It was such a beautiful day today that we went walking and looking for the momma moose and her chicks. We didn't see them as it was a bit late in the day but the day was glorious.

Jody saw a coyote running along side him as he drove down Horse Lake Road. Is he some sort of magnet and I'm not? We have a coyote visiting us but I only see his/her footprints. Oh, well.

Looking for moose

Miss my friends and family ever so much. We're looking forward to the Deka Lake Convoy that is coming up at the end of August! And my sister who will join us in the summer. If Jen can she'll be up too but we're hoping she will have a brand new ever so special job by then.

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

Not much to say but I thought I would post some pictures of Hathaway Lake in the winter especially for my sister and the Deka Lake Convoy. We are also doing quite a bit lately inside the house. Bill has worked at creating the vanity...it's cedar lathe on plywood and is stained a combo of half cherry and half mahogany. It is going to look very impressive. It reminded us of when we built a table for the Sid Sirocca for our good friend Brent. Although, we were able to buy mahogany then and we must have oiled that damn table a hundred times. It was soooo beautiful and fit wonderfully in Brent's boat. Now---forget buying mahogany lathe! The bedroom door is hung, the young man came and mudded and taped our ceilings in the open area and bedroom, and I've moved into the bathroom, cursing and swinging my mudding knives.

I digress: pictures for friends and family

Time to sign in. It will keep my mind off Jen and her interview at UVic for a job. Best of luck to you, HB.

I am out of the Pantry. About bloody time. All the mudding, taping and sanding is finished. I've learned lots and hope I can take what I've learned into the bathroom which is next on the list. We've asked a local (sort of ) guy to give us an estimate on doing the open area ceiling and the bedroom. He hasn't phoned us back yet so I'm still hoping we may be able to afford it. I can whine my way through the walls but doing even the smallest of ceilings just about killed me....physically. So off to buy some primer tomorrow and then some paint on Wednesday. Wahoo! Now to choose the colours....erp. How about "Fragrant Cloves" for the wall and "Allspice" for the shelves.

We had just a little bit of snow two days ago. Our shovelling skills are getting stale. The colours have changed here as the trees have lost their snow and ice. More sun is predicted for the next week. I think the seasons are all mixed up. In summer we'll probably have rain and the gumbo that comes with it.

The roads were finally graded so that the washboard goes parallel to the road and not at right angles. The Mahood Lake road was hell. It was taking us 3 times longer to drive it because we wanted to protect the car from shaking apart. I would rather not be strutless again.

There's a little mouse that is skittering around the house and down the paths; you can tell it's a mouse as you can see his little tail marks in the snow. More deer and fox around. Jody has seen a couple of white tails and more Moose plus a mink! He's up much earlier taking Sandi to work so he sees more animals.

A neighbour is feeding 9 cats and we are going to check to see if one of them is Digger. Highly unlikely but Gib seems to think he's feeding a smoke cat. We shall see. If not, Gib seems up for letting us have a cat.

It's another brilliant day with bright sunshine, clean, clear blue sky! The snow is melting as the temperature is at and above 0 these days. It's nice to be able to open the bedroom window and not have ice build on it so that I can't shut it again in the morning. I'm so particular about fresh air at night. It's so claustrophobic without it.

Bill is working on the vanity this week. He is using cedar strips on plywood and then will stain it mahogany. Today he started on the door jamb for the bedroom. The wood was so warped! It's such a frustrating job to do in the first place without having to use such inferior wood. We will also be ordering the wood for our window trim inside and also the siding! The other major project will be the deck. I'm not sure I'll get what I wanted; it may have to be a watered down version but as long as I have a spot for a chair I'll be happy. We need to get the gutters up too.

Friends are arranging a road trip up here in the summer and we're so excited. We'll be able to show off our home and have lots of hugs, laughs, giggles and gossip. There may be wine involved, hard to tell. Looking forward to the many visits. I know Coral will be up for a while and I really enjoy having her up here with us. We both love this area very, very much.

A colleague wrote to say that everyone was enjoying doing their Performance Plans!! Obviously I was doing something wrong. PPs are not my cup of tea.

