 Oh winter. The coldest time of the year. It's widely despised by many due to activities such as scraping ice off your windshield, heating bills and dangerous driving conditions. But building snowmen sure is fun. We have another arm. I was eating it. Over the last three years we have started from the ground up with this cabin, turning it from abandoned into the home it is today. Last winter was a challenge. We were without electricity, a kitchen, a bathroom, aka your modern day amenities. Negative 15 hose showers anyone? Not us this year. We're getting prepared for the better season ahead starting now by doing all of this. You know that any day that starts with our tractor Clementine is a good day. And me is 11 quart of wood. Enough for probably three winters worth of heat at our off-grid cabin. And this has been a long time coming. It's honestly a little bit ridiculous that this is year three here and we still don't have a wood shed. Honestly I'm really glad it's taken us this long to get around to doing it because we are originally going to build our wood shed here to the left of our hickory barn but we are no longer doing that. This space does not get a ton of sun and I think when it comes to drying wood and keeping it dry we're going to have better luck near the solar ray. There's two methods that we can do hopefully. Number one being picking up the pallets with the forks. Method two our own two hands and the bucket. The silver lining of it all we now have a tractor, Clementine and she's going to make this ten times better as we're used to using a wheelbarrow and being a utv. Fingers crossed this works because if it doesn't we've got a lot of work on our hands. Roger fingers everyone. The fact that all of those logs are on that skid and they're making their way to their new home. Well their temporary home and then their new home is fantastic. The rest of these little logs that fall off we can only just pick up hip by hand or with the bucket. So I think we're going to make some moves today. Damn I can't believe we haven't had a tractor all these years. What were we thinking? I can't do a job without saying that out loud. My oh my, my Clementine. As we prepare ourselves for the long Canadian winter and with all the substantial progress made on our cabin this will surely be the best winter season yet. That's not right. Yeah mangled. How did you feel it? It just felt different and then I was like I've been looking obviously you're looking this way and I was like ah it looks weird. It's right off the rim right? Yeah. It was looking a little flat today I have to say. This isn't good though. We had to get all this wood moved by well tomorrow. So we're heating our body for the tenth time with this wood. Yeah because I was like moving some of the wood and the way that it was like I could see that oh yeah it's too much pressure on the she powerful. Yeah so I think we're done. We throw on the truck or something. All I can say is oh my darling oh my darling. Clementine. For Clementine. For us. This morning I told all of you there would only be two methods we'd be doing. It looks like I was very wrong as we're on the third method of moving wood. Joking we don't have to remove the whole pile by hand because we have a solution. The next morning came early but Adam came with a special delivery. We've got some really good people in our life this morning. Adam brought us a tire from Halifax. Shout out to Adam. Clementine gets some new shoes today and good old Peter shows up with an impact driver. She's only getting one shoe. Thanks Peter. This morning we have Adam here doing a few electrical touch ups. Adam also brought someone Corey who is helping us install the heat pump in the shed where our electrical system is. This is going to be a game changer this winter because that means we don't just have to run on firewood meaning we can leave the cabin for extended periods of time and not to worry about it but also save some money on propane because we've got a propane heater and wood because we can use our offered electrical system on the super sunny days and throughout the winter to heat the building. Talk about game changer. Kind of working too hard so let's go. Do you know what they did for a wheel? They made a wheel so you could roll it. Talk about working hard or less hard to help us just roll it. Luckily for us one of our neighbors offered to help us with the tire. Okay no point in working harder than you have to right people. Boom. Voila. And in with the new. Is it ever nice to have a mechanic as a neighbor? Can you tell them what we just learned? Give them the load out. Not everyone wants to be on camera you know everyone but we just learned how to take a rim off a tire using crowbars soap prying it up the beat of the tire getting it over making sure you're getting it over the right side of the wheel. A lot more work than we thought eh? Is it ever? But now we know how to do it. Show them my hands. I'm a proud mechanic over here. Check me out. Look at my hands. Check me out. Check me out. Love it. Let's go. There is absolutely no better feeling than learning a new skill. Changing the tractor tire today. If I were to be a critic I would tell you to not stand under the machine and sit in front of it and put it on. I'm not that strong girl. I know. You sit down and you pick up the tire. I haven't been doing the Peloton workouts like you. We are in competition with good old