It might be a tad early to start a count down to when we can move in, but confidence is high and finishing is going really well. So well, we are starting to pack some boxes and think end-game things, like booking cleaners and movers.
We’ve had a whirlwind of decision making happening. There was a push early on to choose a cabinet maker and then the cabinets for the kitchen. This set off the domino of flooring, tile and paint choices that has become our design. I’m sure I have looked at thousands of tiles and have made many visits to Cranbrook to look at flooring and hardware and wall tiles. Pardon the pun, but sometimes it sticks and sometimes it doesn’t.
Over the last couple of weeks I have had to re-choose our countertop because the choice we made in June had been sold, and so had our back-up choice, and then decide to scrap the granite backsplash because it was going to cost a mint and switch to quartz in the bathrooms for the same reason, and then scrap the re-work because the original choice of counter top was once again available. Sheesh. After all the back and forth, my net loss was that I had to find a tile for the kitchen backsplash. That, amazingly enough, was accomplished in a single trip to the tile shop in Cranbrook. I think this is really because I have all the other elements in place, so picking a tile is soooo much easier, and I have little patience for dithering at the moment. The to-do list is long and full of terrors. I also sense that the tile dealers know when you are not messing around and just cut to the chase.
We have been watching as the finishing trailer makes good on its name and gets stuff done. The cabinets were picked up in Calgary a couple of weeks ago and they have been steadily installing them in the bathrooms, laundry and kitchen. The colour is exactly what I wanted and the flat fronts are clean. I am still bummed about not being able to router the handles but the alternative will be as close as I can get to that.
The interior doors have also been hung and the pile of trim that was occupying the porch is dwindling. We are currently trying to find the right stain colour to put on the doors since we’ve decided they are too pretty to paint. So we added one more to do on the list, more trips to Cranbrook to visit paint shops and test stain. Our painter had a moment of pause when she saw our closet doors. Louvres were an unexpected item that I’m sure will result in more hours and some frustration.
The tile has been a tricky one. Our tiler has been in working around the trimming and door hanging and cabinet installs. He started on the girls bathroom upstairs and after laying a couple of rows of tile, I got a text from Adam, our builder. “The tile is different colours. Do you have a minute?” He sent some pictures and we decided the difference in colour required a call to the supplier to see what could be done. Nothing, of course. There is a disclaimer on tiles for variations in finish and we were out of luck. We decided to try to randomize the variants to see if they would blend in more. Some strategy on picking a good grout colour will also help and apparently, Tristan, the tiler, is pretty stellar at picking the right colour. In reality, once we saw it in person and not in photos, it is noticeable but not stopping us from moving ahead. It still looks great and the delay and cost is not worth it…we could also end up with another box of wide colour variations.
Jeff has spent a good deal of time working with Adam and the finishing carpenter to get the trim around the doors and windows right and they have now found the sweet spot. In the end, the style and size is reminiscent of our old house on John Street in Vancouver, another labour of love. The windows in the kitchen, will lose a piece on the bottom of the trim to accommodate the tile backsplash, but it looks great all round.
We are also seeing great strides on the outside of the house now. The Coravent arrived and allowed the siding to extend beyond the sheltered spaces, now almost all the way around. It looks fantastic, although Jeff and I are now on deck to get the second coat done and will have to be quick if we want to make use of the scaffolding Adam in leaving in place for us to reach the high places!
Jeff has also been working on finishing the staining of the posts around the porch to get ahead of the soffit install that will follow the finishing of the siding. We are working our way through the latest stack of soffit that we need to stain that makes up the remainder of the underside of the porch and can see the light there. We only needed to buy 2 gallons of stain this time and not a full 5 gallon pail!
Next up: The septic has been designed and approved, and should be in place before the end of the month. The countertop templating is scheduled for Aug 12 and install on Aug 26th, all while the finish plumbing and electric get going. Wheeeee!
We’ve been diligently building some fun-tivity into our lives, having spent a great deal of it too busy with work and house work and sports for as long as I can remember. This summer, the girls started off by saying that they wanted to do something this summer and not just lay about. Well, there has been a healthy amount of laying about to be sure, but for the past few weekends we have force marched our family into the wild and to the top of some local peaks.
Jeff and Mary have become quite dedicated to the task of achieving higher heights, while Margaret, Lizzie and I are just dedicated to getting our hearts beating a good rhythm and planting feet one in front of the other until we get to a place where there is a good view.
We started this adventure with the requisite hike to the top of Mt Fernie that I included in my last post. This was followed by a grueling (wasn’t supposed to be grueling but All Trails LIES) hike of the opposite side of the valley, Fernie Ridge – Jeff always picks the hard ones. This particular hike is similar in elevation gain and distance, but came with a few extras. It was hotter this time, there was a bit of smoke in the air, add some more water bottles and hot feet and you have yourself a challenge. Oh, and there might have been a few bugs.
