October, 2017

Hi Dad,

It’s been an eventful week for us at Hyde Creek.  It started snowing on October 7th and didn’t stop until it turned to rain last night.  The ground is not frozen yet so it was melting at a fairly good rate and we still ended up with about a foot on the ground by last night.  This is so early it caught us off guard!  We have our fire wood for the winter and that is the main thing but Barry was scrambling to get all the vehicles, tools … well everything under a shelter.  I’m sure when it melts we will find a lot of odds and ends that got buried.   It’s melting pretty good right now so we are hoping we get a second chance at fall.  It went from 20 degrees and sunny to winter overnight… no autumn in between!  The ski hill is happy!

The snow stayed up in the trees for the most part so it has very pretty with all the red yellow and green leaves still on the the trees. When the warm temperatures came in yesterday, it all got very heavy very fast and as a result, the power went out last night and is still out (its 9:30 Sunday morning as I am writing this).  We haven’t bothered to get the generator going yet but when we do we will go online to BC Hydro, they have a really good sight with updated information saying when they expect it to be back on, what the cause is etc.  We were just saying that last winter we didn’t have any power outages but the year before we went for week long stretches at a time with no power.   We are “off the grid” enough that it doesn’t bother us too much.

Mini is our little alarm system as you know.  The other day she was yapping at something for hours so we went for a walk to see what and found what we thought were coyote tracks.  It had been snacking on a bunny down by the shop (Mini brought home a rabbits foot). Later that day there was a fox behind my office, Barry spotted it.  Then yesterday morning we were awake but still in bed and Mini was on guard in the window and she started going crazy.  I jumped up and there was a tall red fox in front of my office.  We watched him frolic around and went up behind the new office and towards the well.  Everyone is on lock down until we are sure this guy has moved on.  One good thing about the snow, easy to spot predators.

We also had our cute little Martin scampering around the other day.  Nice to see he is still around, I thought with the cats, he might have moved.

We had to shift focus off my new office and onto winterizing things suddenly but yesterday we got back on track and insulated and put up vapour barrier on one half of the building.  Today we will do the other half.  Then we are on to drywall! I am back designing 5 days a week so I’m only a helper on weekends, Barry will make sure we have everything for the next step during the week.   We are very excited about this new space!

I better figure out some breakfast so we can get to work.  Luckily we are only using hand tools as the power is still off.

Have a great day… everyday!

Love you and miss you, give Mom a hug for me.

Paula

Jack is such a character! Today he was making snowballs while out playing in the snow. The dogs play with him and chase the balls when he bats them around but Donn is too sophisticated, she stayed inside once it got too deep and will probably wait for Barry to shovel.

We skipped over fall, went right from summer to winter! It’s been snowing all day and still coming down heavy. It’s about 6″ deep now but the ground isn’t frozen yet so it’s been melting as it comes down and STILL 6″! If this is any indication, we are going to have a good winter. We are taken completely off guard and not ready and we are not alone… everyone around here is scrambling. Once again I’m going to say … I made it home in the nick of time!

Happy Thanksgiving Dad,

I had a great drive home from Penticton on Thursday. It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky and really calm, not a whisper of wind. Trees have all started to change so the colors were spectacular. There was hardly any traffic, could not have been a better drive. I made it home in 7 hours, with 5 stops, that’s a record! I discovered there are 5 HUGE wind mills on the Penask summit now that weren’t there in May when I drove that highway. It was very surprising and breathtaking, you come around a corner and they are right in front of you and look massive! I think the mine installed them, it is in the same vicinity. Whoever did it, I was really happy to see them. It was totally calm so they weren’t spinning.

I got home to extremely excited critters! Even Jack came out and explored all the bags and boxes in the truck as we unpacked it. Donn showed she had missed me by snuggling up with me in bed for the first time, she is my sweetie. A lot of excitement!

Barry got all the insulation installed in my new office while I was away, we are going to install the poly this weekend and then we can think about the drywall. After that we build the desk then I can move in… I’m SO excited! I picked up a futon from a friend while I was in Penticton, I’m very happy with it, it looks great in the space and is like brand new. I also found some very cheap, great quality pillows at Value Village that look fantastic on it.

I drove home on Thursday, we had a huge rain storm on Friday and then we woke up to snow yesterday, I got home in the nick of time! Snow again this morning and it’s sticking in shaded areas… the first signs of winter are upon us. The ski hill is all abuzz, they are scrambling to finish their off season projects. We are in the same boat, we need to take a few days and winterize the property. Make sure everything is undercover mostly.

Barry also got the rest of the firewood while I was gone. We just need to go out and get a small beetle kill tree and split the entire thing for kindling. We have all of those wooden boxes of mine (like your coffee table you made for the deck) that we fill with kindling every fall so we don’t have to worry about it all year. The wood Barry got was from the ski hill… birch! Wow is it nice! We have always gone out and taken standing dead, there isn’t any birch in this area. The ski hill has a logging truck of trees brought in. They have a local guy who has a nice little set up cut it to length then Barry and a few others helped stack it all… in exchange for as much wood as we need. What a good deal that was!

It is thanksgiving weekend and we are having a big dinner with all the fixings today. Barry’s brother Darren is coming out for the day. I better get moving, lots to do.

Have a great day … everyday.

Love you, miss you.

Paula

PS give Mom a hug for me.