We had family to the garden for wine tonight. We have a great view but no deck.. Until we have a deck, 4 pm wine is served in our garden.. I’m not complaining, its lovely. But I look forward to the day we have a deck at the front of the house. Building a deck…
Category: Daily Journal
A harmful influence
I need to write this one in response to a couple of blogs/discussions I have read/heard about the state of our youth. I was one of those parents you criticize and my children are those you were worried about… I watched them as they played on the street. Our eldest son is the same age…
and.. and… and….
We were running on empty this morning… Olympic watching has required more diesel than normal this winter. Not at all like yesterdays brutal storm, today was sunny with calm winds.. So we popped over to town for a fuel run. Four diesel, one gas, a small propane and two jugs of water… (from a tap…
let them leave
I know, I know two posts in one day.. enough already.. but I wanted to sum up the whole wind situation. When we got up this morning there was debris on our deck. It might not look like much to you but when those branches were landing on our roof at midnight and trees were…
end of the cliff
On Friday we went to town. A visit to the dump and then to Sleggs. E can really show a girl a good time on Valentines Day. We bought the hardwood to patch the floor in the kitchen nook and den. The house came with an eating nook but we came with a dining room…
drawn the line
We got up this morning and the temperatures and weather was so much better than it had been at the beginning of the week. We watched a bit of the Olympics before we put our coffee cups down and went outside to take advantage of the warmer weather and get something accomplished. I filled the…
under their door
We were able to see the family home built from its conception. When we stay there we remember the early days and the stages Papa and Guy went through to see it built. We remember sleeping in the house on cots the night before the Adobe was put on the interior walls. We remember the…
with his brain
It is a funny name to christen a boat unless you know why… In 1999 when E was carrying a beeper waiting for his new heart, there was a knock at the door. One of our friends arrived with a stuffed Tinman. “A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by…
they are Gumby
Blue skies and sunny again today. A beautiful day but bitterly cold. Red skies at night sailors delight. We brought a down quilt to the den this morning to watch some Olympics. Good grief it was cold! I was under two blankets and the down quilt as I gripped my hot coffee and turned…
wood splitting today
Yesterday it was blue skies and sunny around here.. but noticeably colder.. Out of the wind, up at our neighbours lot we were able to get another truck load of wood and drop it by our shed. I rekindled the neighbours fire to keep warm clear more debris for him. The wood is all gone…
new favorite thing
Growing up our neighbours had five kids and a rickshaw.. No lie a rickshaw. Their Dad was a pilot and somehow came home with one.. I know!! Awesome neighbours to have. The kids on the street had a lot of fun with it as you can well imagine It was our favorite thing..Despite their Dad…
safe than sorry
When I was a girl, my Mother often quoted the now cliché phrase “sea lions outside your bedroom window at bedtime, bark loudest at 4 am”.. I am sure you know it well too.. It is as valid today as it was when my Mother soothed the fears of her youngest daughter.. For the rare…
of the law
Back in the day I disconnected the door bell at our house in L.. Our house, my rules.. To me.. the door bell ringing translates to STOP WHAT EVER YOU ARE DOING. A STRANGER DEMANDS YOUR ATTENTION!!!! Don’t get me wrong.. I love visitors. In fact the rule at the family house was that if…
do wop songs
We were going to go to town today for dog food (and wine) but when we woke up it was rainy, windy and yucky. DM was on the island, so DY thought it would be a good chance to take the fire truck out for a spin and knock the cob webs off…Four of them…
drinking red wine
We are getting ready for Olympic hockey here on the island.. The games will be on at our place, live. I expect we and the Y’s will need long naps in the afternoons of game days. Who will know.. it’s just us here … We will be living on Sochi time for a couple of…
as a hatter
The Garry Oak leaves have gathered on our path down to the house (the grouse grind) and they can be slippy and kind of dangerous.. (unplanned cliff diving), so my project d’jour was to rake the hill. One armed, it is a slow process. But it was a beautiful day despite the fog and I…
thing to do
I was sitting on my bench this afternoon waiting for my friends (sea lions) to travel by when this pretty bird settled in front of me to fish at the cut… Pretty isn’t it? There is never a day when something doesn’t have to be fixed around here.. Between the three boats, cars and houses…
ocean before me
I woke up to this view out the living room window. The sea lions headed north east between 7 and 8am.. They reversed their route and headed south again around 5pm.. There is no sign of the herring… A heavy fog came in around 10 am for a few hours but once it lifted I…
conduct their song
After taking a day for rest yesterday we headed to town this morning… I drove the Iuka (training hasn’t begun on the Tinman) as E just wasn’t up to driving yet. We got to BH and fell into our normal routine with E taking the driver’s seat in the car.. After a few blocks he…
the same time
The firsts continue with our life here on the island…With our first trip to the hospital behind us we are hoping to look forward to less worrisome firsts with life on the nature channel. Last year when the sea lions arrived in January they were entertaining. I had never seen large numbers of them feeding…
lost on me
We had a snow fall yesterday.. Well not so much a fall as a dust… but it is cold so the dusting remains today.. It is predicted that the temperatures will drop to -14 tonight… We have wood and wine… and one advantage of a small house.. is that it is easy to heat. so…
gonna be rich!!!!
When we went to town this week one of our stops was the Post Office.. We get very little mail. In the city our mail was usually bills but now that we live off grid our only bill is that darned cell bill and Telus finds us by email.. The post box rarely produces much…
in three weeks
When you hate to go to town, like I do. you make the trip count. We define our trips by the number of stops.. Today was an eighteen stop day…. It is tiring for us but more so for the puppies… They wait in the car and greet us each time.. (eighteen times!) like they…
about his name
Woo Hoo the newsletter is written.. for better or worse it is at the printers. We will pick it up on Monday, and take the mailed copies to the post office. We will email the rest from Starbucks while listening to Christmas music and drinking a hot chai tea latte. (I am in need of…
sure I will
Life on the learning curve continued today. Last week the topic came up at dinner about the lamb meat purchase we made. I commented that honestly I would rather knit the island lambs than eat them… MR agreed it would be a great skill to learn and good fun while we were at it.. This…
up your pants
The Coast Guard came by this morning… gave us a wave.. Their boat was as close to our living room window as a car driving down the street in the front of your house. Although it is flat and calm, they are the only boat we have seen out there this morning. We have, it…
are all welcome
If I told you how many gigs of data we used last month (18 gigs with a total bill $400.00 for two Iphones and all of our data), your eyes would either glaze over like mine would have last year (out of boredom) .. or pop out of your head (out of thriftiness). There is…
away in Yesterday?
Three hours after leaving Ladner, we were walking in the door of our home. Our truck started at PC (surprise!!!) so once we unloaded the boat we were quick to get home. The house was seven degrees inside. The inverter had collected sun and was reading -46.. ( our reader is opposite to most others…
under our quilt
It was getting to be much colder on the island before we left. We put our heavy duty down quilt on the bed the night before we left. We turned off the water at three houses.. The family house, our neighbours house next door and our neighbours house up above. At soho we closed the…