After much dedication and “me against the mountain” self-talk by at least one of us (ahem), we all made it to the top to the view that was our reward. Way down in the valley we can see our new house. We didn’t linger too long in any one spot however. Despite the trail notes professing that there were almost no bugs, we were met with the usual array of mosquitoes and pesky flies, but added some attach bugs that came with their own pile of rocks that I am sure were placed there by previous hikers in an attempt to keep them at bay, or these were the elusive trail markers that we failed to see for the presence of the attack bugs…either way. We were also plagued by small flies that can only be described as horse flies in training. They took chunks of us away, leaving our legs and arms a bloody itchy mess. Jeff, always immune, seemed unbothered but Lizzie and I, and to some degree Margaret and Mary were helpless to keep them away. A bottle of bug spray will be added to my pack even if it adds another bit of weight I have to haul up a mountain. Still, with the bugs and all, we were all smiles at the top. A reward well earned. (my short arms prevent me from doing selfies with Jeff!)
Next up was Lizzie’s birthday! Yup, another one. This time she turned 15 and having spent the last five years NOT having a birthday party, she was determined to invite all of her friends from up and down the valley to celebrate with her. We hatched a plan to have a movie night at the new house and gathered as much gear and people and food as we could muster for the event. We test drove the idea by having a movie night there the weekend before, setting up the projector and some camp chairs in our bedroom and watching a James Bond movie. After the kinks were worked out, it was pretty fun and the only issue was really that there are no curtains to make the room dark. We solved that problem by putting a towel over the door, but would eventually decide to move the movie watching upstairs to the rec room space and put up Jeff’s old photo backdrop cloth to hide the skylight.
On the day, Lizzie and I few solo, but Dad took point earlier in the day to make sure the grass had been cut and some of the debris had been tidied for us to be able to set up.
I cooked enough food for an army (forgetting that teenage girls eat almost nothing if their last name isn’t Thorpe!) and we set up for a bit of fun. All told, it came off without a hitch, but Lizzie and I were packing up and cleaning up into the late evening and darkness. At one point I brought the truck over and shone the lights into the back of the house to give us something other than our phone flashlights to work with. Silver lining for me, I got to get a visit in with a couple of friends too. Good times despite the late night!
The morning after, Jeff’s alarm went off at a hour unbecoming of a Sunday. He and Mary were heading up Hosmer, but not the hard trail we did last year. They were going up the REALLY hard trail which was a full day affair. He had invited me to join, and knowing how quickly they move compared to me, I opted out. Glad I did as the amount of sleep I had from the night before wasn’t going to make me good company or even capable company If I am being honest. All good though, Margaret, Lizzie and I had decided to hike anyway, but to Silver Springs instead where they could have a swim and do a bit of cliff jumping.
Jeff and Mary soldiered to the top of Hosmer (or just shy of the top before tapping out). It was windy and cold and there were many blisters to be tended. They reached 8187 ft (1.55 miles) elevation. Spectacular.
Silver Springs was much more civilized and we invited Josh, Margaret’s boyfriend, along to keep us on track to get to the third lake. It turns out it is pretty easy to find and after a much more pleasant slow incline hike (after you get to the first lake anyway), Margaret and Lizzie jumped in for a quick swim.
On the home front, Mary’s chickens are turning into proper ladies and we are checking daily to see if they’ve figured out how to lay an egg. They are practicing their clucking and every morning stretch their legs by doing chicken runs around the yard. Mary is practicing her chicken catching as well, much to their dismay.
Lizzie’s actual birthday came with a trip to Lethbridge for some shopping in a real mall, and the requested chinese food dinner from our local, The Old Elevator. I was home working while Jeff took the girls out for the day. He had a hidden agenda of looking at some hay cutting equipment along the way, but this was thwarted by a late departure, so he could only look at it from the roadside. They cruised through Fernie around dinnertime and picked up the food before returning back to Jaffray for some celebrating. Mary made the cake (carrot cake on request) and Lizzie did the decorating. A truly yummy birthday.
We also seem to have a couple of resident fawns at the farm. They appear to be orphans so we are keeping a close eye on their health. They are quite content to munch on the grass and visit the pond(s) at the back of the property for some water. They are trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to get into the garden to eat the greens. I was working from the trailer on Thursday this week and they were making a bit of breakfast out of the cut grass. Not at all worried about me or the construction noise from the house. Super cute.
We’ve ticked over into August now and the summer already feels like its waning. The mornings are darker and the evenings come sooner. We’ve come in and out of heat waves, the hanging baskets being the casualities of the heat for the most part. We’ve got the heat management down to a science almost in Jaffray and Mom is faring better this year than last. The ground is crispy though and we are watchful of the storms and the fires that so far have been sparked and contained. The wind is a blessing and a curse there. It blows the smoke away every once in a while and we get clear skies again, but somewhere they are fanning flames.
That, my friends, is the much anticipated Finishing Trailer. It is not just fiction.
The siding has gotten off to a much slower start than anticipated and we’ve been sticker-shocked yet again with the price of concrete, but the end is near. Now it is just a war of attrition. Will we get to the finish line before we fall down from exhaustion or run out of money?
