A Crazy week since Wayne Got Here

I picked Wayne up at the airport Friday afternoon and naturally the air lines
lost his tool box he needed to install the player system into my Steinway.

The tools were returned to him on Saturday. Whew. 

I woke up at my usual time and because Wayne is on Toronto time he had already put in 3 hours work .

After the slot was cut he put a coat of paint onto the keybed to make it look good.

Daisy seems to like this funny little man from back east. 

She hangs around him all day .

So the solenoids are all mounted with the 4 driver boards in place.

Wayne let them run on the bench for 24 hours just to make sure they had lots of break in time. 

We had no failures . I am sure this is going to be a strong piano.

Everything lined up so we mounted the rails on the reinforced keybed. 

He does nice work.

Everything is mounted and ready to go. 

Now we are ready to put the piano on its legs and see if it plays.

We needed a break and Wayne found my hunting cap that 

Carrie gave me a few years ago while I was still hunting .

Piano is on legs and is sounding and working great.

Best part of the day was cleaning him off for dinner. He was soo dusty.

I love my leaf blower.

Wayne is so easy to be with. We both love the same things.  

Eating. Oh , And Wine.

After a long day we both grabbed a couple of noodles and just hung in the pool.

Garlic Queen 2015

Ruth has a new calling. 

She has always had a green thumb but this year she has outdone herself.

Her garlic crop is outstanding. A bumper crop. More to come.

Ruth has also learnt how to brade the plants for storage. 

Now I just have to figure out how to build a root cellar in the motorhome.

My Prep To Move The Steinway

This is one big piano and I need to get it out into the garage before the end of this week. That is when my friend Wayne is coming from Elmira , Ontario to install a player piano system. I used to do the installs but they have a new design and I've never done one of these installs. It's not the time to be learning. Especially on such a rare and expensive piano.

I need a 9 foot skid for the piano so I made one out of 2  3/4 sheets of plywood  glued and screwed together.

Next I marked and drilled the holes for the wheels.

Starting to look good. 

Usually there are no wheels on a skid but this piano is so big I like building the skid and dolly as one.

It rolls beautifully. Now all I need is some carpet to cover it.

I phoned my buddy Dr.Dolittle , Er, I mean Gus to see if he had any scrap carpet. 

Of coarse he did. Gus has everything.

I got there just at fish feeding time.

They all gather at the edge of the pond as soon as he walks up to it.

His yard is like a park.

Next in his routine is to feed the crows and starlings.

they all seem to get along together.

Back home I installed the carpet onto the skid. 

He even supplied me with  a knife and a new blade to cut the carpet to size.

Now all we have to do is load the piano onto the skid  , move it to the garage and install a modern player piano system into this 1869 Steinway.

Where are those movers. I'm a little jittery thinking about this.

It was great. We moved it without any problems. 

Now we just need is Wayne to get here from Elmira to do his magic.

.

The house is starting to look empty.

Daisy Had A Tough Day

We had chest x-ray's and blood work done on Daisy this last week. She had a lump on a breast which she has had since born but it has been growing over the last few years. It was now egg size which is huge on a little dog. Today was the day she was getting it removed.

 The Dr found 2 other small lumps on different breasts and removed them as well.

We had also booked her to be spayed at the same time but over the weekend I changed my mind on that. 

She is 11 years old and I feel that such an invasive operation would be too hard on such a little old dog.

The reason the vet recommended the operation was that 50 % of his older female dogs that aren't spayed die from cancer.
I pondered that over the weekend and finally realized that 50 % of older females don't die from cancer.
That's one of the reasons I cancelled that part of the operation.

I picked her up at the Vet's and had to lift her into the car. She gave such a sad little yelp and whimpering. 

I didn't want to lift her out of the car when we got home so I built her a ramp. Quickly.

I had an old piano skid and some carpet in the garage which was the perfect length.

It took a little coaxing to get her back on her feet.

She was a little reluctant to walk down the ramp at first.

Once moving I had to hold her back a little. I think she just wanted to be home.

I had trouble keeping her from jumping off the ramp too soon.

She's glad to be home . Daisy dragged me into the house.

She wouldn't drink any water. Daisy just headed over to her spot and fell asleep. 

Poor litte dog. She'll be better tomorrow.

It Was A Bat Day

So our neighbour said we could keep out kayaks up in their shed this winter while we are in Florida.
 The house is sold and we have to be out in about 26 days .
 I am trying to get at least one major job done per day.
Todays was to make room in their shed for my kayak rack.
First thing was to empty the items on the right hand side of their shed. 

