Deka Lake Dispatches

February 6th was the last time I blogged? What have I been doing?

Wednesday is town day and it was also the day that we were having the ceilings sanded. So although it was a mini blizzard we left the warm house and ventured into blowing snow. The main roads are graded so there is usually not a problem driving; but our road was about 6 inches of powder. We had already shovelled our driveway out the day before so you just take a run at the driveway and turn onto powder. Lots of fun. But once on Womack the roads were fine; just low clouds, blowing snow and a car that was taking it's time warming up. Brrrr. It was the first time in weeks that we had on our downies and Hellies. Last week we were wearing sweatshirts and basking in the warmth of the sunshine. Arctic outflows...you can have them. I took some pictures in town as I thought people would want to see what a real wintery day is like without the sunshine.

There were very few people on the road but as we drove home there was a car behind us all the way. I mention this as it is required of the driver to slam his brakes on when I see something I want to photo. With the car behind us that wasn't going to happen so I knew I would miss out on photo ops. And yes, one gorgeous moose was about 20 feet from the road, standing up to her "knees" in a grove of Aspen with her nose fully in the snow and blowing into it so that snow was flying all around her head! What a perfect shot and could we stop? Nope. There wasn't anywhere to turn around either without having a fast moving jeep up our rear end. So I've imprinted the image in my mind. She had a beautiful chocolate coat with palomino on the backs of her "knees"....it may also have been a young male but I didn't have time to really look and the only thing I could go on was no rack. Lovely, Lovely!

Sunshine is out again and it is brilliant in the house. There is a wind outside and snow is being blown off the trees. It is such a soft powder. Although, again yesterday we had to shovel out another 8 inches of snow!! The grader had come down the road though and King was nice and clear.

Speaking of moose, which I'm afraid I do often, there is a cow and her two calves just two city blocks from us. I haven't seen them but our neighbour takes her dog out early in the morning and has seen them a few times. They are camped out on a road that has no permanent residents and runs through a "holler" so it's quiet and as there are gullies on each side of the road it's hard to see them. I'm waiting until they decide to take a walk down King into Crown Land.

Work continues at the homestead. The daily activities to keep warm and fed take up quite a bit of time and on top of that there are doors being hung, mud being applied with much creative swearing...our drywaller (for the main ceilings) became ill with the Cariboo flu and had to cancel at the last minute. Unfortunately, we had already covered everything in plastic and moved as much as we could into the rooms with doors. It took a week before he could get out of bed; the flu hit the area very hard although I think the GVPL was hit harder than I've ever experienced in my time there. It was a terrible flu up here and we are very grateful we missed out on it; we assume the flu shot contained this particular flu or maybe as we are older, we've already had this strain. What was I talking about?

Right, work...the French doors look gorgeous! Brent and Judy gave them to us and we had at first wanted to use them as outside doors in the kitchen. But, due to space in the door area of the kitchen (these are the mother of all French doors) we decided to use them as interior doors much to Bill's utter amazement. What do I know about hanging heavy, double paned, real wood doors on inside door frames. But he did it!!! and they are such a wonderful addition.

Work inside

Our beautiful doors

More work inside, more light and a trip to town

Pork chops stuffed with Cranberries, Apples and Onions.
Curling, Golf