Throwback Thursday

One of these days I'll actually have a post that is meant for a specific day, prepared the night before. Ha! in my dreams......  If I'm quick here, I'll just manage to squeak this one in for Thursday.

 After we arrived in Canada from England, we lived for about 4 months in Williams Lake.  Must have been quite the culture shock for my mother.  From 'civilized' England to a cowboy town in the wild west of Canada.  My dad, I'm sure, loved it.  All that room for anyone to hunt and fish.

I don't think he was a hunter for long though.  I remember him telling me that once a deer had looked right at him, and he just couldn't shoot it.  He really was an animal lover and a softy at heart.

He did fish for much of his life though.  I used to accompany him some times when I was older.  This is probably my first time fishing.

Remember the old canvas water bags that used to hang off the aerial?

We used to go on drives on the weekends.  This would be in the Gang Ranch area of the Cariboo.

I was a smiley kid:)

All kinds of Awesome

On Friday I had a full day out.  Haircut, half price sale at my favourite thrift store, foodbank (we have more eggs than customers), recycling depot, grocery store, health food store, produce store.  Kind of one of those days that you think, well I'm already out, so I might as well just get it all done.  I did... almost. (Turns out that I left a bag at the thrift store that I had put at the side of the checkout counter while I took my bigger purchases to the back, to be picked up on my way home.  I had to go back on Saturday to get the bag)

And when I finally got home, this is what I saw at the bottom of the driveway.

Totally Awesome!!!

The sign itself wasn't a surprise to me.  Five years ago (I couldn't believe it was that long ago, but I have pictures to prove it)  David made the 'Wyndson Farm' part of the sign for me for Christmas.  There was discussion about how to use it, where to put it, and we decided to make a sign for the bottom of the driveway.  We had been given the large brass numbers by Larry's mum, and hadn't done anything with those, so they were perfect.  I designed the sign, Larry put it all together, and that was when the enthusiasm waned.  The logical place to put it was at the end of the driveway, and there was only one suitable spot where it could be easily seen.  We started to dig holes, but because there is a massive Broadleaf Maple right there, we instantly ran into a mass of roots, and decided to leave it to another day, and another, and another.  I mentioned a few times that what I would like for my birthday or Mother's Day was for that sign to be planted.  Didn't happen, the sign leaned against the front of the house for years, where the only ones that could see it was us.  And you know how that goes, if it's there long enough, even we didn't really see it any more.  Although Larry said he did, and he planted it on Friday.  He put an old chain on the chainsaw, stuck it down the hole, and cut some roots away.  He manhandled it into the hole and attached some braces to it, and yesterday we went out there and packed rocks and dirt back into the holes.  It's down a couple of feet, so good and solid. Awesome!

And continuing with the awesomeness.....I scored at the thrift store.  I was in the furniture and hardware store, and found three boxes of these.

There is a little bit of this type of irrigation at the front of the house at Oliver.  We had talked about adding some more so that the lawn and flower beds and the front and side of the house were all covered.  The boxes cost me $4 each.  All the stuff inside, except for the piping, was in a sealed bag.  See those two yellow parts at the top.  They are the little sprayer heads that you have to snap apart, and they go in the top of the little skinny pipes like in the photo above.

The local hardware store in Oliver carries all the parts for irrigation systems.  I had to buy a few replacement tops for what is already there.  They cost 25 cents each.  So that's $7.50 worth of sprayer heads in that $4 box, never mind the cost of the other parts. Love that the parts are made in Canada and Australia.

I also got a bigger box for $7.50, that has bigger piping and four pop-up sprayer heads for putting in your lawn.  For $20 we have enough irrigation parts for the whole place. Awesome!

And the not so awesome...

Since I was gone all day, Larry went to his favourite fast food joint, 6 minutes away, where he can get a coffee and muffin for about $1.50 and can read the sports section in the Province newspaper.  While he was gone, either Jake or Luna, had an accident, and left stinky deposits across the rug in the family room.  Larry said as soon as he came in the front door he could smell it.  It took him a while to track it down.  I think it was Luna because Jake doesn't really go in the family room, and I think it came from the front end, not the back.  Luna has been disappearing on our bush walks, sometimes coming back licking her lips, so she probably found something disgusting out there somewhere. 

The rug was dragged outside, hung over the gate, scrapped off, sprayed down, and is still out there.  We need to rent a carpet cleaner, as we have a few rugs rolled up that need to be cleaned and then could be donated.

And to end on an awesome note...Our favourite blond dog turns 14 today.

I'm sure if she could speak, she say 'surely you have a better photo than that?'

