Happy New Year!!!!!

Happy New Year everyone! Ours will be a quiet evening at home watching the Ball drop at New York midnight (our 9:00 PM) on TV. After that it will just be wait and see how long we stay up!

Christmas Letter 2018

Man, is it Christmas already? This year has gone by so fast but they say that is what happens in your mid seventies!

We had no big home projects this year other than Norma's ever present struggles with her gardens and lawns which always seem to take up as much time as she wants to spend on them. The drainage on the rear bank is still corralled by all the drain pipes and sumps we had installed a few years ago to send it on it's way down the driveway, under the road and into the ocean. I just have to climb up the bank every three or four months to ensure all three sumps are empty of sand. We really enjoy having that year round stream behind the house but it does require maintenance.

Brooks' fencing and deck business is doing very well, in fact he is almost getting too much work which is OK because it lets him refer the jobs he really does not want or does not have time for to other people.  He and LindaLee have been on several mini vacations, this year's destinations have been Seattle, Nashville and Vegas.

We, on the other hand, only got away once and that was to our great niece Karen's wedding in Lacombe, Alberta. The groom is Irish and their home is in Ireland so as you can imagine the wedding had it's share of Irishmen (and ladies). The venue was on Karen's brother's farm and it was a blast that lasted several days! We made a slow trip out in the motorhome and an equally slow trip back. The return trip would have been longer but the forest fire smoke forced us to cancel our planned time in the Okanagan. As it was, we were gone almost a month!

The grandkids made it up in the summer. They are both incredibly busy but Jayde took time off to come up from Vancouver with Brooks and Sierrah caught a ride from Victoria with Caroline, her other grandma. It was a fun couple of days and so great to see these young adults (and fun to see Carolyn again)!

Norma had one eye worked on to remove a pesky cataract and add a new lens and I had a minor heart thing, A-Fib, which they tried to get back into rhythm with an electric shock. It didn't work but my specialist assures me that no one has ever died from A-Fib so I have added a blood thinner a day to my diet and am living with it. Not a big deal as I didn't know I had it (or even how long I have had it) in the first place.

I don't know where the rest of the year went. I know we spent more time relaxing, or "chillin" as they call it now than we used to but that is probably a good thing.

We are staying home again this winter for a couple of reasons, the primary one being my reluctance to spend any of my hard earned Union pension in a country governed by Trump.

So, Merry Christmas to all and as always, "Life Is Good"!

Norma's Two Week Eye Checkup

We drove down to the eye doctor at noon today and the verdict was, "Your left eye is 100%! Do you want the other one done?" The right eye is in better shape than the left one was so they decided to wait until January to make the decision. She has an appointment on January 3. She is feeling much better about the whole thing and is not using her glasses as the prescription for the left eye is now way off.

November 22, 1963

Cataract Surgery Day Three

It has been three days since Norma had the surgery on her left eye. The vision recovery has not been as quick as we (I) hoped for as some articles I read indicated results should be noticeable within hours or by the next day. Such was not the case as she still had an opaque "film" over the eye and it looked like she was looking through a shower curtain. She was still experiencing a "gritty" feeling on the eyeball. Her friend Kelly and I convinced her to call the doctor this morning if it did not improve overnight.

Well, it seems to have improved a bit. She says the film is almost gone and she can read the guide on the TV screen this morning and can read the print in a magazine so it is a definite improvement over yesterday. She wants to wait until after the weekend before she calls.

So far it has been a positive experience even with recovery being a little slower than I had hoped for. Everyone's eyes are different so everyone's experience will be a little different I suppose. Stay tuned!

Norma's Cataract Surgery

Norma had her nervously anticipated cataract surgery today! We are back home and she is issuing orders! It went without a hitch. It was cone at the new hospital in Comox as that is where our eye doctor is. The actual surgery took about twenty minutes and she is now sporting a nice new Bausch & Lomb lens in her left eye. She has to take a month of eye drops but in a week or two she should start seeing the positive effects of the new lens! 

