Christmas Day and Elphinstone

The view from our kitchen window this morning as we prepare the turkey.

Pre-Hamper packing Toast

But first, a thick toasted slice of our own molasses bread. One of our hybrid loaves that we bake on a regular basis.

Packing

Yes, today will be day three of our yearly adventure in volunteering to pack hampers for the Elves Club of Sunshine Coast BC. They will start to be delivered on Saturday. When we arrived at the Gym on Wednesday morning it was empty, this is what it looks like this morning and more work to be done!

Santa Cause 2 - the excellent sequel

Last Night we held the second "Santa Cause" dance down at the Gibsons Public Marina and a good crowd attended, and they drank, and they danced to my clumsy DJ tunes. I don't know what the final figures are yet, but we raised a lot of money for the Sunshine Coast Elves Club.

A shout out to Karen, who out danced almost everybody, to Barbara Hetherington who shook a leg too, and last, but not least, Buddy Boyd and his good friend Gus from Gambier Island, who both spent almost the last hour on the dance floor.

An Even Number of Days

It is something significant to celebrate, and we have become used to celebrating a few things as there always seems to be a reason to party nowadays. Three days ago Karen and myself celebrated twenty-eight years married and we stayed at a hotel in Vancouver for a couple of nights and ate and drank like royalty. 
Today we have been retired a total of 3000 days, another reason to have a home made sandwich and a budget beer.

Salmon Night

It's Salmon Night in the household and we have a special arrangement with the local sockeye guy (as if there's just one....) and we get fresh ground sockeye trim at a third of the price of fillet.  The amazing thing about this substance is that when fresh, it has no smell whatsoever, does not even smell like fish (but leave it a day and it soon changes for the worse).

250 Grams of ground sockeye trim.
Chopped chili peppers (from the greenhouse)
Salt, Bran and ground black pepper.
Louisiana Sauce.

All mixed up, made into patties, fried without oil in a quality non-stick pan with steam cycling.

Karen informs me that I am her best husband/cook after these devils are cooked and will stay with me for at least another week. They will be served with small buttered potatoes and broccoli and washed down with a Tree Brewing Thirsty Beaver Amber Ale.

Not my Lego.

It's my bloody birthday, but Karen gets to play with the Lego.....

Yes, another thrift store purchase destined to be flogged on eBay, hey, we have to pay for the endless beers with something!

Tolerance

It was a lovely October Day today, it had rained and our rain barrel is full once again. The walk along the beach was just misty, a little light rain but the temperature was good. This bunch of seagulls were sitting at the sea outlet of Gibsons Creek, and they tolerated us for a while.

The Tug and Anchor

Down at the Squamish Band Lands, a solitary tug in the mist.

I thought "The Tug and Anchor" would be a good name for a pub.

Thanksgiving Day Bread

We found this on our walk, down at the beach. At first we thought it was some bread that someone had left for the birds.

It's a rock.

Magnetic Numbers

It's been over nine years since we bought the piece of land that triggered our acceleration into retirement, when we bought the land in 2006, the magnetic numbers on the fridge said 23, so 23 months was the target.

On our 19th wedding anniversary in December 2006, during a meal at the Keg in Oshawa, I presented Karen with a ring box with two magnetic numbers in it. It was a one and a two and for a moment Karen was confused and then slowly realised that my projections had sliced five months off our target.

So by the following wedding anniversary, we would be retired.

We drank a lot of wine that night.

History shows that to be true, but what actually happened was the land purchase made our feet so itchy, that we retired in the September of 2007.  Three months ahead of our revised target.

Today, after an adventure with a backhoe, the land was cleared again, eight years of weed trees and blackberries bulldozed down in four hours, and we sat on that log in the middle there and drank some more, it was a magical day.

And we found a building!

The guy who helped us with the heavy lifting used to own the property, and lived on it, he used his backhoe to clear a path along "our" creek to where the shack was, it was an amazing thing to see, and there it sits, like a ghost in the forest, with so much history and so much knowledge of what goes on in the black of night. 

Eight years, done.

Today was another happy day, a small celebration of eight full years retired, which happened at around 2.00pm Pacific time as it was clocking off time back in Ontario, eight years ago.

A nice meal at Gramma's Pub and a box of wine for tonight, all smiles around here and the plan is working better than expected, although to be fair, eight years ago, we did not really know what to expect.

On Thursday the 20th September 2007, the big moving truck arrived and was packed with all our belongings, then on the Friday, we packed up the bare bones into the Acura and set off on our epic journey across Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway.

Here's a last day photo at the landing gear emporium, the day of the great escape, the three amigos.

