And That's a Wrap... 🏡

 

So.... the big reveal!   

Our painter came by yesterday to finish off the final touch up's and double check the work.  We sat in the back patio and enjoyed a coffee together and also met his delightful daughter who is going to be his helper on the next job.  Poor guy must be careful of his back and pinched nerve but he swears he's ready to work again. 

Hub took these pictures yesterday afternoon, just after they left. We heard we had cloud cover coming in today, a chance of much needed rain and to be followed by forest fire smoke. So better to do it sooner than later!   The sun is higher and a bit harsher than we would like so we're going to take more pictures when the sun is a bit kinder.

We have a comforting  coat of  quality paint called "Stone Lion" now, with the blue grey trim and gutters (basically the existing colour, but refreshed).  Glen did some free lance stuff and did small things like electrical outlets, the ring around pot-lights, door handles, electrical boxes in jet black.  The front door was done in a rustic red.    All gutters and soffiting were cleaned, moss removed from the roof and all concrete work power washed and so much brighter.   That's a big job for one man and one week.

This is the back view: the windows on the far left is my studio. We like having a portion of the patio covered by the roof line as we can sit outside even if its lightly raining. 

A closer view: in the shade are two comfy wicker chairs and little table that we sit at and enjoy a cool drink together. 

Even the garden sheds were done to match so now we look like we have little "mini-me's".

The window on this shed has a metal mess over it as being next door to our neighbouring golf course, rogue golf balls happen! They have to be really bad golfers to hook one over here. 

So a final view from beyond the back fence which is as tired as it looks.  That is in fact next years project.... to replace all fence posts along the back run and the posts besides the gates. The pickets are metal.   At the current price of lumber, that's a major deal to prepare for all by itself! 💰

So what we realize now is that we need a splash of COLOUR!  Some flower baskets and topiary planters out front, maybe a wooden bench by the front door.  They add so much life to a home and more pizzaz!   We also usually have hanging baskets in the back patio area as well. This year we thought the painting was going to happen in May, then it was pushed to June and then finally July, so we didn't shop at garden centres this season  and have put the funds towards the painting project instead.  As luck would have it, the heat dome would have pretty much killed anything we had as it is. We have hardy shrubs that have sun damage now and so I don't think hanging baskets would have survived unless we put them in the garage.

We're going to shop some 'end of season' garden shop sales and see if we can get some lovely big pots and then spend the winter planning what bedding plants to fill them with.   

🌻🌺   🌳  🌸🌼

🏡 A Lick of Paint

 We started to explore painting the house last summer and had three quotes from various businesses.  There was quite a wide range of services and pricing and not everyone was willing to do extra if required.

Click on pictures to enlarge

Last October we met up with Glen and he was willing and able to do just about anything required. From minor repairs, to de-mossing the roof and of course painting.  We felt quite happy with his pricing too, as we had really researched various costs for the various jobs to be done.   Its taken some time for our place to come up in his roster for this year but he did manage to get all the concrete and house power washed just before the 'heat dome' hit us.  So after that heat wave hit, we knew that everything would be bone dry and ready for the rollers and spraying.

Glen started yesterday and is a going concern from 7:30 am to when he feels he's done for the day.  Our house and two garden sheds is a three day project (maybe four?). Not bad for a guy working on his own right now.

So he's busy on the south end of the house right now until it gets too warm there and he will shift back to finish the front entry way.   Bruce went and took some pictures to show areas of the house with before and after colour changes. We'll do more pictures tomorrow and again when its all done.

Glen taking a moment in the shade. Behind him the new colour and he's resting his hand on the old paint.

Left is the new colour and the front entry shows the old scheme. More West Coast, less Palm Springs.

Again... showing the transition. Bear in mind this is currently in the shade. It gets full morning sun. 

Patio furniture and shrubs are all covered against any overspray. Windows are covered with brown paper. 

🚧  🚧  🚧

More to come.....

☀️🔥 Heat Wave

Sometime last week to ten days ago I recall seeing that the south western USA was experiencing a heat dome effect. Literally a cap of heat that sits over the land and doesn't move. It prevents sea breezes from moderating the temperatures and actually draws intense hot air from the interior.   There is no cool down at night and so it just builds day by day.

I thought " those poor people!" 

Well, a week later and it seems that western Canada has one and we're under it right now. The link is to a local new article on the heatwave:   Heat  Dome Article

So this is a current temperature map for BC  right now.  I live in Campbell River.  For my American readers:  double the temperature and add 30 to get Fahrenheit numbers.  The humidex scale adds in the effects of humidity levels.   Also please bear in mind that we don't normally get high heat like this so many homes do not have AC.  There is usually a nice ocean breeze to moderate things.   

