Winter complicates things. With the lack of daylight, at any given time I have no idea what time it is or for that matter what day it is. I realize there are tools which could help me.. watches, calendars, hourglasses… But I am not interested in watching time pass. We came here to live each day as we wish.
I know it is Friday by the activity at the Cut. I could set my watch (if I wore one) to the islanders who come by boat each Friday through the Cut.. I know it is time to wake up in the morning when I hear the eagles call outside our bedroom window. I know it is time to get up in the morning when the two dogs start to pace at our bedroom door. I know it’s Sunday when the boat traffic at the Cut reverses. I know it is time to go to bed when I am tired. I don’t need to know anything else..
This afternoon we gathered the logs we scrounged off the beach last week. The R’s helped us. There are still more to bring to the house. I am thinking it would be nice to get a few more for the garden to use in the vegetable beds.
The lumberjacks were here this week topping trees at our neighbours. Made a nice mess. There is a burn pile in our future up there.. The lumberjacks will be back next week to finish the job. The heavy rains make it a pretty unpleasant job for them.                

We need them to stop by our place when they are finished at our neighbours to take a tree down that is blocking our solar panels. We should notice a big difference in our generator (diesel) use once the panels are at their optimum.

Last year we changed our propane  supply system and it has made a huge difference. We have a propane fridge, a propane stove and an on demand propane hot water system. In 2013 we had our propane purchased through a delivery system at $2.10 per litre… The convenience of having 100 pound tanks delivered to our door on the island was nice, but we just couldn’t justify the cost. We switched to 40 pound tanks. We take them across in our boat and drive them down the big island to the Husky station. We pay 99 cents per litre when we fill the tanks there.  In 2014, we became better at cooking what we could on the top of the wood stove and heating as much water as possible on the stove. Simple things like heating the water on the stove in the morning for coffee rather than automatically turning on the propane stove element… It might seem obvious to you but we had to learn to use the propane stove as a last resort… The numbers are in and we are pleased with our success.. 2013 we used 837 litres of propane at 2.10 per litre ….$1757.70.  With a little effort and a lot more work by E in 2014 we used 569 litres of propane at .99 per litre…. $563.31.

This morning I heard E stoking the fire and putting the kettle on to heat for our morning coffee. It was pitch dark outside. I hadn’t heard the eagles call and the dogs were still snoring beside us. I couldn’t understand why he was up so early. Last night, I was tired and so we went to bed. I had no idea, and he didn’t tell me that apparently it was

only 8:45 pm…

wee deer munching the fallen branches at the W’s