They will then discuss doing the right eye which is not as bad as the left one was.

Mid Terms

The election is over. Am I happy? I am happy the Democrats regained The House which will help curtail the madman in charge so that is a positive step. I cannot understand people voting Democrat for the House and Republican for the Senate but I seldom understand Republican voters anyway.

I am sad about the outcome of a few races, Texas Senator, Florida Governor, Georgia Governor and a few others. It was refreshing to see so many young, progressive, female Democrats elected to the House, that is a step in the right direction.

I would not really be happy unless every Republican is escorted form the building with their personal belongings in a cardboard box but this was a step in the right direction.

Voter suppression was rampant! The worst cases were the First Nations people who were prevented from voting because their villages lacked street addresses and Dodge City where the polling place was moved to a mile outside the bus routes. There will be many more like the polling place that had no way to plug in the voting machines.

Fall Back

Unless you are in one of a couple of states or in Mexico, it was time to set your clocks back last night. I forgot to do it but we are retired so what is the difference anyway? Well, it's done now!

We Planted The Sign!

It has been a long time since Brooks gave us this beautiful plasma cut stainless steel address sign he made for us but we finally got it planted at the end of the driveway! It started out as a Christmas gift but we never got a chance to pick it up so it turned into a birthday gift for me in April and then a birthday gift for Norma in July! We finally pecked it up a few weeks ago.

I tested the dirt at the end of the driveway and found it to be hard packed with large rocks and very tough digging, it was going to take a younger back or some heavier equipment. We contacted the guy who is going to do our lawn cutting next year and he said he would be happy to dig the holes. And yesterday he did just that!

We (Norma and him) carried the sign down while I ran to the hardware store for some quick set concrete that we poured in around the legs and added water. That sign is not going anywhere.

It is a great addition to our house. Thanks Brooks and LindaLee!

It still needs a bit of landscape work but here it is!

Lawn Mowing Economics And Donald Trump

We brought home our EGO 56 Volt Rechargeable lawn mower and our ECHO 58 Volt trimmer yesterday, giving our bank balance a $1,300 hit. Our friend Rae pointed out that we were paying our lawn mowing service just under $50 per hour for doing it this summer. This was emphasized yesterday evening when two of them showed to give it the last mowing of the season. I started timing when I heard the mower and trimmer start and they were done in a record eight minutes! The bill for this will be $52 after taxes. Two guys for eight minutes is sixteen minutes work which amounts to almost $200 per hour! Enough is enough, I could probably hire a lawyer for that!

The best move would have been to buy the equipment next April when we need it rather than now as that would have started the warranty period six months later. The woman who sold us the equipment explained that as there is no lawn mowing equipment manufactured in Canada, they have to buy from the USA and Trump had just put tariffs on this. If we waited until after the new year it would cost us at least 10% more.

I think buying our own equipment and hiring a $20 per hour guy is a better deal in the long run. Who knows, I might even push the mower around myself the odd time (it is self propelled so it might pull me around). I will not tackle the steep bank though, I have already fallen down it a couple of times.

I am also hoping the simplicity of the heavy duty rechargeable electric will pay off. No hassle with gas, oil, tune ups, etc. Plus the mower can be folded up and hung on the wall. 





The ECHO trimmer comes apart so a hedge trimmer or a blower can be added. Those items may be Christmas gifts for each other.

BC Legal Online Pot Sales Open For Business

Here is the link for BC's Government Online Cannabis Store. All varieties are home grown right here in BC. As part of the roll out, previous convictions for simple possession of small quantities of cannabis are being pardoned.

Mowing Equipment

We visited a local business (not big box) and have kind of settled on an EGO self propelled 56 volt mower for $800 and an Echo 58 volt multitool trimmer/edger that will also accept a hedge trimmer and a blower attachment for $340. Very nice high end units.

The trimmer is part of Echo's "professional" product line and they assure me it will do the job. Being able to add a blower and a hedge trimmer is a bonus.