These last couple of weeks have seen things pick up speed as the rough construction winds down and the finer finishings get started. We saw the end of the drywallers as they wrapped up the sanding a couple of days later than expecting, creating a bit of a domino effect with the painters and then the flooring installers. The painters in the end, got through to finishing the ceiling paint and priming all the walls. There are a couple of bedrooms at least that have the finish wall colour on them as well, but that part of the job will now have to wait until after the flooring install is complete…and boy is there a lot of flooring!
The siding also picked up speed which I think is a combination of the type we chose and the fact that our builders usually subcontract that work out to companies that just do siding. Either way, it took a bit of time to work out the kinks and our usual contact on site was away on vacation around the same time as Jeff. It just left us mice (me and Josh – the finish carpenter) to play in their absence and well, you can image how that went. With Jeff an Adam both on the job again it seems things are moving right along and we have some lovely siding going up at a faster pace.
The interior doors and trim have also arrived and are camping under the covered deck for the time-being, at least until the flooring is done and they can start installing. The doors are set to be stained at the moment, but we are attempting to get a cost estimate before committing. There are two camps (actually three) – clear stain because the wood is really nice, white to match the trim, or stained “driftwood” like wood roof colour in the living room. If I had voting buttons I’d let you all weigh in. I am firmly in camp #3, to stain them driftwood.
Somewhere in there the sub-contractor doing the tiling is going to get started on the bathrooms. This starts with some waterproofing, but will move into properly tiling the showers and tub surround upstairs quickly as the flooring gets finished. The trim and doors will follow quickly along with the kitchen cabinets in about the 3rd week of July.
We also saw the milestone pass where they temporary utility door has been removed from the mudroom. This was the door that was being used as the primary in and out for the house and we had asked that a temporary be placed so the actual door did not suffer any damage during construction. The mudroom is now sporting a fresh look with the match to the front door finally being installed. It is gorgeous.
Despite the fast pace of the finishing work, we are not holding our breath for a smooth finish in September. It sounds like we might have some trouble with countertops arriving in time so we may move in with plywood if all else is done…I’ve lived with plywood and we will have to if the delay goes beyond Sept 30. We’re wrapping up our tenancy at the rental here in Jaffray by then, so we need that occupancy permit with or without countertops!
As I was writing my last blog post, Jeff and the girls were on their shoulder day between arriving at Roy’s and leaving for the cabin. This day is solely for the purpose of provisioning and means that you spend the first day traveling and the second day grocery shopping / re-packing gear. When you travel for just a week, it makes for a lot of non-vacation time so you can visit the cabin for a few days, and then clean up, re-pack and head for home again. None-the-less, this trip would not be missed, and despite the front and back end work, the middle is always a good time and fills buckets and memory banks that have been depleted by too many months away.
It was a whirlwind for sure with the usual trips for Margaret to see Sydney and Lizzie to hang out with Truly. Mary had reconnected with some old friends before making the trip, but didn’t get to see anyone this time. Not a lot of pictures to share – Jeff’s camera held just two photos from their week away – but lots of stories came home…dinner with their cousins, a sleepover with Shelby (which I’m sure was not nearly long enough!) and three days of play at the cabin where water and water sports occupied their days. I miss taking them up there right at the end of the school year for a detox vacation and maybe we’ll get a second week in this year to wind up the summer if we’re lucky!
While the crew was away, the thunderstorm theme continued with one forecasted to have nickel-sized hail. Hmmm. We have a garage at this house, but it is not used as a garage, of course, and currently holds the drying racks for our 16 ft long soffit boards. There was nowhere to hide the cars, and having seen what large hailstones do to cars, I put my thinking cap on and hatched a plan to provide us some protection. Also, knowing how the universe works, if I did nothing, the hail would surely come and destroy the vehicles. If I put some effort into protecting them, the storm (or at least the hail) would pass us by, making me look like an eejit. I went with full eejit. The cars were moved to the bottom of the driveway where there was at least a little tree cover, and every moving blanket and decent sized carpet we had in storage got pulled out and put into service. In the end, other than wind, I don’t think we saw very much rain, and definitely no giant hailstones. I won the round, patting myself on the back for out-thinking the universe, but we left the cars at the bottom of the drive covered for a day or two since the storms were a daily occurence…one of the storms in the coming days left MOUNDS of hail behind and blew the rug off mom’s car.
The storms also left rainbows…
I have been looking to pick up some extra work while the contract I have been on for the last few years slows down, so while the storms made it difficult to get any painting done, it did afford me some much needed time to explore new opportunities, take care of some house chores, and wage war on the weeds in the driveway.
When the storms did finally exhaust themselves, we were left with a heat dome (thank you) that saw our temperatures spike to 40 degrees on July 10th. Thankfully, it appears we are on the down-swing from that now, peaking at about 34 degrees this afternoon as we were coming down from our first hike of Mt. Fernie this year. Yes, you heard it…we did something that had nothing to do with the house or painting. Whoa.
