Q&A Living in Winter in the Italian Alps

Happy new year everyone. Hope you had a good holiday. I'm recording this before I go on holiday. I thought it was time for a Q&A. If you're new here I did another Q&A a while ago. So video number 17 is also a video like this where I'm mostly just answering questions. And then there's video number 5 where I'm talking about the buying process and looking for something or looking for this place in 2021. Wow it's sunny here. I might walk around a little bit. All right questions. I'm gonna move in the cabin when the cabin is finished. There's a lot to do still. But a lot of people think like why is he not moving in the cabin because the roof is finished. And the roof is finished. A few things to do on the gutters. But I mean the walls are still open you know. So that's the first thing I would want to do if I could search for stones. But because there's so much snow now it's impossible to do. And also working with mortar is something you want to do when it's a little bit warmer. So and you know foundation work, building, plumbing, digging going on, building flooring, electricity, finishing inside. And if I'm going to move in the cabin I cannot work on it because I'll be in the way. So when that will be I mean hopefully before next winter. And I'll probably make that. But it's a slow process because you know everything is a lot of things is just handmade. And made by myself. Like the gutters for example are a good example. You know I thought I was going to take two weeks or three weeks to make them. But it takes it's taken much longer because it's just a lot of work. It's all bespoke and handmade. And therefore it's also special and it means something to me. So I think for the interior it's going to be a similar approach. You know where I don't buy just the standard things. Hopefully autumn next year I'll be finished with the cabin. Well let's see how it goes. It's a good question. I have a lot of experience with outdoor travel and with my bicycle journey. So clothing is important. The secret is good thermo clothing. So I have two layers here. This is merino wool and I have this top to bottom. I have two sets and I wear it 24-7. Also for sleeping it's very important that first layer that keeps you warm. But when you're working here it's not that much of a challenge to stay warm. Even if it's freezing. If you're doing physical work and walking up and down the hill you stay warm quite easily. And it's the same with hiking and bicycle travel. You know because you use your body so you stay warm. It's more important when it's raining or snowing that you have a good outer layer to keep the weather out. At night it's a bit different. So the tent is... I mean for a lot of people they think like how could you live in a tent in winter. It's a single layer but with a wood stove and the second stove I have a kerosene stove as well. It's quite easy to to keep it warm. Really quite toasty. So in the evenings I'm comfortable. I only have the stove on from say 6-7 and the afternoon until midnight when I go to bed. So after that the temperature just drops fairly quickly. But I sleep in a down sleeping bag and that is a huge help. Because you've maybe seen in the videos it's just a normal bed with normal blankets. I sleep under that as well. But in a down sleeping bag which is rated for what is it minus five. The middle temperature that's also for sleeping bag rating there's also always three temperatures. But you want to look for the middle one not the extreme because I think that's sort of a useless number. So because when you sleep in a normal bed in minus temperatures it doesn't really matter how many blankets you have. Because cotton and linen are just very uncomfortable when it's cold. Because of the moisture from your breath it gets wet and it doesn't dry up. So I've done that as well in the past when I did like fan lighting. Long time ago that I just threw a mattress in the back of my fan and just a lot of blankets. But when you're sleeping when you're on your pillow that little place warms up. But when you turn around the other side of the pillow is like freezing. So you'd wake up from that. It's very uncomfortable. And a down sleeping bag is orthosynthetic. It doesn't have to be down but it has to be high quality. Also the fabrics. It transmits all your body heat through the entire sleeping bag and it has a hoodie. That's important too to have a hoodie. So at night I'm quite toasty. It's all not that bad. It's actually quite comfortable. The moments of getting out of bed are just cold. Because when I get out of bed it's like last week it was sometimes minus six minus seven degrees celsius in the tent. And then I just have to pull on my clothes quickly. You just have to go for that moment. Go for a walk. Get the blood flowing and then I'm good. When the sun comes up it's all fine. And the same goes for if I transition from working day to evening. When I'm working I'm staying warm. So at the end of my working day I heat up the stove before I go in the tent. So when I'm just tapering off and going inside it's already warm. So I have to plan it a little bit. But so far so good. And shoes of course are also important. These are very bad shoes for the snow because they're very slippery. These are red wings and the design is a hundred years old or more. So it's just not modern technology. Soles that are made for snow. For example my snow boots or my hiking boots where I'm wearing most of the time. They're much better for this kind of work. How much time takes filming? It's kind of hard to say because it became my second nature you know. So I have one camera and one drone. I want to have a very simple setup on a tripod and it's just coming with me all the time. And it's filming most of the time. It takes a little bit more time when I want to show different angles. But it's not a burden. It's like I'm saying. It's like I've been doing it for so long. So it's kind of normal. Editing I usually do on Saturday. I make an edit in one go and then on Sunday morning I watch it, fine-tune it, render it and then I upload it. And that's then there's some work to do with making subtitles and just getting it on YouTube. So yeah I would say it takes a full day to make a video spread on two days on Saturday and Sunday. No not really. I mean not at all I would say. The more people that would say like with a project like this oh no it's too much for you. Too much to do on your own. The more I would be driven to just pull it off and go for it. And it's the same with the bicycle journeys you know. They're almost like projects that tend to be too big. I mean that's what the interesting part of it is you know. Could you just jump on a bicycle and cycle