Graeme Wright, Doug Varley and Dave Weldon.

Rain capture system, done.

That's it, we're expecting rain on Tuesday and the gutter system and the rain barrel is in place.

Now it's time to reconstruct the entire back garden, lots of plans ahead.

Will keep you posted.

The Beer Menu

What was on the beer menu yesterday, unfortunately the American Pale Ale was sold out, but we made do with what was left.

Saturday morning Egger

Saturday morning, no need to rush off to a fast food joint for a bacon and egger and a morning coffee or two. Something to snarf down before heading out into the September sunshine.

Simple things make life so good.

Our hops in action

Great to see that Persephone are already brewing with the hops that we picked, I know this because that's my writing on the side of the bag.

These we picked on the 26th of August, Centennial hops that I roped into one of the bags yesterday, gosh, those guys are quick on the brewing game.

Last day before the Party

Second anniversary party and "Tough Kegger" on Saturday and we have our tickets. Today was our last day, our fifth, picking hops. We are both a little tired but happy with many aspects of the gig.

Almost endless conversations, many funny which of course was helped along by the quaffing.

Now I suppose, we'll be waiting for next year to help with the planting again, unless the guys at Persephone come up with some other exotic work for the pair of us.

"Will work for beer"

Greenhouse......Done

That's about it, the greenhouse is complete.

We have a rain barrel and water capture system to set up, but the structure is done in just short of three months. We have to admit that the last few weeks have been difficult, and that's typical with most projects as they progress close to the end.

We celebrated today with some home built beer, to toast a home brewed greenhouse.

Keep posted, more to come.

Temporary Foreign Workers

Once again we were TFW's at the beer farm around the corner. Two days of hop picking and being coerced into drinking lots of beers, force fed fruit, cheese and cucumber sandwiches and oven fresh thin crust pizza. They also gave us a gift card with the equivalent of eighteen pints of beer.

Cheap foreign labour, we feel used...

As shown here with a pair of the employee's kids, they also capitalize on child labour, although these two were more interested in the foosball table and the free pizza after climbing up the trolley just once.

Marilyn's Plum Tree

A few photo's from our kitchen window, a big black bear inspecting our neighbours plum tree.

Treat it as a Roundabout

In front of the postbox this morning, what Karen described as "The biggest bear poop I've ever seen" and we tried to find Norris McWhirter's phone number and then discovered that both he, and Roy Castle have kicked the bucket.

The fruit trees are abundant, our neighbours plum tree is bursting with fruit and the bears know it.

We're going to use the Gordon Ramsey "Bear Poop Wellington" recipe on this one and it should be quite fruity with a nutty finish...

Closer to the Boat

We're wimpy when it comes to fish, but today we stepped closer to the boat by buying a whole pink salmon from IGA. I have a few what I believe to be sharp knives and I literally butchered this thing, emphasis on butchering. However, we farmed some very fine portions from this rascal.

The process felt brutal, far distant from buying shrink wrapped in the supermarket, but on occasion, perhaps we should all get a little closer to the boat, just to see what other people do, to present those convenient little 200 gram parcels in the shops.

The price of one of these unfortunate chaps at this time of the year? - this one was just shy of one kilogram, and was $4.71 which is really no money whatsoever for such fine protein.

It was delicious.

Vegetables a go-go

End Gable One

A tricky venture, mainly the cutting of the perspex was a bit of a chore, but it is installed and working as it should.

The filling of the holes continues and as of today, there are only four left (if you count the other gable as two holes) - we had a little break there and a few days of creating a potting table, today was back to work as we need to progress the shell further before we get to the rainy season, after we've finished all the windows, we're going to be applying some of the free trim metal we obtained from Gibsons Building Supplies.

Potting table.

A five dollar desk from the Zero Waste store at GRD, some repairs, some tile and wood and a bit of free paint. Voila! - A potting table with plenty of storage and a waterproof top for young Karen to do her experiments on.

Yard Sale Surprise

We were down on Chaster Road this morning at a yard sale, just parked up and Karen started shouting at me "Look, look, a mother bear and three cubs" and at first, for the life of me, I could not see them. Then there they were, in all their total magnificence, three of the cutest cubs imaginable and a big 350 pound mamma bear.

We kept our distance, because truly, no-one wants to piss off a black bear with a set of triplets.

A magical moment, probably one of our best nature moments yet in British Columbia.

Not our photo, but you get the idea.

Tree Brewing

The brewery craftily (see what I did there) placed a satellite mini-brew house in the path towards our favorite coffee house, so, a few mornings at eleven, we found ourselves magnetically pulled in there to replace our java.

