2024 is a wrap (and I am thankful it is!)

You have all heard it before!

“Sorry for such a long delay in updates.”  What can I say?  I actually started writing this post back in in Feb of this year, but then life got in the way again (including a broken nose, broken/crushed toe, and a concussion, with only two of those occurring at the same time).

Very little has changed for me, from a health standpoint, in the past 36 months and has in fact gotten a bit worse.  I continue to run on empty, but have been able to push through it for short durations (more in 2023 than 2024).

I was somewhat productive during the spring and summer of 2023.  As anything complicated was beyond me at the time, I decided to tackle the start of the front yard landscaping.

This involved digging, a LOT of digging.   We have naturally VERY rocky dirt.  The top 8-12 ft of dirt, on the property, is what is called glacial cobble. This is a mixture of sand all the way up to boulders, and is produced by the forward edge movement of a glacier.  Many people misidentify the round rocks produced by the movement of a glacier as “river rocks” (glacial rocks are not polished like river stone), they have still been formed by water, but in this case – its frozen form.  This material is what is pushed at the front edge of a glacier and then is deposited as the glacier retreats.  It is an extremely dense product that is very difficult to dig through with equipment.  Even the big 20ft reach excavator, I used during excavation, struggled at times breaking thought this material.  Below the cobble, is what is called glacial till, which is the fine powdered rock that is created below a glacier (sort of looks like clay, but feels and acts a lot different).  Our till started between 8-12 ft below grade. For an example of glacial till see grey milkshake https://youtu.be/G8uTUr-IumQ

The front yard has a mix of cobble & till in the excavated and backfilled areas, and just cobble in the rest.  Since construction, the front yard has regularly flooded in heavy rains, as this dirt is not very permeable.  Part of the area I was working on, was also the driveway for the old house, so was further compacted and impermeable.

I started the ‘Big Dig’ in February of 2023 and did not finish planting till mid October of that year. The project evolved, and in the end, I had prepared an area of around 2800 ft2 (south side of driveway – front yard).

The whole area was dug down to a depth of at least 3ft, all of the soil was mechanically screened (I built a large 4ftx8ft mechanical screener – much to the delight – NOT! – of the neighbours Operational Video), and then augmented with roughly 50 yards of horse manure (I get for free from a nearby horse stable), and around 10 yards of clean fir sawdust (I get for free from a door manufacturer).  I mixed this all in with the mini-excavator (Alfie) and let sit in piles for a week or so, and then would remix.  For the longest time my neighbours would just see piles change locations and thought I was nuts (which wasn’t too far off)!

I also took the opportunity, to add a second 1750-gallon cistern to the front yard (to join the 1000-gallon unit I already had).  This is filled with the water pumped up from the house’s perimeter drains.  Once tanks are full, they overflow to a driveway basin, where gravity drains it into the municipal storm sewer.  During the summer, I get enough groundwater collected around the drains, to fill both tanks in around 24-30 hours. The water is used for my landscaping, as well as my two neighbours landscaping.  We also make use of this water to feed the toilets in the house.  Unlike roof runoff (that we don’t get in summer anyway rendering this type of system useless), it does not need to be filtered, and does not grow algae.

I needed a BIG hole for this cistern, and the base needed to be 5-6 ft deep, in order to line up properly with the 1000 g unit already installed a few years earlier. This 6ft depth put me square in the middle of some very dense coble known as hardpan.  It took about 2 weeks to dig the hole and get the tank placed inside. After all of this was completed, and before backfilling, I determined the tank had been torn via a forklift, when being handled at the vendors.

So, we lost a few days, while I took it back out of the hole, waited for vendor to repair, and then re-lowered back into the hole. (Turned out I could have left it in the hole, I thought it was going to need to return to vendors facility and also be repaired on outside surface. They sent repair technician to site and repaired it from the inside surface – heat weld). At this point I had dirt stacked pretty much in all the available areas of the front yard, up to 5ft or so in height.   It was a mess, and all of the new dirt, I dug out for the cistern, had to also be screened and then amended.

And of course, this hole was also right in the middle of some drainage and irrigation piping, which I ruptured on multiple occasions, before I got everything in and the piping repaired. I was also digging right up against the pipe duct I had installed, that my gas line was located in, adding to the stress of each day.

 

It was mid to late September, before I was actually ready to plant something. Fortunately, I had a lot of plant material ready to go.  In November of 2022, I was introduced to a fellow living off-grid, squatting on some provincial land.  He was having a run of bad luck, and there was a plea made, on one of my Facebook groups, asking for assistance.  I ended up developing a relationship with this fellow, where I provided continuing support in various ways.  One of the hats he wore, was as a landscaper, and over the years he had collected plant material that the clients were getting rid of, or was left over from a job, and not returnable.

