My Favourite Part of the Lot

There is something to be said about a driveway that isn't paved over in asphalt. This is still my favourite view of our lot.

Pet Deer

As mentioned earlier, our neighbour Steve feeds the deer every morning. He has been doing this for years and now has fawns eating out of his hand. Here are a couple of visitors making their way through the lot.

The Shingling Continues!

As I type this it is August 5, 2009. The cabin weathered a very windy and wet winter and was still standing when we returned for a visit in the spring. A couple of issues with the van have put us slightly behind schedule but as you can see the exterior is now almost completely finished.

Let the Shingling Begin!

Roof over our Heads!

Here is Angelo in our sleeping loft and downstairs on the main floor.

Construction Begins!

It only took a few weekends of camping on our lot before we got the bug to stay longer on Gabriola. It may sound hard to believe but it sounds different when you are on a smaller island, and it feels different, too. At dusk we watch red-headed woodpeckers fly about the lot and the deer have worn their own trails through our property (the neighbour feeds them).

After a few trips in the van we decided to move ahead with plans to build a 10' x 10' storage shed with a sleeping loft upstairs (no government interference I mean permits involved). We fondly refer to it as 'the shabin' as it is a cross between a cabin and a shed. We hired two local builders from Gabriola to get it to lock-up stage, and from there Angelo volunteered to put up the shingles on the outside and finish the interior. The actual structure went up within a few weeks in the Fall of 2008. 

Home on Wheels

Well, after receiving the quote for a class II septic field and realizing that we were unlikely to actually activate and use the septic field for several years, we made an executive decision to purchase a VW westfalia camper van instead. I like to say that we are driving our septic field - they cost about the same! Now we have the best of both worlds: we can use our lot without having to build right away and we have a place to sleep.