Home Alone with my Dog at the Log Cabin, ASMR Tapping Trees, Off Grid Refrigeration

Description

This week, I am home alone with my dog at the off grid log cabin and we get a lot done - tapping trees for maple syrup, harvesting lake ice for summer refrigeration, finally installing hinges and handle on the outhouse door, ripping logs for future projects and more. I cook two meals - poached lake trout with wild rice and tabbouleh and beef soup with mixed vegetables.

Cali, our Golden Retriever, is 14 months old and still full of energy. She is a retrieving fanatic and I love to watch her retriever her training dummy, which is one of the reasons I prefer sporting dogs. Their passion to work is incredible and Cali is clearly happier retrieving than doing anything else. In fact, she'll ignore dog treats or bones if there is something to retrieve first, whether that's a thrown boat bumper or a wild bird, such as waterfowl or grouse. Her lineage is more show that field, but most retrievers, whether Labrador, Golden, Chesapeake, etc, will still have that instinct to hunt since it is what they have been bred for over many decades. Cali is a passionate retrieiver.

The video starts with me and Cali walking along the ice on the edge of a large lake in Ontario Canada. Huge chunks of clear, blue ice have accumulated along the pink granite shoreline and then refroze into beautiful sculptures. I collect some of this ice, bringing it back to the log cabin in the woods to store under sawdust for summer cooling. However, an unprecedented warm spell for February melts the ice before I get a chance to store it in sawdust to keep it cold.

The temperatures are up and down, but generally much warmer than we are used to hear in Canada in February. It gets as high as +9 Celsius on one day and the sap in the maple trees starts running. I tap about 15 trees, installing spigots and steel pails to collect the sap as it runs during the day, freezing at night. I will tap another 15 trees once the weather stabilizes and we get many days above freezing in a row. The sound of sap dripping into the buckets at this time of year is music to my ears, ASMR, as it foretells of spring to come. The birds are getting more active too, so the forest, which was virtually silent a few weeks ago, is bubbling with the sound of birds and squirrels becoming more active in anticipation of spring.

To make up for the melted ice, I cut large chunks from the stream behind the cabin and I store it in a shallow pit, covered in sawdust and a tarp. I will need to add a lot more ice and sawdust over the next couple of weeks in order to create enough mass to stop it from melting too much over the summer. Next year, I'll build an ice house to store it more efficiently, so this year is more of an experiment.

Tabbouleh Recipe:

1 cup Curly parsley chopped

1/2 cup chopped mint leaves

1-2 garlic cloves minced

1/2 cup Hemp hearts

1 1/2 cups diced cherry tomatoes

Dressing:

Fresh lemon zest (1/2 a lemon)

2 TBSP fresh lemon juice

2 TBSP Olive oil

1 tsp red wine vinegar

1/2 TBSP pure maple syrup

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine dressing ingredients in a bowl and pour over top of chopped ingredients. Stir to combine everything and serve immediately.

Links to gear used in this video:

Solar LED light bulb 15W

http://amzn.to/2BQvSQ2

Agawa Canyon Boreal 21 Saw

http://amzn.to/2BPV6OF

Copper Fairy lights

http://amzn.to/2BCmF0X

Solar String Lights

http://amzn.to/2DvgU2n

Banneton 12" round

http://amzn.to/2ByxwsF

Lodge Dutch Oven

http://amzn.to/2kHuxDQ

Flamen heat resistant gloves up to 500 degrees

http://amzn.to/2l1mRMm

Rocksheat baking stone

http://amzn.to/2kF6eql

Mora Knife

http://amzn.to/2BOiv35

Lamp OiI

http://amzn.to/2qz0nZ1

Wall Lantern (candle lit)

http://amzn.to/2Dpa0MK

Moka Pot

http://amzn.to/2DEomvO Canada

http://amzn.to/2ndmtw6 USA

Canon 6D

http://amzn.to/2EdaZjs

DJI Mavic Pro

http://amzn.to/2DHuJib

Bragg's Sprinkle

http://amzn.to/2EdouzK

Eagle Claw® Multi-Purpose Jet Sled

https://www.cabelas.ca/product/34435

Axe

http://www.torontoblacksmith.com/

To see what I’m up to during the rest of the week, please follow me on my other online channels;

Website: http://myselfreliance.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MySelfReliance/

Personal Facebook Page (Shawn James) – https://www.facebook.com/shawn.james.msr

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/myselfreliance/

Mailing Address:

P.O. Box 20042

Barrie, Ontario

L4M 6E9

Canada

Tags: Self Reliance,off grid,log cabin,no talking,diy,alone,wilderness,inspirational,motivational,survival,bushcraft,forest,wood,cabin,tiny home,woodworking,maker,woods,My Self Reliance,home alone,alone with my dog,with my dog,asmr,asmr tapping,tapping trees,refrigeration,off grid refrigeration,shawn james,shawn james cabin,my self reliance cabin,tapping,home,my dog,ice box,log,dog,grid,trees,off grid cabin,ice,snow,homestead,with my dog at the cabin

Video Transcription

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Applause]

you

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Laughter]

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

are you sleeping tonight or there [Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

everybody Shawn James here from my self-reliance thanks for watching that video if you're new to my channel then you might not know that this is the typical format of how they're structured so at the end of every video what I like to do is just talk about what's on my mind that week get something off my chest

