I Forgot....

I seem to say that a lot these days.

After I finished posting yesterday I headed off into town to do what I said I was going to do.... Only I forgot the camera. Which means no pics as promised...  I can only tell you a little background leading up to the little/big renovation.  When my parents moved to this community after retiring they had had one bad experience after another with housing and buying and selling.... they always bought high and sold low for one reason or another mostly due to unforeseen circumstances.  So my Dad dug in and insisted that they would rent... which is difficult in a town where transients are coming and going all the time.  Friends of ours were selling and old mobile home and so we... Teapot and I... bought the mobile home so that my Mom and Dad had somewhere to live.We knew that the mobile home was old... but the price was right and we felt with a little work it could be fixed up. Mostly we have done superficial work... like painting the salmon pink kitchen cabinets white, putting up wall paper over the horrid turquoise wall board. Covering up the patchy flooring with new lino, and tearing out the carpet in the living room and laying new flooring there.  Two years ago the old front veranday was starting to rot away and so we tore that off and jacked up the front porch addition and put new supports under it and new steps/veranda on the front and new skirting around the whole thing. We freshened it all up with a coat of paint and made it look better.  We have over the year put in a new and more efficient furnace too. Finally this last year there started to be some problems with leaks forming in the bathroom. At first they were small leaks but they got more difficult to fix... now the bathroom has always been a bit of a problem... from the linoleum tub surround (yes you read that right... there was flooring on the walls) to the old tub painted brown on the outside, clearly something needed to be done.  Then the floor went squishy near the toilet... that was in January and a bad time to be renovating a bathroom... we made some minor repairs in an effort to be a stop gap till summer when renovating the bathroom would be more feasible. About two weeks ago we discovered another leak which was clearly the last straw as suddenly we realized that water had been leaking for sometime and was draining further than we would like... (that's an understatement by the way).  So I called a carpenter who worked on our house renovation a few years ago who we had been happy with and had him take a look.... He agreed to the job which was a great relief to me.

It was only after the walls were opened up what a great fiasco we were embarking on. The floor was fully rotten but luckily not the joists... but all the insulation had to go.  Thee exterior wall too was nothing but a load of rot and mold. Basically the carpenter had to strip the whole room down to just the casing and at one point there was nothing but the bare metal siding between the inside and the outside.  It was quite dramatic. 

I just love our carpenter/contractor... he is a gem... truly. He with fortitude, has dug us out of what really could easily have been a condemned building and has patched his way into fixing up what I swear I should have paid someone to light a stick of dynamite under.  He has framed in a new exterior wall... He has built up the floor again. He has vapour barriered everything. He has put up barker board. And he is now, this morning starting to put in the new large shower complete with medical grab bars for my Dad who needs them and a new higher than standard toilet, with a new vanity and sink. There will be a new ventilation system which hasn't worked in about twenty years from the look of it. There will be a new face for the door going in and there will be all new wall coverings and new subfloor and flooring.  I am so happy to know that Mom and Dad will have a bathroom that they can enter safely. He has replaced a lot of the old plumbing too which is great. Because of course that was the source of the problem in the first place. the only thing that worries me is that the electrical is quite old and while it met the requirements of the 1970s it surely does not meet code now... but there is nothing we can do about that... without tearing the whole thing apart... kitchen, bedrooms, living room, etc... and like I said I was more likely to take a stick of dynamite to it than do that.  But alls well that ends well... and hopefully in a few days the reno will be complete and it should outlast my parents... who after all, are well up in their 70s. 

So if only I can get the few things done around my house to finish our reno... I will be a very happy gal.... if a little forgetful.  I'm off to go check on the proceedings at the parent's place and maybe just maybe I might get a little time for some spinning today... I'm plying some alpaca for that logwood dyeing.... oh yeah and picking rhubarb leaves to stew up some oxalic acid.

