Its Been One Week Since The Last Post

Reason is that I am feeling a little lathargic. Somehow I have put my back out of joint and I feel like crap. Even though this has happened I have kept on with  my life....Sort of.....I went down to Penticton for a few tunings last week. I tuned and had a visit with Gordon and Jean. They started out as customers but have become friends. MUSICIANS....... VERY ECCENTRIC.....Here is Gordon trying to read the imaginary writing on a pill. This made me laugh. I was tempted to give the back of his head a little bounce. I'm so kind. He owes me one but doesn't know it.

So the next tuning was for a Dr and Lawyer that bought a grand piano off of me a few years ago. They also just spent a fortune on this new table they set up in the dining room. I wish they had seen me first . I could have built something like this for them and it would have been thousands of dollars cheaper. The husband was saying it was her idea. You can't put a glass of wine down on it and the kids use to do their homework in the dining area but no more. It is impossible to write on this table.

They did have the coolest cat I have ever seen. It is called a Doll Cat. It never bites or scratches and when you pick it up it just goes limp. It was a beautiful and friendly animal. I don't like cats that much but I would definitely consider having one of these for a pet.

 So Randy came over for our regular Friday evening dinner. He is heading up to Yellow Knife for a few days to see his better half who has a contract to design a hospital up there. We had a nice dinner and I am looking forward to hearing about his adventures this Friday.

So I am having a problem with a piano . I sold a grand piano for a lot of money to a customer last year and he wanted to have a custom paint job done to it. He also wanted to have it turned into a player piano. I found an artist who was excited to do the job. An $18000. job but that is fine if it is actually done. Well , he started the process last Jan and the piano was to be finished in April. In June I found out that the piano wasn't being worked on and that the artist was going to be sued for breech of contract. Being the way I am I gave the purchaser a different piano with a player system installed in it and took over the contract for the original piano. Unfortunately the artist has not appreciated what I have done and he is still not working on the piano. So now I own a piano in a paint studio that is just sitting there. I went to the studio on Tuesday and the caretaker let me in. I removed the player system which is valued at about $15000. and then sent a email to the artist saying that if the piano isn't done in 3 weeks I am going to walk from the whole project. I will lose a lot of money in the deal but I don't know what else to do. Here are the player parts being removed. I was happy to get them back.

So the high light of the week was that Ruth and I rented out our piano building.

The young chap came over on friday with the money so now it is official. This makes our
Semi - Retirement a little closer to being doable. We wish him all the success possible.

This was a thrill.

My Busy Monday Morning

So Ruth and I headed up the canyon ridge at 8:00 this morning for a hike. It is a real killer getting started because it is so steep but once on the ridge it becomes very doable. Our house is across the canyon near the start.

We hiked along the edge of St. Hubertus winery and then onto crown land. 

This is where the fire came thru in 2003. It use to be a beautiful thick forest but now is just scrub .

We get quite high above our house on this hike.

 We had Caleb with us to keep the bears away.

No bears this morning but there was fresh bear scat on the path. Looks like he has been hanging around in the vinyards.

After the walk I headed over to my Chiro's to get crunched and then to the store. This part if my life is over and so I cheerfully took the Moir sign down. I think it looks better with it off.

I had a can of matching paint in the storage room that I pulled out and put on one coat.

I am now ready to move on.

A Typical Sunday

I woke up around 6:15 and Ruth wasn't in bed with me. I went outside onto the lakeside deck after walking thru the house looking for her and saw she was out there sealing the aggregate cement decks and sidewalks that surround out home. (It was still dark outside and I think I heard coyotes still howling in the canyon beside the house. We have been hearing them every night for the last few weeks)So Ruth  had high pressure washed all the aggregate cement patios and sidewalks around the property yesterday before we went to bed but I didn't know she was going to tackle them this early. Ruth is likely the hardest worker I know. If I had her energy we would be able to move mountains together. This is the lower deck she did this morning.

So I bounced out of bed at about 7:45 all ready to meet our Sunday morning gang. Randy was our tour guide this morning. He is working for the City of Kelowna and is the director of City Infrastructure. This last month they won a Canadian award for the bike system he has designed for the city and we wanted to see what it was made up of. We were all impressed. I see why they won this Canadian award.

It was a great ride thru the city that took about one hour followed up with a breakfast at the Grateful Fed restaurant. Another great day. We came home and I slept while Ruth finished sealing the cement patios.

Busy Wednesday

Ruth spent the day pressure washing the house down . 

I was tuning out of town today and  followed this guy and his dog for about 5 miles. That's a good dog.

I Started Thinking About My Childhood

While watching Jack Play. His mom is on a vacation with little Ellie for 10 days out in Nova Scotia. She is hanging out with one of her best friends who lives there. We have Jack staying with us for the next couple of days . He's a great kid and both Ruth and I enjoy his company......He Loves Daisy.

So Jack had Daisy with him outside for the last hour and they were playing where we couldn't see him. I knew he was safe as long as Daisy was with him but I still kept going out to check on him every so often. He loves playing in the bushes that grow on the lake side of the house. When I was a kid I always had some type of fort with my friends across the street in the bushes that grew along Omand Creek. Watching Jack play here reminded me of that.

It took me a few seconds to find him when I started to look for him.

He worked so hard to climb this tree.

