A few weeks ago
Marijke and I received a letter from the immigration offices that we
had a date scheduled for our final immigration interview, the last
step that would decide if Marijke would receive her green card and be
able to stay in the country with me. Although we knew we had a solid
case, submitted all the appropriate paperwork and had a lawyer
helping us with the process, we were still nervous. The day before
the interview we met our lawyer downtown at her office to prepare and
hope for the best.
While in the city we
spent the night with my parents, and that evening had a video chat
with my older sister Holly. With Marijke and both of my parents
there, Holly announced that she was going to be having twins!
The morning of our
interview our lawyer met us at the somewhat intimidating Homeland
Security office in south Seattle and we waited for our number to be
called. The immigration officer turned out to be a friendly young
woman who took us to a small impersonal office and began asking us a
few questions, to start with mostly to check our personal information
was correct. When she asked us to confirm our mailing address, she
literally said “Now is this the address we send the green card to?”
Suddenly we were feeling confident. When it came time to question
me, she literally just asked if my name and birth date on the forms
was correct. She asked a few questions about how we met and about
Shaw, which she seemed sounded like a very cute place, and 10 minutes
later the interview was over! We were told our case would go through
one last review and to expect something in a few days.
We had to return
home, so after a celebratory breakfast that the process was over we
drove north. Before we had even reached the ferry terminal to return
to the islands, our lawyer called us to say the immigration website
had been updated and our case was approved! It's like the
immigration officer just checked the 'yes' box on the computer as
soon as we walked out off the room, haha.
And with that,
Marijke was finally a resident of the United States. My wife and I
finally had certainty we could stay together. The process we began
about 8 months ago was over, and the whole thing was, by all
standards, quick and painless. We had some German beer to celebrate,
talked about how smooth everything went and felt a tremendous sense
of relief it was finally over.
Whew, well that
finally brings me up to the start of spring, I'm kind of not behind
finally! Spring is all about the 'new,' and with that in mind the
next post will be discussing the start of a new chapter in life, so
check back for that in a little while.
