Cay Breeze is almost at Her Summer Home

So Bruce and Heather sent me a picture of Cay Breeze going thru the locks about 3 miles from where we both keep our boats strapped to the hard for Hurricane season. They will pull out on Wednesday and then head back to Lake Of The Woods on Thursday. I wish we had stayed a little longer. I am missing the boat and being on the water. So here they are going thru the locks on the St Lucy River just below River Forest Yacht Club. 

I don't know if you can see the current in this picture but you definitely have to be hanging on to the boat as the level in the lock is rising. Ruth was holding on with both hands as we took "In Tune"thru these locks last month. It is quite a job to hold on to 46 thousand pounds of yacht.

 Apparently I forgot to take the Canadian flag off of my boat for storage when I pulled it . Rats.

With any luck Bruce will climb up there and do it for me but if he doesn't I can understand. It is about 26 feet off the ground. I likely wouldn't want to climb up there . 

It's not scary if you fall off in the water. It won't hurt unless if there is a Gator close by. The boat is on land now which isn't all that forgiving.

The Last Weekend In April

It's been busy this last weekend. Ruth and I went for a walk to the beach and she decided to take Jack to cubs  starting this next monday. The Scouts of Canada have their camp next door to us and there is a sign on the entrance showing times and contact phone numbers for membership. Instead of writing the info down on a pad Ruth decided to take a picture of the info. I get a laugh from watching her do these close ups. 

Jack came over and played a concert for us. He started piano last September and is now playing complicated songs with both hands and singing along. He is something special. I wish my mom could have met him. She would love his musical talents.

Ellie keeps herself busy by keeping us on our toes. She is a busy girl.

I went to the Yacht club with my friend Dana . He bought me a tasty lunch and then we went and checked out his new boat. It's pretty nice.

He wanted a picture of his boat. Narrow finger docks. It's a nice yacht club. They are building a new clubhouse which I think we may join. They aren't real yachts. It should really be called the Kelowna Boat Club. It is the largest inland marina in Canada. Very nice facilities.

 So on Saturday night we went and helped at a Symphony find raiser. It was nice to get out and mingle with people we haven't met before.

Ruth helped at the registration table when people first came in. All new people to us. Nice women. Having said that……..I think all women are nice. Haha.

My job for the evening was to sell extra extra bingo tickets to the guests. The theme of the evening was called Blingo and the main activity for this Symphony fundraiser was Bingo. It was fun. I got to wear my Tux and act sophisticated. So it was basically an evening of fooling everyone I met there. Hahaha. I sold more than all the other sellers. No one else wore a Tux. It's all in the presentation. We had to buy our own wine so my wine glass was actually is full of a strawberry pop. I'm still a Scotts man.

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I Arranged Another Donation To Our Art Centre

I could have gotten this piano for a great price and resold it for my boat fund but instead I suggested the owner donate it to our Rotary Art Centre. 

She was happy to do this for a tax receipt. The movers I use are ridiculously expensive so I rented a trailer and using my moving equipment the piano got moved.

Not the most experienced movers I have ever worked with but the Art Centre employees seemed to have fun doing something different. You can tell rookies when they think it is fun to move a piano.

Here is the piano sitting in its new home.

So this morning I headed out to Coldstream to tune a piano. It's a beautiful ride along  Lake Okanagan. The sun had just come up and I was wishing I was out on the water in my Kayak.

After my first tuning I went over to Carries home in Lake country for a few hours. I didn't book my tunings efficiently. That was likely sublimely  planned because I got to spend a few hours with my daughter and grand daughter. I had to laugh when I left their place and saw Ellie's bike. Carrie is sort of a McGiver personality. This proves it to me. Haha. She's a genius in my eyes.

It Was A Shop Day

I spent most of the day in the shop. Ruth and I fibreglassed my Kayak yesterday . It's coming along. 

I spent a couple of hours trimming and sanding the hull before rolling on the next coat of resin. Tomorrow I will do some more sanding and put on another coat of resin. It's going to look great.

When I finished with the kayak I started working on a Baldwin 6000 piano I have in the shop. I took it apart and vaccumed the insides. Then I reset all the lost motion in the action.

This is a really nice piano. Everything here is solid wood . No particle board anywhere. I'm so impressed with this particular piano I would keep it as my own if I had the space. 