Mid Month

Wow! Today is the 15th. Around here that is a significant date... These strange B.C. people open their moose season today. Today is the day that most people start thinking of as the end of the summer. They stop going into the bush for fear of being shot... (do I look like a moose?!! ... don't answer that please!) And actually what is strange is that Mother Nature in all her glory seems to agree. This morning I got up and came downstairs and put the rabble outdoors (that would be the cat and the three dogs)...and low and behold there is a change in the air. It is definitely feeling fallish out there this morning. I have been noticing small changes for a while now.  For instance... I have been noticing that the crows are flying around in flocks for a while now... you see we live so far north that crows migrate. (Not ravens though) So do Magpies.  They've been flocking for a few weeks too. Then for a while now the morning air is no longer filled with the songs of warblers but instead we are hearing the songs of Jays and Chickadees. That doesn't mean that there are no warblers around just that they are not singing in the morning like they were. The sparrows are thinning out too mice and squirrels are filling their winter caches. I guess that is why moose hunting season starts so early. Still I can't imagine having to skin and butcher a moose this time of the year. It would be ok if you shot your moose 5 a.m. and still had a few hours of coolness in the air but if you shot your moose in the middle of the day the meat would be fly covered in no time at all.

Teapot and I are hunters... we like to hunt for some of our meat... but for several years now Teapot and I have not been hunting.  Mostly because we never seem to get the time and by the time you pay for your license and bullets its a pretty big waste of money if you are not going to make a pretty serious effort and try to get an animal.  Instead we are concentrating on trying to finish some of the work that needs to be done around here. For instance, Teapot has promised three years standing to finish the roof on the electrical shed. So that is one goal that we will try to accomplish this year.  I also have a few small electrical things that need to be done. There are several electrical boxes that have never had the plug installed. There are some fixtures that need to be moved around, and new ones installed. The jacuzzi tub has an outlet for the plug but the outlet is to far away and so we have to move the outlet closer since an extension cord for so a large appliance is not really a good idea. Last but not least the wires for the light fixtures for the outside veranda need to be finished.  That for now would be awesome. Then later in the fall my intention is to finish the master ensuite but I will hire someone to do that. Mostly the renovation of two or three years ago has never been completed.... but all that is left is a whole lot of finish work... this, we finish a little at a time.

Obviously there is a shift in my thinking.... and I am putting it down to a shift in the weather.  Last week while we were camping nights were balmy and warm... but over the weekend night have become chilly and cool.  I am digging out warmer blankets for my bed and considering the sad state they are in I've even been looking at a new down blanket for our bed.  I am looking around the house at the dirty floor in the kitchen that has been tracked over with mess from outside after unloading the tent trailer and I'm beginning to think that it needs to be dealt with as apposed to putting it off till next week. Basically I'm beginning the huddle... I'm unconsciously thinking about the fall and and winter and preparations for weeks on end of cold unmerciful weather.

It was only a few days ago that I was reading one of my favorite blogs and the writer mentioned that it was the first day of school in her part of the world... now that was a bit of a shocker...! Perhaps I am thinking more about the winter huddle because more and more I am seeing back to school things coming in the mail... either way... for better or worse fall is coming.

Two things left... that I was thinking about....

1. Last week I began to notice that the under brush in the forest is beginning to change colours.  There is a whole lot more in the way of gold and yellow and a whole lot less in the way of green.

2. My damn washer is on the fritz again.  Last night I was washing bedding from the camping trip and the blasted thing is once again leaking water underneath... water was dripping down through the floor to the kitchen below and that means that there will be a new washer for us in the near future.  Which means a perfectly good dryer will have to go too. Why?.... because I have an upright and if I replace the washer I don't have enough room for the old dryer. So of course, that means a new dryer as well.  I think this time around I will get a stackable set instead. It also means that I can't do any laundry for the next week unless I take it to the laundromat. Teapot is away and can't look at it to fix it... I can buy a new one but won't be able to install it until he is home unless I hire some young studs to move it in. And Mom's and Dad's washer and dryer is out of use till next week because they are getting their bathroom renovated.  Argh!

