2025-09 – Steps to the Stream

All the leaves are turning brown and starting to fall, and the temperature is dropping. This month was a lot of activity in trying to get the property prepared for winter before the ground freezes and the persistent darkness comes.

Beaver Dam

Through the start of August a beaver began building a dam across the stream at the bottom of the property. It was not a risk to our house as there is a big height drop down to the stream, but the backed up water might make a little part of the farmers field wet.

We felt quite lucky to get to witness the dam grow. We didn’t see the beaver this month but the beaver added material each night. I went out each morning to see any changes.

I did try to install a wildlife camera to watch the progress and get a photo of the beaver, but placement was a problem. The camera would be visible to the public footpath and is quite steal-able.

Sadly we had heavy rainfall before the beaver could make the dam large enough to cope with significant water, and the stream overpowered the dam. Currently there are just the remains of the dam and the beaver hasn’t been back yet.

Mouse Influx 

We live next to a field and woods so as the temperature gets colder the mice try to come into the house. They are getting in somewhere underneath the wooden deck by the main entrance to the house. To fix that means taking the deck apart to get to the area, which is tricky and might take a day or two. We’ve had other time commitments so it might have to be next year.

We captured 5 mice this month in live capture traps. The cheapest supermarket peanut butter seems to work the best. Once caught, I drive them down the main road to a lay-by away from any houses and release them into the vegetation.

We’re expecting more but for now we’ve got quite efficient at catching them and getting them removed.

Wet Weather

As it’s going to be rain for the next couple of months I paid attention to fixing some gutter problems and improving how the water is handled. I’m not in a city so there’s no main council sewer or water handling.

I put a 6m rain-runoff extension pipe on one downspout to take the runoff further away from the property. This is the yellow pipe visible in the photo below. Letting water seep away right next to the foundation can cause long-term problems.

I also paid a property maintenance company to fix the leaking gutter west side of the property. Heavy snow sliding off the roof extension had bent and damaged the gutter over time. As a result the gutter had leaked for years from the damaged point, causing a lot of water to fall next to the foundation.

As prevention I paid the same maintenance company to install a roof snow-shield on the extension. This will hold back the snow and would otherwise drop off the extension roof onto the second gutter below. It’s not like the cartoons; the snow might slide off as 100kg+ lumps which make a big impact.

I also paid for a snow-shield on the roof near the main entrance. Heavy snow movement is dangerous to visitors using the entrance. Here the roof is at 45 degrees which means a snow slide can have a lot of speed. We don’t want to flatten the postman.

Steps to the Stream

All my main efforts on the weekends this month were putting in steps from our property down to the stream cross, which leads into the local village. During winter this steep slope is difficult to walk down. In spring the sun melts the snow during the day and then it freezes to a steep ice-sheet at sunset. Hence the aim was to put in some well drained steps that might make winter walking a lot easier. I did some internet image searches and found some step designs that both myself and my wife likes. After choosing one we got the wood delivered from the local hardware shop.

It took about a weekend to lay each set of 2 steps. That might sound slow but there was a surprising amount of work needed for each step. It was a lot of digging of clay soil plus a lot of moving of gravel and aligning of posts and similar. It was also a nightmare in the clay when it rained and sometimes we had to re-dig areas because the wet clay would move like Plasticine when walked on.

We’ll likely add hand rails but this will likely need to be next year as the temperature is dropping fast and the ground wont be workable soon.

Northern Lights

We had some northern lights but they are tricky to photograph. As the temperature drops, this time of year is when it starts to get great for star gazing.

Preparing for Indoor Winter Projects 

I got the plumber to move the heating system. This has to be done before winter or wait until next summer. During winter conditions the house would lose about 1-1.5C per hour and the move is about a days work. It has taken a long time to get this to happen but it’s now complete. This means that over the winter time I can remove and re-lay the concrete floor in the old boiler room and start turning it into a usable hygienic room.

At the moment the entire area looks apocalyptic, with wires and pipes everywhere, but it’s 80% done. I’ll clean everything up, get some wires re-routed, and make it look good over the next 6 months. I’m not going to touch this project further until I can no longer work outside however – I don’t want to get distracted from time sensitive tasks.

Not So Great

We’re not on municipal sewerage but instead have a concrete cistern. Each year the council contractor comes and pumps out the contents into a large lorry. We pay a small amount to the council.

They came this month but must had had some sort of problem as they packed up the suction hose to leave.

I walked out into the driveway to find a big trail of raw sewage from the path the suction pipe had used. It had formed a pungent surprise in a large dragged-out puddle. I did take some photos but I think I wont share them.

Connecting to municipality sewerage would involve a pump due to the road nearby. Although this would be a solution, it would also be a potential failure point. Also, nobody willingly wants to service a sewage pump.

A better solution might be a multi-tank plastic processing plant, which is self contained and low maintenance. But installation would be almost a years disposable income.

We’ll put up with the odd mistake. We covered the spill in gravel.

The Village

This month I’ve been dealing with the hardware shop, local garage, property maintenance company, and plumber. Evening eating out is more limited as a lot of the local restaurants closed this month as the tourist season comes to an end.

I was invited to help paint the local stugga (hut) in the forest where I tried to replace the tattered flag last winter. The paint will happen next month so I’m going to go along to help.

Next Month 

My challenges for next month are likely to be 

• Finishing the steps to the stream; filling in any holes and similar – making the garden safe for winter
• Getting my wifes car adapted with an engine-block-heater so that it can be plugged in in -30C weather if it needs to be parked outside.
• Selling the first car we purchased. The car is a manual transmission and my wife has an automatic transmission license. So swapping the car for an automatic would mean she can use either car. In addition, some bodywork rust is starting to appear which is a good time to make the car another persons problem.
• ordering some firewood and getting the chimney inspected
• trying to clear out the garage and make it tidy before winter so it is usable over winter
• putting up motion lighting around the garage for winter
• adding more external power points to the garage so we can have fun decorative lighting to brighten up winter