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I’ve started making jewelry for the store… started with some Christmas earrings for our Victorian Christmas opening.  

Also made cute charms for the cats.  Barry made Jacks (blue bell) and I made Donn’s.  Also made a bunch for the store.  

Shelves made with freshly cut lumber from the ski hill!  

The new sign at the Lightning Hotel that we made for Karen is getting some recognition.  

Had a fun night carving pumpkins at the Bears Paw with Dave, Cheryl, Stan and Norma.  

The worst part of moving here was bug bites for me.  I would get eaten alive so we spent a lot of energy on trying to make that better.  Barry concentrated on outside, clearing and weed whacking to reduce the numbers and I worked on remedies.  The second year we were here I made a balm to put on as an after bite.  It works great, I’ve been using it for years.  It has now developed into “Frog Snot” and will be for sale at the Frog on the Bog in Wells.  Another great product coming out of Hyde Creek! 

Love love love these cats!  They are very interesting and so loving!  They are amazing hunters and have been clearing the entire yard out of everything living.  We see very few squirrels these days, the one that was living in my office ceiling is gone… that’s the best news!  The dogs are doing well with them.  Mini gets annoyed sometimes but mostly she is curious about them and just wants to play.  One day Donn had a dead mouse outside and Jack was inside so she chose Mini as a play mate.  It was so funny, Donn was tossing it at her then would rub up against her…Mini had no idea what was going on, her reaction was priceless.  Both cats like Lily but Jack especially likes her and rubs against her all the time.  He sucks his thumb and tries to suck Lily’s too but she draws the line,no thumb sucking for her.  They come when you call them and when Barry whistles for dinner, all four of them coming flying into the house… so cute!  Once dinner is served, nobody goes out again until morning.  We were at the vets and had both dogs weighed, Lily is  25lbs and Mini is 10.8.  She is up .2 lb the big bruiser!  They hate that Barry leaves for work some days, the 4 of them lay in the window waiting for him to come home.   Everyone seems pretty happy.  Lots of love in the house with all these little soles.  
Their first time seeing snow..

Book ends

Jack loves the bathroom, he is very intrigued by water.  He stands between the 2 shower curtains when you shower and watches with an amazed look on his face, he is very cute.  As soon as he hears the water running, he is there.  

Donn’s favourite blanket

Jack is getting pretty big!  She is still a little peanut, last we weighed them, he was 3 lbs heavier!  He was almost 10lbs so will outweigh Mini soon.  

They don’t mind sleeping together.  

Jack, busted!  He is not supposed to be on the table! 

Everyone is pretty happy including us.  The cats just add that much more life to the house.  

Stay tuned…

The beavers in Wells are getting out of hand.  This is the corner of Pooley Street next to the Jack o Clubs.  They were all down a few days later… little buggers!  

We got the foundation poured in an afternoon.  We have a small mixer which is handy for small jobs but we were happy to borrow the ski hills large mixer, we did it in 5 loads!  It went super fast and turned out great!  We had a bit left over so Barry made me a nice step in front of my current office… so sweet!  Nice to get this part done, it doesn’t look like we will get to building this year but we will have all the lumber and foundation ready to go in the spring.  There isn’t much we need to buy.  Barry is running the saw mill at the ski hill in trade for lumber… all the lumber he can cut!  We have some big plans so stay tuned…

The kittens are almost 6 months so they went in to get fixed before we have a bunch more kittens.  Of course Donn will have a much longer recovery, keeping her quiet will be a challenge.  She also had a tooth pulled, poor little gaffer.  We found out that Jack is 8.6lbs and Donn is 6.2lbs… Pretty big difference!  Jack will weigh more then Mini soon!  

This is Donn with her little shaved arms… Breaks my heart she is so sweet.  

Construction has begun…

And the kittens are helping!  

These 2 sweeties have really captured our hearts.  Jack is big and tough but still immature.  He sucks his thumb and freaks out if left alone.  He is at least twice Donns weight and eats more then double what she eats.  He is going to be one big cat!  And his tail is really long!   He has gotten used to the collar which they only wear during the day so they aren’t able to catch birds and squirrels.  We let them go stealth at night.  Donn is the mouser, she catches them and gives them to Jack who plays with them until they are dead.  Barry is away visiting his mom and of course she caught one last night and gave it to Jack who decided to play with it for about an hour and a half in the middle of the night while I was wearing a hazmat suit waiting to dispose of it.  He would let it go and it would start to run then he would grab it again, giving me a minor heart attack each time… Ahhhhhh.   Barry’s  job thank goodness!  I do not like this job!  Donn is the sweetest little kitty.  She loves to snuggle.  It’s so cute, she greets me when I come home and rubs my legs until I pick her up and snuggle her.  Every time I touch her she starts to purr.  She is tiny and sweet and gentle, I have really bonded with her and love her so much. 