It was $15000.  ten years ago when I was a Baldwin dealer. I can't imagine what it would cost today.

Easter Dinner

The kids showed up around 4:00 for Easter Dinner. Here Ruth is trying to get them into the hammock for a picture. It's almost impossible to get Ellie to sit still .

This is as good as it gets.She's on an escape route.

Success. A quick check over her shoulder to see if she is being chased.

This is where she really wants to be. 

Jack is quite content to lay in the hammock with Nona and explain how to play mind craft.

Jack is a ham when it comes to pictures. 

He's always ready to give a smile.

Such a nice looking family. It's hard to believe they are mine. It makes me happy.

Even her dad can't hold her still for more than a few seconds. It's funny to see how busy she is.

Do you think we could get her to look at the camera? Not a chance. I finally gave up.

Ruth and Jack making chocolate whipping cream for on the desert.

 Ellie scored one of the beaters.

Here Ruth asked her if she was finished. Notice the double fisted grip.

I managed to get one picture of the dinner table. 

Here jack is explaining Mind Craft to Reagan and Harumi.

We had a beautiful Easter Sunday sunset. Ruth took this around 8:00 ish.

Of Coarse Our Water System Is Broken. It's Saturday Morning On A Long Weekend

That is the first thing I said to Ruth this morning at 6:00 A.M.  It never breaks during the week when I can call a plumber. I got up and turned on the tap to see for myself.

Then I went and looked down the hill to see if I could see water running out of the pump house that is located at the bottom of our property. Last time we had a broken pipe it was in winter and it ran across the road on a friday night and froze covering 200 feet of lakeshore at the bend in front of the property. Luckily I was home and luckily we live on a sand hill. I was out with shovel and wheel barrow for 2 hours sanding the road as well as directing traffic. That could have been a disaster. Warm weather breaks don't scare me. At 7:30 I was down at the pump house and saw that Billy , our neighbour had already been out digging beside the mechanical shed.

He didn't even notice this little pipe when he dug down . I made the hole about one foot deeper when I started to wonder what that open pipe was for. It turns out that the plumber who we hired to install the new chlorination system started to run a line into the shed for the test sink and decided it was in the wrong spot. He abandoned this line and installed another line in a different location. We didn't think this was an active line but turned the power on to see what would happen.

Yup. It was pouring fresh lake water into the hole. We couldn't figure out why there was a whole lot of electricians tape at the end of this pipe at first. The plumber must have capped the line and instead of gluing the cap on he must have taped it on. After 2 years of 80 Lbs. of pressure it finally let go. We didn't find any sort of cap but there must be one there. Our 1200 gallon reservoir drained our because the pipe is lower then the tank thus leaving us with no water. Easy fix. Just a little time consuming. I had to keep my finger in the pipe until the water drained out . Otherwise the sandy water was backing up into our pump.

Success. At first I couldn't spell plumber and now I is one.

This Was A Very Good Friday

This was a really nice morning.Carrie and Brad brought the kids over for an egg hunt and lunch. Here Carrie is trying to herd the kids out into the yard to find the eggs and other Easter treats she has hidden.

Ellie is so happy with just a few treats the easter bunny has left . She is walking quite slow thru the yard checking her basket every few steps . It's like she is just happy to be here.

Jack is another story. He is running everywhere trying to cover as much ground as possible. Attaboy.

Ruth just told him to look at the pond. He's on it.

Success. His basket is filling up quickly. He even has a whoopee cushion in the basket. I am starting to wonder what this easter bunny is really like.

Ellie is very methodical. She spots , points and then wanders over to get her easter bunny eggs.

Brad stuck with Ellie the whole time talking about what nice eggs she was getting. Here she is smiling and showing him the purple egg she just found in the garden.

There was a lot of action happening in the yard at this time.
 Ruth just discovered the kids streamers and was showing them how they worked. It was like a circus. Such fun. I was looking for popcorn , sugar cones , clowns and dancing elephants.

Jack was thrilled with his haul. Next year he wants a bigger basket.

Carrie looked pleased with how the easter egg hunt went. She is such a great kid.

Brad was still out in the yard with Ellie for about 20 minutes after we came back into the house. He is such a good dad. He must have some  great pictures of me after this morning. I think he must be doing some sort of a picture album of me and my life for my birthday.Why else all of these pictures.