Anyway... this is a fallish morning and I think I will need water hauled and recycling done this morning and I am off to look in on the renovation of Mom's and Dad's bathroom since I hired the contractor and I am in charge of the renos.... I guess that means I need to go have a shower and get dressed... and not sit around drinking tea... hmmm.... I had better hop to it then, eh?....

Have a good mid-August day where ever you are too.... 

Stay tuned I will have pics tomorrow of a 40 year old mobile home renovation... You've never seen such a horrible thing in your life... it should be called the mold wagon... who knew I would grow up one day to become a slum lord!

Holy Smack... I'm Back

We had an excellent time... through and through. A much needed break... a much needed time away, that's what this last week was. Too bad unpacking from camping trips sucks so badly. I still have a day of work to do to get the camper back to normal and nice and clean. But I'm not worrying about that right now because I'm here writing this.  So here are the pictures from a short vacation.....

We weren't at the campground half an hour before we all got wet... we all love swimming and the water was lovely though some said it was cold but it wasn't really...

Daughter #2 with a pooch on her boogie board.

Oops I forgot to remove my glasses and scarf.

Ahhh! That's better. Now I can really relax.

 Even the dogs got in on the action.....

Narmin after his first ever swim... I'm not sure he liked it!

And I know Jiggs had issues with the water.

Then while some of us were shivering...

Some of us decided to snooze....

Teapot passed out for a snooze through the screen of the tent trailer.

Yes that's a cat you see.... well we couldn't leave her home with no one to take care of her.... : (

Now that's one passed out pooch.

After a while we felt that maybe we should get some supper.... so we cooked up shish kabobs....

Om nom nom.... they were delicious....

And while they were cooking the Daughters got out their books and read by the water watching the suns rays lowering....

After eating we all decided to go for a paddle but Daughter #2 wanted to stay back and light a fire so while Teapot and I cleaned up Daughter #1 got into the kayak and headed across the lake for a short paddle...

After cleaning up Teapot and I boarded the canoe and off we went for a by-now moonlight paddle...

It was truly a lovely evening but as usual Teapot caught me in a goofy pose....

I wonder if anyone could ever take a nice picture of me.... (sigh)!

Daughter #1 obviously enjoyed her evening paddle...

Clearly it was getting too dark to see so we headed back to camp sadly....

I did manage to get this cool picture though on the way back....

Since lily pads were all over the place we thought we might find a frog or two and we did have a look....

But we never found one.... later one found us though... the last night we were there we had turned  the canoes over to keep the wooded cross beam from being chewed on by the local beavers, the next morning we discovered that a cool toad had found his way into the space under the bow gunnel.  He would have had quite the ride had we not seen him and loaded the canoes for the 25 kilometre ride home.... he would have surely had flapping lips in the 90 kilometre wind on the way home. But we found him in time and put him back in the reeds as you see in the picture above.

Meanwhile Daughter #1 was waiting with the fire going....

We had some hot chocolate... but with all that fresh air I think we were starting to get loopy....

That's my loopy look.

So we went to bed and listened to loons... and coyotes.... and the next morning we were visited by swans... ducks.... beavers.... and eagles.....

And caterpillars....

This was the view when we got up...

It was so beautiful we headed off for another paddle.... and we portaged around a beaver damn so that we could see these views...

That was just the first 24 hours... and so our week continued in like manner. It was truly an idyllic trip.

I think we're going again next week when Teapot and Daughter #1 get back from a white water rafting trip.  I can't wait!