Jeff declared Thursday evening that it was time we went for a hike. Skeptical that we could pull it off – and by pull it off, I mean, muster enough strength and endurance to actually complete the hike – I volunteered to make it to the Bat Bench on this first adventure of the season. I haven’t hiked since we left the Alpine Trail house last year and even then, both were half-efforts having to turn around for kids with blisters and belly aches. Lizzie and Margaret jumped on my wagon and decided that the Bat Bench was doable. Jeff and Mary were in it for the full pull though and committed to the tippy top.
Given the heat of late, we aimed for an early start and let our alarms wake us up at 6 so a cup of life giving coffee could be consumed before we woke the kids and faced the groans that would soon follow. To my delight, not much groaning was heard and we marshalled rather quickly to get on the road to Fernie and our chosen mountain. We discovered that hiking shoes, that were doubling as work shoes, were in the trailer at the new house, so a quick pit stop to swap gear was needed, but 5 mins later, we were at the trail head and ready to go. Lots of water on hand, and hiking poles just in case our older bodies complained on the downhill.
After much sweating and a slow start, we found a bit of a rhythm and enough energy and stamina to make it to our chosen destinations. We let Jeff and Mary trek on ahead of us as they were moving a bit faster and had farther to go. Lizzie, Margaret and I chatted about nonsense and took rest and water breaks enough to get us to the bench. Happy day for all and picture proof on hand 🙂
The girls and I contemplated making a push for the top, but having made it to the bench we decided to take our win and head back down. We decided to go to the dam instead (adding a couple of extra kilometers on our hike, but on the flat!) for a quick foot soak and cool off. Lizzie stripped down and got just shy of going for a full swim. I only made it my ankles before the frigid water hit my bones and I was out! Margaret was more on my side with a quick wade in to cool off and then a bit of a rest before we headed back to the truck to wait for Jeff and Mary. They were about an hour behind us in the end but not too bad. We walked slow and enjoyed the abundance of orange and blue butterflies who were in turn enjoying the abundance of mountain wild flowers to play in. Everyone is tired and we are taking the rest of the day off to relax in whatever form that takes…for me that’s writing and for Jeff that’s napping.
June-uary continued for us, well into mid-month with a stellar oh-degree and frosty morning dawning on June 17th. My first thought was how I would likely face a dead garden in Fernie, frost being the death of things leafy (most of the time), and how could this be. But then I remember, this is living at elevation. The trade off is that the days are warm, but the nights are cool. It definitely helps on the sleeping side of things, which since having kids, has been elusive for me, but I could use a wee break from Mother Earth now and then. Just let a few of the leafy things in my garden live long enough to feed us. As it is, we are harvesting radishes, but they seem at a loss for what to do with this weather. Some are lovely and some have gone to seed. At least there’s time to re-sow and try again!
Frosty June mornings aside, it is a spectacular place to live. We have had breathtaking big skies of blue, speckled with puffy white clouds, and rolling thunder accompanied by waves of torrential rain and hail, and a cacophony of crickets, chirping things, eagles and osprey, and a lone elk who makes the trip across our field in the barely light of each day while its still misty.
The last week of school for the girls was uneventful, with Mary off for a couple of days with a cold (huh?) making it back to school just in time for the last day, and the awards ceremony. Jeff and I had received the email that one of our children was receiving an award. We speculated, though decided not to ask which one and leave it as a surprise for all of us. I did eventually tell the girls that one of them was getting an award (if only to make sure they were all present!) In the end, it was Mary, for overall curricular achievement in Grade 7. Turns out she’s a good student. They’re all good students though and we were thoroughly pleased with the wrap to this year of school.
The girls have half-enjoyed their first week off from school. They were volun-told almost daily, that they would be working (painting) with us each afternoon/evening. This was met with groans, much whining, and eventually joy when they saw their pay-cheque at the end of the week. Just in time for a trip to the coast and the cabin.
The run up to the cabin was, as usual, frantic and full of skirmishes about who wasn’t doing enough to support the effort. We made a last push to paint as much as possible while we still had a work crew, while prepping gear, and Jeff having to field a mining technical emergency in the middle of it all. As always, we manage to pull it off, and after a too-late night, the truck, kids, and Dad were ready to go.
I am staying behind to mind the chickens and the grandma, although grandma would probably be fine without me. Max and Gus though, they might have something to say about it. Fun fact: almost fully grown chickens, with enough gumption, can squeeze themselves through chicken netting. I am learning the art of chicken herding when they escape. They are like raptors…they are testing the fences. Last night, they were under house arrest. The solar panel and ability to electrify should arrive this Wednesday…interesting times ahead.
With the rolling storms over the last week or so, Max is fully losing his mind. As he ages (he’s 11 now) he has less tolerance for scary things. The list is growing – chain-saws (because this usually means large trees falling from the sky that make the ground shake), nail guns (obviously), things that beep (carbon-monoxide detectors that don’t like power outages), anything that buzzes (PTSD from too many bee stings I think) and of course, thunder. There wasn’t a lot of bravery in him to start with and thunder storms in his dotage are next level terrifying. We’ve had another round just this afternoon that had him trying to hide under my desk, and when that didn’t work, he hid in the bathroom and peeked at me from the half-closed door. Yesterday, he tried to squeeze himself behind the water tank in the basement. We think he’s going deaf, so there’s a good chance this phase will be short-lived. Poor old man. And with that, it is time for me to go see if the chickens have escaped again. I have had to wrangle only one today.
