Working at the Old Stone House

---

It's 13.00 on 2nd April. I haven't posted for a few days as we are settling into a routine here, so there's been not so much to report of late.
The last 4 days have all followed the same kind of pattern. We get up, eat breakfast, work until lunch, rest, work until dinner and then usually spend the evening all together watching TV or reading or whatever.
In terms of work, we've spent the best part of the week going with Ted in his truck down the wood plot they have a little further away, and helping him clear it. Generally, Ted brings down and chops up the trees with the chainsaw while I (equipped with snow-shoes; the snow is still several feet deep) drag them back to the path where the others load them into the sled and pile them by the truck.
After about an hour of this we'll head back to the truck where Ted will cut the lengths of wood into smaller pieces that can go straight on the fire, and we'll load them in. Once back all we needed to do was stack them up and they were ready to be brought in to be put on the fire.
Our afternoon slot for work is usually reserved for smaller tasks we had to do. Yesterday for example, we went down to the pine trees and cut off and sawed up their smaller, dead branches to use as kindling.
It's remarkable how much work you can get through with 4 people all working together. We are now perfectly capable of taking down a reasonable size tree, cutting it up, moving it out of the forest, and splitting it all before lunch. It's also really nice to be working outside, and doing work that really feels useful. The air is so clean here and the nights so quiet. The work is physically taxing, but not to the point of being unpleasant. It's telling, I think, that by 11pm we all fall into beds and sleep soundly until 9 everyday.
So, that's a little bit more information on the kinds of things we're getting up to. Not only this, but we also find the time to go for walks, going snowshoeing and sliding, going for runs and just generally exploring the area. It's really fantastic to experience Quebec still covered in snow, in fact it's snowing as I write this, and colder than I've really ever experienced.
On the weekend we're heading back to Quebec City for some more sightseeing, while on Easter Sunday Judie is cooking a big meal for the whole family. We're pretty much at the half way point now, and we'll all be sad to leave I'm sure.

---

Comments

[Dr John HW]

Old Stone House Stars
Sounds and (from the photos) looks beautiful. Have you been out to look at the stars at night, because you will be in deep night sky country - brilliant. At 22.00hrs, the Plough will be almost overhead with its pointers at the end of the bowl pointing to the Pole Star (Polaris) further north. Follow them in the other direction and high in the southern sky is the great spring constellation of Leo which looks a bit like a stretched parallelogram. Setting in the west is Venus - unmistakeable because of its size and brilliance. Jupiter is high in the south, not far from Leo. The beautiful yellowish spring star Arcturus is rising quite high now in the east and close to the southern horizon is a strange little constellation called Corvus which is like a small box tapering slightly towards the top. All well worth a cold sub-zero 10 minutes to admire.