We went with rechargeable over gas for several reasons. Ease of use is the biggest with no concerns of gas, gas mixing, fuel stabilizers, fuel storage, tune-ups, etc. With the rechargeable units, we just have to keep the batteries charged.

Expensive Lawn Mowing

We have about 2500 square feet of actual lawn, all of it level with edging to be done where it meets Norma's gardens.  We also have the steep bank at the back of which we keep a 3000 square foot section trimmed. This bank is done with a whipper snipper.

We used to hire Beau, Norma's "Lawn Guy" to do it. Beau was a hard worker and was willing to do any other tasks that Norma asked of him. He kept close track of his time, charging us $20 - $30 per week. He was here for at least an hour every week. We loved having Beau but after a few years he got what he called a "real" job and left us. We then hired a couple of guys who had a small mowing company who also did a pretty good job but charged more. They did the minimum and did not like it when Norma wanted extra work done. There was two of them and they were here for maybe half an hour and charged $40. They closed shop after two years.

This year we searched the want ads and found another mowing company. The very hyper young owner came and scouted out the job and we agreed to have him mow the lawn every week and to add the bank trimming every second week. He would charge us $45 for just the lawn and $85 for the lawn and the bank. Pretty expensive but we had no choice. It pissed us off how short a time they were here - two guys for ten to fifteen minutes for the lawn only and three guys for twenty to twenty five minutes when they added the bank. They outright refused to do any extra work for Norma. All three of these people provided their own equipment which they all kept in good shape.

I did a tally and discovered we had paid these new guys about $1800 for seven months of cutting! Wow! We started exploring other options. We found a guy willing to do the work for $20 an hour but we would have to provide the equipment. We figured the lawn mowing could be cut back to once every two weeks and we all think the lawn plus bank job can be done in no more than two hours. So about $80 per month for labour. or $560 per year.

I would like to go with cordless electric equipment simply because of the dependability and ease of use. My only concern is if the battery powered equipment will have the "oomph" to do the job, specially the trimmer for the bank. They advertise one hour battery life but Youtube reviews indicate this might be a bit of an exaggeration with reviewers reporting a more realistic 30 to 45 minutes of heavy duty work. Extra batteries are expensive, up to $300.  We will have to talk to some of the sales places in town to get some advice.

If we went this route the savings in the first year alone would pay for the equipment. The $1800 we paid this year less $560 for labour next year leaves over $1200 to buy equipment, This is going to be the way to go!

Old Friend Visits

The phone rang, Norma answered and a voice from the past asked, "How do I get to your place?" It was Al Cotton, our friend since the 60's! Al and I worked together in a Vancouver gas station in about 1963. We became friends and I actually met Norma in a roundabout way through Al. He now lives in Kelowna where he runs a sailboat charter business, Go With The Wind Cruises with his 26' MacGregor sailboat, Cat's Ass.

He had been on a solo tour of Northern BC but got chased down to the Island by too much rain in the north and decided to visit Vancouver Island's Long Beach. We enjoyed a couple of beer (only a couple - BIG change from the old days!), a pizza and endless conversation before our age caught up to us and we all headed to bed. Al was on his way to Tofino after breakfast. It was a short but great visit!

Laptop Arrived!

Purolater delivered my "new" reconditioned Dell laptop this morning and I have just set up Windows 10 Home on it. The condition of the laptop was listed as "Grade B" but I can see no flaws at all, it appears perfect. So far, so good. 

"New" Laptop

You may recall my five year old Toshiba laptop took a tumble off the overhead bunk in the motorhome a few weeks ago. Well, it finally ground to a halt and would no longer start up. I considered taking it in for repairs but I have done that before and it has always been more expensive than I expected and something else has usually gone bad soon after.

Sooo... I was browsing the web this morning and found a reconditioned Dell laptop with Windows 10 at Newegg.ca for only $169 with free shipping and thought I would give it a try. I am not a "gamer" and only use it for surfing, email and finances so blazing speed is not a requirement. I still have my little Lenovo for the bedroom but I wanted something larger for my recliner downstairs and for use as a main computer in the motorhome. This should do it!