 As I am typing this she has brought a live shrew into the house…. Ahhhhhh, where is my husband!?  
They are very close to each other as you can see.  They sleep intertwined.   We can tell them apart easily no mostly because Jack is so much bigger.  They come for walks with us to the studio and they chase the ball when we play with the dogs.  They love to chase, Jack especially, but they do not fetch!  Jack races and beats Lily!  It’s pretty cute, they try to do everything the dogs do.  They even come when called … shake the tin cup with some kibble in it and they are home instantly!  It’s hilarious!  They love my office and we will start letting them spend the night in there to catch some mice once they are a bit older.  We are very happy to have them, even the dogs are good with them now that are less spastic.  Jack loves Lily and tries to suck on her toes… She’s not down with that.  



The tree is down and it sure changes a lot in our lives… In a good way!  No more stickies!  No more branches falling.  We can park out front now!   No more big drips on your head after a rain!   The yard is brighter.  We are pretty happy to have it gone!  Barry is a star gazer and he is really enjoying being able to see the sky without having to go down to the highway.  

Yesterday we hiked up to the top of the property following the creek… As well as we could.  We didn’t bring anything to berry pick but we sure ate a lot along the way.  The mountain is covered in huckleberry and blueberry bushes!  I had to work on the paper so Barry went back up today with 2 ice cream pales in a back pack… 4 hours later he came home with them both full!  Wow, they were heavy too!  I already had the stove on so the first 4 cups he cleaned went directly into the oven for dessert!  Yum!  I will make a batch of jam and the rest we will freeze.  We think we have about 32 cups in this first harvest.  We have about a month of picking, we will keep going out until they are done and have lots for the winter!  Yahoooo!    As you can see Donn and Mini were both trying to help.  

Hildurs sister Lillian has a cabin on Cinderella Road that she graciously offered to us for our company.  Nick and Stacey came a few weeks ago so we had our first group stay there.  Wow!  Is it huge!  3 stories, about 1000 sq ft per floor.  What a beautiful place!  

Just because they are so cute…

Jack loves laying on my desk under the warm lamp.  Today Donn joined him, they were curled up together for hours.  Not sure what I’ll do when they are full grown!  Donn wears the yellow bandana, Jack wore his green one for about half a day and we left it off him, he kept taking it off.  

Jack

Donn

They love to cuddle when they sleep.  

Donn

This guy hung around for a while but seems to be gone.  

The clubhouse is finished and it is really something you need to see to believe!   I will post some photos of inside once I get some.  It is decked out!!  The photo will not show it all, that is forsure!   In the photo you can see there is a wash station to the left thanks to Karen for the water box.  Barry found the riveted tank at the squatters which gave it a real steam punk feel … Pretty cool!  We took the old outhouse that was behind my office down and gave the wood a new life with the siding.  

Barry rearranged his steel pile (that was mostly left by Jim) into this super cool Chitty Chitty Bang Bang style jalopy and named it Jim’s Junker in his memory.  So creative!  

This is so cute!  Barry sits with all the animals around him, a small cup of dog kibble and as he calls out their name on by one.  When they hear their name they know it’s their turn and they gingerly take the kibble from his hand.  They are all so patient waiting for their name to come up.  It’s helping the kittens know their names, they love the dog kibble!  

With sadness we report that Jim Connor has passed.  We only spent a year with him but he gave us a lifetime of knowledge during that first year we lived here and he helped make the transition easier for us.  We don’t know the details, we only hope he passed peacefully.  Our condolences to His wife Janet as well as his family and friends.  

The huge cottonwood tree in the front yard will be coming down on July 16th!!  We are so excited!  Kyle, who we met years ago when he came to maintain the trees for BCHydro, will scale the tree and bring it down piece by piece so this will be super interesting to watch.  I will miss most of it because I will be at work that day.  Barry will need to hook each piece up to the loader and drag it down into the gully below the studio.  There will be a lot of cleanup!  We are hoping we can get some help for Barry so it goes quickly.  

Loving my job at the Frog!  Lots of fun and cool stuff.  I get time to chat with the tourists from all over.  Learning about all the stock is a little overwhelming but once I learn it all, I will have some with the ordering.  Getting to meet a lot of locals.  Follow us on Facebook to see some of the stuff we carry.   Search for ‘frog on the bog gifts’ in Wells, BC.  

The Secret Society of Dead Gold Miners has added a new design to the clothing line.  I will upload a photo once the final layout has been approved.  

The kittens are getting big!  Their litter box is in the boot room now and they have been going outside for short stints.   They love it outside!  They learned the doggie doors pretty fast but at first they both had to push at the same time to get it to open, now they fly thru them.  We leave the door to outside closed so the dogs have to ask to get in and out.  By winter, the cats will have full access to outside.  They came out to my office for a while yesterday, they loved it. 