It's a tough old life.

The fire followed us.

Yes, it's the year of the wildfire here in British Columbia and what started off on Monday afternoon as a 37 hectare fire in Kelowna, boomed into a 430 hectare fire or larger over two days. Here's a shot of the smoke from the side of Lake Okanagan.

Back

A week off the greenhouse, and a wonderful trip to Kelowna full of the usual stuff. I'll post a couple of pictures starting with the obligatory mug shot.

Put the wood in the hole

The door, the fiddlesome frame is complete, and installed. Just a couple more trim pieces to add, sanding, cleaning and a paint job to go.

Funny though, "trim" pieces tend to be 2x4's on a greenhouse project and we're at that stage where there's very little wood left, which is a good and a bad thing.

Looks like we will be able to achieve a "within budget" cost of less than $250 for the total project and in reality, when the excess spending on a couple of items is taken into account, the real cost of the completed greenhouse will be around $230.

Even More Vents

It rained yesterday, which was very welcome and today, Karen was out there painting the vents that complete the creek side of the greenhouse, one side, completely done.

I struggled today, working slowly on the door and it was frustrating for some reason and to add to that, wood was not cooperating at all, in fact, I think it was laughing at me.

Typical of any project I suppose, it's the last ten percent that becomes annoying, yet, we must press on and finish this thing, but for now we're stopping and drinking a few loaves in a can.

More Vents

Four of the vent frames have been constructed now, I make them, Karen masks and paints them.

Air quality has improved somewhat in Gibsons, but distant forest fires still are having their effect. After our greenhouse efforts yesterday we strolled up to Persephone once again and enjoyed growler hour and agreed that the weeks are flying by far too fast.

The Red Planet

The coast has an odd orange or sepia tint this morning, it is obvious that the wildfire up in Sechelt has not reduced overnight and the firefighters and water bombers will be having another busy day.

Full of muck, good muck

The first planter, stained, lined and filled.

Details

Small details, a vent with three 8x8 blocks, wood frame, metal screen. One piece, with two, maybe three more to construct.

I told you that things would take longer as we get closer to the end.

Getting Jiggy with it.

Cut door in half, remembering what Graeme Wright told me about cheap circular saws and their bias. Create a jig, with A and B surfaces. Drill holes, install dowels (expensive little buggers) and then glue and clamp.

Another example of one detail taking a bit of thinking and a fair bit of time.

One Mile.

Down Reed Road, to the right, to Stewart Road to the end and then the dirt path to the brewery, one mile on a hot day, a nice walk after a few hours work on the greenhouse.

Our reward?

Several beers during "growler hour" and some conversation with old and new friends on Canada Day.

Reason...

We all should be thinking about learning how to grow our own food, everything in the world seems to becoming more fragile, so just teaching ourselves the little things will help a little.

Karen was busy too...

While I was making the planter box, Karen was painting the almost finished front side of the greenhouse. It was essential that we both worked today as somehow we had to justify having wine on a Tuesday night.

As if we need an excuse...

Something from nothing

Another short work day, a couple of hours today as we get closer to the finish line.

I picked up a bunch of free pallet frame/spacer arrangements from Gibsons Building Supplies scrap zone and took them apart. Enough good wood for a reasonable sized raised bed planter box. The next step will be to line the box with heavy duty landscape fabric, then fill with good soil.

End of the day, the stained planter box, and a couple of the original frames remain for another project.

Measure Once, cut fourteen times.

I put it down to the heat (we were up in the 30's yesterday) because my ability to cut wood to size has deteriorated quite distinctly over the last two days. I need to focus.

The chap gave us four new tins of paint, one Autumn Sand, two white base and one trim and yesterday the nice man at Canadian Tire tinted one of the white to almost Autum Sand again for free. A lot of people have a "go" at Crappy Tire for being uncooperative, but I find it's the way you treat people that makes the difference.

It's not exactly the same tint, but we have a lot of it, so the greenhouse will end up the same colour.

More progress at the creek side of the structure :

Asymmetry

The heatwave continues and the mad dogs and Englishmen (and women) are out in the midday sun.

The asymmetry of the windows is quite evident now and it is a reflection of my dropping the engineering paradigm of most things having to be straight and symmetrical.

An acknowledgement today that I have bought too many windows and pieces of glass, so although the greenhouse will come in under our $250 target there was a bit of overspending in that number and things will have to be returned to the salvage yard to be recycled once more.

In every plan there is inefficiency.

No worries though, we're on track, perhaps another week and we'll be finished.