Back For A Shower.... Then Gone Again

Tonight Teapot had his regular monthly meeting with the Senior Rangers. They are planning a big trip for next week but since Teapot is going to be down in Wells/Grey National park with JCRs he's not going on the big trip with the Senior Rangers.  He still had to be at their meeting since he is the great big brilliant guy who is their leader! Oopps you don't plan a big trip when you are not going to be there ... but he did... anyway he is at the meeting in town and the Daughters and I are here for a quick shower before we head back out to the park to continue our camping trip. We have been having a blast at the lake. We get up we jump in the canoe... a late breakfast or early lunch and we have been hitting the lake for some swimming.... we dry off and then we go swimming again.... we take out the kayak and then we might have a snack before swimming again.... maybe then we go looking for frogs... and then we might go for another quick swim before we get supper... after supper and dishes we are off down the lake in canoes and kayaks again... then back just as the sun is setting for hot chocolate by the fire and then we go to bed to sleep like the dead except for Narmin who has been discovering the law of gravity.... more about that later.... and then we get up the next day to start all over again. I'm sunburnt... and so are the girls... Teapot isn't, but being a red head, he's more careful about the blasting down sun rays.  Even the dogs have been getting in on the fun... Narmin won't go near the water except when he's on one of the girls boogie boards or in the canoe but that hasn't stopped us teaching him to swim! Bailey loves the boogie board (well that might be stretching it but she trusts Daughter #2 implicitly).  Today she dove off the boogie board and swam to shore.  Jiggs had been avoiding the water and only straying into it when her ball went in... needless to say her ball has been going in constantly and further and further each time we throw it.  At one point today Teapot and the Daughters and I were all in the water at the same time and Jiggs decided that ok she would finally go for a swim... she swam all the way out to us three times in a row.... like that is unheard of.  We are all really impressed that she even tried.

We've all been having a complete blast. With the lake right there by the side of us we can't have a better time.  And we even got the best campsite in the park... at least I think so. Nature at our front door.... it's wonderful... and somehow having the lake makes it better than in our own dear house.

We were all feeling a little on the grimy side after two days with no showers and a muddy pond as our only outlet for cleaning and so we came home tonight to all soak and clean and get clean underwear (an absolute necessity you understand on any camping trip) before heading back out to the park in a couple of hours.  We will stay out till Friday, I think, if all goes well.  We'll continue to splash and play for another couple of days before reality sets in and we have to come home again.  I'm taking pictures and lots of them so I'll be able to post them here when I get back.... that'll make you all drool... the quintessential Canadian summer vacation.... swimming at the lake.)

Alpacas, sheep, llama, and horse are all doing well despite the fact that there is no one here to keep an eye on them... but they are self contained pretty much for a few days... We are upping the level of water in their watering barrels and forking a little hay to keep them going while we are here, but they seem to be doing ok all the same just on the grass.

There's been a fiasco about hay again but I'll talk about that when I get back... the crisis is over thank God.  However, we really noticed tonight when we drove into the yard how badly we need a good dose of rain... once again mid summer has denied us of moisture and the grass is drying up.... this I'm sure is good for the farmers since they are all in their fields vigorously haying... sun at this time of year means hay... and that's good... but my garden is looking pathetic. It needs to be watered which is what I am off to do now before we head back out to the park.... to the lake.... to the water... to paddling.... to early morning swans and eagles and afternoon munching out before swimming, swimming, swimming.....

We'll see ya'll later after we've been water logged!

A Short Quickie

No I'm not talking about sex....

We are off for a three day trip to a nearby park to camp... canoe.... and generally kick back and relax.  We are taking our tent trailer and some food, some bedding and that's it.  We are heading off for three days of avoiding everything that is usual or similar...

I have to admit I am relieved.  I will roll out of bed each morning for a swim in the lake.... and then I will spend the evenings not thinking about anything MSP.... though I am taking some spinning... I am going to kick back and spin relaxing fun stuff by the open fire as I am eaten alive by mosquitoes.... hopefully not.... except for the spinning part.  I'm taking a drop spindle and a spool of alpaca that needs to be plied. Ahhhh... life is good.

Hamburgers for supper on the barbecue.... and shish kabobs tomorrow.  Yum. I'll take pictures.... and I'll have fun... and when I get back I'll show you all how much fun I had. 

The great thing is that we are close enough that we can come home to feed animals if we need to. Awesome. 

I'm already in my swimsuit.  Can you tell that I am living in anticipation of all things water.... woo hoo...
See ya... I'm outta here!

