Summer's Here, It's 28 celsius today. That's 83 Fahrenheit For My American Friends.

Actually it's more for my friend Julie who thinks it's fun to tease me about how cold it is here compared to her home in Florida.

At least we don't have Gators , Snakes or Sharks here.

Oh Yeah, and Trump.

So we had a couple more trees to remove.
These guys were great. I should have had them do a few more.

They cut them down but couldn't get their machine down the hill
to chip them so I dragged them up the hill to the machine.
I love my tractor.

Carrie started putting our gazebo together with me.
I told her that it would take about 30 minutes.
NOT.
Five hours later in the hot sun and it was done.

I'm glad that we bought the extra sturdy hot tub cover.

We both really like this gazebo.
It's going to be great when it's raining out.

Meanwhile on the other side of the house
Ruth and Ellie were painting the logs I had already sanded.
She's a little slow but she did a good job.
She has a lot of patience. We were all impressed.

Carrie is building a geodesic dome fort for Ellie.

She's mounting it on a platform about 6 feet off the ground
and Ellie is calling it her Sky Lab.

Yesterday Ruth picked up a truck load of manure to use in the north pasture.
We rigged up a slide system to get it about 10 feet over the edge
to where she can get the wheel barrow.
Worked like a charm.

I pulled the eves trough's off the house .

Next job is to sand the facia and get a price on replacement.

Off to the dump. Again.
Feels like I live there sometimes.

We had a wasp problem last year so I'm pulling the soffits off the peaked part of the house just so I can get in there and do a good cleanup of their nests.

It was packed with wasps nests.
Hopefully this will correct the problem.
Tomorrow I'll attack the other side of the house.
I'm on a mission.

This Is My 65th Birthday /45th Anniversary Blog - More Like A Novel

I got married on my 23rd birthday.
This weekend was quite a celebration. We drove out to the island to be with our kids.
This was when we were kids and just married.

This is now. Still married. Just not kids anymore.

Friday was Chris's birthday.
Ellie helped him blow out the candles.

He got 5 cans of silly string as one of his gifts.
He then was matched up against the grandkids in a crazy parking lot fight.

I think the kids won.

Hard to believe it was almost 20 years ago that these two got married.
Where's the time going.

Hard to believe my little girls are around 40 years old.
One over and one under.

Chillin on the porch.

I woke up Saturday morning to find a new birthday robe.
What a thrill.
My old robe was worn out.

I left the coach and came in for breakfast only to find Daisy all dressed up and waiting for me.

I loved her new outfit.

Even better when they got me the matching shirt.

Saturday after breakfast we headed into Victoria for the day.
Half way there we stopped to stretch out legs , see a waterfall and take some photo's.

Ellie is so cautious but Nona has her.

These two know all the nice forest walks on the island.

These kids headed down a muddy slope to the creek.
Ruth and I stayed on top.
We both had poor grips on our shoes.
No sense slipping and falling in the mud at the beginning of the day.

We found a gentle path down to the creek and took some photo's.

Ellie's smart.
She always has an adult to hold hands with when in unfamiliar territory.

Sharon lifted her across the stream.

We found a tunnel going under the highway which brought us to the ocean side of the park.

Sharon and I grabbed a photo in the tunnel.

My beautiful grandkids.

While Sharon was setting them up for the picture she told them to touch their feet.
We all laughed. She meant to touch them together.
Jack takes everything so literally.

I love these guys.
We had such a nice day together.

I bet our friends in Florida don't see sign's like this .
They get Alligator signs instead.

So we made the museum in downtown Victoria just before noon.

We came in to see the Terry Fox display which was showing .

I walked and read the entire exhibit.
He was amazing.

I think this must have been the original marker for where his journey ended.
He was hoping to raise $25,000,000. thru his marathon of hope.
It has now raised over $700,000,000.

So I walked outside to the food court where everyone had headed to
 and found Isaac sitting high on this sculpture.
Why do little boys have to climb everything they see?

Back at Camp Imadene I got a personal tour from Chris.
I'm always interested in seeing his projects.
He's the hardest working guy I know .Very focused.
This it the upper wall of what use to be part of the lumber processing building.

 This gives an idea of the size of this building.
He has a wood mill and is making all the boards to line the inside of this building.
The frames are from donated cedar logs the camp received
and the horizontal boards are made from cotton trees he cut down in the camp.
Once complete he hopes to convert this building to a chapel.

This is his mill. So cool to see it in action.

These are the cedar trees that were donated to the camp.

Lot's of good wood here.
He thought they were valued around $30,000.

I've never seen a mill being used before.

I was amazed at how fast he could produce a board.

I'd like one of these if I lived on the island.
The logs are easier to get there than they would be to get here.
Especially cedar trees.

It's not often we get a nice picture with the grand kids.

They usually look more like this.

Or this.

Bunny ears never get old.

Finally , a nice picture with all the kids.
I had to laugh at the toast I preposed at my birthday/anniversary dinner.
I raised my glass and said
 "Here's to being married for 43 years. No one at this table would be here without me"
Than I laughed.

My three favourite girls.

Sharon painted these hoodies and then gave them to Carrie and Ruth.
The 3 birds represent the 3 moir women.
Nice.

So the weekend is over and we're heading to the ferries and home.
One short detour.
Ruth wanted to collect some seaweed for her garden.

We found a spot close to the ocean and she headed off with her garbage bag.

The happy gardner.

The crop was bountiful.

She filled that bag in about 15 minutes.

Happy wife , Happy life.

The best part was watching her try to get the bag back up the hill.

I finally put the camera down and helped.

We caught the 12:45 as planned and were back home in time for a late dinner.