Unfortunately it isn’t for us. He is cutting the logs for the local log home builder, this will be in Wells once it’s finished. Learning a lot, we might have one on our land one day. :).

It was a moosey day.

Moose in front of our house this morning.

Had a fantastic visit with my brothers and sisters!! Love you all!

Why did my whole life did I think there was a “q” in porcupine?

The porcupine population is up in the neighbourhood. One of these guys was not too far from us, right at the big beaver hut in the swamp. We got out of the car and he wasn’t afraid of us. We didn’t crowd him so he let Barry get some photos… I will post once I get them from him.

There are a few grizzlies hanging out near Wells. I still have not seen one myself… ever! I guess that’s a good thing.

Last year I saw 1 caribou all year, hoping I see more this year! People have seen our herd with many young so that’s good news!

No moose yet but we have one living on the property again, we see signs of him but Mini keeps them away from our front yard. There were a lot of Lynx around this last winter. We had one just on the other side of the creek, we would see fresh tracks often. There was one hanging out at the ski hill for a good chunk of the season which I found weird, I thought they would stay further away.

Anyways, this years count is underway.

These two sure put a lot of thought, time, effort and money into this wedding! It was really beautiful. I cannot get enough to this photo. Going to buy a copy from the photographer and hang it in my office… just so awesome!

Jessica, you are the coolest chick I know!

Simons 14th birthday landed on Easter Sunday. He is Hildurs nephew. His family just moved back to the area so he spent a lot of time with us this season. We nick named him Odd Job because any odd job he is quick to help out with. The girls are India (left) and Leslie. And the new menu boards I did this season.

Bellow is the same day after we had a huge feast, all the girls with Simon.

Leni, Kathy and I. Kathy worked with us last season and wears her staff shirt when ever she comes out so she can jump in if we need a hand. Great lady!

From left to right, standing… India (Australia), Leni (England), me, Tim (Australia), Bill the groomer, Jeremie (France). Kneeling, Bonnie (Cottonwood), Leslie (Holland), Cat (Wells) and Muriel (France) Jeremie’s wife. We were missing Tracy, Bill and Herve. Super crew this season!

I must have held out long enough because today godaddy called and we struck a deal. I am all good for 3 years (for about how much the first guy wanted me to pay just to keep my data).

Lots of HydeAway photos coming so stay tuned…

Sad to say that Godaddy has gotten too greedy for me, I will be moving to a different host. They have upgraded their server and want me to pay to have my information moved to the new server… I feel a little like my blog is being held for ransom and I have decided not to pay it. Their hosting charges have gone way up too! Can’t afford them anymore! I believe sometime in January I will get shut down… I’m going to get a new site going but there will be a short interruption before I get it sorted out. “I’ll be back”.

I can’t believe how fast time goes… it’s been so long since I posted. We are just moving me into the Hydeaway this week. Finished painting and just waiting for the internet dude to come and move the dish for us. It has to be warmer to reset it so probably Tuesday. We are going to move my equipment up tomorrow, I will have to work on my lap top until the dish is moved, no biggie. I will work on table until we build something, this is just to get me in. It’s all painted and looking great. We found out that drywall takes a lot longer then we thought.

It’s been cold for a spell and we have very little snow! The ski hill is open but barely. I have only worked 2 shifts and I’m on call until we get more snow… not looking good! It seems our snow belt has shifted and everyone else is getting our snow once again! It’s been nice having the holidays off, we took 3 days off the build and had a nice relaxing time. Darren and Khloe came out, she is 6 and at a fun age! We decorated gingerbread men and she brought a little craft project for us to do (bedazzling a purse) and then we watched a Christmas show. Having a lot of fun with her!

Barry has a job painting windows for Dave and Cheryl so he did a practice run on our windows… made it very festive! And I love the tiny tree I found… cat proof!

We were able to upgrade our “Entertainment Centre”. Last year we got a 42″ TV but we were still using my 15 yr old DVD/surround sound…the TV broke 2 weeks before the warrantee ran out… phew!! They gave us a credit for what we paid and then we spent a bit more and got a 53″ TV! Hi def, 4K… all the fanciness! The DVD player finally packed it in too! Ugh! We bought a sound bar from Costco, nice one that was on sale. Barry bought me a Bluray player for Christmas so we are totally outfitted now and wow! I want to watch everything we have again it all looks so good! The days of share shed TV’s are behind us, hahah. I got this beautiful easel for Barry for our new space…

Stay tuned…

Seen a few moose lately. One was a family of 3, so cute, the bull had the cutest little rack started. Love the babies! We won’t be seeing any more bear this year.

We found an amazing 1920’s wood burning cook range that came out of Barkerville in the 60’s and has been sitting in a shed ever since. The shed was full of old stoves, some much older then this one. It is in great condition, some rust on the exterior, inside has no rust! It was cleaned out before it was stored, the water tank looks like it was never used. It is so cute, not too big but has a small oven and lots of stove top space. It dawned on me that the flat smooth top stove was the original design with the round plates that lift up looking like elements, it has come full circle.

The first photo is a photo I found online, this is the exact stove. The bottom photo is ours but taken when it was still in the shed. Right now it is in pieces in the back of the truck. We are going to use it in the HideAway (officially the name of my new office) so I can use it then when we build on to the house, it will get moved into the kitchen. I have been dreaming of one of these stoves. I cook on Hildurs when we house sit for them and I love it! But the modern ones are very expensive! I thought we would have to spend a few grand to get one! We got this little beauty for $250.!!! So happy! I will post more photos when we get it set up in a few days. I could not be more excited!!

Stay tuned…

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.

I am always amazed at how black as black these bears can be!

Holy early snow batman! This is crazy!

-1.4 this morning…. brrr!

I borrowed this from Facebook…

As of today…

🔥 California is on fire.

🔥 Oregon is on fire.

🔥 Washington is on fire.

🔥 British Columbia is on fire.

🔥 Alberta is on fire

🔥 Montana is on fire.

🔥 Nova Scotia is on fire.

🔥 Greece is on fire.

🔥 Brazil is on fire.

🔥 Portugal is on fire.

🔥 Algeria is on fire.

🔥 Tunisia is on fire.

🔥 Greenland is on fire.

🔥 The Sakha Republic of Russia is on fire.

🔥 Siberia is on fire.

⛈️Texas is under water

⛈️ India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, experience record monsoons and massive death toll.

⛈️ Sierra Leone and Niger experience massive floods, mudslides, and deaths in the thousands.

🌞Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia are crushed in the death grip of a triple digit heat wave, dubbed Lucifer.

🌞Southern California continues to swelter under triple digit heat that shows no sign of letting up.

🌞In usually chilly August, the city of San Francisco shatters all-time record at 106 degrees, while it reaches 115 degrees south of the city. Northern California continues to bake in the triple digits.

((🌎)) Yellowstone volcano is hit with earthquake swarm of over 2,300 tremors since June, recording a 4.4 quake on June 15, 20017 and 3.3 shaker on August 21, 2017.

((🌎)) 5.3 earthquake rumbles through Idaho

((🌎)) Japan earthquake 6.1 possible tsunami..

((🌎)) Mexico earthquake 8.2 imminent tsunami. Beach lines are receded atleast 50+ meters

🌊Hurricanes Harvey, Irma (biggest ever recorded), Jose and Katia are barreling around the Atlantic with 8 more potentials forming

And last but not least an X10 C.M.E solar flare last night . The highest recorded solar flare ever!

Annnnnnnd now you’re all caught up