Adam, our builder, has said recently that their finishing trailer will be arriving soon. Say it isn’t so! In my mind, this can only mean that we are in the home stretch. My own mental milestones are coming…prime painting is happening this week along with ceiling colour (Beautitone “Earthling” and “Feather Stone” for the walls…for the curious), flooring is next week, cabinets the week after…not sure where we landed with trim and interior doors but they have been ordered. It will soon start to look like a dirty house and I am envisioning how it will be to live there…mostly evenings by the fire and walks to the river. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The last couple of weeks saw the S2 crew finish the wood ceiling in the living room/kitchen peak, The water system pump installed and powered, the drywall crew sweep in and hang an incredible amount of drywall in what feels like a very short period of time, and almost finish the sanding. The S2 crew has continued to work on the exterior porch soffit, and also started the siding work. We have toiled away at painting said siding, doing our level best to get ahead of the expected demand once they really get going. Our paint crew may be reluctant, but paid minimum wage for their time…don’t feel too sorry for them!
Jeff has said more than once, how glad he is that he is not trying to hang the drywall or mud or sand, AND how impressed he is with the work that’s been done. It’s tight and they are quick. With the exception of one wobbly looking piece in the living room that I’m not sure we can do much about and we probably won’t notice once the house is finished.
The wood ceiling in both the peak space and the porch is better that we could have imagined and Josh, the finish carpenter who has been working on both spaces has done a fantastic job. The interior and exterior wood and stain is the same and runs in the same direction inside and out. It really looks amazing. We have run out of finished T&G, so another load has been ordered and my work will begin again soon so we can finish the porch ceiling.
With Jeff and the girls away at the coast this week, I’ll be left to meet with the septic system contractor and make that trip to Lethbridge to look at the second supplier for countertops. Time is getting short there and I need to make some last decisions on the counters for the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry room, and either bite the bullet and pay import duties, or find something else that I like for hardware on the cabinets. Given that the budget is tight, I might have to find something that can be sourced more locally, but so far, I have come up with jack squat for comparables. More doom scrolling ahead…maybe the local iron works guy who’s coming to look at the stair railing can fabricate something. Oh yeah, that’s on deck too. Busy busy.
Despite it feeling like June-uary around here, we are getting more days than not that reach the double digits and quite often the rain, although intense, passes by and the skies return to blue. Oddly a little less so this year than in previous years, but definitely better than the monotony of grey that we left on the coast. Funny how that greyness didn’t bother me much when I was growing up and only as an adult did the weight of it start to get to me. A blue sky, some fresh air and a deep breath seem to right a whole lot of wrongs these days. Perhaps I was meant to live in the mountains. Poor Jeff. He loves the mountains too, but I think he is truly more of a coastal soul.
June means the end of school and some fluidity rejoins our schedule around the house. I LOVE it when the girls are all at home (except for the part where our house turns into a one giant debris field). I’m sure that’s mostly because we aren’t following a crack-of-nothing wake-up call for everyone, and trying to fit all things into what seems like too few hours in the day, or maybe its just that the end of school is accompanied by long, light, warm days…at least for a few weeks. Either way, I’ll take it.
We had a straight out of Hitchcock moment one morning recently. With the nicer mornings (and by nicer I mean not snowing) I have started walking the girls to the bus stop with Max. This kills two birds as far as I am concerned…actually more than two, but anyway. I get a walk, Max gets a good walk rather than his constitutional out the back door or down the driveway, and the girls and I get to spend a few minutes chatting about stuff and nonsense. On this morning, Jeff had volunteered to take the girls to school on his way to work, so I was left to walk Max on my own. It had been cold lately, but on this morning the sun was shining and it felt much more like summer was on its way. Max and I set out down the driveway and I could see something in the roadway at the end – it was big, but low to the ground and wide. Weird. Keeping Max on his leash, expecting that it was going to be something that would make Max lose his biscuits, we kept walking towards anyway, expecting that it would move on and I would be able to continue our walk down the dirt road as usual. I first saw a few extra large birds in the road. Wings spread. Cool. After a few minutes, I realized there were more than a few…the few on the ground were accompanied by many on the fence line. They all started to open their wings. The turkey vultures were having a gathering, and sunning themselves.
Needless to say, we stood and watched for a good long while. Quietly. Max was decidedly reserved, sitting beside me, and surprisingly NOT losing his biscuits. We didn’t get our long walk in since the vultures were not going anywhere and I didn’t want to leave the driveway and disturb their sunning, but its was just fine. This was worth it and Max did not seem to mind. Max and I eventually turned around and started back towards the house, and I looked back a few times to see if they were still there. They were, until a single deer ran straight through the middle of it all (that was brave!) and the ones on the road scattered. The rest stayed on their perches, completely undisturbed by the invasion.
