In many ways, there is little to report at this point, but
lots will be coming.
Painting continues at the house. Our painter is becoming a bit of a discipline
problem. She is working shorter hours,
asking for longer breaks, and is wasting paint by wearing much more than is seemly
for a woman her age. Nonetheless, about
half of the upstairs is done, with warmer colours. (Before and after pictures—they don’t seem
THAT dramatic.) Part of the basement is
done. The work continues.
The Spring Switch was pressed about 5 days ago. Ten days ago, we had about a foot of snow,
and the snow stick was at 32”. The
driveway was blown twice in two days.
(More to follow re not having a life.)
The last couple of days, the temperatures have reached
double digits here in the daytime, and there is a veritable waterfall of snow
melt coming from various roof surfaces.
The snow stick is at 23” and in Osoyoos people are walking everywhere
and sitting on outside tables. They
still have jackets on, but there were women wearing only flip flops this
afternoon. We are watching snow lines on
the hills to see how quickly they will rise from the valley.
When You Don’t Have a
Life
When a
foot of snow is dumped on your property, the morning coffee break involves
surveying the land below while swearing not to put a foot outside. There is a driveway below us, leading a long
road up to the “Saudi House”: this is a
house under construction while the future owners still work in Saudi
Arabia. Everyone calls it the Saudi
House. Construction is behind schedule
and over budget, which appears to be typical in this area. The morning after the snow, a truck attempted
to back up the driveway, with a heavy trailer.
There was way too much snow. The
truck got stuck quickly. It then went
down the road to the main road, attempted to back up, and the trailer slid into
the ditch. We are having way too much
fun. We watch one neighbour to go out to
help, and the next to watch while taking her dog out to the walk. Nothing works. Neighbours go away, and after a while a tow
truck comes in to winch the truck and trailer out of the ditch. Here is where the real fun begins. One of the workers, bored out of his gourd
while waiting, uses a longer piece of plywood used to hold the wheels of the
truck (unsuccessfully). This becomes the
new snowboard. He slides up and down the
road several times. When the truck is
winched out, he uses his cell phone to take pictures of the wheel wells created
by spinning the tires. They leave for
the day. The Bobcat comes two days later
and spends hours taking out snow.
Brief Wildlife
Episodes
A week ago, Brian saw a male
purple finch unable to fly in the driveway.
Rehab Helen comes to the rescue, despite knowing very little about
birds. A wing is drooping, and Helen
attempts figure 8 bandages on a finch wing for three days (this is a BIG
challenge. Helen 0, finch 3) On Saturday, we drove young Wilbur (as in
Orville and Wilbur) to Kamloops to the closest rehab centre admitting
birds. It was a 9 hour round trip, and
Brian gets the Husband of the Year Prize for driving so far for a few grams of
wildlife.
House Projects
The house painting is merely the lull before the storm. (Everyone note: the guest bedroom is next and will be lovely
by the time you arrive.)
The house needs to be
landscaped and we have already settled on a contractor to start in the spring
when the snow is gone. This will be a
major (but expected) requirement for the house.
We have ordered blinds
for windows, and may need more, depending on light levels. Master bedroom will be painted after the
blinds arrive.
A big work in progress is electrical: we are going wholesale on LED lights,
probably because the first 2-month power bill was $918. We have over a 100 quartz bulbs and
floodlights to replace, as well as 31 switches suitable for dimmable LED
lights. Two fixtures will be replaced and
a ceiling fan installed in the bedroom.
We will be picking up all this this week and then arranging for the
electrician to come in.
The US
Winter is the only time to see this, and it took us a little
while to figure this out. The picture of the mountains is that we see out of our living room window. If you look a little right to center, there
is a long straight white line going up the mountain. That is the US border. It is essentially about 4 cleared feet of
land with a barbed wire/wooden fence running up the middle. We actually look more into the US than we do
in Canada from the house.
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