Moon Rise Down Our Driveway

I have to keep reminding myself what a beautiful area we live in.

Eye Doc

Today was my day to drive down to Courtenay (about 40 miles) to my eye guy, I go twice a year and I have noticed my vision getting worse, specially in the left eye. I have also been "conscious" of my left eye. No discomfort. just a feeling of heaviness, stickiness and grittiness at times. Two technicians tested, inspected and photographed both eyes before sending me for a Fields Test. I hate this test where you watch for flashing lights and press a button every time you see one. I actually felt I did pretty good this time compared to last time when I saw virtually none with my left eye, I thought I might be going blind.

Anyway, after visiting with these three women I was sent in to see the actual doctor. An interesting guy, a mountain climber with a photo of himself summiting one of the big ones. K2 I think, a serious mountain that is a bit shorter than Everest but they say is a harder climb.  He is generally not a great communicator, using more grunts, "humms" and nods than words but I was concerned enough to nail him down this time. I asked what was going on with my left eye and he stared at it through his microscope for a while and told me it might be an allergic reaction to the Combigan eye drops he put me on a year or so back. As he was writing a prescription for a substitute I mentioned that someone in his Campbell River office where I go for my glasses told me I was showing early signs of Macular Degeneration but he said he did not see it. I asked if I had cataracts and he said, "Yes but not bad enough to think of operating yet". Why don't they just tell you this stuff up front instead of waiting for you to ask?

So back to the pharmacy in Campbell River to fill the prescription, a happy surprise as it only cost me $29 (after my insurance) for three months supply, about $20 cheaper than the drug it replaced.

Oh yes, on the drive home a farm in Black Creek had a "Fresh Eggs" sign out. I pulled in and their stand was on the honor system. The eggs were $6 a dozen and I only had a five and some twenties. I put in the five and promised myself I would stop in again with a dollar. I could have bought three dozen and paid $20 but then they would have owed me $2. I would have tried to get change from the cash box but it was locked. So much for the honor system!

So by the end of all this excitement it was time to watch the Blue Jays lose their game.

Replacing Inverter Part Two

I gathered my tools, took the dinette seat out and tackled the replacement. I pulled the fuse to avoid sparks and removed the old inverter. Easy job. I took it into the workshop and hooked it up to a car battery I keep charged in there, plugged in a load and it did not work. Suspicions confirmed.

I then unpacked the new unit and connected it to the battery in the workshop. I connected a load, turned it on and away it went, delivering 40 watts to my RV dehumidifier.

I had to solder different terminals to the two #4 AWG cables from the battery and that was no easy job, having to lean way over the edge of the dinette. Anyway, I got it done, connected everything together, installed the remote switch, turned it on and tested everything. The TV's and receivers switched on and stayed on. I forgot to test the fridge on the inverter but I will do that soon as I have no reason to believe it will not work.

I extracted myself and my tools from the cramped work space, checked for bruised ribs (found two) and put everything away.

Done! Total time spent? About three hours. I guess I am slowing down.

Out with the old:

In with the new:

Add the remote beside the entry:

EDIT:

 I went out, turned on the front TV and receiver and the load was 40 watts. Added the rear TV and receiver and the load increased to 70 watts. I took a deep breath and plugged the fridge in. It clicked on and the load went up to 170 watts and held there. I did not notice any initial surge as the fridge started so it must have happened pretty quickly.

My one complaint is the noise. The unit has two fans and they seem to run all the time there is a load. The old unit had fans but they hardly ever turned on. If I did hear them I knew there was a high load. This one is noisy to the point of bothersome. I might try to find some sound deadening board and enclose the inside of the compartment with it. There are two vents in the walls for air circulation that I cannot block off. One is visible in the photo of the remote switch.

Replacing Inverter Part One

I went out yesterday to hook up the StarChoice (Shaw Direct) in the motorhome. I have a dish mounted on the workshop and hook up the two TV's in the motorhome for the odd time we have company staying out there.

