Our Big Little Adventure

Waiting on the ferry and hubby took this picture of heron patiently waiting for a meal to swim by!

Heading to Vancouver and area and that's the island slipping away in the wake....  The ferry trip from Nanaimo to Tsawassen terminal is two hours. (We had reservations for both trips and it was a good thing as they were sold out)   The drive from Campbell River to Nanaimo is two hours also.... plus an hour once we reach the other side (if the traffic is good)  So five hours all told, one way.  

This was our view from our hotel window. Beneath all that cloud and smoke are the Golden Ear Mountains.   It didn't smell smokey from all the provincial interior forest fires (plus south in Washington, Montana and Oregon) but the visibility was very poor.  You are aware that's fine particles in the air you are breathing. 

On Friday we found the chalk faeries had been at work and we found this greeting out front!  Grandad took a picture in the dark and good thing he did too, because the next day it was all gone with the rain.

Madison is two and a half.... and all girl!

Ethan is five and a half and just started kindergarten, plus is in ju-jitsu three times a week.

Grandad got busy with the camera and got some great pictures of them separately and together.

That's her little vacuum but he knows she can't make a fuss while the pictures are being taken. She carried it around to keep it away from him and I think I saw it going upstairs to bed later as well. 

Then she had to show us her "Miss Ooh La La" outfit. 

We also like to have our hair do played with and have 'piggies' added.  Just sweep up a bunch of hair and secure it with a small rubber band.  Did I mention she's two and a half? 

Well she sure melted Grandad's heart!  She showed us all her dollies and coloured pictures with him: "Grandad, make a picture of a bird pooping on my brudder's head".... so he did!

I really enjoyed some one on one time with Ethan while she was napping and we talked cars, kindergarten and watched videos of him as a baby.  He sat still with me for almost an hour!  He's a high energy boy.

Then it was all over and time to come home.  Ferry ride home yesterday and then driving up island singing mostly on key and loudly to Freddie Mercury and Queen songs.

Today?  well that would be laundry, and after four days in a kennel, steering Calli into a bath to freshen up.

I was, and will be continuing, to wind some warps, carry on with the small project on the Spring loom  and mentally bracing myself for the crown prep work to come later this week at the dentist.

Fall is coming on fast here and we are starting to think of the end of season clean up in the yard and garden.    Oh, did I tell you that we plan to have the inside of the house painted?  Yeah, that's later this month and they will do the studio first.    Doesn't that sound like fun? 😳

Heart Felt

We went over to Vancouver for my son's 40th birthday this past weekend.  The year he was born, it was also Mother's Day.  I squeaked in under the wire at having him at 10:55 pm and then I asked where my flowers and card were?

Well, I thought it was funny at the time....

Anyhow we were over there visiting this weekend and had a party one evening, where I went dancing with my grandson to a live band (thank you Dr Jacks for fixing me!),  and a Mother's day brunch at their home the next.   My son and grandson Ethan made the yummiest, light as air waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.    And there was flowers and a card too.

Here they are pretending to be going very fast on the back deck on the Thomas bike:

We had bought our grand daughter a pretty dress for her birthday in early March..... and she wore it Saturday night to the party.

I think the term is " she has us wrapped around her little finger".

A Mighty Good Time

I have a real difficulty announcing ahead of time that I will be leaving home and going on a trip.... as that means my house will be empty. In this day and age of internet and GPS, I shudder to think.   So, sorry to leave you waiting so long but we are now home and getting our life back to normal.  The laundry is almost complete, and I even managed to squeak in some weaving yesterday between loads.  Sort of like doing warm up's for the main event.

Our adventures started two weeks ago with Bruce's model train show in Victoria. I'm the one who handled all the sales receipts and money, so it left things to the guys to simply talk  and make the sales. They did this in fine style and Bruce had better results from the last spring's train show!  They had over 2200 people come through the doors and it was great to see many children with their parents and grandparents.  The little in-house cafe and coffee bar sold out of all food and drinks in record time!

Here's the gang just ahead of the doors opening: (from left to right) Bruce, Colin and Heath. Set up was still under way. Its a lot of work bring everything in and setting up.... standing mostly all day and then packing up and hitting the road for home. They love it though.  They are just as passionate about their modelling as we are our looms and yarn.

We had four days to sort stuff to where it goes between sales and rest up. Then start packing up again for our trip away. We were off to visit our grandson and his parents and later, head onto see Bruce's mother in the Okanagan Valley.  To help reducing the work load and stress factor, we opted to stay in a hotel. Its tough working full time and managing a home and active toddler and then throw in house guests to the mix! It also meant we had some quiet time to ourselves.

Soon our island was in the rear view and we checked into our hotel. Navigating the greater Vancouver area's traffic is always interesting as they have many road improvements under way. They have two new bridges, rapid transit trains (and I heard just yesterday another bridge has been announced for 2017). Just the sheer numbers of cars and people always has us flustered!

