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

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 –   / myselfreliance   Personal Facebook Page (Shawn James) –   / shawn.james.msr   Instagram –   / myselfreliance   Mailing Address: P.O. Box 20042 Barrie, Ontario L4M 6E9 Canada