I hooked it up and turned the receivers and TV's on. Or at least tried to. They were plugged into the inverter and there was no power coming out! I cycled it on and off and disconnected the 12 volt side for a few minutes, hoping it would reset. No luck! It is toast.

I checked to see when I had bought the inverter and discovered it was in 2013, five years ago. It was way out of warranty but still should not have gone in only five years.

I decided to replace the 1500 watt Modified Sine Wave unit with a 1000 watt Pure Sine Wave, more expensive but kinder to electronics and 1000 watts is more than I need. There is a possibility that was what killed my Toshiba laptop. I checked around town and found two, a heavy duty one at Walmart for $400 and a Motomaster Eliminator (house brand) at Canadian Tire for $235. After checking the specs I decided on the cheaper one.

Today I will install it. Maybe photos. Stay tuned.

Test

Test post from tablet.

9-11-01

Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on a select few dates. These include the day JFK was killed and the day MLK was executed. 9-11 was one of those days!

I was driving north through central Oregon on my way home after an RV trip. I was driving along with the radio on very low to the point where I could hardly hear it. The music had stopped some time before and there was just a steady drone of voices I could not make out. After a while I turned it up and thought it was a discussion of a movie or something, not a subject I was interested in. I hit the "scan" button but every station I landed on had the same thing on!

I turned it up louder and that was when I began to understand what was going on. The first plane had hit and there was mass confusion. Almost right away the second plane hit! I was in the desert and the first thing I noticed was there was hardly any traffic. Soon a police car raced past me with lights and siren doing well over 100 mph. Then a fighter aircraft screamed past overhead at low altitude following the Interstate. I realized that the Country was being attacked and here I was driving down the highway in a foreign plated motorhome that could contain who knows what! It was time to get off the road.

I pulled into Bend, OR and found the nearest RV park. I walked into the office to find the two people glued to the TV. They told me to park anywhere and to come in and register and pay in the morning. I parked, hooked up the cable and watched CNN non stop for the next two days. 

Catching Up!

We have been home for a while but after having set up my new computer I discovered it has no SD card reader! After a frantic search I discovered I had no SD memory card reader and could not post my photos! I ordered a new reader from eBay but that will take ages so I kept up my search and finally found one!

Here are some of Karen and Ruairi's wedding shots. Karen is the youngest daughter of our niece, Robin from Lacombe, Alberta. The couple met while they were both working in Hanoi, North Vietnam, she as a teacher and he as a scuba diving instructor. It was a great wedding on Karen's brother's farm. They rented a huge tent for the dinner/party and a blowup Irish Pub for the bar. Thirty-five people came from Ireland, all ready to party! Those Irish women know how to dance!

The couple will be returning to Dublin where Ruairi will be working as an engineer and Karen as a contributor for an environmental magazine. They also want to return to Vietnam to live at some point. They are a truly International Couple!

The Party Tent

Blow-Up Irish Pub! With a real Irishman (Karen's boss) walking by!

Ruairi and his Best Man

Karen and her proud dad, Bruce

And they are married in an interesting Celtic ceremony of Handfasting! Hence the term "Tying the knot".

Karen and mom (Robin) at the campout we had in Dumheller after the wedding

Mary and Mic Hand, parents of the groom. All the way from Dublin!

Resting In Kamloops

We decided to skip our planned visit to the Okanagan and to take a more direct route home. We had a few reasons with the heavy smoke in the air being the foremost. We are also socialized out and exhausted from the Six Day Irish Wedding. We will come back to the Okanagan to visit all the folks we wanted to see.

We drove from Revelstoke to Kamloops and checked into the Kamloops RV Park which it turns out is situated only a few feet from both the Trans Canada Highway and the railway tracks. It is as noisy as most truck stops but they can somehow justify their $47 per night rates. They do however have great showers with endless hot water which we both took full advantage of.

