What A Great Week

 So on Thursday I met Ruthie downtown for a walk on the boardwalk and out to the bird sanctuary. She had the grand kids for the day. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining down on us. We found a spot on the board walk that was loaded with birds. Jack was on his strider. I want one of these. Looks like fun.

The ducks all gathered when he hung over the railing.

He sure knew how to attract them.

So Jack got all of his bread treats lined up on the railing so that he could fire them at the ducks in rapid sucession. It was so cute.

Ellie can't quite walk yet but she did say "M  R  Ducks. eh"  She is Canadian.

We had a nice walk back to the car thru the park. I am so impressed with the patience Ruth has with Jack and all his questions. I just don't understand why she isn't that patient with me.

On Saturday morning we hooked up with Cory and Al for a snowshoe stomp up in the mountains west of Kelowna. We have been friends with these two for about 18 years. We lived with them for awhile when our house burnt down during the Kelowna wild fires of 2003. People like this are always very special. We have been lucky to have known them. Al , Ruth and I rode our Harley's all across Canada for too many trips to count and were best friends for too many years to count. Al has been working in the patch for the last few years and so we don't see them much but when we do it is great. We all laugh a lot. That is so important to me.When one becomes a 55 year old business man one hangs onto what ever one can laugh at. (Private Joke)

Al and Ruth fell behind for a while. I felt very athletic setting such a fast pace until I found out she had developed a blister on her heal and was having trouble walking on her snowshoes.

The trail became hard packed and she finally got to take the snowshoes off. She felt better and we were all happy about that. It's no fun when you hurt. We all had a great morning . Even Ruth with the sore foot. What a trouper.

So on Sunday morning our hiking gang went for a trudge along the lake on the west side . Motley Crew.

Gord S. took this picture with his phone and I thought it was a terrific picture. We live in a beautiful place.

We all headed to the blind angler for breakfast and it was more than we expected. This breakfast was especially more than Shelly expected. She couldn't even finish it.

This Is My Silver Dream

It started out as a player piano sale to an oil sands lawyer who wanted a custom paint job done to it. I found an artist/painter who was willing to do the job. 8 months into the job they have problems and to save the sale I took the piano back and gave him a solid black piano which he loves. Long story short (if you really want to know the full story please ask me in person) I had to have the half painted piano finished so that I could sell it in the future. It turned out so fantastic we had decided to keep it for our own. So there is a bit of a problem with the artist and he stopped answering my calls. I thought this piano was gone forever. About one month later I'm in this fellows 6000 sq. ft. garage on a visit and I see my parts there. I tell him the story and he somehow encouraged the artist return everything  and finish my piano. Don't know how. Don't care. I got it back and it looks fantastic. My relationship with the artist is now quite fine and he is doing better with his life. I like him very much. He is a good guy and is also very talented. I was told by another painter that the finish on this piano is of the quality found on a $500000.00 Ferrari. I believe him . It is beautiful.

There was this little flaw in the leg that was painted over. There was also a small run on the fall board.The artist had come over to the house to polish the cabinet out one last time when he spotted the problems. He offered to take the parts and reshoot them. I thought that was wonderful until he stopped answering my calls. This all happened about one week later and he had said I would have them back within two days. I was freaking out because I had since sold the piano to an Alberta business man who was/is expecting the piano in two weeks. Turns out that he had a chance to spend some time up in Pemberton in the mountains snowboarding and riding snowmobiles. Can't say that I blamed him but it did freak me out.

I got the parts back yesterday and they are perfect. I can now rest again.

 When the artist gave me all the brass pieces to get chromed in Alberta he forgot to give me these 2 little brackets . I had to UPS them to Calgary to get finished. The chrome shop charged me $60. to do them . shipping there was $35. and return shipping for some reason was $55. If we had sent them with all the other parts it would have cost me about $5.00 extra. It was my fault for not doing a closer inventory of what was going to Alberta.

Anyways. It looks great on the piano.

I looked everywhere for nickel plated hinges to match the chrome I had done on the rest of the piano and no one had nickel screws either. I tried all the piano suppliers as well as the all of the wholesalers in Kelowna.  I got an insurance job a few weeks ago to disassemble a piano that was is a basement and take it to the dump. Well , it was built with all nickel parts and I saved them for this piano. So now my silver dream is adorned with the beautiful shiny parts off of a piano that was built over 100 years ago. It was actually built in 1910.  Kind of cool I think.

My last job on this piano is to run the power cord thru the leg. This is the first time I have ever drilled out a leg to hide the cord but I think that this is a great idea. I'll likely do this tomorrow.

I Just Got The Greatest Gift Ever

So when Sharon was here over the weekend she brought me a fantastic gift from my cousin and her husband who live in Mount Vernon , Washington. They are my fashion idols.

They also have given me some cool gifts over the years. I hate using those big pencils that come from the lumber yard because they are so hard to sharpen. This is usually how they turn out after I break the lead numerous times to get it to this spot.

They sent me a pencil sharpener that works on these odd shaped pencils and I love it. My new most favourite tool in the workshop. THANKS COUSINS.

Sharon Came From The Island For Ruth's B-day

I picked her up at the airport around 10:30 Saturday and we headed to Costco to return an item that I had bought the week before and didn't want.Here she is finishing up one of many free samples she scored while walking thru the store.

We went to this terrific little Mexican / Salvadorian restaurant that is off a back lane up in Rutland. The food is so fresh. They make it while you watch. You can see how excited she was to chow down. Hurry up Dad and take the picture. We had a lovely time at lunch.