Right around the time that Lizzie was wrapping up her indoor volleyball season, Mary was getting her soccer season going. Soccer is soooo short here. I think it lasts 7 weeks from start to finish. Not exactly a lot of time to gain any skill, but I think Mary has been secretly training since she seems better this year than last year and, much to her opponents dismay, towers a full head or more above the other players. Hmmmm.
The drawback of having skill and being tall in a small town is that her age group is now not exactly the right fit for her. I am trying to convince her to try out for one of the Keysa teams in Cranbrook. There’s a nice indoor dome to practice in, a much longer season and opportunities to train and play with other East Kootenay teams, and better matched players in her age group. So far, no joy there. Mary’s not found her brave gene yet and this seems like a stretch goal for her. She likes what she knows.
She signed up for a Jamboree in Sparwood a couple of weeks ago, expecting to play some small format games with 5-7 players. It didn’t really work out that way and most of the registrants were quite young. They did manage to get a couple of older teams put together, but only had room for short pitches and the nets were small so it felt like 8 year old soccer. She had fun hanging with her friends though and tried out being a keeper again, which she seems to be good at and really enjoys. When she was on the field she was formidable though, inspiring some of opponents to groan when she got the ball. Still fun to watch from the sideline, although again, pretty brisk weather around here and I am not hardened off yet for sitting on the side of a soccer pitch.
On the home front, we had a short but lovely visit with Roy and Mary. They swept in for a few days of frivolity and chatter and then they were off again. The weather wasn’t spectacular (again) so we didn’t get up to very much that is noteworthy. Hot on the heels of their visit, Jeff and I both celebrated our birthdays. Nothing extreme on the books, but some time spent with the girls and homemade cakes. Lizzie made me an angel food cake that turned out beautifully and I made Jeff a mock black forest cake that we all agreed, was better than real black forest. We tried to take some time out to enjoy ourselves for each of the days, but as always there is life and building and schedules. All good though and days well spent.
A few weeks back Mary acquired her chickens. The plan originally was to find some full grown chickens to re-home and start with something we didn’t have to rear first. Something got lost in translation, however, and we received a box of cheeping fluff instead. So we added a heat lamp to our chicken gear, and set up a station inside the house to get them over the hump of the first few weeks of life.
They have since outgrown their inside space, moved out, and set up camp on the lawn beside the house. This of course, is also temporary, and they will soon be moved down below to the barn so we don’t ruin the grass. They do grow fast and have gone from fluff, to ugly duckling, to nearly independent chickens in record speed. I think we have a week or two to go and they can free range a little more – at least inside the chicken fence. It was delivered without the most important part and we are still awaiting the solar charger and means to electrify it. At least until that arrives, we will be keeping a very close eye on them and they will spend their unsupervised time in the safety of their coop. It has outdoor space though, so Mary opens their door and sets them free each morning so they can spend some time on the grass below the coop.
The garden is coming along and we continue to learn what does well and what does not in our soil. There’s still much work to do there and we are test-driving horse-radish and garlic, along with some raspberry canes. So far the horse radish and garlic are doing well, but we’ve not been terribly successful transplanting the raspberries. Not sure what went wrong there, probably left the canes too long out of the ground before planting them, but we have only one survivor from the 10 canes. I’ll have to nurture that one rather fiercely to make sure we can add more bushes for next year. Other notables – the rhubarb is finding its feet, the potatoes are thriving, and the regular radishes are doing well too. The chard and beets are all up, as are the carrots, but slow starts again – I am hopeful we get something before we’re back to the cold. Frost will reappear in September so time is short! We have about 10 brussels sprouts in the ground that are growing well, but don’t appear to be gaining any height which is troubling and the beans look like they’re being eaten by something. The onions are alive, but really don’t want to grow. My tomato experiment worked and I have tomato plants sprouting – I don’t think we’ll get very far with this cold wet spring, but next year we might have some hoops or a greenhouse to help us along with the things that need warmer weather early.
With some of the utilities work being completed on the house, we have our first hydrant in place! Strategically located in the front of the house near-ish the garden. Jeff has hooked up a couple of sprinklers now that water the whole space and we can start adding timers. Thank goodness for that. When summer finally hits, it will be hard to get there to do regular watering, or at least at the frequency we will need to get any kind of yield. I’m excited to see what comes of the garlic and horse radish though, both fall crops. Those are the ones that we can potentially sell, and maybe the rhubarb if we stop disturbing it long enough for it to grow!
Mom is doing well. We took a trip into Cranbrook for her to look for a replacement for her aging recliner one afternoon and came back with a rather sleek version of her recliner (a little less like a man chair and more stylish but still able to recline for her to sleep). She’s had a bit of trouble with pain of late, but it appears her doctor has solved that problem and she is returning to normal. A bit unsteady on her feet and making use of her cane more now, but otherwise fine.