We didn't get out snowshoeing this week but we hope for next week. It will be Spring before we know it although the thaw didn't come til mid-May!!!! last year.

Bill is going to enter the ice fishing derby at Deka. It's a fund raiser for the Deka Lake Volunteer FD so it's worth a cold tushy and maybe a fish or two. If it's windy I think he'll pass but if it's a day like today---wow. I shall take pictures and bring tea.

One of our friends is in Dublin right now and posts pictures on FB that just make my heart soar. We had a wonderful time in Ireland. Coral, Bill, Jody, Jen and myself had a great adventure there for a few months. We all loved Dublin and spent many days strolling the streets and sipping "the drink"; so many wonderful memories. And Sheri's photos bring it all back again. Christmas was especially great for us all; it was a brave venture for Jody as he was the one that had to go to school and everything was so different for him....and Coral refused to say goodbye to us at the airport and bravely got on the plane with us.

I am terrified of flying so Coral and Carol would bundle everyone up---4 kids: Kassan, Hayley, Jen and the Jodester, three adults (Bill was already in Ireland searching for a home for us) and we would go to the Vancouver Airport with a picnic and throw a blanket down near the runway (those who were teens in Richmond knew where to go; you probably couldn't get away with it now), cheer when planes would take off and land. We did this for a week and I have to say it worked! Although 8 hours on a plane with an anxious 10 year old and a very active 17 month old child is not recommended. Sigh. We made it but only just! It was a toss-up as to whether the other passengers or myself would throttle one of the kids or both. And the poor young man who sat beside us is probably still telling stories of the baby who insisted on seeing everyone's belly button.

Signing off. A few pics

Note: Jen's interview went well. She was a little stressed as there was a test at the end; something she wasn't aware was going to happen. Seems to be the norm these days with interviews.

Fish in batter and homemade fries. A little wine and a movie---Baker

Just had a wonderful talk with Mad Margaret of the Lunatic. She makes my soul sing.

The Cariboo is covered in white crystals these last few days. Every morning we have woken to hoar frost on the snow, trees, bushes...probably even the resident fox. There are these beautiful bushes that are everywhere (hopefully lots in my back yard once I have one) and they are covered in frost. I don't think the pictures capture how magical they are. Enjoy them.

The pantry is starting to look "finished". I have the ceiling joints to do and some sanding and then I can say "I'm done" and move on to the bathroom. It's been hard work on my hands---one of my fingers on my right hand actually stays in a fist shape and then pops out. That can't be good. Thank god for Arthritis Tylenol. I'm looking forward to sewing once I have some free time and if the mudding kills my hands I'll be mighty ticked off.

Mamma Mia and Shrimp with Noodles (Bill loves this so it's on the menu once a week)

Today was Snowshoe day! Yay! I am going to be so sore~

Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry and many glasses of wine!
Hollywoodland

We love driving along the Horse Lake Road through the Valley into 100 Mile House. The scenery and Light are wonderful.

There have been sightings of Moose along the Road and I always have my antennae up for them. Number one I don't ever want to hit one and number two I'm determined to get a picture.

I was fiddle-farting around when Bill shouted "Moose", slammed on the brakes and reversed...too late, all I saw was a retreating Moose behind. Sigh.

We were on our way into 100 Mile to have the Van-Go's rear struts re-strutted. It took longer than we anticipated, something about a nut....I don't know. Anyways three hours and many dollars later we started on our way home. We were vigilant coming up to where we saw the moose but Bill and I assumed we wouldn't see it. Then the shriek (I don't know who shrieks in that car) "Moose, Moose, Moose!". Bill slammed on the brakes again (he was going the Cariboo speed limit totally not expecting to see her again) and he got three pictures. I stepped out of the car as she was being so co-operative and moved closer; as I did so, Bill pulled over onto very crunchy icy road and I've never seen such a large animal move so fast. So we only got the three gorgeous beautiful photos but we are so proud of ourselves.

We now belong to the Cariboo.

Oven roasted Pork and Apple Sausages to die for (from John the Butcher).
Not sure what the movie is tonight. As we didn't watch Day after Tomorrow I may beg for that. Not Bill's cup of tea.