Big Guns to the Rescue.

This is looking down our driveway now.  When we moved here nearly 28 years ago, there were a few of those cedar hedging trees down the side of the driveway, in random places.  I strongly suggested we buy more, and we made a nice row of them on either side of the driveway, each planted ten feet apart.  There are now about 30 of them.  And then they grew, and grew some more.  We got a really bad dose of freezing rain one winter, and the trees all opened up like a flower, with the branches bent out to the ground.   We cut the bent branches off, and then put webbing around the inner trunks, and fastened them back in tight together.  The webbing is still there, doing it's job.  Every few years I'd whack the tops off the trees to keep them at a reasonable height, but we never pruned the sides.  Big mistake.  Some of the trees had grown up to eight feet wide, and the ones that are right out in the open are about fifteen or sixteen feet tall.  The ones under the trees stayed shorter and narrower.  

Somehow or other, the previous weekend when David was here, we got talking about them, and the mess they were in and David suggested they could just be pruned right at the ground.  I even jokingly agreed at one point.  It got me thinking about them, and I decided to have a go at tidying them up.  I said to Larry that I was going to see if I could get them all done before David came back this past weekend.  I picked away at them all week.  Some were time consuming, shoulder and wrist aching.  I found the easiest thing for me to handle was the electric hedge trimmer.  Last year we bought a decent one.  I pruned the sides this time too. Some of the top growth was too thick for the hedge trimmer, so I'd have to use the loppers or a saw.  Those two tools were really hard on my shoulders and wrists.  Sucks to get old.   I had to get Larry to cut a few branches with the chainsaw.  Larry has shoulder issues too.  We have an 8' and a 12' orchard ladder.  Most of it I could do with the shorter ladder, but some places needed the 12', with is a pain in the backside to position by yourself.  It's the most stable ladder though.  I spared you pictures of Larry balanced on the tall ladder with the chain saw, cutting branches off a maple tree.   Just like the Preventable commercials we see on TV....What was he thinking?

By the time David had finished work on Saturday, I had them all done except for three at the top of the driveway, that were pruned a couple of years ago, and four just down from them that hadn't been done for 5 years.  Those four were right out in the open, so they were massive, and many of the branches were too thick to cut with anything but a chainsaw.  I had joked to David that I was leaving them to him.  He told me that he had asked his boss if he could borrow the tractor on Sunday morning.  (He works at the horse farm across the road on Saturdays).

So this is how those four got done.  That box chained to the bucket on the tractor is how they move loads of bedding shavings around.  Larry is on the 12 ft ladder, so you can get a bit of a sense of how big those ones have got.

Looking from the other side, from the vegetable garden.

How nice to have someone young, strong and energetic doing the hardest part for us.

Most of it was done with a small chainsaw, but for some David was able to use the loppers.

Larry got to operate the big boy tractor.

One done, three more to go.  There are three to the left of the ladder that are the ones done a couple of years ago.  It won't take me long to do those. 

Since I felt like I should be out there, even though I wasn't really able to help, I got the raspberries and the grape vine pruned while I was hanging around.  Since it was pouring rain the whole time, it didn't seem like a good time to be out there with an extension cord and a power tool.

We did load that big metal box up twice with the cuttings, and dumped them in a big blackberry patch.

Oh yeah, that extension cord, well it is now 5' shorter than it was a week ago. 

 Oops!  

On the bright side, I was able to fix it myself.

Thanks so much David!

All Logged Out

We are done in, done enough, are done with it.  The logging, aka cutting, splitting, loading, unloading and stacking firewood.  

Yesterday we took the tractor and trailer out with us when we took the dogs for a walk through the bush.  On the way back Larry drove the tractor and trailer down the trail and parked it at the closest spot to the pile of split wood.  Oh boy oh boy oh boy that maple is heavy wood when it's green.  Got it all loaded on the trailer and Larry started along the trail.  When he first drove in there I did think in my head that I wouldn't have been facing that way, but I (unusual for me) kept my mouth shut.  There is a bit of a hill, but with the ground being so frozen, we (or he) didn't think it would be a problem.  Well it was.  The tractor isn't 4 wheel drive, it started to slip on the steep bit, the tires spun and turned the frozen ground into ice.  The trail is just wide enough for the trailer, so he rolled back a bit, but there was no room to maneuver to back up, as the trail wasn't straight either.  So we just left it there because our boy David would be here today and he could pull us out with his landrover 'Gruff' and his wench...er winch. (That one's for you Suzanne!)