In preparation for a move into the new house in a few months, we are starting the purge of all things unnecessary, again. Funny how many times you can go through that exercise and still feel like you have too much stuff! This purge, however, will require some deep thought about where furniture will go in the new house and what we will need to say good bye to. I won’t have trouble parting with some albatross-like furniture items, but there are some lovely antiques that simply will have no home. I’ll be happy not to move them, but sad to see them go. The first load of Salvation Army donations left the house this week but there will be many more to come.
We’re a couple of months farther down the path in our build now and the house really has started looking more finished. The once bare and open frame has walls. We’ve had lengthy walk-throughs for planning with the electrician and plumbers, several change orders to adjust for how we see the house working when we live there, and trips – too many to account – to look at lighting, flooring, tiles and countertops and doom scrolling for cabinet hardware.
The good news is it looks like we’re on the other side of half-way. That’s not to say there isn’t a whole lotta work ahead of us still as we try to stem the outflow of cash by throwing our backs into activities that are less likely to hold up our build, but it is looking more like the vision we had is finally coming together.
Jeff is still doing the majority of the work from our side and continues to manage the infrastructure items, being the voice that is calling out what needs to happen and making changes where he believes things have gone astray. More often than not he is right, which I’m sure, despite the rising price tag, has saved us money or at the very least, heartache. Our builder is good, but I don’t know what we would be presented with in the end if we were absentee owners. Jeff has also done some of the wiring, making sure that we have the house fully networked…there is a sea of cable running through our walls. I’m glad it will all be covered with drywall! This process is quite an education. I am watching the pennies side of things and as some activities come to a close, our final numbers are mostly good with the exception of a few. We have made changes that have added cost for sure, but material costs – particularly wood – has been quite dear. It means making choices that aren’t what we would really want, but being satisfied with what is possible. It will all be lovely in the end and the journey will be memorable.
Adam, whom we meet with weekly to go over the to do-list, also leaves lists for his crew. It is yet another good use for scrap plywood…also on our own to-do list. We are in charge of waste on site, and the pile is growing. Jeff has put together some boxes from the pallets that keep arriving with material and we are sorting the wood into burn pile and re-use. Everything else needs to get going to the dump, lest it take over the side-yard.
Since I last posted we have had all the rough in plumbing and electrical go in, along with the air handling. We had originally planned for a moderately sized attic-like storage space off the upstairs rec room to serve as the place where the christmas decorations et al would live. It very quickly became apparent that our mechanical room under the stairs was not going to house the gigantic equipment being installed for the air handling. It looks a bit like we’re over-engineering this house to me, but I think that’s probably just the gap between what I have experienced (old, underserviced houses) and what is more common now.
Some of our sweat equity is coming in the form of staining and painting. The current task at hand is the staining of the soffit and timbers, and painting of the siding. The soffit consists of 16ft shiplap that is being stained (thankfully) with a single coat. My job. The timbers are being stained with a 3 coat process. Jeff’s job. Jeff is also starting the painting of the siding, which is in much less manageable wide 16ft lengths and 8 and 10 ft panels. I think we’ll net zero on this one though. He has somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 posts and a similar number of cross beams to stain, while I still have somewhere around 3 or 4 hundred pieces of shiplap to do. If the weather would cooperate, I might actually be able to get some of it done. We are still battling the last gasp of winter here and Spring, for all its fits and spurt starts, has yet to arrive properly. Even now, the first week of June, I am contemplating a toque each morning and have not given up on sweaters during the daylight hours.
They’ve framed out the underside of the porch so they can pour the concrete patio this week. The insulation is finished and passed inspection this week, and it’s pretty impressive. It’s amazing how the house goes from feeling small, to feeling gigantic as they roll through the phases of this build. The drywall has arrived and if we are lucky they will start putting up panels today while the concrete is being poured. Jeff is also headed there with our own crew (the girls have a day off school) and will be continuing the painting of the siding out on the grass while we have the benefit of a bit of sunshine. The weatherman says no rain for the next few days, so despite my disbelief we are going to make a good stab at getting our part of the work done. Once the drywall is in, we can move back to the outside of the house and they will start putting up the soffit and siding.
With the insulation in, they were able to install our 4th-times-the-charm upstairs bathtub. It’s a lovely tub…just a bit on the unlucky side. This first one had the wrong drain placement, the 2nd one arrived damaged, the 3rd one had a manufacturing defect, and voila! Our 4th and final version of this tub has been set in place. Lizzie’s already had a virtual bath and enjoyed the view.
My tub is yet to arrive, but it will be placed beneath the two large windows in our bathroom. Can’t wait! It’s been a good long while since I’ve had access to a deep enough tub to enjoy a bath.
Jeff and I made a trip to Calgary last week, he for work, and so I could get an in-person look at the countertop options we have. There are an amazing array of suppliers in Calgary, and I just visited 3 of them. They all seem to get their granite from the same quarry though, so there isn’t much variety between them. I have one more site to visit in Lethbridge in the next couple of weeks so I can make that selection and then it’s on to interior paint colours!
We’re also busy planting! Some of the cuttings that we took last summer actually survived the winter and we made a home for them on the road-side of the property by the gate. We have great hopes that these willows (not weeping) will grow quickly and add some screening at the roadside.