to Singapore or from Vancouver to Patagonia or you know. It sounds too big and that's the interesting part of it. So that's what drives me and that's you know with all of these projects if you just keep chewing you'll get there. So the answer is no. I think it does. The storytelling is important to me and that's with my other projects the same way. With my bicycle journeys it was about photography and more writing and now it's videos. But it drives me to keep going and it drives me. It goes really both ways because sometimes people were asking with my bike journeys. Do you do it for the photos or the story or do you do it for yourself? Well I obviously do it for myself. But because I share it it needs to be. I'm trying to live the best life here. I'm trying to build the nicest things. I want to make this successful for myself and because everyone is watching there's a healthy pressure which is helpful for me. So this will be a dedicated garden area because it has the best sun exposure. For the coming year it will be still quite minimal because I'm focusing on the on the renovation for most of my time. But I want to have things growing here. Long-term goal. This will be a fan stop area. There will be more beds, pots. There will be a nice greenhouse just right over here on the slope and there will be a pond just behind the trailer. There's a little dip there in the landscape where a lot of water is drained there. Because when there's a big shower you can see always a water stream coming down the driveway here and it ends up in that little dip which is already an almost a natural pond. So I think it would be nice to have a pond with its own life in it and it could use the water for the garden. There's going to be a masonry stove and that's the main heating source. But there will be also complementary floor heating. And that's because it's a stone house which is kind of difficult to heat. I think floor heating will make it a comfortable space. The walls are not insulated but they are 50 centimeters thick and built with clay and stones. So I think that that might have an insulating factor. I don't know. But I think if you have floor heating it will go up and I think it will make it a pleasant space to be in. The floor heating, I'm looking into it to have it heated by the masonry stove that could build something like that. But I have to look into that how that has to be done with plumbing and air pressure etc. It's a little complicated. But it could also be sourced by gas I believe. And then the warm water. I think there will be two systems. There will be a gas system for winter and then an electric boiler for summer. Because I have so much electricity going on in summer. Basically from April to September there's a lot of sun here and I can have my warm water from the solar panels. But in winter that will be too much. So the masonry stove is going to be here in this corner. It will be quite a big thing. The floor will be open about until here. The entire floor because there will be the stairs going up here. And then the chimney will go underneath the wall and they'll go up alongside the wall on the outside. That's also the reason why I didn't have to worry about it when building the roof. Because it's on the outside of the roof. And then with underfloor heating all the utility is going to be in the little cabin on the outside. I think this was the doghouse because as you can see there's a very low entrance. And it could be nice for a utility room. If I make this bigger I have to rebuild this because it's not in good shape. So it's a terrace to sit on. It could be a little sitting area for this cabin. And then inside here there could be the boilers and heating and plumbing and some electricity things. And it could also be a heated space. So the water installation and all the taps for going to the other cabin and to the garden area is nicely protected here temperature wise. You can see the tracks of the chamois, the goats. Exactly the same as I always come here. You can see they walked here, they jumped up there, they enjoyed the view for a bit and then they went back. There's a couple here. I see them sometimes. So this is the south side and you can see there's a lot less snow here because it melts much quicker in the sun. And Johanna's garden is further down on the road. And it is better for gardening to be on the south side because it's just warmer and there's more sun hours in winter. I'm not sure in summer. It might be different then. But it's such a different situation now. It's comparing apples with pears because here you're on the steep side. It's more sort of enclosed and small. The living space is smaller. The hill on my side is much more shallow so it's more open. You have more space. The view is just amazing on that side. And it's beautiful here too but it's just different you know. It's apples and pears and I would say be careful to judge if the south side is always better than the north side as it's common. People think like it's always in the north side it's not a good place to live but I think my place is actually quite good to live. It's dark now in December. There's little sun hours but you know what I like about it is that the sun you have it in the back so it doesn't blind you when you look into the view. The view is always very beautifully lit and here in the morning you have like now it's afternoon it's already it's almost free so you have the sun in your face and you have to squint all the time so it's difficult to compare. But sometimes I have lunch in in Johanna's place and it's always like very nice and warm there. In summer it can be very hot but we always call this this is the south of Italy that's the north of Italy. I'm happy in the north. Yeah this is a nice question isn't it? It's the most liked question on the on the YouTube post and it makes you daydreaming. The goal is today though I say that very often the goal is to live in the moment but there is a goal also for I mean when will I feel that it's finished is having the two cabins finished. Chicken coop with some chicken running around so I have my own eggs. The garden finished so I can have a greenhouse and have most of my I can grow most of my own food. A little pond sitting area will be more finished there will be an outdoor kitchen again a pizza oven and then I could imagine the last video I will invite people come over for dinner we have a long table with white sheets on the viewpoint with food from the garden and yeah then I can look back and and say I've reached the goal and that will be a nice nice last video right I mean everything will end at some point there will be a first video and the last video in the far future but it will at some point be all finished.