Once at the hotel on the 18th floor, I took some pictures from our room facing the mountains.

These are the new support cables for the one year old Port Mann bridge. The hazy north shore mountains in behind.

Then there's the Golden Ears Bridge way off in the Mission area. The mountains are in behind and they are called the Golden Ears. They can be stunning with fresh snow and sun light on them!

Then I looked down and then across the vista and noticed that the city has a lot of green space. Though I'm not crazy with what they did way over on the hillside near the mountains. I think that's called the Westwood Plateau.

Ethan is 17 months now and literally running everywhere!  He's so fast it makes your head spin. He loves technical toys and is looking for buttons to press to make them go. (He will be ready for all the high tech stuff in short order) We took him some old fashioned reading books, a sock monkey from Hilary and this toy transformer:  (sorry Hilary... I planned to take his picture with the monkey but he didn't hold it long enough to snap off a picture!) September 25th Edit: Ethan's maternal grandpa took this picture a few days after we left:

Ethan with his Prime Mate Monkey   Thanks Hilary!  He's perfect. 

He had no time for hugs and kisses, but I could hold the toy steady so he could better press the buttons and set off the lights and voice recording. That was my job for two days: hold the toy for him.    Geesh!

His favourite toy of all (right now) are these plastic rings. He has become a pro at spinning them with a flick of the wrist. He spins them on everything and can even do two at a time with both hands. Rather then spin them with a twist to the right (practice in your mind how you would do it) Ethan turns them to the left or inwards!

One last picture as it is my blog and my grandson :)  Then we were on our way.  It rained from Vancouver to Hope. (Hope is where was the first Rambo movie was filmed for the movie buffs out there)

This is somewhere out in the Fraser Valley.... no sign of hills and mountains due to low heavy cloud. But things sure changed when we came down off the Connector route to the Okanagan!

The sun came out and we had sunshine all the way in to Kelowna.  Traveling through Westbank I got a nice shot of Mission Hill winery: (click on any picture to enlarge)

Kelowna had the world's longest floating bridge but they rebuilt it after we left and I'm not sure of the stats of this one. (It was featured as an episode of  Mega Structures on the television)

Then, as part of your Kelowna tour, here's the classic lakeshore view of the city:

The Grand Hotel and Casino along with the yacht club

The downtown city park complete with sand beach.

We spent three very pleasant and relatively quiet days with Bruce's mother  and caught up on family news and simply spent time together.

Lorraine lives in a lovely town home and is doing very well on her own for having just turned 90! The time flew by and we were heading home again.

The clouds appeared to accompany us home. Here's a last look at the new bridge, with Black Mountain on the left,  as we left town.

We came down the hill off the Connector route at Merritt and turned for the Information and Tourist log house for a break and stretch our legs. A car suddenly pulled in beside us and out popped Lynnette and her husband Michael!  They were on their way to the Okanagan and somehow it all timed beautifully for us to have this chance meeting at Merritt!  A chat and a few hugs later and we were back on the road again. We had to push straight through and aim for the 5 pm ferry. Except we weren't sure of the exact time as we didn't have any internet to double check.  Going to 'wing it'.

This one is for Wendy.  This Mount Cheam between Hope and Chilliwak. Wendy recently did the high altitude Mt Cheam hike and from her pictures on Facebook, she went almost to the top, or to a high shoulder at least!

We made it to the ferry with forty five minutes to spare as it left at 5:45 pm. Its a two hour crossing and so after unloading the car we finally had our very tired feet up at 10 pm. We just got home on this past Thursday night and been settling in ever since.   Calli came back from the kennel and had a double bath and is glued to our sides when she isn't sleeping.

The ride home was fantastic!  The water was flat calm and there was a beautiful sunset....with a warm breeze.

going home!

Great end to the week!

So we are getting things caught up and we should have things back to normal soon.  I also found when we got home that we had forgot to lock the back door.  Oops...  its all okay, my looms are still here and the yarn is fine.

Happy Fall Equinox!  

In Between Times

summer phlox... can you smell the perfume?

With just a gentle breeze, the scent of these flowers fill our house! Its the first of September so not many warm days left ahead. The nights have a decided chill to them. The trees and gardens are looking tired.

This post is, well, all over the place! In between times for many things. First up I have a picture below that I wanted to include in my post on the Vancouver trip but it was missed. I found a lovely roof top garden next to our building and it looked like an oasis in the city.

A lovely Japanese style roof top garden!

It gets better! Once at home and downloading my camera, I got to zoom in and take a much closer look. If you click on the picture, you'll see it  too!  There's a good sized pond complete with koi. I wish I could have gone there and taken a closer look...

There's fish in there!

