15 August 2010
A Good Week
15/08/10 07:20
It's been a good week. First, after a couple days the rain passed. Everything got a good drink, and then the sun came out and it's been cool and sunny from then on. We've been getting ready for Rick, Jody, Jessica, and Jacob to visit, (Marsha's family) and the cool evenings have been wonderful for cleaning the house. The forecast though is for near 30C over the weekend. Apparently it's the rule that whenever we have visitors it gets hot. Oh well they're going out on the ocean to fish and we'll escape to the beach and forest to cool off. It should be fun.
In other news the blackberries are in!!!
Not the phone thing, the actual real fruit. We've been out once so far to pick a couple of baskets. Our plan is to head out every couple of days or so and fill the freezer. We will have room because the apples look like nearly a lost cause this year. I suspect that the reason is that it was was cool early on. Even though the apple trees were covered with blooms the bees hadn't emerged yet. And when the bees finally came out the blossoms were all gone. Whatever the reason the trees are bare. We've heard similar reports about apples, (and cherries and plums as well) from all over the island. For whatever reason there just aren't any. We'll fill the void with blackberry cobbler, and jam, and muffins, and pie, and fried rice… Ok maybe not blackberry fried rice but certainly the others. And with my new hours (I think I mentioned I moved my working hours from 9-5 to 7-3 so now I have a bunch of time off in the afternoons) I can go berry picking with Marsha. Sweeeeeet. Speaking of fruit the tomatoes are bearing fruit too. I thought I'd lost my crop to the invader a couple of weeks back but they've been recovering nicely. We now have over a dozen on the 6 plants and maybe more to come. A couple of them are getting pretty big. I see a possible Octoberchilifest in the offing.
Over the last couple of weeks Marsha had the longest dentist appointment in history. You see last week she was in for her regular cleaning. The hygienist did all of the usual hygienic things, chipping and scraping, and poking, and lecturing. When she was done she said the usual "The dentist will be by to see you shortly" and left. So Marsha is sitting there in the chair reading her book. After a while she looks up and realizes it's nearly noon (the appointment started at 10:20). "What in the heck…" Marsha was just starting to get up when the hygienist came in apologizing profusely. The dentist had gotten hung up. So Marsha rescheduled the dentist exam for a week later, this week. That night the dentist himself called, once again apologizing profusely. He explained that they had a scheduling problem that morning. All of the patients showed up but of the three dentists scheduled only he had made it in. I guess the salmon were running on the Courtney river or something. In any event he had been dashing from patient to patient but just couldn't get to her. The up side of it is that they waved the charge for the dentist's exam and gave her a gift card for Tim Hortons which was nice I thought.
This week we got the railings on our deck replaced. They had been a little iffy, dry rot, moisture damage, and general wear and tear from sitting around for almost two decades, so we had Dave, the handyman from next door come over. (No really that's his business. He has a little pickup truck with SuperDave: Handyman on the side and he runs all over town doing carpentry, roofing, fencing, plumbing, locks, whatever needs done. He makes a good living at it too). He removed the old posts and railings, set the glass panels to one side, made new parts out of treated lumber, reassembled the whole thing and once we paint it you won't be able to tell that we did anything whatsoever. It cost us $300 so that's kinda' depressing actually. The new rails are a lot sturdier though which is good.
And speaking of depressing I realized I'm getting old. I hurt my knee yesterday. Now if I had done it, pulling an old lady out of a burning building it would be fine. If I had hurt it while running a marathon I could live with that. No, I bent down to pet the cat, the knee went *crunch* and now it hurts like heck. A little research suggested that this is 'runners knee'. I've been jogging on the treadmill and apparently raising the time and speed over the last couple of weeks was too much. So it's no treadmill for a week or so. Lots of Aleve and use a cane when I walk, Bummer. I was so looking forward while Jessica and Jacob were here to climbing Mt. Benson, Wake-boarding with Orcas, and parasailing behind a float plane. Oh well, too bad. Now we'll just have to sit around and chat.
OK so it's not all a bad thing.
In other news the blackberries are in!!!
Not the phone thing, the actual real fruit. We've been out once so far to pick a couple of baskets. Our plan is to head out every couple of days or so and fill the freezer. We will have room because the apples look like nearly a lost cause this year. I suspect that the reason is that it was was cool early on. Even though the apple trees were covered with blooms the bees hadn't emerged yet. And when the bees finally came out the blossoms were all gone. Whatever the reason the trees are bare. We've heard similar reports about apples, (and cherries and plums as well) from all over the island. For whatever reason there just aren't any. We'll fill the void with blackberry cobbler, and jam, and muffins, and pie, and fried rice… Ok maybe not blackberry fried rice but certainly the others. And with my new hours (I think I mentioned I moved my working hours from 9-5 to 7-3 so now I have a bunch of time off in the afternoons) I can go berry picking with Marsha. Sweeeeeet. Speaking of fruit the tomatoes are bearing fruit too. I thought I'd lost my crop to the invader a couple of weeks back but they've been recovering nicely. We now have over a dozen on the 6 plants and maybe more to come. A couple of them are getting pretty big. I see a possible Octoberchilifest in the offing.
Over the last couple of weeks Marsha had the longest dentist appointment in history. You see last week she was in for her regular cleaning. The hygienist did all of the usual hygienic things, chipping and scraping, and poking, and lecturing. When she was done she said the usual "The dentist will be by to see you shortly" and left. So Marsha is sitting there in the chair reading her book. After a while she looks up and realizes it's nearly noon (the appointment started at 10:20). "What in the heck…" Marsha was just starting to get up when the hygienist came in apologizing profusely. The dentist had gotten hung up. So Marsha rescheduled the dentist exam for a week later, this week. That night the dentist himself called, once again apologizing profusely. He explained that they had a scheduling problem that morning. All of the patients showed up but of the three dentists scheduled only he had made it in. I guess the salmon were running on the Courtney river or something. In any event he had been dashing from patient to patient but just couldn't get to her. The up side of it is that they waved the charge for the dentist's exam and gave her a gift card for Tim Hortons which was nice I thought.
This week we got the railings on our deck replaced. They had been a little iffy, dry rot, moisture damage, and general wear and tear from sitting around for almost two decades, so we had Dave, the handyman from next door come over. (No really that's his business. He has a little pickup truck with SuperDave: Handyman on the side and he runs all over town doing carpentry, roofing, fencing, plumbing, locks, whatever needs done. He makes a good living at it too). He removed the old posts and railings, set the glass panels to one side, made new parts out of treated lumber, reassembled the whole thing and once we paint it you won't be able to tell that we did anything whatsoever. It cost us $300 so that's kinda' depressing actually. The new rails are a lot sturdier though which is good.
And speaking of depressing I realized I'm getting old. I hurt my knee yesterday. Now if I had done it, pulling an old lady out of a burning building it would be fine. If I had hurt it while running a marathon I could live with that. No, I bent down to pet the cat, the knee went *crunch* and now it hurts like heck. A little research suggested that this is 'runners knee'. I've been jogging on the treadmill and apparently raising the time and speed over the last couple of weeks was too much. So it's no treadmill for a week or so. Lots of Aleve and use a cane when I walk, Bummer. I was so looking forward while Jessica and Jacob were here to climbing Mt. Benson, Wake-boarding with Orcas, and parasailing behind a float plane. Oh well, too bad. Now we'll just have to sit around and chat.
OK so it's not all a bad thing.