27 January 2013
Cold Enough For You?
27/01/13 05:43
So, we heard that its been cold back on the mainland. A serious, bone chilling cold interspersed with snow storms. Well, we haven’t escaped, it’s been cold here too. Vancouver has had some bad mornings with ice fog and further inland they are getting a lot of snow. Even here on the island, it’s been cold. One night it was so foggy I got lost coming home from rehearsal. Last weekend one of the faucets in the garden froze and cracked. There have been several mornings when it’s been −1 and highs have been only around 6. Of course that’s in Celsius which works out to be 30 and 40 degrees on your thermometer, and the water line to the garden was an old plastic pipe not copper. You know how in Minnesota it can be too cold to snow? Well we’ve had something like that here. For a good chunk of the week it was too cold to rain. It’s been sunny day after day. I’ve even had to wear my lined flannel shirt to work. No jacket, just the shirt.
It’s been brutal.
Actually it was a busy week for us. Between my play rehearsals, Marsha’s classes for H&R Block and swimming, my work schedule, Marsha’s teaching and CatNap, we just didn’t see much of each other. I think the cats are getting worried. I mean, their regular schedule is all messed up. Sometimes both of us have been gone until late and I’ve left for work before Marsha has woken up. It was like we were two single people that happened to share an address.
This kind of thing is always hardest on the kids.
Rehearsals for the play are going well. I’m getting to that awkward point where I know the lines but can’t always remember which one goes where. Starting Monday we go to three rehearsals a week which will help. Add to that my trying to read the play at least once each day (my parts at least) means that I should know it. I should know every word, every pause, and knowing glance. The thing is when I’m reading I know the lines perfectly, I’m brilliant. For some reason though, when we are going through the scenes in rehearsal the only thing in my head is a grocery list. A quick glance at the script, often just the first couple of words, and I’m off and running, but I can’t say I’m quite off-book yet.
This coming Wednesday I will get to teach a bit. Marsha asked if I could come in and be “Palaeontology Guy” for her class of Kindergarten and First Graders. So I get to tell them about Saurian Cladistics, and Arthropleura, and Eurypterids, and Phacopid trilobites, and paleo-environmental forcing,
all in words of one syllable or less.
We have the fossils picked out. I’m taking my crinoid fossils, and some coal, and petrified wood and a few other things. I want to teach them that there’s more to fossils than dinosaur bones. It should be fun.
The room downstairs is coming together. We did discover that new drywall is a sponge. We ended up putting three coats of primer on the walls in order to seal them. I swear the first coat almost disappeared completely. Then I did the first coat of finish colour on the trim. I’ve decided that painting finish white on primer white trim in a white room has to be one of the least rewarding jobs in the world.
We’re not the only ones building though. Down the road from us they have started building a new house. Either that or someone got a contract to log a really tiny allotment, which I don’t think would be too profitable. We’ve been hearing chainsaws and heavy equipment running all week. They’ve felled a large space in the middle, while leaving a nice buffer of trees between them and the neighbours, and they have staked out the corners of the foundation. I figure they will keep cleaning out the space for a couple more weeks and maybe by the end of February will have the excavation done. March is a good month for foundations.
So that’s about it for now. It’s starting to get lighter in the morning. I did the first spraying of the apple trees for scab so gardening season has officially started. Soon we will have the first crocus and daffodils pushing up through the soil and will start seedlings in the greenhouse.
Vancouver Island winters are brutal.
Doug & Marsha
PIX: Canada: An Infographic, The Beach.
It’s been brutal.
Actually it was a busy week for us. Between my play rehearsals, Marsha’s classes for H&R Block and swimming, my work schedule, Marsha’s teaching and CatNap, we just didn’t see much of each other. I think the cats are getting worried. I mean, their regular schedule is all messed up. Sometimes both of us have been gone until late and I’ve left for work before Marsha has woken up. It was like we were two single people that happened to share an address.
This kind of thing is always hardest on the kids.
Rehearsals for the play are going well. I’m getting to that awkward point where I know the lines but can’t always remember which one goes where. Starting Monday we go to three rehearsals a week which will help. Add to that my trying to read the play at least once each day (my parts at least) means that I should know it. I should know every word, every pause, and knowing glance. The thing is when I’m reading I know the lines perfectly, I’m brilliant. For some reason though, when we are going through the scenes in rehearsal the only thing in my head is a grocery list. A quick glance at the script, often just the first couple of words, and I’m off and running, but I can’t say I’m quite off-book yet.
This coming Wednesday I will get to teach a bit. Marsha asked if I could come in and be “Palaeontology Guy” for her class of Kindergarten and First Graders. So I get to tell them about Saurian Cladistics, and Arthropleura, and Eurypterids, and Phacopid trilobites, and paleo-environmental forcing,
all in words of one syllable or less.
We have the fossils picked out. I’m taking my crinoid fossils, and some coal, and petrified wood and a few other things. I want to teach them that there’s more to fossils than dinosaur bones. It should be fun.
The room downstairs is coming together. We did discover that new drywall is a sponge. We ended up putting three coats of primer on the walls in order to seal them. I swear the first coat almost disappeared completely. Then I did the first coat of finish colour on the trim. I’ve decided that painting finish white on primer white trim in a white room has to be one of the least rewarding jobs in the world.
We’re not the only ones building though. Down the road from us they have started building a new house. Either that or someone got a contract to log a really tiny allotment, which I don’t think would be too profitable. We’ve been hearing chainsaws and heavy equipment running all week. They’ve felled a large space in the middle, while leaving a nice buffer of trees between them and the neighbours, and they have staked out the corners of the foundation. I figure they will keep cleaning out the space for a couple more weeks and maybe by the end of February will have the excavation done. March is a good month for foundations.
So that’s about it for now. It’s starting to get lighter in the morning. I did the first spraying of the apple trees for scab so gardening season has officially started. Soon we will have the first crocus and daffodils pushing up through the soil and will start seedlings in the greenhouse.
Vancouver Island winters are brutal.
Doug & Marsha
PIX: Canada: An Infographic, The Beach.