This is such a colourful meal. It tastes as good as it looks.

So on Sunday morning I went for a walk down the greenway with our friends. Ruth has spent Friday and Saturday helping out with the Canadian culinary awards event and Saturday night she headed out to a hotel where Sharon had rented a room for Ruth and her daughters were going to stay and have a girls visit. Ruth loved it. We have great daughters. This was an interesting picture. My friend Rob pointed it out to me. He has a great eye. There is an ice shelf that built up and the water was flowing over the edge down to the actual level of the creek. It looked very unusual.

So for Ruths Birthday dinner I was making Ginger Beef , Chicken Kung Pow and vegetables with an
Oyster sauce. Here is my prep work area.

Brad was making Pakora . Its an East Indian dish. Here is his prep work area. It's true. One gets a little more organized with age. I must admit that his dish was the highlight of the meal. Very good.

Here Brad is mixing everything up before cooking. His hands are like lightning. He has been experimenting a lot lately with this recipe and I think he has now mastered it.

This is a typical evening in the Moir household. The men are busy making a fantastic meal. The women are looking on while saying" Hurry up."

So the kids made birthday cupcakes for desert and loaded our traditional fake candle holding cake up with a bunch of candles.

Ruth enlisted Jack for help in blowing out the candles.

I loved the look. Brad made quite a fashion statement by wearing these glasses.

It Was A Busy Week

I had to drive up to Big White on Friday morning to tune a piano for a family from Vancouver. I sold them this piano about 5 years ago and feel obligated to keep it in tune for them.

Its funny how the mountain is fogged in on one side.

But you just need to turn a corner and it is beautiful blue skies.

Ruth and I use to love coming up her for the skiing until I broke my tibia in two places. That was very painful. It is also the last time I ever skied. I'm worried that it could happen again. I refractured one of the breaks a few years ago just climbing off of my motorcycle so I can just imagine the damage I could do to myself with a good fall.

We liked this mountain so much we bought this log house in 1995. I think the last time I stayed in it was the night before I broke my leg. We sold it in 2008. Good timing.

I do like the beauty of the forest when no one is around.

I don't like the ride going up or down the mountain. The road is narrow and everyone speeds. I used the shoulder this morning more than once as cars were coming around bends towards me.

Back In The Groove

I hit the ground running this morning. The Cypes family asked me to move their piano from the Pyramid that I had sold them 15 years ago  . Ezra is hosting a concert on Saturday and needed the piano moved into their banquet hall and tuned. Luckily we got back from our holiday last night and could help him out this morning. First on the agenda was to show up at Summerhill Pyramid Winery at 9:00. This Pyramid was built with absolutely no metal. Nails , Etc. Metal takes away from its powers. It's a cool place. This is how it looks when driving onto the property.

This is the entrance into the main cavern. The building is actually very large. It is one of the wonders of the Okanagan. They say that the wine that is aged in this pyramid is exceptional. I can attest to that.

So we were going to use the forklift to lower the piano from the second level but it wouldn't fit thru the door with the ice buildup. This is where the young guy with the axe and shovel came into play.

While he spent the hour on the shovel and ax I put the piano onto the skid. I wish I could have snuck a few of these barrels out of their aging room. There must be a couple of hundred barrels up here in the pyramids. They are piled 4 high behind me in this shot.

So we got the piano down thru a trap door and then moved it into a different building using this fork lift. This is something that you don't see every day.

The piano has a custom built bar that fits around its outside edge that we had to carry to the other building. It is very heavy. I was expecting to have to hire guys to help me today but fortunately there are lots of guys working here who helped move this piano. It saved me money but also helped save summerhill quite a bit as well.

It turned out to be quite a nice morning. All the guys I worked with were very nice and seem to love working here at Summerhill Wineries.

We Are Back Home

It was a hell of a day. Ruth and I were up at 4:00A.M. Fort Lauderdale time which is 1:00 A.M. Kelowna time. We were sitting in the airport by 5:00 A.M. waiting for out 7:00A.M. flight . We are both afraid to miss a flight after our trip down to the Bahamas. It's too expensive a mistake.

You can tell that I am bored when I start to take pictures like this one.

Seattle is a beautiful airport. We had a 3.5 hour lay over here. 

We almost missed our flight here as well. When we landed we used the automatic check in to get our seats without showing our passports. We were around the corner from our gate and I can hear them calling for a Mr. and Mrs. More. You need to show your pass ports to get on this flight. I heard the call twice before they said Richard and Ruth More. I said to Ruth that they were calling us and we beatled around the corner and up to the gate. They checked us in and we got on the plane about 5 minutes later. That would have sucked if they let the 2 stand by kids on in our place.

I'm tired right now. We got into Kelowna at about 5:30 P.M. and Carrie picked us up at the airport with my truck. We dropped her off at home and went to Lakeshore for some groceries . We were home for about 10 minutes before I went next door to get Daisy. I must admit that I did miss her. She's a great little Mutt / Friend. So I just walked into Art and Inga's house without knocking or talking and Daisy just laid there looking at me and not moving.

I quietly said her name and she flew at me like a rocket. She was very happy to see me. Now don't get me wrong here. Art and Inga are the best caregivers anyone could ask for. Daisy was spoiled for these last 2 weeks and I know Art and Inga loved having her there. I was almost afraid she wouldn't want to come home with me.

I know they are going to miss her. We are lucky to have them for our neighbours.