A Couple Of Things We Did This Week

Our neighbour sold their home one year ago and wanted to thank Ruth and I for taking care of our six home neighbourhood water system for the last 18 years. Ruth has done the books since we moved in and I have taken care of digging trenches , laying new water lines , overseeing the installation of a new chlorine plant , replacing burnt out pumps and much more. They kindly gave us a gift certificate for dinner at the restaurant located  at the base of the hill coming home. We have eaten there about 3 times in the last 2 years and the food has always been terrible. The gift certificate expires in another week so we thought we would try this again. We had a bottle of nice wine , Cesar salad and a pizza. Surely you can't screw up a pizza. WRONG. It was terrible. After eating about a 1/2 slice each we told the waitress we were too full to eat any more pizza. The salad filled us up and asked to take it home for later.     THE DOGS LOVED IT. 

So getting back to our water system. Billy our neighbour decided it was time to run some chlorine thru the system. That means we first drain both holding tanks , Go down to our well at the lake which is about 500 meters away and put in 3 gallons of highly concentrated chlorine and run it thru the pipe up to the holding tanks.When we have signs of the chlorine coming thru we turn the pump off and let the mixture sit in the pipe for about 2 hours. Notice the beer in Billy's hand. That is about one of five he had while we were doing this work.

Now after the chlorine did its time we filled the tanks up with water and then drained them both out. There was a lot of crud left on the bottom of the tank which is ribbed. To get it clean someone has to climb into the tanks and vacuum them out. This is a very slow process because there is a lot of water sitting between the ribs as well and my shop vac will only pull about 2 gallons up and out before loosing its suction. I have to then drain the shop vac and it is good for another 2 gallons. It takes about 1.5 hours per tank. In the past I have always gone down there to do this but today I was sick and running a fever. We hired the young man across the street to do this dirty deed for us. I disconnected the pipe union to the pump so that would let him squeeze into the hole with the vacuum hose. He sucked up the water and dirt and then I dragged and emptied the shop vac about 10 feet away from the tanks for about 2.5 hours. All this time Billy sat there drinking beer ,  telling us what to do. I wasn't very happy.

So here the tank is empty clean and I'm done. I told Billy to connect the pipe back up to the pump and I started to get my things together to leave. I noticed he didn't have any plumbers tape but was sarting to use that yellow gas fitters tape to seal the union. I told him it would't work properly and he started to argue with me. I gave up and just said WHATEVER. As I was walking away I told him to go and turn on the pump down in the lake well. Remember the five beers? He told me he had already turned on both pumps. The holding tanks were dry and those pumps need water to cool them or they burn out. I politely mentioned this to him as he wandered / stumbled over to the tank to look into it. Suddeny he bolted for the breaker inside of our shed that holds all the computers and power switches we use to control our water system. I gave up and told him to turn the pump back on in about one hour when the holding tanks were full. I had to go back to bed.

So Billy phones me two hours later to say the computer is flashing a red indicator light that means that the computer needs replacing. We had no water. My first thought was that he had blown the pump and by the time I got back down there he was hiding in his house. I discovered that the yellow tape he used to seal the union didn't work and was gushing water. The computer shut the system down because of pressure loss. I took it apart and used the proper teflon tape to reconnect the union. The system worked perfect.  NEW RULE.  No drinking while working on the system. If I hadn't been sick I would have done it myself but I just wanted to get back to my bed and sleep. 

This Can Ruin Your Day

It's been a few years since there was a fire this close. It's across the lake between West Kelowna Peachland.  It started around 3:00 and by 4:30 it was over 100 hectacres.

The winds this afternoon are not helping and there is also a cold front coming in overnight. That means it will likely blow all night and that isn't good. Quite a few homes have been evacuated and there are reports many homes have already been destroyed.

Feels like I've seen this before.

Laid Back September Long Weekend

So we did lots of fun things this weekend. Sunday morning started with a Kayak out on Kalamalka Lake.  A nice way to start the day.

Ruth's friend Sharon just started to Kayak and I thought she would like to have a picture of herself in the kayak to use for her screen saver. This was Tracy's kayak. We know that Tracy would be happy to see Sharon using it because she loves it so much.

When we got home Ruth set herself up to vacuum all the little spider webs off of the house.

I set myself up tidying my shop. It was a huge job and it really needed to be done. Ruth helped me get started yesterday. Now I can move around and hopefully build that Kayak I have had sitting on this huge table for the last 16 months.

So I found a cow bone in the shop that Ruth must have taken out for the dogs. I tried to cut it with the band saw but it made such a stink I had to stop. I gave it to Daisy to chew on but the other dogs wanted a piece of it as well and I could see a scrap coming on.

I took it away from her and went at it with a Japanese saw. It worked like a charm. I managed to cut it into three pieces. Daisy stood by the whole time trying to get a good look .

For quiet time Ruth made some chocolate puffed wheat cake and Jack climbed into the hammock with her They almost finished the pan. 

I love the way Jack looks when he is asked to smile. It's more like a growl.

 I had brought home some freshly picked apples but it seems like I am the only one eating them. My snack is much more healthy.

We got Daisy a fall hair cut today as well. She is still a little scruffy mutt.

She always acts depressed whenever she gets trimmed.

If They Call A Goat A Ram

I've driven this road for 18 years and always wondered if these signs had any significant reason for being here.

This morning I spotted a brown object in the ditch working its way up onto the road.

I stopped and grabbed my camera. I'd never seen one of these rams in the wild let alone at 5 feet away.

He was walking like he owned the road. Very cool.

He is a beautiful looking animal. At this point I did wonder if he was going to ram my car but he just continued on past me.