WE FINALLY GOT OUR BUILDING PERMIT

YUP. and YIPPEE.

Hard to believe but its true.

We're finally starting my new work shop and the carriage house for Carrie.

All the rebar and wood for the footings was delivered on Friday .

I was afraid that I was going to have to unload the truck old school.

I love how they did this.

I just stood back and watched.

Sharon flew in for her birthday .

I love this kid. I sure am lucky to have such two wonderful daughters.

 I was sorry that I was so busy during her visit but she spent a lot of time with Ruth.

I know they had a good time together and we all took time off for a nice Mexican lunch on Friday.

Sharon was late for the plane Saturday but wanted to run down into the hole to hug her sister goodby. 

It warms my heart seeing how much these two siblings love each other.

I got a little choked up when I had to say goodby to Sharon yesterday..

Carrie and I (mostly Carrie ) spent Saturday in the hole working with Cody Turner building the footings and tying rebar for the new place. 

We got it done in one day but were working in the dark for the last hour. 

I found the day a little tough. 

I had thrown my shoulder out somehow while stretching some fencing in the north pasture Thursday .

I am also thinking I have refracted my tibia that I broke in 2 places skiing in 2008.

I had refracted the breaks in 2012 on my motorcycle and this feels exactly the same.

I'm limping like one of those old Saskatchewan farmers.

The structural engineer came today (Sunday) and passed us. Now the Geotec has to come.

What a bunch of crap. After that the city inspector comes. Then we can pour the footings.

The old chains on my J. Deere are crap so I bought a new set.

They aren't as easy to install as I originally thought.

Hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow. That will be day 2 on the tractor scale.

THIS WEEK IS OFF TO A SLOW START

I was visiting my friends place this week to do some work to her chicken coup.

As soon as I opened the gate to the chicken pen I had 35 chickens rush me.

I had to laugh. 

It was raining out and when I went into the coup they all followed me in.

Wednesday morning is garbage day.

I hate dragging the cans up our hill so I've started to load them into the tractor bucket.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

I had a nice visit with Sharon yesterday on FaceTime.

She's coming to Kelowna tomorrow for a visit.

It's her Birthday. Yahoo. Party time.

WARM WEATHER MEANS OUTSIDE JOBS ON THE FARM

I needed someone to dig some holes and our tenant who was living on the property 

when we bought the farm says he likes digging holes.

Naturally I gave him a call and he was happy to help.

Not a job I want to do.

We got the holes dug on the first day and set the poles on the second.

I pay him well for what he is doing but also supply beer for him as he works.

I don't know how he can keep working like he does.

We'll string a new fence on Thursday.

Hopefully this will keep the deers out of the yard. 

They are becoming a problem.

While we were doing the new fence poles Carrie lit up the house and driveway.

THIS MADE US ALL LAUGH

Ruth took a pumpkin from her garden today and baked it in the oven for a few hours.

She planned on removing the meat to make a pumpkin pie for dinner .

She makes her pumpkin pie with coconut milk and lots of spices.

We all commented on how great it smelt while baking in the oven.

It looked good and tasted good but something was missing.

After we shared a slice she looked thru the glass doors and noticed the pumpkin outside cooling . 

It was supposed to be in the pie.

We sent the pie home with Brad and the kids but never told them there was no pumpkin in the pie.

It's a coconut milk and spice pie.

I wonder if they will notice.

THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 6TH

Ruth has a friend who has a hoop greenhouse at the community garden 

which has to take down every winter because of the snow.

She is a contract nurse and had to go up to Alaska last week for a month. 

She never got the greenhouse down before leaving.

The snow came early so Ruth volunteered to drop it.

Ruth dropped it by herself and Carrie helped her roll up 

the 120 feet of greenhouse cover on Thursday.

I came along and helped Ruth drag the cover into her heated sea can.

Next job was for us to gather up all of her hoops and stack them in her covered shed.

Ruth's a pretty good friend to have. 

She would have lost the cover to this early snow otherwise.

And I love the fact that Ruth doesn't mind shovelling snow.

I don't remember last time I had to do the walk.

She won't let any of us walk on the sidewalks or deck until she has cleaned them off.

It's hard to tell from this picture but she has worn her shovel out.

We had to buy a new one yesterday.

We also had to go to 4 stores before she found a shovel she liked.

Daisy loves the snow.

We had major cold and a huge dump of snow this week.

It is quite beautiful.

Ruth and Ellie made the first snowman of the year.

Ellie dressed the snowman up to capture some Christmas spirit.

It was quite warm out this afternoon after a big wet snow dump so Carrie took Ellie 

tobogganing on the driveway for about 40 minutes.

