SUNDAY DECEMBRE 16, WE'RE GETTING CLOSER

Karen came over to help Ruth and Carrie assemble kitchen cabinets.

She's doing a mighty fine job.

I like that she is always smiling.

I saw a woodpecker hanging around the entrance of the woodpecker house.

We'll see if it sticks.

Ruth wants me to build a couple more of these houses.

Saturday was a burning day.

I cleaned up a lot of the bush laying around the property.

I won't feed these fires at dusk anymore.

It was pretty much burnt down when I went in for dinner.

The ferries going to Vancouver Island shut down for most of the day

 because of 90 kilometre winds.

Those winds made it to Kelowna around 2:30 A.M. and woke us up.

Ruth and I both went down to the fire pit just to see a very active pile of embers.

I held the flashlight while she got 5 shovels full of sand.

We won't do that again.

I backed the tractor into the curb stop shut off valve for the water.

I bent it so badly we had to dig it out. I'll run into town tomorrow for a new one.

I'm glad Ward was here helping Ruth do some things around the house.

I hate shovelling.

The outside is almost complete.

Just some fillers needed around the gas vents and we will be done.

It's such a cute house.

I'm really quite proud of how it's turned out.

This is the view from our deck.

The new appliances have started to arrive.

These are the first to show up.

Another Big Week, Dec.1-8, 2018

This beam is actually just for decoration.

The ridge beam that is the main beam in this house has a post holding it up 

but it is buried in the gable walls.

I wanted to have a visible post so we made this one up.

It's 12 inches wide and 3 inches thick. It's also 12 feet long.

Therefor it is very heavy.

I used a shoe plainer to give the rustic axe look.

Carrie stood on the top of the scaffold and guided it into place.

John and I grabbed the bottom of this log and pushed it up into position.

I had measured it perfectly and it fit with 1/8th of an inch clearance.

She looks pretty happy holding it in place.

John got up there and got some bolts holding it in place.

I had been dreading this job for weeks but to my surprise we were done in less than one hour.

It looks great.

Next major project was the floors.

Carrie and I finished them it about 2 days.

It's coming along.

On Friday Bob and I got the beams up around the doors.

Once they were dry fitted we took them down and I stained them all to match.

They look really nice.

This afternoon was the worst job imaginable.

I had to hook the sewer pipe from the new build up to the sewer exhaust 

in my crawl space. 

I hate this crawl space. 

It's 3 feet tall and has floor to ceiling spider webs.

I think this operation was successful.

We will be flushing the toilets next door tomorrow.

Carrie and Ruth took a sour dough class on Wednesday evening.

They are now making unbelievable breads.

We're all going to be fat really soon.

Ruth is still pulling fresh veggies out of her garden.

Thursday's dinner was a treat.

On Thursday afternoon Ruth was driving home on the highway 

by the airport when her skylight exploded.

She thought that something might have fallen out of an airplane.

Luckily she had the slide closed on the inside. Ellie was in the back seat. 

Who knows what could have happened if the slide had been open.

Mitsubishi is replacing it under warranty. Apparently there is a problem with their skylights.

I've been after IRONHORSE EXCAVATORS to give me a hat for months.

I said this to my plumber today and 10 minutes later he had one for me.

He says he takes one from them every time he sees them and has a whole collection in his truck.

He has one less now.

I'VE BEEN TOO BUSY TO BLOG

Life on this property give me daily laughs.

Ellie leaves for school every morning around 8:00.

 She doesn't carry books in her knapsack.

The entire Knapsack is her lunch.

She eats more than the average construction worker.

She even went to the office one lunch and said she was still hungry.

Carrie explained how the office has food only for kids who can't afford a good lunch.

She's not allowed to do that any more and she now understands why.

I think Carrie was embarrassed.

Luckily Carrie's friend is Ellie's teacher. 

I think that she found it funny.

Ellie is a major party girl.

She was at a birthday party on Saturday and came home loaded with treats.

Two weeks ago we had a woodpecker move in.