I started with this old bi-fold door. Big mistake.

It was full of bats. As I started to move it they started to fly out of it. Does anyone have any idea how hard it is to dance around , Scream and gently lower a full bat house to the ground all at once and not hurt them.

It's not easy. Look closely you can see some little claws coming thru the crack.

I got it down and gently opened it with my foot. 

There was a cloud of bats around me as they flew out of their disturbed home. 

It scared the crap out of me. I would say at least 200-300 bats. 

In my research it says they all huddle. I believe it.

I sort of wandered , OK , so I ran about 30 feet away and watched the action for 15 minutes. They finally settled down and I figured they had all left. Not so. There was still quite a number of them still living in the bi-fold door home. I snuck up and manage tho take a picture.

I think we have decided to keep the kayaks somewhere else. Bats freak me out a little.

Tuesday Was A Big Day

So I like to get up between 7:30 and 8:00. This morning I was woken up at 7:30 by our gardner Gwen thrashing around in the bushes outside our bedroom window. 

She says I sleep too late. She's up and working at 5:00. 

She is also relaxing on her lake property by 2:00 drinking wine and in bed by 8:30.

Around noon I went to a customers place to do a repair on a piano that another piano tuner has screwed up . 

This was the gate to my customers house. Unbelievable.

The house was incredible. He is only 40 years old . It blew me away when he told me that. 

I've sold pianos to a lot of wealthy people but this is definitely the nicest house I have ever been in. 

He gave me the grand tour. Wow.

The view down the lake is incredible.I hate to think what he pays in property tax.

The great thing about this is that they are the nicest couple you would ever want to meet.

I had to remind myself not to covette their success.

I remember 35 years ago Bill Harris from the Yacht Club in Winnipeg telling me how he was taking his  $3,000,000. yacht down the ICW in Florida  feeling pretty smug and important until some guy passed him in a $5,000,000. Yacht.

Bill said that you always need to be happy with what you have.There is always someone with more.

I had to remind myself about that story while I was getting the tour.

I got home just in time to watch Ellie being prepped for her first roller blade lesson.

You can't put a value on this. I'm happy again.

She did great. Only one fall and a small cry.

She tuckered herself out today. Ruth had her from 11:00 A.M. and they went everywhere. They also spent over 2 hours in the pool before the roller blade lesson.

If I wasn't such a chicken I would post the picture of Ruth sleeping beside Ellie tonight around 8:00.

Such A Busy Week….Again

I ruined Ruth's chips that were cooling in the oven that she made for appetizers which she was planning to use with her fresh salsa.

I was making a lemon pie and needed to heat the oven to 450 to do my crust. 

I didn't know she had her torteas cooling in there. oops. 

So Jack loved the pie. 

I gave him the largest slice. 

I know that Brad loved the pie as well. He could hardly finish his 2nd piece. 

Or was that the 3rd. I lost count. I do love that content smile.

Saturday morning Ruth helped work the Kelowna Garden Show. It was quite a success.

 After her shift was over I showed up and we hung out at Alexis and Greg's house sipping wine all afternoon. 

Another great saturday in the Okanagan.

We sat up on the deck all afternoon watching everyone come thru her garden with Debbie's mom. 

Helen will be 91 on her next birthday and is one of the nicest gals I know.

She came with Ruth and I the day before on the pre garden tour. 

She's witty and has a great sense of humour.

Sunday morning Ruth and I walked down the greenway . According to my phone gps we went 7.5 kilometres. It was a nice walk because we finished before it got too hot.

Daisy got to cool off in the lake which she appreciated. 

That little mutt sure does get hot.

On our walk down the greenway we came across a fathers day tree. 

It was full of tie's and other ornaments saying how much fathers were loved.

Whoever takes care of this tree must be very kind. 

They redecorate it for mothers day , Thanksgiving , Christmas and I'm sure they do more special days we don't see. 

Cool. It's in the middle of nowhere.

Sunday afternoon the kids all came over for a swim. Jack gravitates automatically to the piano.

He heard the camera snap when I took the first picture and turned around to see what I was doing.

What a face. Ha

So this was my highlight of the week. 

I met David when I was about 17 and he got me interested in cars. He likely kept me out of trouble.  We build a race car and Ice Raced it in Winnipeg Sports Car Events over a 4 year period.

 He was my room mate when I was in my late teens and early 20's.

This all happened while I was starting my career in the music business.

  Dave is a little older than me and was a terrific mentor . I appreciate that now that I am almost an adult.

It was nice to spend some time with him today and get to meet his wife Debbie with whom we hadn't met before.