Here you can see the dome effect over the province..... and with resulting increase in forest fires.

Posted today by former astronaut Chris Hadfield is a global map showing our early summer heat. We are suffering here but I would not like to be further over in parts of southern Europe.    Climate Change can not be denied any longer.   

I recommend viewing the documentary at Netflix:  Breaking Boundaries  The Science of our Planet.  Its by the people who gave us Our Planet and Blue Planet and narrated by Sir David Attenborough.  Its a stark look at the boundaries we have crossed at sustaining life on Earth and how the next decade is crucial to our future on this Planet. They also give  viable solutions.

EDIT: June 30th. The sun was so hot for so long that it actually burnt our bushes!  Our highest temperature during the four days was 39.3 Celsius or 108.6 F.   Fortunately the temperatures came down today as the heat dome moved further east. We even have sea breezes again but things are still rather warm. I have heard from friends that they all have sun damage in their gardens.   And summer is just starting....  the forest fires have started. 

😎⛱☀️🍹

Meanwhile: here at home we are keeping cool and still staying close to home for now.    I get my second covid vaccine on July 7th and two weeks later we should feel much more confident about interactions again.  The northern end of Vancouver Island has only one active covid case right now, but we are under no illusions that as summer visitors will bring a lot more with them as they travel than a mask free smile.

💉💉💉

I'm still chipping away at weaving but also winding future warps and generally not pushing myself very hard.  Before the weather turned ugly hot, we were just enjoying sitting outside and enjoying the  garden and I would spin  on my Hansen mini spinner.

 💰 Our big home improvement for the year is to have the exterior of our home painted, along with two garden sheds.  We made arrangements with a painter last October, 2020 and it seems our time has come up in his schedule.  Last Thursday our place was power washed, all concrete power washed too..... and the roof soaked ahead of adding a de-mossing treatment.  

Weather permitting, first thing tomorrow.... and I mean *very* early in the day, painting will start  and take a week.   I will post before and after shots in a future post.   Yes, there will be a colour change....    🏠

❄️  Keep cool!  ❄️

Heading South for the Winter ?

I got roped in.....

I agreed to a weaving commission to revisit an old favourite pattern again.  My client was agreeable to all my conditions and in fact, she made only one request and that was the warp be the dark teal this time and magenta be the weft.  The shawl would look the same as the one woven a few years ago, but the fringe would be teal.

I got her request about a week after Webs had concluded their annual tencel sale, and they had NO stock left.     Ah, bad timing..... but I worked up an order and placed it anyway so that once more stock arrived it would be shipped first thing. Normally they are out of stock only 2-3 weeks.

Roll the clock ahead three months and I decided to call Webs to see when it was likely to be filled.  They had some new stock but were holding up my order waiting for a cone of ecru coloured tencel.   I chopped it from the order and asked them to ship asap.   It finally arrived!

Oops, cancel the party..... they only shipped one cone of dark teal when I needed two, and I'm certain I ordered two.  The dark teal was the whole main point of the order!

No worries, I would order another cone, trying to get matching batch numbers  and get it rush shipped.   The customer service rep told me it was  out of stock again.   Oh, crap.....

So my planned two shawls is now reduced to one and I'm hoping the one cone will be enough.  As luck would have it, there was probably about two to three ounces left on the cone when I was done winding.  Cutting things really close!   It was beamed onto the loom and once the 12 shaft tie up was finally in place, I got things underway.

The pattern repeat is quite long and is in fact almost six and a half inches in length, but you don't notice it all that much as you throw the shuttle. You are caught up counting and watching the pattern grow.   Its so pretty!  Its much like snowflake twill in some ways as its another draft I never get tired of!

Weaving went well and as for the length, I had to somehow time it to end with the end of a pattern repeat so to balance at either ends of the shawl.   By my reckoning I wove it to 90 inches. Yes a bit long but its length what the client wanted. 

But off loom it measured 85 inches. I double checked my notes where I keep track of my weaving measurements and it seems I made a five inch error.... oops!    So it was actually woven to 85 inches which is still nice and long.   Then it had the fringes twisted and then into the laundry tub for its hand wash and  lay flat to dry.

It now measures (after being steam pressed and ironed) 80 inches in length.   I can only assume that it relaxed and took up more length, then shrunk  again with the hand washing.... but five inches is a lot! The width went from 23 inches on the loom to 21 inches finished.  All things considered, it still a beautiful shawl  but not the length the client asked for.   Now if I had been able to weave a second shawl I would have had a choice and been able to give her the longer of the two. 

So it came back again to my shorted yarn order.......   Plus my addition goof! But in my defence, I had very little warp left and couldn't have woven another full repeat anyhow.