We have been incredibly either lucky or skillful at setting up our satellite dish but this time we had problems. After finding the settings and checking the Dishpointer site We started the usually quick process of locking in on the bird. Well we tried for two hours with only a flash or two of signal. I knew there was a tree but was convinced this was not interfering. Eventually our neighbour came out to help. He had sold the system in Alberta and had a pretty good eye. He figured the tree actually was in the way and made a suggestion that led to this

Redneck Tripod Solution:

Nurse Norma Is Fired!

Nurse Norma is fired! She ripped the bandage off my worse knee and it hurt like heck! Applications for a new nurse are being accepted... Now she wants to take the bandage off my toe to inspect the damage...

Revelstoke, BC

We are in Revelstoke parked in a huge, informal parking area by the river. We wanted to get an RV park with a pool but my knees are not presentable enough to share in a pool! 

The highway was really slow going yesterday with tons of paving and one way traffic. The normally two hour trip took almost four hours. Doesn't matter, we have lots of time!

Unexpected Stopover!

We left the Kananaskis Casino about 10:00 expecting to drive through to Revelstoke or maybe even Kamloops but such was not to be! We stopped at the Husky station in Golden to dump and clumsy me fell over the damn trailer hitch and ended up with two heavily bleeding knees and the end torn off one big toe! (No photos) :)

Not too painful but lots of blood thanks to the blood thinners! I finished dumping, hosed off all the blood and pulled into their huge truck parking area where Norma applied lots of alcohol, antibiotic cream and bandages. I will survive but we are staying parked here for the night. Ah, the pleasures of getting old(er)!

Still Here At Kananaskis!

Yesterday we decided to stay one extra day to rest up. We did that as well as go to the casino for a late buffet breakfast and to make a small donation to the slots. This morning was cooler and since Norma had not slept well we decided to camp out in the free parking area one more day. No rush! We have no reason to move except to buy milk as ours somehow got left out and went sour. Our friendly RV neighbors saved me a trip to town by giving us a cup or so for Norma's coffee. All is well!

We watched the Blue Jays game at 10:00 and then the BC Lions game at 1:30 PM. We put a couple of potatoes in the microwave and will find something to go with them. We will not starve and tomorrow will find us moving on down the road! Life is Good!

Smoke Sun At Kananaskis, Alberta

Kananaskis Smoke Sun!

8:00 AM here in the Stoney Nakoda Casino parking lot. We are exhausted enough from the Six Day Wedding to just stay parked here for the day. We may wander over for a buffet breakfast but other than that, it will be a day to read and catch up on CNN. Right now there is not enough sunlight getting through the smoke to charge the batteries! The smoke situation is not going to improve as we move west but we are getting reports that it is clear on the Island.

An Irish Pub!

Yes, we have an Irish Pub here at the wedding! What is an Irish Wedding without a blow-up Irish Pub? Yes, that is a real Irishman in font!

Falling Laptop!

Disaster averted! As we were doing the roller coaster twister drive of highway 3 or 3B this morning the laptop fell from it's perch on top of the front fridge and landed on my head/shoulder/arm, bounced off and hit the floor. Hard. I figured there was no reason to panic, stop and test it. If it is broken, it is broken. Alas! When we parked I turned it on and it fired right up! And as a bonus, my Rogers Internet works in Crowsnest, Alberta, a wide spot in the road with a Tim Hortons and a Shell station with some truck parking! I needed the Internet to find the coordinates for the dish so now we can watch the Blue Jays! 

That old Toshiba is no match for my skull! Life Is Good!

Day Three Of The Epic Journey

Day 1 - Campbell River to Abbotsford, BC Walmart

Day 2 - Abbotsford to Princeton BC truck stop.

Day 3 - Princeton to Trail, BC Walmart.

Today was a brutal drive! I do not remember so many steep uphills and downhills! I had the Ford V-10 in "Haul / Tow" mode and it was working hard. It was brutally hot outside so the air conditioning was sucking power out of the engine and making things much worse. Even with the tow / haul function working I was still on the brakes too much on the downhill runs and they were hot! It was not a pleasant day and we went through about $160 worth of gas today!