Driven To Distraction

Sometimes I feel like I can't keep a coherent thought in my head.   I feel like my mind is fractured. For over a year I have noticed that whenever I get a good thought in my head a thought about what I can write here on my blog by the time I get the internet up and running and click on the Blogger Icon and then sign in and bring up the page for a new post, I'm hooped because the great idea that I had to write about has flown clear out of my head and has landed somewhere in Saigon.... never to be retrieved again by me or anyone even resembling me. 

Sometimes I think it is because I am doing too much but that's just plain stupid because I really am the laziest person alive.... I really don't do much.... I really do p--s away hours of opportunity. People seem to think that I do lots but in my eyes that's purely and simply a joke. Cause I don't. Do much, that is. Take for example last night... I sat after supper in the sun room with Teapot and Daughter #1 and her friend and we watched a Western movie. Instead of spinning while we were watching I just blew away a full two hours vegging in front of the boob tube without getting a darn thing done. Mindless drivel we watched and there you have it... the whole reason why I'm driven to distraction.

I love movies.... I can sit and watch endless movies. I could start in the morning and go all day if I wanted... but every now and again I do something else so I turn on CBC just for a change.  Someone once told me that our brains can only hold so much information and then when new information comes into our brains some of the old must be lost to accommodate the new.  I'm not sure I believe that because I have friends whose brains hold way more information than mine, but still with the way my brain works these days I wonder if there is not some truth to that. Loving movies just adds to the burden of brain overload, I think.

Recently I have had no less than 6 good things that I wanted to write about here and do you think I can remember any of them... not a one.  I do know that my Dad told one of his Newfy stories that I have heard a million times but when I went to write it down a little while later I couldn't remember for the life of me which one it was.  Twice I have thought about philosophizing on some subject that was in direct reference to me and blogging and when I opened up the post page it just drifted away like a leaf on the wind. Poof... if was gone and I was left there with blank page syndrome in front of me. So then I get to thinking... am I getting alzeimer's....?? At 46 years of age.... or is this some stupid brain drain because of the drugs I've had to take over the years for back related problems?  Or is this the way I always was and I was a distracted teenager that was somewhat flighty and I'm only recognizing the signs now?  Or am I truly distracted and live only in the moment with no thought of the past or present?

The brain is a wondrous thing perhaps it is just that mine needs some training and retraining. Perhaps I need a vacation.... away from the usual and similar. Why on earth would anyone even care if my mind is here or gone somewhere else?  Why should I care... Perhaps the flitting of my mind from one subject to the next just means that I'm weird.  Either way it is somewhat scary to know that my mind is distracted and I can't figure out why. And it is not just been a short time that this has been going on.


Maybe I need to be less self analytical and relax.  I think I'll go watch a movie and spin... and think about those d-mn things that I wanted to write about.....

In the meantime I managed to snag a couple of pictures of Daughter #2's t-shirt after it was finished so I will leave them with you....

... which is far more interesting than the perplexities of my mind....

Well Aren't I just full of myself thinking that my brain is perplexing!!!

Getting Creative

So Daughter #2 and I are being creative. But we're not the only ones around here.  It's been 24 hours of creativity.... really.

Daughter #2 got a phone call from one of her friends to say that there was a birthday party in the plans and could Daughter#2 stand going out on a 26 foot cabin cruiser on a nearby lake for a day and stay out for a sleep over. "OH YES" was the response... I'm really happy that she is going to get this opportunity... she hasn't done much this summer so this will be a great highlight for her.  Meantime she came to me with a bit of a dilemma.  She didn't have a birthday gift for her friend and didn't know if she could afford one.  I figured it wouldn't matter if she had had money since there are no local stores that have decent gifts unless you want to buy something that has the name of our town written on it like touristy stuff or unless you want to buy lottery tickets... this for a 14 year old girl would not go over well. So Daughter #2 and I got our thinking caps on and finally came up with a plan.

