Judith was up at nine and we discussed the day.  I had lots to do in the garden before pouring another post.  About the time I was finished at the garden it started to rain putting the cement job on hold.  I decided the time would be best spent working on Smarter Than Me and went to my office to get started.  I worked until noon and knocked out another ten pages.

Pasta salad, prawns and crab filled the bill for lunch.  The rain had passed and after lunch I got the materials together to pour the forth post.  The mold is holding up quite well and with a little luck it will last for four more.  I took about twenty minutes to pour the post and I was done at two.

We had agreed to meet at two to play Hand and Foot and the ladies were waiting when I walked into the house.  I needed to deliver a trailer to Dale so we only had an hour to play and managed to play the third level.  When the smoke cleared, Judith led by fourteen hundred points.

It was a little after three when I hooked up the trailer and went to Dale’s.  As I unhooked the trailer I noticed one of my rear tires on the F-350 was going flat.  On closer inspection I found a screw stuck through the tread.  Dale fired up his compressor and I put enough air in to hold me over until I can get to Midway to get it fixed.  I stopped at Roland’s to drop of the scaffolding: I’m done with it for the year and he may need it while we are gone.

I was back at River House at five and Job one was making the pizza sauce.  Judith, Marie and Robin had things under control; everything was chopped and diced, the dough was made and the fire was burning nicely in the pizza oven.

Tim and Sherry arrived at six on the dot and Dan and Joann were not far behind.  I took the guys to my office and showed them the latest pictures of elk and moose, captured on our game cameras, while the ladies chatted and got caught up on things.

The first pizza didn’t go in until seven thirty.  The oven was about a hundred degrees cooler than I like and the first pizza took almost five minutes to cook.  There were only eight of us this evening and we only managed to eat five pizzas.  Are we getting old, or what?  Marie made an excellent fruit dish; cut up fruit spiced with lime juice, basil and pepper.  Our guest left at nine thirty and we were clearing off the table and playing cards before they made it to Walcott Road.

Judith was ahead going into the forth level by fourteen hundred points.  I was in second, Marie was in third and Robyn was last.  I caught some cards and went out thinking I was ahead.  When the smoke cleared I was BEHIND by ten points and Judith pulled off the win. 

I talked with two fishermen yesterday that say there are more steelhead in the system now than there have been in the best of years during the peak in October.  Hmmm!  I’d better get the jet boat launched and ready to go.

Tomorrow the ladies will go to the Farmers Market while I get back to work on the garden and lake projects.

Dale with 22 pound halibut

It was pitch black at five when the alarm went off.  I put on the coffee and logged to the Canadian Marine Weather website.  While the forecast wasn’t great at least Gale Warnings weren’t flashing on the screen.  I printed a copy of both the weather and tide report.  I drank a quick cup of coffee and headed out to the boat. 

By the time I put a couple of buckets of ice in the ice chest and started the truck, Dale was coming down the driveway.  We loaded his things in the backseat and headed up the driveway.   Midway was the first stop where we fueled both the boat and truck.  I wanted to get launched as soon as possible and opted for donuts at Tim Horton’s instead of Patricia’s good breakfasts.  The stop at Timmies took only ten minutes.  We pulled into Misty River Bait shop in Terrace at ten fifteen.  They had no real information about the fishing in Rupert; it is the tale end of the season and the weather has really been challenging.  We put the bait in the big ice chest and then stopped at Canadian Tire to pick up stove fuel before starting on our last leg of the trip.

I’ve got the stop at Safeway down to a science and with Dale’s help we spent only about ten minutes getting our supplies.  We were at the ramp and launched by one.  I opted to forget putting out the crab traps and headed for Dundas Island, fifteen miles northeast of the launch ramp.  I was expecting rougher seas when we turned the corner into the open ocean but was pleasantly surprised to see the three to four foot waves.  We stopped at Cutter Rock and trolled for salmon for about an hour without as much as a bite.  Next we put out the prawn traps and were pleased to see no other traps anywhere in site.  The tide was right for anchoring up for halibut and I headed for my number 18 waypoint; a spot that has been pretty consistent over the past couple of years.  Without crab I was looking for something other than hot dogs for dinner.  Within a few minutes we boated a nice twelve pound coho and within a half hour we also boated a “chicken” halibut.  NO hot dogs this evening.