You’ll see from the picture that we have a falling down fence on our frontage. Way at the back of the image is a look at what our fence will be once we have a bit of time to focus on landscaping. In general, the plan is to do a bit of landscaping around the house to create a yard, but the remainder of the property will become space for grazing (hopefully!) once we’ve got the fencing fixed. Mary’s already got her chickens…but that’s for another post!
I have precious little in the way of pictures to share. It seems that I have forgotten to take them which, if I am self-analyzing, is probably a good thing. Enjoying something through the lens of your camera is less inspiring than actually enjoying that thing.
After my last post, Margaret’s soccer team ended up in 2nd place, losing to a very strong Cranbrook Team. They went on the road again soon after, to Creston this time, and over a rainy and cold weekend, they managed to place 1st. A fantastic result and she is over the moon at their team’s success this year, securing a spot at the provincials in Vancouver again. She also got to spend the night away from home with her teammates in Creston, one of my favourite places on Earth. Lucky girl. She came back soooo tired, but very happy. The picture below is from the Cranbrook tournament. Margaret is the spec closest to the camera, wearing #17.
A week later, Lizzie and I were off to Edmonton for her volleyball team’s provincial tournament. They are a few rungs down from the Division 1 ranking of her old Fernie team, but there was some great volleyball being played just the same. I again, took no pictures, but spent the majority of my time scoring games so I have an excuse this time at least. Lucky for me, their is a team chat and a photo spot for everyone else to load their pictures so I am not entirely without. Her team had a fantastic result, snagging the silver medal for the tournament. Lizzie also was named an All Star which, in my biased opinion, was well deserved. She left it all on the court.
Mary has taken up the bass guitar with the school band, naturally segueing from her acoustic guitar. The school, apparently, won’t let you play the guitar in band if you don’t already know how to play. Seems a bit counter to the intention of taking band, but lucky for Mary. She was one of a couple of kids who qualified. The Bass guitar is a bit heavy, and now we are proud owners of an amp, but she is enjoying it. It has added electronic joy to her musical instrument choice and her guitar lessons are taking on a bit of new flavour.
Mary, never to be left out of sport, has also rejoined her club soccer team, playing both the house league and development league since both are short players. One day a week, they scrimmage with the boys team and her first night of practice was one of those nights. She was worried she wouldn’t know anyone, but that’s silly. Mary knows everybody and true enough, there were no strangers on either team. She had a great time and the coaches are thrilled to have her back. We have a tournament already on the books for her in a couple of weeks in Invermere.
The living room grow op is truly taking over now, with the cucumber sprouting cucumbers, and I have trailing vines of flowers that are quickly going to outgrow their welcome. Thankfully, it looks like the weather is finally turning and we might have a chance at actually planting something outside! GASP! Jeff kidnapped the rhubarb yesterday and planted it out without permission, and did the same to the brussels sprouts. I think he’s trying to tell me something… We did direct sow some carrots, beets, radishes and chard last week, and I’ll be putting the runner beans in the ground this week. The garlic looks less than happy, but I am hopeful that it will perk up with the warmer days. The rhubarb that we had in the old garden patch, got a lift and replanted closer to the house. We’ll see how long that lasts…the garden hasn’t found its forever home yet, but so far the plants are being good sports. We also received our delivery of horseradish and raspberry canes from a farm that is near-ish (Creston area I think). Jeff is contemplating the best location for this year, knowing full well it will probably change next year with the landscaping still to be figured out.
From here we are juggling volleyball that morphs into beach volleyball next week, soccer tournaments, and a boat load of work that we have volunteered for on the house. It is a very busy time but all good. We’re taking a moment here and there to sit and watch some of the sport, but sometimes it is just drop and run. I feel like a broken record, but some day it will slow down and we will miss all of this crazy. Right?
Lizzie has been busy with volleyball, having been to two tournaments in the last few weeks, both in preparation for provincials that are happening at the beginning of May. Her team has not placed well though so her team is sitting in a lower division that where I would have expected. Still loving this sport though and the families and kids that are involved are all good people. Lizzie is loving her team and team-mates and once again she has benefited from new coaching.
Margaret has rejoined her school soccer team this year and is in the middle of her first tournament this weekend. They are playing very well and have won their first two games. It’s still a bit chilly for sidelines, but the parents are soldiers and we watch as they run red-faced from end to end. Margaret herself has improved much since last season and is getting more time with the ball. Great to see and she is thoroughly enjoying the team and the game.
Mary is busy building a chicken coop and we have permission from our landlords to get her chickens started here at the house in preparation for our move back to Fernie in September.
There are signs of life finally in the garden and we’ve turned a couple of spaces in the house into a grow-op to get seedlings started. There is rhubarb and garlic are growing at the property and we have more at the house, our tree cuttings are getting going and the seedlings we have planted for pickling cucumbers, onions and brussels sprouts are taking off. Mary even started a random batch of apple seeds to see what would happen and we now have four seedlings going for that too! All good here and having a bit of fun dreaming of the farm.