She loves to have a pillow, and sometimes looks like she has a foot growing out of her back.

(That's because she isn't conscious of where her back legs are or what they are doing)

Happy Birthday Calli!

More Mist and Manure on Monday

Another foggy, misty day.  Look straight up and you could see blue sky. That was before 10 in the morning, so we figured it would clear off in an hour or two.  We were teased for quite a while ,and then finally about 2 the sun broke through and it was lovely.

Off to the north though, you could see the fog hanging around at the top edge of the valley.  It drops off not far north of us, into Glen Valley and the Fraser River.  It threatened to roll back over us a few times, but never did.

I was continuing on with the broccoli/manure project from yesterday.  Larry pushed a few wheelbarrows down for me.  I think it actually took 4 or 5 loads of manure to cover the area emptied by one wheelbarrow.  I'm getting there.  I'm thinking this year of maybe leaving the shavings/manure on top as a mulch, and just pushing it aside to plant the seeds.  Hoping it will work to hold the moisture in and the weeds down.  I made lots of progress.  All the stalks are out, but still the weeds to go.  Here's where I'm at now.

The fencing on the ground is my garlic patch.  That's to stop any chickens that get into the garden from scratching it out.  There were two hens and the rooster in there today.  The white stuff that looks like a dusting of snow is some of the wood ash from the woodstove.   Maybe tomorrow morning I'll get that section finished.  And then again, maybe not.  

Trying to think of an alliteration for Tuesday's title.  Never mind a title, I'm trying to think of a topic.  I did think that I could change last Tuesday's to 'Tuesday's Tails' if I get desperate.  We'll see how it plays out.

Sunday's Supper

This is our weather forecast.  It's been similar since last Wednesday, but in reality, the only decent day we have had was Thursday, which was the subject of yesterday's post.  

• Past 24 hr
• Radar
• Satellite

Current Conditions

3°C

• °C
• °F

Observed at:

Abbotsford Airport

Date:

9:00 PM PST Sunday 19 January 2014

Condition:

Mist

Pressure:

102.7 kPa

Tendency:

rising

Visibility:

1 km

Temperature:

2.8°C

Dewpoint:

2.7°C

Humidity:

99%

Wind:

NNW 8 km/h

• AQHI

Forecast

Graphic forecast

Sun

19 Jan

•  
•  
• 0°C

Mon

20 Jan

•  
• 9°C
•  

Tue

21 Jan

•  
• 9°C
• 2°C

Wed

22 Jan

• 30%
• 9°C
• 2°C

Thu

23 Jan

•  
• 9°C
• 1°C

Fri

24 Jan

•  
• 10°C
• 2°C

Sat

25 Jan

•  
• 10°C
• 1°C

Detailed forecast

Issued: 4:00 PM PST Sunday 19 January 2014

The rest of the time we have generally been stuck in the fog or low clouds, in a climatic inversion. Go up a mountain, and you get the sunshine and warmer temperatures.  If there is a none sunny bright side to this, at least it's not raining.  

It's been decent for working outside, so we've been putting in some hours out there.  Today I decided to tackle some garden clean-up.  I started just before lunch, and then lunch hour turned into lunch three hour, but I did get back out there and accomplish something.  This was last year's broccoli patch  There were a lot of plants that are now mostly dead, and kind of smelly. I've already cleared the area in the foreground.

I started pulling them out and loading them into the wheelbarrow.  The odd one that had lots of green on it went over the fence to the chickens.

 My plan was to fill up the wheelbarrow, push it up the driveway and into the field where we dump the garden waste in a pile, and then make a small detour to the manure pile, fill up the wheelbarrow with partially rotted horse manure and shavings, and bring it back to the garden.

It seemed though that I needed two wheelbarrows worth of manure to cover the area emptied by one wheelbarrow.  That was all I got done today, because then it was time to take ourselves and Jake and Luna for a brisk walk.

 

 It's one of those jobs that I can keep picking away at.

I planned on pulling some leeks out to make a soup in the crock pot, and then I came across a few onions that I had totally forgotten about.  There was also a tiny little red cabbage that had survived the big freeze in December.  I thought I'd see what else I could find, so managed to scrounge up some broccoli shoots, a few carrots, and some collard and kale leaves.

It all went in the crockpot with some pork sausages and some turkey broth and some seasoning, and made this wonderfully healthy soup.  Emphasis on the healthy, (okay, healthy if it didn't have the sausages in it),  but despite the sausages, the soup didn't have a whole lot of flavour.  More salt and pepper and a warm buttered bagel and it wasn't half bad.