We got to Trail at about 4:00, gassed up and found Walmart, It is still very hot and we are running the generator and air conditioning while we relax and make dinner. This trip is taking much longer than planned and we still have 800+ kilometers to go on winding, steep roads. We will have a better plan to get home!

Slow Trip To Alberta

We are on the mainland heading to our grand-niece's wedding on the 11th in Lacombe, Alberta. We are taking our time on the slow road, Highway 3 (Hope - Princeton Highway) which sort of follows the US border. We left Saturday, caught the 1:30 ferry and drove to Abbotsford where we discovered Norma's new phone was not working!

No Telus stores open on Sunday of a long weekend but we found a Source store (Radio Shack) where an obliging salesman had a look at it. He determined it needed a reboot which he did. It came back to life and he refused any payment. Nice guy and they don't even sell Telus.

Anyway, that took until noon so we were late getting away and tackling the mountainous Hope Princeton Highway. We pulled into Princeton at about 4:00 and are staying in a Chevron Truck Stop. My Rogers Interned gets no signal here but there is an A&W next door with free WIFI that reaches our rig. I repaid them for it's use by walking over and buying dinner to go.

Tomorrow we will drive as far as Trail, BC. It is nice being back on the road in the motorhome!

Birthday Visit

It was Norma's birthday on July 27th and on Monday Brooks picked Jayde up at the ferry dock and the two of them drove up for a visit. On Tuesday morning Sierrah arrived from Victoria with her other grandmother, Carolynn. It was so nice to see our two adult granddaughters together, something that doesn't happen very often. Everyone had a good time with lots of gabbing, food and fun!

Sierrah, Brooks, Jayde, Norma, Croft


Sierrah and Jayde taking photos in the garden


Sierrah and her two grandma's

Tim Hortons

Yesterday I walked the 3.4 KM return trip on the seawalk to Tim Hortons with no (very little) trouble. Made it there easy, sat and had a coffee and muffin, and headed back. I passed a bench and sat for a minute enjoying the view, continued on and about 200 feet from my house experienced the beginnings of a leg cramp. Hmmm, what's that all about?

My Exercise Regimine

Aside from one day it was raining too hard, I have been walking the 1.3 KM return trip to the mailbox every mail day (5 days a week) Since June 15. I have to admit the first day was more of a struggle than I like to admit as I had trouble walking a straight line and actually sat down on a park bench half way back home.

Now, I am blasting through it with no problem, am walking straight with a good pace and feel no need to rest part way. It is a revelation!

I am now wondering how I can increase my distance. There is a seaside park a bit further along so today I just might continue right past the mailbox and try for the park. Google maps says it is a 15 minute walk each way for a 2.4 KM return trip. Man, I am getting healthy, I wonder how much I weigh?

Oops, they are calling for rain this afternoon. It may or may not show up. If it is not raining I will head out with my phone so I can call for a ride back if needed. What's a little rain?

Edit: I corrected the mileage. A little problem with Google Maps.

Supporting The Evil Empire

It is with heavy hearts that we are watching the inhumanity that is going on in the USA lately. Concentration camps for children being set up at the southern US border, school children being slaughtered in their schools, idiots with "MAGA" hats on running around with guns. The First Lady sporting a Nazi Stormtrooper slogan on her jacket.

No one is safe from the tyranny. Today it is brown skinned people, Muslim or Hispanic, tomorrow it could be another color or race. Norwegians may be on some future list in the mind of a madman. Or English people. It is unpredictable and there seems to be no effective opposition to the current President.

Are we going to spend our hard earned money in the USA next winter? Not likely. We have to make a statement that what is going on down there is simply unacceptable and cannot be supported. We enjoyed our winters down there and have made friends with many individual Americans. It is not these individual Americans we have a problem with but is the leadership of their country. I know the $20K or so that we spend down there every year is just a drop in their bucket but we have to make a statement, no matter how small.