We were back, checked the prawn and anchored up by nine.  We decided to have prawns and halibut for dinner and I started the water boiling then enjoyed a couple of beers with Dale.  The halibut was wonderful and the prawns were a close second. 

We finished eating a little after ten and didn’t take long to settle into our sleeping bags and call it a day.  A LONG day; sixteen hours to be exact!

September 1^st

It was barely light when I put on the coffee at six.  I could see there was no fog and for that I was thankful as I crawled back in bed for another thirty minutes. 

We check the prawn traps and had over two hundred.  The plan for the day was to go WAY North to the northwest tip of Dundas Island when there were reports of a good number of cohos being Taken.  I decided to go around the island on the Westside with a stop at “the brain” to troll for salmon.  If I found salmon there the trip north wouldn’t be necessary.  The conditions were pretty good at the brain but the seas were starting to build and I made the call to cancel the trip to the north end. 

We headed back to the east side and ended up anchoring for halibut at waypoint #18.  The seas were starting to build as was the wind causing me to keep one ear glued to the marine weather radio.  I put out two salmon mooching line and two halibut rods.  I used the octopus David and I caught on the last trip for bait.  Within an hour we had our halibut limit and another coho.  The wind and seas where building, I pulled the anchor and made a decision to pick up the prawn traps and head for Rupert.  My thinking was I’d rather spend the night in Rupert, near the launch ramp, than get caught off shore and be forced to wait out the bad weather tucked  in a cove for a day or two.  By the time we had pulled the traps the forecast was for gale force winds to 40 MPH.  As we started across the open water the white caps started coming and the sea built to about six feet.  It took us about an hour to make nine mile trip across the open water.

My plan was to put out the crab traps and then anchor up near the launch ramp for the evening.  Crab makes a wonderful dinner and in the morning if the winds were still a factor we would be close to the ramp and could get an early start home.  I set the traps twice and on the second try got three legal crabs; just enough for a nice dinner.

By the time we anchored up the wind was howling and the boat was spinning like a top.  We put on the water and opened a bottle of white wine.  Crab, prawns and new potatoes filled the bill for dinner.  We were in bed by ten.  The howling wind and spinning boat made for a pretty restless night; one always wonders IF the anchor will hold.

September 2nd

At seven we started our day by checking the traps.  There was a very disappointing single legal crab.  We decided to call it quits and headed for the ramp.  The launch ramp was deserted; no one was anxious to challenge Mother Nature today. 

We were loaded by nine, then fueled and stopped at Tim Horton’s for their rendition of and Egg McMuffin before hitting the road for River House.  The rain came down in sheets for the first hour making the going a little slower than normal. 

We pulled into River House at two thirty; divided the fish and Dale headed home while I started flushing the engines and boiling the crab and prawns. 

Rich Boonstra stopped by and dropped off his bill for work on the lake; no surprises, about what I expected.  He will move out the dozer and belly dump next week.  I still have about a week’s work on the inflow area, spillway and bridge.

Judith, Marie and Robin arrived back from a trip to Smithers around five.  Dinner was an all seafood event.  Boiled shrimp and crab along with grilled salmon steaks cooked on the Tool Box Grill were the main events.  Marie made a nice pasta salad; corn on the cob and French bread finished out the menu.

Everyone pitched in on the dishes before the card playing began.  We played two levels of Hand and Foot and I hold a way too small lead over Judith.  Marie is third and Robin is in last place.

Lots of things to do tomorrow including Pizza Night!

I was all dressed up with nowhere to go so decided to work on Smarter than Me.  I spent a few minutes and relearned the edit program and started reviewing the changes.  I spent over two hours and was able to wade through about a third of the text.