He had organized this as a sort of mini nursery.  In May of 2023, I made a deal with him to purchase about 60% of the nursery, to use as stock for my new gardens.  This consisted of roses, hydrangeas, mock orange, azaleas, rhodo’s, joe pye weed, to name a just a few.  In August & September, I used the mini-excavator that he had, to dig out the plants and bring home.

I started by just heeling the plants in with the root balls all tight together, before spending some time laying out the new garden and placing them in their forever homes.  By October, everything was planted, and the neighbours were breathing a sigh of relief, as the noise and dust had subsided.

This generally concluded my year, and I was totally burnt out again, although I did spend some time in November and December on a honey-do-list, before hosting some family for Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, 2024 has ended up being even less productive.  I found that I had less energy than the previous two years since I had gotten ill (and a lot of brain ‘fog’).  I went through a battery of testing, but nothing to date has been found.  And in the spring of 2024, a new problem showed up, I was getting dizzy ALL the time.

I have suffered from this occasionally, all my adult life, and triggers have been being over tired, hungry, and too hot.  But this was different, it was every time I got up from sitting, kneeling, or lying down, any significant change of elevation. In May, it is assumed that I got dizzy, fell and hit my head and was out for 2+ hours, which is when I received a concussion and broken nose. My family doctor has been amazing, and we discovered that several of my meds were making this issue worse.  She worked with me finding alternatives, and the symptoms are now greatly reduced.

My new motto for 2024 has been “Accept, Adapt, Advance”, and I have been working towards this all year.   I continue to struggle with any ‘brain’ work, but do find I have some stamina for manual labour.  This summer I took on the task of completely refurbishing my dbl-axle trailer.  My wife wanted it out of the yard, and it was far too ugly for my neighbour to agree to store it in a place he had off the driveway. The plywood was all rotted, and much of the metal was heavily rusted.  I spent just over 2 months stripping it down, sand-blasting all of the parts, and then painting it and re-assembling.  I think the end result was pretty good!

 

Also managed to clean up the garage and arrange the installation of our garage door (which we have has on site since May 2021!). I finally met my promise to my wife, that she was not going to have to scrape windows this winter, and she is now parking our new electric car in the garage.

I had mentioned that the fellow I bought the nursery plants from, also had a mini-excavator.  In the summer of 2023, for various reasons, it became clear he was going to be leaving that piece of land, and going to a shelter (where he has now transitioned to rental housing at the shelter building).  As he was looking to liquidate, I purchased the rest of the plants from his nursery, and then I also purchased his mini-excavator.  Yes I know, I already had Alfie, but the big boy was not able to fit on a trailer I could tow with my truck, and definitely not on the one I refurbished above.  The new machine (named Pippa by previous owner) fits perfectly on my existing trailer, so opens up a lot of options for me.

I had been borrowing the machine in the early summer, and then continued after purchase, to use it to dig out plants that had been posted on a FB garden group I belong to.  I ended up digging out 4 rhodos, and 1 yew tree with it before I started to rebuild the trailer.  After the trailer rebuild, I salvaged ALL the plant material in the backyard of a house to be demolished in Vancouver. This included 2 mature plum trees, curly leaf red maple, concord grape, large hydrangea (I was able to split into five), two mature kiwi vines, blueberry and haskap bushes, clematis, apple tree, fig tree, standard rose, and a beautiful climbing rose.  All have been temporarily planted to see what makes it through the winter, and then will be permanently placed once I start developing the back yard landscaping.

I eventually hope to start up a ‘retirement’ business renting myself and the tractor out by the hour. It is a very convenient size as can fit through most gates.

I am afraid, that is it for 2024.  I can often sleep 12 hours a day, and am not productive when not sleeping.  I have started to assign myself small tasks, to work on one at a time (this post is one of them).  I do plan to get more of the “Advance” happening in the new year, and will commence construction again, starting with the installation of the hydronic heating panels in the remainder of the top floor.  I will do as much as I can, and “accept” those days I am just not up to it.

Anyway, thanks for staying with me for this long-drawn-out-drama-filled soap opera. I always appreciate the comments, and encouragement, I receive back from people that have visited this site. I still do intend to post regarding activities that were completed in the last major build year (2021), when I started to fall behind on my journal.  And I still have thousands of photos to upload to the photo gallery of this site, and even more I can use to create my time-lapse videos. One day!

But for now, I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday season, and all the very best for the 2025 year!!!

“Climb Higher, Leave Behind what Ails you.” – Author unknown

“What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven’t even happened yet.” — Anne Frank (1929-1945) diarist