Ruth convinced me that if I built the woodpecker house  she saw on the internet
 our problems would be solved.
 Instead of living under our eve it would move into its own forest house.

I built it and went to install it in a tree on our property.

Carrie was busy painting inside the new build and then she saw the contraption
I had put together to get up the tree. She said she would go up instead.

She's such a good help.

First I set up a 6 foot ladder to get into the extended bucket. 

Next I had a 16 foot ladder extended up the tree.

I learned a few new words as she fought the 40 inch tall woodpecker house up the ladder.

Success.

And I think Ruth may be right.

The woodpecker has been spotted moving into the house.

We'll see if it stays moved in.

Back inside we have the pine ceilings completed 

and Carrie is up there spraying on a clear varnish.

Next came the dark trim around the ridge beam.

Carrie doesn't seem to mind the heights.

The ceiling looks really nice .

It reminds me of a church.

The second coat brought it home.

I stepped out to pick up more nails and Bob was taking a nap when I got back.

We also drywalled and painted my workshop/basement.

My friend Mark (From Leesburg, Florida) would love the wildlife here.

The deer ar really fat this fall.

No fear here. They come right up to the door.

Yesterday we had Iron Horse excavators come and massage the property.

No more drop-off's around the house.

That's another blog.

Back inside , the south wall and gable end doesn't look finished.

We need a post to continue up the wall to the ridge beam to finish it off.

I want it to look more like the north wall.

We need another post custom cut so I headed back to the mill.

John (Paul Bunyan) the lumberjack cut me another post.

I got it home and notched it for the ridge beam but it still needed to be sculpted.

John had left his shoe planer for me at the mill but I had never used one before.

I had seen him sculpt logs with it which gave me some false confidence.

Here is our conversation after I tried using it for the first time.

He's a great guy.

It's hard to see in this picture but my job turned out fine.

Not as good as he does but it's still acceptable.

Two more coats of stain and then a couple of coats of varnish before its ready to set in place.

GETTING SOME TRACTION WITH THE HOUSE BUILD

We took our friends from Winnipeg to the Scenic Canyon Regional Park to see the Chinese Ovens.

This is a beautiful hike.

The Regional District has erected a sign explaining the ovens.

The Chinese (They built the railway thru the Okanagan) use to come down here beside the river and have family picnics on their time off.There are caves cutting into this rock formation that they use to have cook fires in. Hence the name Chinese ovens.

Me and my sweetie.

When our friend Tracy passed away 6 years ago 

a bunch of us chipped in and bought this bench in her memory.

There were about 18 of us who all hung out together at that time.

It's nice come on this walk and think of our friendship with her.

She was a pistol.

This was one of Tracy's favourite views.

It was only fitting of us to have the bench placed here looking at Layer Cake Mountain.

Back at the build we have started to do the ceiling.

This picture is actually a reminder of where this wire is being buried.

We'll dig it out of the ceiling in the future and connect it to a pot light.

Carrie took Wednesday and Thursday off from work .

With her and bob measuring and nailing the boards onto the ceiling and me measuring and cutting them we made good time with the installation.

The gable ends were quite slow because of all the angles.

They looked great when finished.

The big side was finished in one day.

The white pine looks wonderful.

Sunday afternoon we took a hike with some new friends.

I love the interesting people I get to meet thru the piano industry.

They are tuning customers who just moved here from Ottawa.

We did a hike that Ruth has done with the Kelowna Hiking Association.

I didn't even know this place existed.

The canyon walls were amazing.

Another picture of me and my sweetie.

We were talking with a dog walker as we were leaving and he said 

this was a favourite place for the rock wall climbers. 

I can see why.

Back at work Monday I needed 8 more boards for the gable ends.

I asked John how much the logs cost that he buys.

He use to go into the forest and cut his own trees but it became too time consuming.

He said that he gets them for about $100. per cubic or Square meter.

I should have been listening more closely.

He did say that this log was about one of those meters.

John reminds me of Paul Bunyan.

Back home Carrie and I finished the ceiling on Sunday and Monday.

All that's left to do now is some trim and then spray with a clear coat.