Judith was up at eight thirty and we talked about the day.  She had house cleaning to do and I headed up to the shop to get it straightened up.  One of my pegboard tool holders fell off and dumped all the tools on the shop floor.  I fired up the wood stove; it was a nippy thirty seven this morning.  I worked there until noon, had lunch, and turned my attention to the new garden fence.

Job one today was drilling holes for in the corner posts so I can install eye bolts and hooks.  Once these are put in place and the center post are set I will stretch the fence between the posts. 

On one of the trips to the garden I checked the game cameras and found seventy two new photos.  There were no surprises; some elk, a mule deer doe and fawn and the same little bull moose I’ve been seeing the last few months. 

I knocked off at four and headed to my office to check for e-mails.  I heard voices up stairs as Judith announced Peter had stopped by for a visit.  He stopped by to see the progress on the lake and new garden.  We talked until Marie and her friend, Robin arrived for a visit.  The drove up from Washington State and will visit until Monday.

Judith fixed a nice pasta dish for dinner served with a salad from my garden and pizza dough bread.  We quickly cleared the dishes and settled into a game of Jokers and Pegs.  Robin and I were partners and pulled off a very close win.

I’m off to the chuck tomorrow unless, of course, Mother Nature starts blowing up again.  If that happens the boat will go into storage until next spring.  With luck there will be no blog until Thursday.

I got the coffee on and checked the temperature; thirty seven degrees.  I turned on Fox and the coverage was all about yesterday’s Glenn Beck event in Washington, DC.  The left laughed and said no one would come.  Well, they did.  How many?  We will probably never really know.  One side will say a thousand and the other will say a million.  Somewhere near the middle is probably pretty close.  The left predicted violence.  None.  Restoring honor!  Bingo!  We lost it somewhere along the way and if it takes a Glen Beck to get us pointed back in the right direction, so be it.  There is an old saying….”inspect what you expect”!  We haven’t done that for years with our elected representatives and now we are paying the price.  Clean House, Restore Honor, Move Forward!  Amen!

Judith was up at eight thirty and cooked pancakes.  After breakfast I headed back outside and continued yesterday’s cleanup.  I burned the weeds on the paving stones, sprayed roundup on the weeds in other areas and then fired up the blower and sent the leaves and debris into the bush.  With that done I finished cleaning and refilled the water feature.

I worked nonstop until noon and then went to my office and registered in the PokerStars Sunday 250K.  Almost thirty thousand registered for the event today; it sure doesn’t look as if poker is going to slow down anytime soon.  It was one of those days when I didn’t get very many strong hands but managed to hang in there and make the money.  Once I hit the money, better cards came and I got enough chips to make some moves and managed to hang in there and finished 1417 and pocketed $48.68 for my efforts.

With the card playing done for the day I headed back outside and focused on getting another post poured.  This time, with Judith’s help, it took less than fifteen minutes. 

Next on the agenda was getting the boat ready for tomorrow’s trip.  David did a great job of cleaning it up after our last trip so I had little left to do but load the fishing equipment and hook up the truck.

I’ll be leaving at six in the morning, along with Dale Clarke and his son Tyson, for Rupert.  We are due back on Wednesday so no blog postings until then.

After I got the coffee going job one was trying out the editing program Darrell found and making a few corrections to see if it was functioning properly.  I made the corrections and sent them off to Darrell before heading out the door to start my busy day.

The skies we blue and cloudless this morning and the temperature was a crisp thirty seven degrees.  I fired up the weed whacker and spent two hours, nonstop.  I promised to walk with Judith at eleven and that worked out perfectly as I needed to pick up the ride on lawnmower from the shed.  Judith continued her walk and I drove back to the house and started mowing the open areas.  I spent two hours on the uncomfortable, noisy machine.  The wind was blowing and regardless of which way I turned it seemed the grass was blowing in my face.

Next on the list was pressure washing the front water feature.  This is the fourth year we have had the fountain running and the first year black algae has raised its ugly head.  I think the UV light has burned out; however, too much plumbing is involved to find out.  Next spring I’ll have Derrick check it out.   I’ll refill the water feature tomorrow and then shock it when I get back from Rupert.