Later in the afternoon I walked out there and split the rest of the wood further up the trail, with the help of my buddy Jake.

This morning David and Gruff and his wench...er winch came out.

He didn't use the wench...er winch, he just pulled the tractor with the tow rope and it didn't take much and the tractor and trailer and Larry were on their way.

 I did have to yell once for him to lower the bucket before he whacked it on a tree, and he did squeeze a trailer tire against a tree trunk, but it was all good, not a piece of firewood was lost.

I continued on and gave the dogs their walk while Larry drove back to our wood shed thingy.

David helped us unload the trailer and we got the wood all stacked.  Larry and I went back out to pick up the rest of the wood, and I told him about a couple of good sized pieces I had seen on the ground.  So we drove out to where they were, were able to carry them out to the trailer, and sawed and split them right there.  Then we went and picked up the wood that I had split yesterday, heading the opposite way along the trail, which worked out just fine, and I mentally said 'I told you so'.  Got that stacked in the woodshed with Meredith's help, and felt a great glow of accomplishment, because, added to what we already had, we have enough wood in there now to get us through the next winter.  And then exhaustion set in.

Note 1 - A Facebook and blogging friend was describing a farm vehicle they had just bought, and she said it had a winch but spelled it wench, so I made a joke of of it.  I think of that every time I see winch now:)

Note 2 - How Gruff got it's name.  The Landrover club that David belongs to said his short stocky vehicle can go just about anywhere, like a little billy goat gruff.

The Rover has Landed

  Much to David's relief, his landrover, the British import, finally arrived home today.  It's been sitting at the port in Tacoma for the last 12 days.  Red tape and Union pig headedness has kept it there far longer than David had expected.  Apparently, the powers that be decided that the landrover needed to be washed.  Since it was a farm vehicle, it could be transporting contaminated soil or other debris from Britain to North America.  Now in all honesty, wouldn't it have made much more sense for it to be 'decontaminated' before it ever left British soil.  Apparently it was the luck of the draw as to whether the washing would be required or not, and luck was not with David.  And then the employee's union at the port was not allowing another company to come in to do the washing.  That meant they had to find a bonded carrier to take the landrover from the port to an off-site washing facility.  David was on a first name basis and in daily contact with people in Tacoma.  Whatever they washed the landrover with must have contained gold flakes, considering the exorbitant amount he was charged.  It was finally confirmed yesterday afternoon that the landrover was free to go.

David and Christina left about 5 this morning and arrived back 12 hours later with the landrover on the back of a trailer.  Here it is a few seconds into it's first trip on Canadian pavement.

Kind of cute, and well..... sort of stubby.

 'Stubby', I think that's my nickname for it.

And up the driveway

Checking out all the lights

And all Jake felt was frustration.

All these people standing around, and no one would throw the toy.

Following Your Dream

David is passionate about Land Rovers.  A few years ago he bought one, proceeded to take it to pieces and rebuilt it, but it wasn't quite what he wanted, so he eventually sold it.  His passion waned for a while, but then the flame was fanned, and it is burning strong again.  Luckily for him, our neighbour is also a Land Rover lover.  And luckily for David, he offered a Landrover to him to use on some outings that the Land Rover club held.  He'd been out twice, the first time with Larry as co-pilot, and the second time with his girlfriend. 

There are pictures of those outings here.  Notice the cool sleeping arrangement:)

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For a long while now he has been looking for his own Land Rover.  The selection here is somewhat limited, and the prices are high.

But.....go to the home of the Land Rover, and the selection and prices are much better.  After doing a lot of research, he figured that in England, he had more chance of finding a Land Rover that fit his dream, and at a price he could afford.  Add on all the shipping and governments holding their hands out for their share of the pie, and it still wasn't going to cost any more than what he would pay here, IF he could even find one that he liked.

He found a decent price on a flight to England for an eight day stay, asked Meredith if she was interested in coming along, and off they went.  They landed at Gatwick, picked up their rental car, and headed north.  Since it was cheaper to rent a car under Meredith's name since she was the eldest, she drove first.  I give her a lot of credit.  A strange car, steering wheel on the right, driving on the left side of the road, in a torrential downpour, and the car being a stick shift to boot, I'm impressed.  She said she stalled it once and got honked at three times for not getting going fast enough, and proceeded to drive 200 miles north to York, and then she never drove it again:)

Since the first Land Rover David had arranged to see was in North Yorkshire, not far from Harrogate where I was born, I asked them to have a look around at my old stomping grounds.