Next up is the studio. I have steadily worked through all my finishing and you are totally up to date with completed projects. I spent a few days winding warps and have one on Lilibet and two additional spare ones for her. Meanwhile I did another adjustment to the 20+ tie up cords on Emmatrude to prevent irregular sheds and then started to wind another towel project. When in doubt, do towels!
Last fall, I made kitchen towels using the pattern 'breaks and recesses' that were very popular with buyers. I like them too as they are a straight 8 shaft draw and same easy treadling as all the pattern is in the tie up. The kind of weaving where you can get just throw the shuttle and get into a wonderful rhythm. No nasty long treading plan to memorize or keep track of.

Triadic colour arrangement again

Here are my colour choices on my warping box. The box was made for me by a friend's husband who was a nifty carpenter. The pegs are removable for larger sized cones and the thread is fed up through smooth holes on the top to the warping board above. The green, and salmon pink cones all have a bit of a yellow undertone and so the soft yellow cone works well with them. The plum works nicely with the green and white is the base colour. This is the triadic arrangement on the colour wheel again, except I picked them first and realized the association later!

Eleven yards of 8/2 cotton,  25 "wide at the reed, sett 24 epi

So, this is where the project sits right now and I'll be working on threading and sleying and starting to weave this week.

stripes of 20/2 silk plus painted variegation of similar size

On  Lilibet, my Louet Spring 90 I have another reprise of a popular pattern. Last year I made runners using cottons, and when I found a hand painted silk skein by Fleece Artist in soft greens, I saw it coupled with cream silk and featuring "Flowers and Lace" again. I won't elaborate too much on the project here as it will have its own separate post sometime soon, but a few details won't hurt!

special denting involved

Its has the green sections of 3 thread huck lace, or mock leno, which is dented three to a dent on a twelve dent reed, with empty dents on either side. The white silk sections are dented 2 per dent (for 24 epi). A bit fussy? perhaps... but look!

silk version of flowers and lace

Its very pretty! I've only just started and now wishing I had done a warp for three scarves and not just the two on the loom. The weft is cream bamboo.

Okay! Now for a seismic shift and taking you out of my studio to the Outside!  We have more renovations under way again but this time not in the middle of my private spaces. The expansive cedar decking has had its day and is slowly rotting away and its time to be replaced. We plan to rebuild it pretty much the same, but there is a portion we are going to return back to lawn and possibly this fall if weather permits, or next spring.

Add two young men with strong backs and eager to get going!

First you hire two young men with strong backs and endless energy. Meet Colin and Pat (in red). Colin runs his own yard maintenance business and is a most enterprising young man! They are removing the railing and glass on the upper deck.

This thing is HUGE! 40 cubic yards

Bruce called for a large bin to be delivered for the wood waste and I was stunned to see this behemoth in the driveway! The walls of this thing are roughly 8 foot high! We'll never use all that....

Add one Hubby who wants to keep up with two twenty year olds!

Meet Bruce, who like the young lads, loves to cut things up and play with power tools and tractors.

young men love to rip things apart... with power tools!

So on day one, the guys got all the lower decks cut up and into the bin and even did clean up of the area. There were tons of little toys under the old deck from children past who used to live here. Most likely they are full grown as the deck is at least 20 to 25 years old.

The lower decks are in here...

The bin is filling but we have lots of room still....

lower side deck and stairs ... gone!

So the side deck beside my studio is now history.  The front entry, which you can see on the left, will be taken down later and replaced when the carpenter comes mid to late September to rebuild everything. That will be a two week process...

...its gone from much  too big, to, maybe too small?

The bin is much fuller now and we have lots of upper deck and posts to go yet. I'm actually wondering if it will all fit in now!

removing the concrete footings

Bruce used the Kubota Kub to remove the concrete footings. The section where he's working is the area we plan to return to lawn. Its level and flat so a load of top soil/ sand mix and a large bag of seed should do it.

Has an open 'post and beam look' to it now

On this day, there's just Colin and Bruce and they have joists and beams to go. The saws sounded so loud inside... my ipod came in real handy! The house looks so small with no decks...

... and down she comes!

Colin did the cutting and Bruce guided it down with a huge *thump!*  They wore big smiles, especially when things unexpectedly fell down and didn't hit something like windows, patio doors... or them!

They have filled it!

Okay, the bin is full, with more to go in.... so what to do?

not only full but trying to make more room!

You get in and rework things a bit.... and turn into  dumpster divers!  They managed to free up room for the heavy posts

Colin operating the Kub

Colin was thrilled when Bruce told him to try his hand at operating the tractor. I watched the whole thing and he was very good at the controls and even parked it in the carport. (Our tractor is under cover and our car isn't... what does that tell you?)

looking smaller and a bit naked!

So at the end of a long day, there's a lone post and a small section of deck to go. The post has mason bees in it and we hope to move it down to the garden so they can help with the fruit trees next spring.  There's three weeks to finish the final portions so for now, sore back and muscles are being rested. Earlier this morning after a night of rain a large Kenworth truck backed up the driveway and picked up the bin. The old decks will be ground up, have composted manure added to it and turned into bark mulch for gardens. I like that whole concept.....