Judith asked me to use Roundup on the water lilies, still hanging on to life in the lake, and I knew she wasn’t talking sometime in the distant future.  About two years after we bought the property here in the Bulkley Valley we discovered a single water lily in the lake and were all excited.  Well, be careful what you dream for.  Today it took me over an hour to spray the ones along the bank that somehow managed to stay alive thought this hot, dry summer.  Unfortunately, when the job was done I still had a couple gallons of Roundup in the sprayer and it is expensive.  I spent the next hour searching for thistles.  At five thirty I called it quits with over eight hours on the time clock.

A beer and a shower were first on the agenda followed by our evening crib game.  I’m toast!  Judith won today’s game and put the month out of reach for me.  She now leads 6-2 and seems to be a lock to win this year’s contest. 

Judith fixed the salads and I made a smoked salmon pasta dish that hit the spot.  Sea shell pasta, onion, broccoli and smoked salmon in an alfredo sauce.  Decent.

Lots more to do tomorrow.  The weather has calmed down in Rupert so it looks like the fishing trip is on for Monday morning.

Lake view from hay field–water starting to accumulate in lowest area!

Judith has abandoned her sleep mask; the long days of summer must be over.  This morning’s temperature, forty degrees to be exact, is another sign that summer is now in the rearview mirror.

I was up at seven.  The first thing that struck me was that we only have two months left before heading south.  Where has the time gone?  The list of things to do is still a mile long.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

After several days of a down market it was heading back up today.   Why, is the question?   Home sales are in the toilet, and other indicators are equally sad.  I guess the market is hanging its hat and hopes on the Dems being thrown out on their butts.  Sounds good to me!  Even Letterman has given up on Dahbama.  Jerry Springer, on the other hand, along with a very small hand full of supporters think he is doing a good job.  Go figure!

Job one today was getting the outside in shipshape and I started with draining the water feature and weed whacking.  I spent an hour cutting the turnaround area and next to the house.  Tomorrow I’ll do more weed cutting and then use the ride on mower to get the more open areas.

After lunch I tackled the stone walls in the new garden.  I was really anxious to get this project started.  I’ve been wondering for the last few weeks just how difficult it would be to build a stone wall fence along the eastern side of the garden.  Once in place they will absorb the sun’s rays and hopefully give a boost to plants that need extra heat units; berries, squash and maybe even corn.  As a test I decided to spend one hour and see what I could accomplish.  I strung a string between two of the large poured post as a guide and started placing rocks.  At the end of the hour I completed a section ten feet long, two feet wide and about eighteen inches high.  At the end of the hour I concluded that this job was easier than I first believed.  Hallelujah!

Next on the agenda was to pour another post.  The first one took thirty minutes; this one took half that.  Six more to go; a fenced garden can’t be far behind.

Darrell and I worked on the editing process this afternoon and I think I’ve got it figured out and will start “my side” of the project in the morning.  He has taken my rough draft and made comments in a Word editing program.  I can now look at the corrections and suggestions and accept or change them.  Pretty cool.

Judith and I played our crib game while we waited for a call from Carl telling us to come pick up the lumber for the bridge.  She is really getting the cards and playing them well.  She jumped out to a huge lead and at one point I thought she had a chance of double skunking me.  That didn’t happen nor did a skunk.  She now leads by four with just that many days left in the month.  After the game we decided to walk to the shed to pick up the truck and trailer.  We went to the lake first and then over to the garden.  It was a nice afternoon for a walk and I took today’s blog picture of the lake as we passed by.

Carl–at his lumber yard–good lumber–super prices

When we got back to the house there was a message from Carl’s wife letting us know Carl was on his way home and to come over to pick up the lumber.  I took over the dump trailer and when we went to load it Carl notice the tailgate needed welding and took about two seconds to make the weld.  We loaded the lumber, which filled the trailer, and then joined them for a quick beer.  The quick beer turned in to lots of stories and a nice two hour visit. 

We got back to River House at ten and Judith held the light while I did the final finishing on the poured post.  Judith nuked some leftovers and we had a late but easy dinner.

I’ve got ten days of things to do in the next two.  Crazy!