Max in Australia. Getting strong before we see him next. No that's wrong. I need help put on the tires. I believe in you. Just try it with me because I need to move this a little bit. I can do it if you want. This girl thinks you can do it. Let's see if you can by yourself. Oh my god stop. Good job. I'm proud of you. The only thing I'm good for is using this wheel. You're going to feel a lot more than that. Don't worry Clem. We got you a brand new shoe for our girl. I want common time to have all new shoes. Before we consider this a job well done we must do a quick test to make sure it's safe to drive. Yep looks pretty good to me. We're back in business. With a new tire now repaired Jasmine heads over with the tractor to our neighbors so they can use it for an upcoming project and when she returns we are excited to see the heat pump almost installed. One step closer to being prepared. It's on. Amazing. Wow thank you so much. See how cold we get it in here. Shut the door in. It looks amazing. The heat pump is completely installed now and the workshop is ready for the winter. It feels so good to finally have three sources of heat. Living in the Canadian winters and being off grid it's so important to diversify the way you heat your house in case of anything. Alrighty well Crystal is off picking up our order. Got it all for another big project we're starting tomorrow. AG1 is as simple as taking two minutes to get all of your daily nutrients, vitamins and minerals that your body thrives on in one simple survey. Over the past few years AG1 has become a huge part of our life and that's because they've made feeling healthy easy. So easy that it's one scoop and 12 ounces of water and you get 75 vitamins minerals and nutrients from whole food sourced ingredients. All of their ingredients are on their website for you to take a look at so you can see all of the goodness that is in this bottle. Hi Larry. Some of the things that you can experience that we've experienced while drinking AG1 is better gut health, better sleep, increased productivity, increased immunity and better recovery days. Thanks Larry. AG1 is incredible. It is easy and if you had to the link in our description or go to drinkag1.com forward slash van wives our viewers will receive five free travel packs for while you're on the move and a year supply of a vitamin D dropper with your first purchase. Bye see you next time. Oh, think of a rainwater catchment system just in time for a Canadian winter. Kidding y'all. We took to the trusty westy google last night and realized there is a much better way and some smart humans out here in the planet and I can't wait to show you what we're gonna do with this and all that wood behind that shed to clean up in no time. Moving IBC totes is just so easy. I she said she could do it all on her own. That's why I'm not helping everyone but muscle woman herself the pride in a Leo. You know the pride in a Leo. This is the most genius idea. I cannot wait to show all of you and I can't wait to see it in action. Our game plan for the winter just got a whole lot easier. A game plan for life. Interruption a bumblebee trying to get into our little zucchinis. Proud and owner. You should see the bumblebees on the fall asters. There's like 30. Okay back to our regular programming. You can tell how excited Jasmine is about this project because she's moving a mile a minute and she seems very very proud of what she's up to. It's gonna be cool. It's gonna be cool. Okay what's up your sleeve now? Don't worry. Don't you worry. We're gonna watch you and I both. But I thought that was pretty cool. I love the tractor. This crafty lady clearly has something up her sleeve and he guesses on what you think it is. This is gonna be sick. I love it. I'm looking sick. Have you figured it out yet? Okay for my research there are numerous ways you can do your firewood. I'm going with the way that you touch it the least amount because we all know firewood. It heats you 10 million times. The first way I learned to store your firewood is you can just do the normal technique of throwing it in your woodshed, picking it up and bringing it to your house. The second way is you can put it on a palette or a skid. You can either wrap that palette or skid with plastic or you can wrap it with netting. Third method is with a palette but you give it walls. However all of these ways I find won't last as long and can be quite wasteful. So I've landed on the IBC tote method. Since we already have a bunch now all we have to do is put the firewood in the IBC tote, put the forks under the IBC tote and bring that IBC tote to our cabin. Do you hear how easy that is going to be everyone? It's going to be a lot of work to get these IBC totes up and running and some time as we have three right now but it will be worth it. Also what I forgot to mention is you might be thinking well getting rid of that plastic IBC is a waste. While my friends you can use that plastic or IBC for almost anything and we are going to put all of them to good use. To storing literally anything you need to store and that way all that stuff that you're storing you can also pick up with the palettes of a tractor. We need to store extra topsoil, we could bring it there and you can bring it to your spot. We need to store scrap wood, you can store in there. The options are endless. Cool right? I think the solution is a swish and she said she played college