My client lives in California which is literally burning up right now and I haven't heard from her. 🙁 I do hope she is okay.   Meanwhile I have hung the shawl up and it will wait till we hear some news.

On the personal front:   About two weeks ago hubby asked me if I knew how old our hot water tank is?  He couldn't find a date on it any where.   No idea!  I mentally made a note to dig out the house inspection report from two years ago..... and promptly forgot.

Last Thursday I woke early and decided to get up and went straight into the shower. Normally I have a coffee first and check my email, but not this day.    Hubby went out to the garage to get something from our pantry cupboard out there and discovered a puddle of water and an over flowing hot water tank!  Nothing too large fortunately and a bucket and mop soon had it cleaned up. As luck would have it, we had a plumber coming that day to repair an outside hose bib and indoor shut off valve that wasn't fully closing off ahead of the coming freezing weather.... in short a "small job". I called and informed them we now had a "big job" and they arrived that afternoon with a new tank and set about installing it.  Installation took approx three hours due to reworking of gas pipes and such but we had hot water and lots of it before the afternoon was done.    We haven't seen the bill as yet but we know its best to view it sitting down first.

So, we are giving each other a hot water tank for Christmas!   Its that special?   I bet you haven't got one tucked under the tree.      Our best wishes to Van Isle Plumbing for sorting things out in a timely manner!

Down the Rabbit Hole

Where did a month go?    I'm still here...... honest!

Well, it seems that my getting back into weaving that fast was perhaps a bit too much, too fast and I have been resting my knee and leg (other than the mandatory exercises).  

I fell down a proverbial rabbit hole!

Paternal great x3 aunt, only known as Ms Bowers.

I started sorting and scanning old family pictures instead to be useful with my time while my knee settles down.   Its like an old murder mystery but minus the murder part and you track clues and family trees.... and oh, look its midnight!

Olive  age 3, 1924

I have  family pictures for both my sets of grandparents and even some of great grandparents, then add to the mix one paternal aunt and her two marriages, and also two maternal aunts and their spouses  and all of the pictures taken by my father and mother over their lifetimes and I have literally thousands to sort, identify and scan.

Twins 1934
 

Twins approx 1937

Twins approx 1940-41

Twins approx 1948-49

I have an account with Ancestry and so can double check years and dates, family connections and then I have been sending these out one by one to family.   I had thought that 12-15 per day would take me 2-3 years but I decided to speed things up a bit.     So long as they sort using my subject lines, then all photos will group together as an individual or family.

Paternal great uncles Bill and Fred

Its fascinating seeing Life in another place and time, from their births to their old age. Its been a quite cathartic experience and it sure puts what's important .... truly important into perspective.

Paternal great aunt Hilda 

I'm doing my best with each and every one I handle as now that my father has passed on,  I'm the eldest in our family and for some of these people, I'm the only one to have met them or know their names.  

Unknown family member... no one recorded his name on the back. 

I just didn't want them to remain nameless or end up in a garbage bin or second hand shop someday. That is so sad.  

Family weddings....

If you have old style paper photographs, even if you don't organize them, at least write names on the back so someone one day who does organize them has names to go with faces.  Its one of those jobs that everyone says they must do sometime but it never seems important until its too late.

and funerals

Trust me, we all become a line on a family tree someday and with the technology around now, you can add pictures, stories, and even video's.

Consider it a gift to the future family.....

new babies

I did manage to ever so slowly weave off the last portion of my recent  scarves and they are threatening us with some sunshine tomorrow so I hope to put Madge Mannequin outside for some beauty shots.

Meanwhile we had an overflow from our four year old dishwasher and so our four year old hard wood floor is being lifted in places and  replaced with new boards this weekend.   The offending dishwasher is still here and we are hand washing until we decide which route to take: repair or replace.  Hand washing is a very time consuming job.   :(

Then there have also been some mysterious plumbing 'issues' downstairs which has four plumbers scratching their heads while we search for solutions.  

Now you know why the Rabbit Hole has been so appealing....    next post, weaving.... promise!

Scratching the Surface Some More

I thought I would bring you up to date with our recent adventures in getting a new water source to our house!  They say that most people take water for granted until you have none. Well, we had some... a slow dribble that made day to day life awkward. Years ago we lived aboard a boat with limited water and electricity and so knew all about the 'one appliance rule' and fast, fast showers! Our hot water tank was a mere 6 gallons in size. So here we are living in a full sized house and we were back to our old boat day rules: No flushing while someone was in the shower! You don't get scalded, but the water disappears entirely until the toilet tank filled! No showers or laundry during the dinner hour as the water was needed in the kitchen for dinner preparation.  The dishwasher goes on at bedtime when there is no chance of water being needed anywhere else in the house.  Laundry day was more like laundry week!