The outhouse is pretty much done so once the rain stops, Barry will get started on my office so stay tuned!  

It’s been raining for about a week now and we could not be happier!  We need it in a bad way.  What we were not expecting is snow!  I drove home Tuesday night in the snow… Crazy!  The tops of the mountains are white again and many hikers that come into the store have seen snow.  Travellers from California and other southern states are very cold!  Sweater sales have gone way up!  Dawson Creek is flooding so hoping it doesn’t get that wet!  

On sale at the Frog on the Bog Gifts, ‘Small Journeys’, 10″x8″ acrylic by Paula Curtis.  Hoping it will sell. 

I have said it before and I will say it again… Life is very interesting living with a creative mind!   Quick recap… Hydro replaced the substation that is at our driveway in the spring of 2015.  They showed up with a back hoe to install new poles so we had them dig a hole for an outhouse that we had been talking about for a while… Score!!  We also had them leave the old wooden platform that the original equipment was on as they replaced it with an all new metal structure.  We also scooped the original poles!  They will come in handy for a project one day.  So Barry pieced together this lumber to create a floor on skids (in case it ever needs to be moved) and the board walk up to the front porch.  All of this wood is treated so should last a least our lifetime.   The structure itself is all new construction with a lot of added touches to make it an awesome tiny man cave!  I can’t reveal all the the details because after all, you are supposed to be a member in order to enter the premises.  I will give a bit of a visual… You open the door donning a hand painted Secret Society logo to find many surprises.  The toilet is an actual can with a toilet seat on top so you are truly “on the can”.  Flags from around the world decorate the walls with skulls, misc weapons and original artwork.  Don’t worry about bugs, there is a mosquito coil and a high powered salt gun within reach… Well everything is within reach.  You can draw, read, watch a TV show, shoot bugs, listen to music and much more all while doing your business.  You can even have a sip of high quality tequila from one of the flasks on a cold winters night…and speaking of night, solar lights not only light the boardwalk but also light up inside.  The windows on either side give you a view of the world around you.  And don’t worry if there is a line up, you will find horse shoes hanging on the crooked front post and pegs nearby so you can practice or even get in a game if the wait and line up are long enough.  

The exterior still needs some siding but otherwise, it’s open for business.  

 Barry has been very occupied with this project, I love seeing what he’s added each day.  Never a dull moment.  Video to come so stay tuned…  

It is the morning of day 4 with Jack and Donn.  Everyone is a lot more relaxed.  Lily barely lifts her head as the kittens tumble by her and Mini has stopped panting continuously, she was pretty wound up.  Everyone is finding their place, when we all go to bed, Jack likes it on the bed and Donn has found her spot in Barry’s clothes basket (we don’t have a dresser so all of our clothes are in baskets on shelves).  The first night she disappeared and we found her in there, she doesn’t like to be in the thick of it on the bed but likes to be in the room with us.  Jack is very interactive and loves to be patted.  They come to you and meow when they are hungry and if I am in my chair when it’s nap time, Donn curls up on my legs…

And Jack sleeps on my lap … He’s passed out now but before he fell asleep, he learned to work my iPad… The little pads on his paws can activate it, he is fascinated by it.  He even took a selfie… 

Barry built stairs up to the bed for the animals which as it turns out is a perfect scratching post for them and unfortunately their favorite play spot at 5 am!    Today the dogs couldn’t be bothered waking up to participate so it was a lot quieter.  

I am on 4 days off starting today

, I have a lot of blogging to catch up on so stay tuned…

We have 2 new additions to our little family, twin kittens that we thought were identical until I watched a YouTube video on how to determine the gender of kittens.  It turns out Don is actually Donn… A baby girl!  They are so cute and so sweet, we just adore them. The cycle doesn’t change much… They Eat . Pee . Poop . Play . Sleep . Repeat.  So pretty easy to determine what is going to happen next hahaha.  The dogs are good with them, we are a little concerned about them chasing as we really don’t want them to chase the cats once they are outside.  We have a squirt bottle and at this point the only one who has been squirted is Mini… She tends to get a bit rough and we have to keep a really close eye on her.  Barry squirted her and she thinks it’s the kitten so the strategy seems to be working.  The 5 am play sessions are about the only thing that we will need to get used to… Hopefully they grow out of that!  Having fun with them!  They love my chair!  Jack is on the left and Donn on the right in both of these photos.  Now that we have had them for a few days, we have found many little things to tell them apart.  Jacks markings are a little bit darker, he’s a tiny bit larger and his eyes are slightly lighter. Jack is also more outgoing and a bit crazier.  It’s all working out and we could not be happier.  

I’m off to work which is another blog for another day so stay tuned…