ball. Kobe! Another reason why this is the best way is you don't have to worry about criss-crossing your lumber which just takes extra time because you need all the right pieces of the puzzle in order for your walls not to fall. Winner winner, tofu dinner. I think it's pretty genius though. Do you think I'm crazy? It doesn't really matter. Guess what? I didn't even come up with this method. I already just saw a google image. Also if you don't even want to build a woodshed people just do this and they cut off the top of the plastic IBC part and they just put a little hat on it and they call it a day. Okay I actually want to see if my tractor can lift this. Before we get too far we need to make sure Clementine can lift this wood. With ease! I love the tractor. You've got to see this girl so it's so fun. Are you happy? So happy. So happy. I'm all about efficiency here. It's probably annoying because of how much I try to think of like at least a amount of work I can do in life. This is genius. I know. Ily to the inventor. It is getting so cold when the sun goes down and even colder when we're trying to get in bed and out of bed. Winter is literally almost here and don't worry everyone. We're not just taking care of the heart of the land aka our battery system. You'll know that inside joke if you've been around. Today we are getting our second heat pump installed in our house to keep us warm. Like we said heat pumps will not only be heat but also AC and also work as a dehumidifier. Yes cannot wait. I know we have two other ways to heat the cabin. Propane and wood but those get awful expensive when you are constantly using either of them where we have the solar system. We have the off-grid system. It's honestly a no-brainer for us to go as much electric as we possibly can. Of course there's going to be some cloudy days where we need to offset it but that's why we have three different ways to heat our cabin in cold canada. That didn't come off the tongue as I was hoping. What I've been learning about heat pumps and why it's super beneficial to get an HVAC person to install it is that they actually come with a 10-year warranty. This is amazing. Also they won't just give you parts to replace it. They will literally give you a whole new unit. So by having the professionals come out and do this we are ensuring we are good for 10 years. Snuggling? Yeah she's my heat pump. Yeah I know I have the door open because I just love the summer weather right now but she actually was last night. She cuddled us both. She cuddled us both. I know her. So you've probably noticed we're doing two different brands of heat pumps. Sunville in the workshop and a Michibichi, I can never say it, in the cabin. And that's because I want to test them. It is said by all the HVAC people that Michibichi is definitely a higher end model and it will last you longer. It's more efficient where the Sunville is more cost friendly but they say it doesn't last as long. So I'm going to put them both to the test and see exactly all the data because we have an off-grid system we can literally see what each appliance is drawing. So I think it's going to be super fascinating and I will report you back in probably two to five years. You still gonna watch me then? I hope so. Thank you! Alrighty, we have a heat pump in all of our buildings. Winter is going to be so different this year. Best winter ever! It's actually unbelievable how much relief I was feeling. I was just like standing at the side of the house and I was like looking at like the siding done and this beautiful heat pump and I was like wow it looks like a home. It looks almost like it's just these things are going to change everything this season. Yeah, literally. Heat pump, you literally press a button for heat everyone. Like that's wild in my opinion. That's what I mean. A button! A button everyone! And then you... A button! A button! Like we wake up with a button. Yeah and not go aside, get lost. I still gonna do that but this is what we need to use first. It is our first method of heat then wood then propane. For obvious reasons this is first. We'll have an off-grid solar system. We have a kitchen this winter. We have a bathroom this winter. Damn girls. Thank all of you for helping us get to this point. The last couple of days have felt so good to get all the little things that we have been neglecting for the last three weeks because we've been siding our cabin and getting all those things done and preparing for the next big projects as we have some big ones coming up that we need to get done before winter. Behind me is four to six inch gravel. It is going to be the start of a pad for a structure that we are going to be building in the next few weeks. Luckily this is already level basically so I'm just adding gravel to this and I've never spread gravel with the tractor yet. The first step is to measure 12 by 26 that way I know exactly where to spread my gravel and I probably should make it a little bit bigger than that so we have some wiggle room while building. Who am I kidding? This is a great excuse to play with spray paint. That is not a straight line at all. It's just an estimate. Over the next few weeks we will be preparing for the colder seasons ahead and we will be ready for whatever mother nature throws at us. First layer of the pad complete. Now I just need to class A. Larry Porter. Literally us every night. Hey guys what are you going on tomorrow?