I've had some interesting things happen over the last couple of weeks some of it not so positive some of it fairly positive so George Takei shared one of my videos that actually a compilation of the time-lapse video or a rendering that they did at the time lapse video shared on on his Facebook page and here I'm weak and here we are a week later and it has 40 something million views on it DIY crafts did the same thing a month and a half ago and that has 40 million and a bunch of other big pages have shared it as well so the views are over 100 million so that's nice that everybody's watching me around the world build this cabin and the comments are kind of varied and coming from different perspectives I guess is the main thing that you know somebody in India or Thailand or Saudi Arabia or someone like that watching me build this cabin doesn't have the same perspective that we would have here in North American especially Canada where we have an abundance of trees so some of the questions are the criticisms I'm dealing with there are tree related for example how many trees I'm cutting down and how bad I am a person for doing that if you're one of the people thinking that way just please watch this video up here of a link here and I'll put a link in the description below as well so one of the things that I thought was interesting this week was the number of comments I've gotten from people of course all around the world saying that that's their dream as well to build a log cabin and/or build any kind of cabin or an off-grid house or something and the question makes me ask myself and ask other people is is it the cabin that you're looking forward to the cabin that you dream of building or is it the lifestyle that you envision that goes along with the cabin in the woods I think for most people including for myself it's it's not so much the physical building of that log cabin it's the romantic thought of the lifestyle around that log cabin such as sitting on the porch and sipping iced tea and and just listening to nature and so on and that is a big part of it as well but there's more to it of course and you know a simple lifestyle is hard work and there's things that you have to sacrifice there's quite a number of sacrifices that you have to make in order to live that simple life but I think what happens to most people on including what happens to me is that that destination is not really what we're after we're not really after a log cabin we're after a process of simplification and distressing and the cabin is that but once you attain that cabin then what once I build this cabin then what I know when I built my first cabin when I was 21 and moved into it I know the thought process at the time was okay not only do I have to find some way to pay for that cabin now there are that lifestyle that's seeing a lifestyle that I was living back then that kind of forced me out of the woods and and into a traditional job or typical job and life but also I think being that age I was restless and that was not going to tie me down or hold me down and hold me back from getting out there and exploring life and in experiencing new things and I feel the same way today I'm building this cabin the cabin is almost done I have the rest of the wilderness homestead to

to build but that's not the endgame I don't know if I'm ever going to be the type just to settle back and say okay I've accomplished this now I'm done and I'm just gonna sit back and relax and enjoy it now it's the process it's that horizon that never gets closer you know when you're on a boat or even walking and you're looking at that horizon especially in a boat where there's infinite horizon with the you know just water if there's no land in sight you never really reach it you just it just keeps moving away from you and that's what fulfilment is for most people including me that you're never fully fulfilled so the thought of just building this log cabin and then I'm going to be fulfilled and therefore I'm content to not do anything else for the rest of my life is just not going to ever be true so what's my point what's the message I'm trying to convey here well basically you need to enjoy the process you need to enjoy every step of the of the way you need the journey to be what inspires you not that destination because I'm sure like me you're gonna get to that destination say okay now what this is not what I envisioned or it's not it's not enough now I want to build build a bigger cabin or build on to this cabin her build under this property and add new things and of course that's what I am doing here but in the meantime I've been having a heck of a time so one of these main questions I get besides or comments besides I want to build a cabin is how long did it take you and to me that question is kind of like the question how long is a string and of course the answer is depends out along the string is now for me you know how long did it take to build the cabin well the cabins not done and every time I'm working on the cabin I'm not really thinking I'm almost done what I'm thinking is I'm almost done this thing that I'm working on and then I move on to that next thing but trying to stay focused on the here and now on the current project is what I've tried to do as much as possible without reaching for that end game without reaching for that final destination where I think the cabins finished and therefore I'm done I want everything I do every single day that I wake up to be that that destination that reach that destination at the end of every day because I did something fulfilling I didn't have to complete some major project complete the cabin or to be feel fulfilled and of course is a lot always a lot to do there's always things to add on to I get the questions asked are you satisfied with this are you satisfied with that or why did you do it that way that's going to fail you know what I'll be changing this thing forever I'm sure for the rest of my life will be making modifications to it improvements fixing things that that went wrong are going to go wrong and that's just life that's the journey it's not the destination I'm not building this cabin for somebody else to hand it over like like a client if I was a contractor this is mine this is my thing that organically I'm going to continue to manipulate and continue to to add on and and change and evolve it's going to evolve with me so if you are one of the people asking how long this cabin took I still don't have the answer for you I've been meaning to pull up my files my folders from my from my video footage and just count the days that I've worked on the cabin but like I said it's a process this is not a construction project for me it's it's not like I get up in the morning and I you know clock in at 8 o'clock and clock out at 5 o'clock and put that many hours in every day I just live life I'm doing other things I'm picking away at the cabin um but I'm you know spending time with my family I'm doing all the things that I love to do in the outdoors and and just living life as well as building the cabin I'm going to enjoy the journey I'm not going to focus on the destination and I'm hopefully going to be fulfilled by that journey and not remain forever unfulfilled because I never reached that destination to those who watch my videos every week I really appreciate it if you haven't subscribed please subscribe comment if you have and I do read most of the comments and you know I try to get back to people when I can I'm going to sign off now next week when you come up here to see me at the cabin and I should have some maple syrup made and probably gonna have the kitchen and done as well so I hope you tune in to the future videos and either way thanks for watching this one look forward to seeing up the cabin again next week take care