They formed a layer of ice under the surface with all their tobogganing and 

made it impossible to get out of our yard.

Carrie slid down the driveway in her car and ended up sideways in the corner.

It took a bit of work to get her straightened out and parked at the bottom for the rest of the day.

I had to laugh. She was on her way out to buy Ruth a new shovel .

I don't usually post food pictures but felt compelled to post this.

We were at Costco Saturday morning looking for a new shovel .

and decided to buy ourselves breakfast.

Is this bad???  Hot dogs and fries for breakfast.

We did better for dinner.

I made my famous steak with wine sauce for dinner.

YUMM.

Not complete without mushrooms and onions.

Ruth has been after me for some time now to hang the yard tools on the old garage.

I put up the 1 x 4 and got her set up hanging the hooks.

She did a great job.

We had a tree fall down this week right beside the kids play area in the back 40.

There were 3 trees growing out of one stock and the base rotted out.

Luckily no one got hurt.

I decided to knock the other two trees down before they fell down.

Don't you hate when this happens.

I wasn't paying enough attention and my chainsaw bar got stuck in the tree when it started to lean.

I had to grab a hand saw to finish the job off and free my chain saw.

What a great day.

I love the smell of fresh air mixed with the smell of a working chain saw.

By the end of the day I had all three trees cut , bucked up and cleaned up.

I came into the house , sat down with a cold beer and decided that I was beat.

It was a good day.

WEEK OF OCT.29

At least once a week I stop in to see my friend Janet and get a few dozen eggs.

She has 35 chickens and she spent $12000. building a chicken coup for them.

I'll have to do a blog to that one of these days.

I also finished framing the new doors and windows this week.

I found this little beauty in the back door frame.

I've been told that the red dot is how you identify a Black Widow.

Luckily I didn't get bitten.

Carrie being the engineer that she is has managed to join 3 hamster cages together

 on the floor for Hammie. 

Daisy has been spending quite a bit of time in that room chasing Hammie cage to cage.

I think we'll have to build a table off the floor for his safety.

We've dug the foundation for the new house but this tree was in the way.

I have Iron Horse Excavation doing the work and they have been great.

OOPS. The trees roots took out what was going to be our root cellar.

It likely wouldn't have worked as well as we were hoping.

I'll build one somewhere else on the property.

I got the permit to hook up to city sewer and Carrie figured out where to bring the pipe into the house and how to reconfigure our septic pipes in the crawl space. 

She has a plumber that she contracts out to with her renovation business.

He did a good job for us. 

How often can you call a plumber on a friday afternoon 

and he shows up for the job on Monday morning.

Here he is drilling the hole thru our foundation.

It never ends on a new build.

Here the city wants more paperwork from our engineer.

Luckily I had it in our files.

The new pipe is in and being tested.

No Leaks.

Trench is dug and pipe laid .

Iron Horse did a great job.

They even did all the connections. 

Now they are digging out the trench for the sewer to the new house.

It's like watching a beautiful ballot dancer when watching this father and son team move dirt.

So to keep it simple we cut the old 4 ' line to the septic tank 10 feet from the house where it goes under the sidewalk and slid the new 2 ' lift line from the new foundation hole thru it into the crawl space and hooked it up to the existing 4 ' line that goes to city sewer.

I told the diggers that if you breathed in the air from an old septic line you will get a really good high.

I didn't expect him to believe me. Hahahaha.

The new line is all connected and now just waiting for a foundation and pump station.

This bend was one of three problems .

 The other problems were two 22.5 degree sweeps under the sidewalk.

We thought we were going to have to dig up the sidewalk but this wonderful pipe saved the day.

I found a 2 ' high pressure flexible corrugated pipe that managed to snake thru the sweeps.

This was a real life saver.

Carrie and I had to dig down beside the foundation to find where the septic line left the house.

When it was connected I let the young one fill it back in for me.

All connected and getting filled in. 

Now all we need is a building.

This was likely the most frightening thing that has happened to me for years.

I was walking out of home depot and the woman in this car 

was driving diagonally thru the parking lot at about 20 MPH.

Luckily I was talking to a friend on the phone and walking very slow.

She cut less than 6 inches in front of me .

One more step and she would have likely sent me over her roof.

Needless to say she learned a few new words as I took her picture.

I was very shaken up.

Thursday evening I covered the foundation hole with insulated tarps.

We were expecting snow as well as freezing temps.

Glad I did this.

It's 11 below right now.

If this keeps up I think we won't pour until spring.

I also put the blade back on the John Deer.

Good thing I did that.

We had about 1 foot of snow.

Luckily it is supposed to be above zero this week.