I don't know what the solution is. Many friends and our son say we should just fly somewhere in Mexico or Central America and rent a house for a few months. That has it's appeal but is not the way we like to travel, we like being able to move around and we like having all our "stuff" with us. Another possibility is to just hold our noses and drive directly through the USA, boondocking as we go spending money only on gas. We could be in Mexico in four or five days. The return home in April would be the same and would limit our exposure to the Death Star that is today's USA. Of course by then they may have concentration camps on their northern border.

The discussion will continue.

We Cancelled!

We had reservations at the Cluxewe Resort near Port McNeil, BC for next week. We had been looking forward to it and had plans to meet up with our friends Ken and Kris from Port Hardy. It was going to be a fun week relaxing on the water and a trip to their son in law's restaurant in Port Hardy.

However the weather has been looking worse and worse for next week and the final check this morning showed pretty constant rain with only a couple of days of no rain but cloud. It was also going to be on the cool side. Bottom line, we would be spending most of our time inside watching TV, if we could even hook up to the satellite from the well treed site.

So we bit the bullet and cancelled. We will lose our $32 deposit but that is just the way it goes. It was not going to be as much fun as we were hoping for. We will save the $200 in gas and the $150 we owed the park for the rest of the week. We will do it when the weather is better.

Wildlife!

Here I was, lazing in bed this morning at about 7:45 when I heard Norma outside yelling,"Goddammit, get out of here!". Hoping she wasn't talking to me, I peeked out the window to see her disappear around the side of the house. "What is it?" asked I, having an inkling of what the answer would be. "Deer in the yard" was the answer.

I quickly got dressed and went out to help with the wrangling. She had chased the two of them into the southwest corner of the lot where they could do no damage but also where it was steep, muddy and very hard for me to get to. Nothing to eat there but bush and grass, no flowers. We opened the gate and made our plans. I threw rocks behind them to get them moving towards the far side of the house and Norma followed to keep them moving while I positioned myself to keep them from circling the house again, a game they delight in. It worked! They went out the gate and down the driveway.

It does not appear they have done any harm to Norma's precious flowers or freshly planted tomatoes. We don't think they had been in the yard long but we have no idea where they got in! I will have to try to get up the bank and inspect the fence line. It is not an easy task!

EAGLE!

While I was back there checking out what I could see of the fence from the walkway, I heard an eagle squawk! It sounded close and when I looked up, there it was in the tree above me right behind the house! It was  a beautiful yearling, not yet with the white head feathers marking an adult. I went in to grab my camera and it was still there when I returned! Luckily I got a shot from the back because when I walked around the house to try from the front, she/he flew away.

EDIT:

We found the breech! It was in the rolling gate which is made up of a steel pipe frame with horizontal rows of tightly stretched stainless steel wire spaced one foot apart at the top and six inches apart at the bottom. The deer got his nose between two wires and just pushed his way through, stretching and displacing the wire. His brother/sister then followed. It must have hurt!

"I Really Don't Care, Do U"

This is one of the children the government seized from her parents and now cannot or will not produce. This is not the Man Of The Year cover he wanted. Or maybe it is.

This is the jacket Melania chose to wear when she left to visit one of the border concentration camps for a photo op..

Or maybe it is the slogan itself

My Mailbox Walk

Here is the walk to the mailbox and back.

Down the driveway

Across the crosswalk 

And down the path past the eagle carving

A bit of the beach. There are often eagles in those trees!

Hydration for dogs provided, I had my own water. 

The Husky station where Rae worked the winter she was here. 

The boat ramp and fish cleaning station. Honour system payment. 

Time for some water. It is around 80 degrees! 

The old Shell station where Brooks once worked (and was robbed).  Now a restaurant.

The Fogg Dukker Coffee Shop on the beach. Should I stop for an espresso? No, too hot. 

Finally, the mail box! 0.6 KM  No crosswalk from the walking path over to the mailboxes. Time for some political action!

I will walk back on this side of the road. Not too busy and this is marked as a bike lane. 

The Husky station again.$1.46 per litre. See how much I saved by walking? 

Liquor Store and vacation rentals. $300 per night, three nights minimum! Don't worry, we won't make you stay there! 

Back home! Up the driveway and it will be 1.2 KM!