Here's where I lived until we headed to Canada when I was six. It looks pretty cute.  It's what is called a semi-detached, and what would probably be called a duplex here. Kitchen, bathroom, front entrance and bedroom across the front. Another bedroom and living room across the back, and small entry porch on the side.  Detached garage at the end of the driveway. 

When we lived there, there was a farm behind, but now it's more houses.  Sometimes the creek used to flood, and water would rush down our driveway and come in through that side porch.  My mum had one of those incidences to deal with on her own after my dad had left for Canada before we did.

My dad grew up in the next town over, called Knaresborough,  about three miles away.  They tried to see his old house, but the GPS led them astray, so they didn't actually find it.  That's okay, I found it on Google street view.

Knaresborough is a really quaint, picturesque place, with loads of history, not that there's probably a place in England that doesn't have a long history.  Here's a shot taken of the railway bridge, that was finished in 1851.  It had collapsed before they had quite finished building it three years earlier, so they just set to and built it again.

In Blackpool, they found this little reminder of home

And stopped to watch a horse show held in a not very flat field.

What gorgeous ponies they have.

In Blackpool there was a large area along the beach that was covered in funny quotes

In Nottingham they posed with Robin Hood

Neither were as good looking as the Hollywood versions

They had a wonderful visit with my cousin Julia and her husband Peter.

Those are their dogs, Prince and Charlie.

Aren't they Bonny?

Since David and Meredith's non-English half is of Icelandic heritage, they got a kick out of this store, which sold groceries.

And here it is.....

THE Land Rover.

 It seems small, and kind of cute I guess:)

David actually 'won' this in an eBay auction a few days after they arrived.  He slipped that last bid in just 12 seconds before the auction closed.   When he went to see it, there were no unpleasant surprises, and the owner had all the service records.

Fortunately it was only about 40 miles from the port at Southampton, and the tow truck driver knew exactly where to take it when he got there.  So there it sat ( I think it needs a name, any suggestions?) parked with a lot of other VERY expensive vehicles, all waiting to be shipped to Tacoma, Washington. Just a measly $290,000 for that Rolls Royce. The Land Rover left today, and will arrive in just under four weeks.

To add to the stress of trying to get everything arranged in the last day, the cellphone company was having trouble with their service, so his cell phone wasn't working, and he was having trouble with his laptop and the wireless as well.  Nevertheless, he managed to get it all sorted out.

And Home Sweet Home, or almost.

Coming in over Vancouver, almost at the airport.

Reindeer Wrangler

At the beginning of June, David finished a fairly intense year long course in Architectural Drafting.  He took it through the University of the Fraser Valley. He did well, finishing at the top of his class, and making the Dean's List. 

Despite all the hoopla the instructors were giving them at the beginning of the year about graduates being in high demand with employers...well those employers weren't exactly pounding down the door at graduating time.  So in the meantime David needed work.  Since he was about 15 he has worked for various neighbours, and so managed to pick up quite a bit of work in that way.  One thing led to another and then he ended up putting in some hours with a fellow who is an animal coordinator for the movie industry.

The first week they needed a dairy cow that could be hand milked.  The producer wanted a Holstein, but eventually settled for a Jersey that was located at a nearby agri-tourism business.

Apparently 'Rita' turned out to be the perfect cow.  David said they couldn't have had a better cow.  Rita was so good that she never defecated on the set, and waited until she was back in her trailer.

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Last week the producers needed reindeer for a Christmas special.

Some reindeer were located near Dawson Creek, about a 15 hour drive away.  Two were brought down here, and stayed at the horse farm across the road from us.   They had already had some handling, and had been harnessed before.  They were worked with for a few days, and then headed into Vancouver (Hollywood North) for a long day of filming.  Apparently that went well too, and after their moment of stardom, they headed back home to the farm.

Those reindeer are kind of odd creatures.  The females aren't very big, but sport a massive rack of antlers. They have very long noses and very buggy eyes....all the better to see you with, Mr. Wolf.

This week David is down in Monroe Washington at a big horse show.  He is driving a horse in one class, and is being a general dogsbody the rest of the time.

He did get a call back from one of his drafting job interviews. 

I think he might be trading the glamour, and the uncertainty, of the movie industry with it's big bucks for something more mundane, at least for a little while anyway.  There is more schooling planned for the future.  I don't think the pressure from his mother had anything to do with it at all.

Oh by the way, the show is 'Mr. Young' on YTV.

Never heard of it, never watched, and probably never will.

Well maybe I'll see if can watch the Rita and the reindeer episodes at least.

Now we need someone to make a movie that requires a soccer playing border collie....