So last time I wrote on details, we had had the well drilled and this is what it looked like when they were done:

Yup, its a hole in the ground! A 182 foot hole in the ground to be exact.  Do you see the water around the base? The water would normally stay down at the level you find it at which in our case was 162 feet. We opted to drill another 20 feet and this would help serve as storage space. Well, imagine the surprise when they took the top off and the water was right to the top of the pipe, so 184 feet of storage! Then it started to dribble out as you see above.  The plumber Sven said we were darn lucky as this meant we would never actually draw on the acquifer and have plenty for our needs!   This sure sounded good but I was wondering how to get it to the house and out my taps?

No problem..... you dig another hole or trench rather..... 300 feet long to the house.  Here's the machine that did the deed:

The caterpillar tracks helped on the slopes but it sure chewed up the driveway!

From the well positioned behind the garage you come out to the front of the garage, where you dig up and break the existing irrigation line for the dug well (which was repaired and reburied)..... then start marching up the road....

Up the drive and across the bridge, where near the tree you find an old culvert bringing water from the neighbour's property under your driveway and onto your land. This was 'fixed' ... enough said on that.  :)

Then beside the drive where you deal with big tree roots

Then you hope your  line of new cedars haven't spread out their new roots too far yet!

Why stop there?   Let's go through the path and even the garden! Here they placed a junction box (see green box waiting) where they changed the type of pipe and its diameter.

Ultimately they drilled a hole right through the foundation and then pulled pipe through under the house which they accessed via the crawl space. Yes, it was a #%^&@% mess!  They covered it all up again but the ground is subsiding as the dirt compacts down and its not the nice (relatively clean) crushed blue granite you can see we had down.  A muddy mess which will most likely have to wait till spring to fix as winter is upon us!

While the men were working up by the house, I heard a little yipping noise and someone told Calli to be quiet.  Since Calli was lying beside me as I wove, so it wasn't her!  I got up to check and this is what I found!

This is Cali (short for Mexicali?) the Chihuahua!  One of the big tough guys had brought his little dog along and she was COLD ! I offered to bring her in and warm her up but her 'Dad' just tucked her into his coat and zipped it up.  No more yipping!

We had the well drilled right beside the garage so there was electricity near by and the well components can be mounted safely in the garage  and we wouldn't have to build a pump house. (These pictures were taken with a mobile phone so not entirely clear.)

This shows the main black water pipe coming in from the well and a pressure tank above. Next to it is the 'brains' for the pump which sits down at 172 feet in the well. It is set up to provide a constant pressure or PSI.

Here's the gauge:   (I can almost feel the full pressure showers now!)

So apparently getting the pump down the well is a task all unto itself! It has to be somehow suspended and sanitized and without touching anything settled down into the well which has also been sterilized. (You have always wondered about stuff like this right?)

Here Sven has a special derrick truck to lift the pump into the air. Meanwhile the well has been painted a bright blue so you miss it with the mowing tractor! There is some testing or cleaning going on right now.

Here's the submersible pump being readied for lowering down the well. Once this was completed, we had to 'develop the well' for a couple of weeks. This meant twice a day we hooked a garden hose onto the pipe fitting that comes up through the floor in the laundry room and run water from the new well for 20 to 30 minutes a time. This flushed out any fine sediment and debris that was created by the drilling.   This was a long two weeks and it evolved into three weeks with various delays. Next up is the final hook up to the existing water treatment system in the house and the cutting off and capping of the old well pipe.

In our laundry room what you see from the new well system is the pipe that runs under the house and then appears up from the floor, tucked in behind the hot water tank:

The lighter coloured small pipe takes water off to an outdoor hose bib ahead of the treatment system. The main water then goes to a treatment system that softens, filters and irradiates the water with UV light. Now its safe to drink and bath in!

So I did! This shower is the highest water appliance in the house and it was quite pathetic what we had before. Not any more!

....and for good measure I ran the vanity tap too!

There was no fluctuation in the water volume!  So that's all settled now and  we must eventually repair/ patch the driveway, then replant the garden come spring and make it so it doesn't look like the garden gnomes went bonkers!

Well, after an early winter storm that rolled through here yesterday, it all looks chaotic! We had some very high wind gusts out of the south east and in one to three gusts, the wind cleared off the maple and alders and the air was *full* of flying leaves, branches and other debris! I managed to sweep off all the decks and I literally needed a shovel to lift it all.  The power outage lasted 3 1/2 hours so not too bad for the first storm. The gutters on the house seriously need a cleaning now!

Apart from a small interior decorating job that we plan to start tackling in January 2012, that's it for reno's for the year! I've started my Christmas baking and writing cards....