Five days now with blog posts that have a title that is an alliteration.  I'm aiming for two more:)

Scenic Saturday

It is feast or famine around here.   Either I don't post for two weeks, or you get seven posts in eight days.  I know I won't be keeping this up, but right now I seem to have a lot to say.

A couple of days ago we took the dogs for a walk at Brae Island in the Fraser River near Fort Langley.  It is a regional park, so is an on leash park, but the only dogs we saw on leash were ours.  If Luna would stay closer to us, I would have let them off leash, but they stayed on until we got to the end of the island and Tavistock Point. (It's not that we can't control them, it's because Luna is not good with other dogs, and the trail wasn't straight enough to see ahead for any distance). With Calli, it is just not safe to let her loose in that cart.  As it was she managed to tip it over twice.  One time a branch got caught in the spokes of one of the wheels, and another time she rammed one wheel into a post.

It was a glorious, mild January day.  Jake and Luna were expectantly waiting for something to be thrown.  They THINK they want to do a water retrieve, but they'd find it too cold after a few dips.

Calli was on a tight rein.  Making sure there were no 'Calli goes in the water, the cart starts to float, the cart tips on it's side and takes Calli with it' incidents.

Golden Ears mountain the background.  You can barely see it, but there is a long line of floating logs that appear at the far side of the river.  Really they are in the middle, and are part of the longest log boom I have ever seen.  The tug pulling it looked to be at least half a mile downstream.  It was mind boggling.

This was the narrow channel on the south side of the island.  Notice the paddler is in a t-shirt, or maybe it's a short sleeved wet suit.

Looking to the west.  I wonder what kind of birds those houses were for?  They must be monitored, seeing that they are numbered.

Beautiful:)

Frugal Friday

If you are a lover of thrift stores like me, it's always interesting to see what other people find there, and most importantly, how little did they pay for it.

So I thought I'd show you a few things that I've thrifted lately.

I'm always fascinated by textiles.  I saw this quilt thing, it looked brand new and was made in Germany.  

It took me a little bit to figure out why there was a zipper in the shape of a rectangle in the middle, but it's a new way of doing a Quillo.  Might be very handy for camping. $2

This down duvet came with a cover and was $8.  I always wash the fabric stuff.  It took quite a while in the dryer, with a clean dog Kong crashing around in there to help fluff it up, but it eventually dried.

Brand new leather purse.  $1.  I like my purses small and with a long strap so I can put the strap over my head and on the opposite shoulder.  Fashionable it isn't.

Silver plated Christmas decoration (without the ornaments) $1.50.  I found 7 glass tea light holders for it for under 70 cents.

Large glass vase thingy $2, and the red and silver ornaments $1.50

Crocheted vintage cushion $1

It goes well on my redone chair

Wall hanging rug thing, $2.50

Wall clothes hanger thing.  $1.50

Sachets of lavender of a ribbon, with machine embroidery lavender stems on it.  50 cents.  I was hoping it would help me sleep better, but no luck with that.  Even put it in my pillow case one night.  It smelled lovely as I tossed and turned during the night:(

Soap dispenser. 25 cents at a garage sale.  Unfortunately garage sale season coincides with farmers market season, so I don't get to go to many of those any more.

I had actually bought a brand new brushed steel dispenser for this bathroom, and it kept getting rust spots on it.  No problem with this dispenser.

Next weekend my favourite thrift store is having a half price sale.  I'll be there:)

Throwback Thursday

Coming over from England on the Empress of England (or maybe it was Britain) July 1963.  Well my mother and sister and I were on one, and my dad came on the other in April of the same year.  The lady on the left, Florie, was someone, along with her husband and daughter, that my mother made friends with on the trip.

In Montreal before getting on the train.

Getting our feet wet in Canada.  After a long train journey across the country in the middle of summer, we were probably glad to play in the water.  This was Kamloops in B.C.

Up above Kamloops Lake on our way to Williams Lake, where we lived for about four months.

Having just arrived at our apartment in Williams Lake.  I can't remember much about it, other than it was tiny.  Cathy and I slept on bunk beds, and my parents slept on a fold down couch in the same room that I think served as both living and bedroom.

I find it funny that my mother is wearing the same dress in all the photos.  Maybe she only had one or two, and the rest were all packed away.  Maybe this was her favourite one and she wore it as much as she could.  The last three photos were probably all taken on the same day.  I was 6 1/2 and Cathy was 3.

And just because....here's a couple of different shots of the moonrise this evening.  Neither were quite what I wanted, but it sure was an amazing sight.