We decided that we would experiment with making a t-shirt and earrings for her friend. Now this friend is an interesting character.  She loves chickens.... like not cooked chicken but the living breathing animals. She has chickens since like us they live on a bit of a hobby farm.  She names her chickens.... and she talks to her chickens and she takes her chickens for walks... on a leash... and she has even been known to dress her chickens up... this is a kid with a real chicken thing going on... She has shown up at shearing time and when we saw off the alpaca teeth she has scurried off with the bits of teeth that we would just throw on the ground... a few days later she has come back with alpaca teeth earrings.... so we like to call her eccentric... it is a polite name for what others would regard as odd.  We love her and think the world of her...

So Daughter #2 and I planned out a t-shirt for her.  I had just bought a package of cotton extra large plain white cotton t-shirts for Teapot since as he gets older he finds the winter draft dreadful and wears them under his clothes. Out came the package and so began an odyssey of making a one-of-a-kind chicken t-shirt. There are two chickens on the shirt drawn on by Daughter #2 and a path of chicken tracks across the shirt from lower left to upper right, dividing the two chickens. This was drawn on in a special marker that I have for drawing on fabric. Then she took my Procion dyes and painted on the design (after soaking it in all necessary chemicals). It has turned out awesome.  Today she is putting on the saying. It goes like this, "I dream of a better world where the motives of road-crossing chickens are not questioned." Then last night Teapot and Daughter#1 went to the end of heritage days barbecue and Western style dance. They had a nice time... we had all meant to go but there was more creativity a-foot.  Daughter #2 and I stayed home and made chicken earrings.... yup you read that right. So Daughter #2 will be giving her chicken crazy friend.... (crazy meant in the most kind terms of course)... a chicken t-shirt and felted chicken earrings.... very original I think. Here are some pictures...

Meanwhile there was some surprise creativity going on out in the barnyard. Mishka (the female alpaca) has for weeks enjoyed the pleasure of getting out on grass since Teapot put up some temporary fencing so that she could go out on our lawn.  It was working well until a few days ago when our wither male sheep from last year decided that Mishka smelled really good and started trying to mate with her. (Yes that's a sheep and an alpaca trying to mate.... this seems almost beyond weird especially when we did his balls in when he was born.) Mishka took it all in her stride... literally and I wasn't terribly concerned since when he tried to mount her his jollies only came up to her knees.... and Mishka quite frankly looked somewhat irritated but like she was laughing at him too.  We cornered him and flipped him on his butt and had a good look and there low and behold was a nut.... just one. Da--! We had missed one.... (that sometimes happens if their jollies haven't totally decended)! So now the not-wither-half-ram has met his maker and is in the freezer. This suited Mishka quite nicely though the other sheep are missing the black one.  And I have a new fleece to wash.

But that is not the end of the story... the actual creativity took place yesterday.  As I was saying Mishka has been enjoying grass all summer. Now you will remember that Mishka miscarried this summer after hoping for a cria all year we were disappointed in June when she aborted spontaneously.  Meanwhile once summer came we decided that my boy alpacas would enjoy munching grass and leaves in summer pasture... so we put them down in that paddocks that we fenced last summer.  AWAY FROM MISHKA.  Yesterday I looked out the window and the what to my wondering eyes should appear....

He looks like he's having fun... but I'm not sure about her!  Mind you she doesn't look upset.

Yeh! So obviously he managed to smell her pheromones.... and get out of his paddock which is way the hell down on the end of our land and find his way over or under or around her fence and get happy with her. Hmmmm.... !

We had meant to breed her this month so nature took care of it for us..... I guess next year we will be having a cria.... with a little luck. So here they are in all their glory.... you may not want to watch this... if you get embarrassed easily....

So with all this creativity on the go... it's hard not to think about other creative things. I'm working on my tablecloth/runner... and I've started working on my Sumak weaving.... this I will show in another blog post.... I don't want to overwhelm you all... (I'm sure seeing alpaca sex is overwhelming enough....)

Have a great and creative day... whatever your creative outlet is... (wink wink) ; }