Projects

Sometimes people ask us if we are doing renovations on our 'cottage'.  I call it a cottage because it is so small, and it's a place that we are at only part of the time.  We didn't want to buy something that needed immediate renovations.  We wanted to buy something we could go to and relax and live a simpler life for a few days.  If we wanted to do renovations, there's a list of them waiting here at home. That said, although I love to read, I can only do that for so long.  We only get one channel on the tv, and we have no internet.   While we are there I do some sewing and jam making for the farmers markets, but we usually work on a few small projects as well.

This window is in the eating area.   We have a tiny table that you could squeeze three chairs around, and four if you flipped up the back flap that is down against the wall.  The window is not very tall.  My theory is that the taller window that is along the east wall of the porch, used to be the window in this wall.  Then someone decided to permanently build the air conditioner into the wall, and so used the top part of the window opening for that, and put a smaller window in underneath it. 

I had an idea for hiding the air conditioner.  I found a shelf with wooden brackets for $2.99 at a thrift store.  I cut the shelf and the brackets down so that it stuck out just slightly farther than the air conditioner.  I painted it the same colour as the wall, because I didn't really want it to stand out.

Then I found this fabric window topper also at the thrift store for $1.50.  I had to unpick the rod pocket sewn along the top to get enough coverage.  I put velcro along the top edge, and the other half of the velcro on the top edge of the shelf.  In the summer when we actually use the air condtioner, I can pull the fabric off, and then velcro it back up there once the hot weather is over.

We also started to replace the two gates that come in off the lane, and that we might eventually open so we can park our little travel trailer in the back yard.  The gates were rotten at the bottom and were really too low to the ground.  We took them off and put up a temporary barrier to keep the dogs in.  Those cedar lattice pieces were what someone had put out at the end of their driveway for free back in the summer.  They did the job.  We didn't get the gates finished this trip.  They are drying out in the basement so that maybe next time we can finish replacing the rotten parts, and then put a coat of paint on them before we re install them.  

During the process of putting up the lattice, Luna kept pushing her soccer ball out into the lane.  Later in the day we couldn't find her ball anywhere.  I walked down the lane (it goes down hill fast at the end of our property) and had a good search for her ball, peering under vehicles and into small spaces.  I didn't find the ball, but I did find the lid to our compost bin that had gone missing in the late Spring.  Sweet!  I made sure this time that is was locked on so the wind couldn't blow it away.  We did realize later that Luna had popped her ball over the fence and it was stuck in the neighbour's hedge.

Of course a daily project while we are there is exercising the dogs.  We made a couple of trips to the dog park, had a few shorter walks, and did two decent ones with Calli in her cart.  The first one was about 4 miles along the river.  Calli did well.  

The second one was the day we came home.  Also along the river, but south this time, on our way to Osoyoos.  It was a beautiful day, sun, blue skies, and snow on the mountains.  All the days but one were like that.

Crossing the river on a little bridge over one of the many weirs.

The drive home was pretty good, except for about 10 minutes when it was like this.  We were just coming down from Alison Pass which is at 1343 meters (4406 ft).  A little hairy, 8% grade downhill and icy.  There was a semi-trailer leading the line up and keeping everyone going slow.  

It wasn't long before we lost enough elevation that the snow was melting on the road and we had bare tracks.  The rest of the drive was fine.