Hello, I'm Catherine King and you're joining us here in freedom Cove on the
mid west coast of Vancouver Island. Hello everyone, I'm Wayne Adams.
I'm the handyman.
It started 27 years ago the idea that the two of us wanted to be somewhere
other than the wilderness and do our art and be immersed in nature because that's
where we get this. Freedom Cove gives us all the protection we need and
we were able to start with the house you see was half the size and just a log in
front and that's what we began with 27 years ago. We recycled the fish farm.
That's the technology and agriculture grew as we grew here so it was never
available before in my youth. I've been a model maker, you're in my model. It's
a half-scale mo-up. I'm living in my own water it's what's called a kit bash if
you put models in the middle of the living room floor and mix them up and
make your own that's what this is. I did my boyhood in Australia which taught the
trades very early in age. I'm old school so I had early training. At grade three I
started working sheet metal work so making things and building things it's
always been part of my life but I've never floated a million pounds on the
ocean before but I've had a background in science doing something that hasn't
been done before, the unknown. So when you go into the unknown it's always
challenging and you're always learning something new, it's my teacher.
Welcome to Freedom Cove. I'm going to give you a little tour to explain what
we're doing out here. So to start, right here where you're
standing is my dance floor. I am a dancer so for me the first thing required when
we moved out here was a place to move. You'll notice the colors magenta and
green. We have those colors throughout the whole place because they represent
to us rebirth. Fireweed is the first plant that
comes up after forest fires and it is this beautiful magenta color. So, come on
in. We're going to enter into what we call the Bower through actual whale ribs
so this is how large this whale was so you're entering through the belly of the
whale and if you look up on the top of the pole you'll see a bird called the
Bower Bird. The bower bird lives in Australia and Wayne grew up part of his
childhood there and really got to know that bird. It's quite a character it
creates a beautiful Bower puts attractive baubles to attract his mate.
So all the shells and bones all the plants represent those things in the
Bower and as we walk into the Bower we are walking on old recycled fish farm
systems that we've transformed into what you see here. In fact our whole place is
made from recycled material. And my garden. We're in early spring so
everything's just starting to wake up. I'm just starting to bring life back but
I managed to grow enough vegetables all year round to feed us in the wintertime.
Come on in and see our house.
Main item that we like to show everybody it's the Ocean Channel. We'll even
have the otter and seal stick their head up there from time to time. This is our wood
stove. It keeps us warm all year round and my bathtub is under my layout table
behind the curtain which right now has lights for my new seedlings that are
growing. Back here we have the kitchen area. Let's see I have a kitchen table
and even a little cabinet to store all my special dishes from my grandmother
and we have a beautiful view and you can see that we're both artists and we both
carve. We do other things as well. Carving is one of the main things we do. So this
is Wayne's carving side and this is my carving side over there and we're gonna
walk back out. I can take you upstairs onto the balcony area you can come in
here and this is our upstairs area a nice large space where I can dance in
the wintertime, do yoga, and meditation Tai Chi all year round, do my painting, do
my writing so it's a lovely bright space. So we'll head back out. We're going to
walk down through the whole garden now. This is the utility area. These are my
composters and this is what we call our lighthouse building. We have an actual
light up top there and storage space in the middle space and this is the first
greenhouse. As we walk around you're going to see all my greenhouses where
again I start from seed and bring them out as they're
ready. Because we are right on the water it's a little bit cooler here so
learning by doing. I have found that giving the plants just that bit of extra
protection in the greenhouses to get them started makes them grow that much
better then they all get brought outside and transplanted so everything is just
in beginnings of process and I go through each greenhouse and clean it out
after the winter.
This year is a very big year in the 27th year to complete my little island and
one of the two new things is for 2019 it's my power house. This is everything
here. It's a multi-purpose building to be out and have be
comfortable. You've got power, we're gonna have water. I'm on a solar
generator you can hear it now. It's also my man-cave my little toy making shop and
it's a new addition for 2019. It's been a lot of years of building it new out of
salvaged and my floating sandy beach. This is my 2019 but it completes my
project so we'll step in here and show you. I built it in the model of a
miniature cuckoo clock so when you come in here you're walking inside my little
cuckoo.
Everything's in process. I want to make it functional you know for when the kids
come. I've got a room on the side from my generator.
I'll close it so it's not so noisy. So there's my intermittent power source
when my Solar is not available like right now it's cloudy and I have an old
old system 25 years old so it has its limitations so when the weather's right
I got solar when it's not I got generator and don't drain my batteries
too low. It's learning how to use it. There isn't anything you do that you
don't need to maintain somehow lots to learn in here. I can heat
it so all my appliances stay warm and dry because we're in temperate
rainforest. I have a washing machine the laundry room down there for washing and
this is my toy making shop, has all the little things I'm gonna be
making so come on this way. This is our gallery building so you get to see here
the different types of materials we work in. I'll start with the feather work. It
all began about eight years ago these are all eagle feathers except for
the crest that is actually Heron. Our regular Heron who lives in the cove
called Harry and he drops feathers every year so his feathers are in a lot of the
head pieces on the masks. These pieces here are burles that form off of cedar
trees. They're big bulbous shapes and this is like a slab that's been cut and
this is one that Wayne is working in here and I'm working on this one here
and another piece that I've done here in ancient mineralized walrus tooth and
woolly mammoth. We also make molds of our carvings and turn them into beeswax
candles which we give to everyone as a gift. So the new addition last year was
this beach area. Wayne actually gathered sand from beaches and brought it over
here. I think there's about a ton on here right now then we transplanted all these
trees here. We even have palm trees that we're actually donated to us and here we
have our floated beach. Okay, come on this way.
So this is our fire pit area where we burn any paper items and in the
summertime we have family and friends who come and stay so we put chairs
around and we have bonfires roast marshmallows at night and you can see
various antler ornaments on here. Wayne is not a hunter but he has friends who
are so that's where those came from. This happens to us a lot people give
us things that they think that we can make use of and we always do make use of
them in some way and this is our big skiff. This is how we beach comb firewood
so we're able to cut the wood up into rounds on the beach where we find it and
then put it into the boat here, bring it back home. We have a large woodshed over
at our son's place that we process all the wood cut it up then it goes into our
small woodshed here and this areas for our smaller boat. This is actually our
son's boat, but we have a a smaller Boston Whaler that usually sits in there.
Learn by doing. There's two types of schools and I've been to both, one the
institution as they go but also when you step out
choose your teachers, travel, experience, get out of that little nest and do
things. Get away from the high tech computer and use your hands head and
heart. What you see here, what you're taking pictures of is what you can't
learn in school anymore, life skills. I learned them out of school
and that's where they are. Search and look for people of something that's for
you before you choose and take your time because it's a knowledge-based lifestyle.
It's not a freebie, take your time, don't be in a rush
lose anything but your sense of humor and you'll be fine.
It's a big deal. You got to enjoy yourself. We enjoy each other. We like
each other. I refuse to lose my sense of humor in this mess. It's important. I
realize that the difficulties that present themselves are there to teach
you there to be worked through. It's how you respond when difficult things happen
that makes a difference and means whether you will succeed or not at what
you want to do. I think it's okay to stop living a fear
filled life. Don't be scared to have a life, get out there. Fear is there to be gotten
over and worked through. If you can do that then you can accomplish anything
you want in your life.