The deck was wet when I got up at seven.  I checked the temperature and it was a chilly forty four.  Next I looked outside and saw fresh snow on the Telkwa Mountains.  It is that time of the year here in the Great White North; I’m sure we start seeing the geese, ducks and sand hill cranes heading south soon.  Our lake is heavily used during the migration and I bet there will be a lot of confused waterfowl when they start descending into the dry lakebed.

Job one was checking out the garden and what a sad state of affairs.  The tomatoes won’t become ripe, the potatoes are less than a foot tall and now whatever ate the beans has started in on the peas.  I watered the small green house and then turned my attention to the new garden.

Andrew was scheduled to come at noon and I wanted to get at least four loads of dirt hauled in before he arrived.  I loaded the second trailer with one too many buckets and paid the price when I shoveled enough out so the hydraulics could lift the bed.  About the time the clam chowder was ready Andrew came down the driveway.  The chowder was perfect for this cool day.

Andrew ran the compactor and I kept dumping buckets of dirt building up the walls on the lower side making for a level garden with this seemingly never ending project is completed.  We worked until three when a downpour ended our day.  It only rained for about ten minutes, however, created a sea of mud not exactly good for compacting.  Andrew agreed to take the compactor back to Smithers saving me another trip.

I decided to get proactive against my pea eating buddies in the garden and took over my .22, a good book and a chair.  I set up camp in the new greenhouse and read until I heard the scampering of little feet.  Mice are NOT what have been doing the damage but…………..   I read for over an hour, picked zucchini, peppers and radishes and called it a day. 

Before dinner we played our crib game and I came within a few points of a badly need skunk.  A win is a win and now I’m trailing by just three with five days left in the month.

Judith fixed smoked pork chops and I cooked a zucchini, onion, pepper, tomato and cheese dish.  We started a nice cozy fire and enjoyed the meal.

The garden project will be on hold for a few days while I attend to the annual weed whacking around the house.  Normally I wouldn’t do this until late September, however, it has been so dry everything is dead and it needs to be done.  I’ll be heading to the chuck on Monday and we have guests coming before I return.

Rick setting in place one of the 5000 pound spillway blocks

It was barely light when I woke up at six.  The skies were overcast and it looked as if we would be another wet day.  While the last three days have been wet we haven’t gotten a lot of rain. 

I got the coffee going and tried to get ready for the day.  Andrew was due to arrive at seven and is usually on time if not early.  When he wasn’t here at seven fifteen I knew something was wrong.  At seven thirty the phone rang.  It was Andrew telling me his car had broken down and he was home.  Rick was due at nine and there was a lot of shoveling still to be done.  I told Andrew I’d pick him up in thirty minutes and hit the road.  I was back at eight fifteen and dropped him off at the lake and pointed him towards the shovel.

Job one for me was getting the trailer unloaded and after five minutes of shoveling I decided I needed to find another way to get the job done.  I put a strap on my tractor’s bucket and used that to help raise the dump bed.  I was able to raise the bed a couple inches at a time until I got it up to where it would dump. 

I checked in with Judith before heading to town to see Russ, my boat mechanic, who agreed to look at the trailer.  I was at his place at ten thirty and he had me heading back to River House in fifteen minutes.  I was home just in time for lunch; another one of Judith’s nice soups and a sandwich.

After lunch I went up to check on Rick and ended up helping him put in the spillway.  He ran the backhoe and I held the transit stick checking for the correct height.  Rick finished up today and will remove his equipment tomorrow.  His part is done except for sending the bill.  I, on the other hand, have to put the deck over the spillway and rock and gravel it as well as the inflow area near the garden.

I turned Andrew loose on clearing brush around the tractor gate at the new garden while I started moving dirt down from behind the shed.  The good news is I can now load the trailer, drive it down to the garden and dump it in thirty minutes.  The bad news is it will take twice as much fill as I recently estimated.  Just before quitting time I popped out the post we poured the other day and it turned out great.  The form is in good shape and should last for the seven more posts I need to finish. 

Click on this and take a close look…….do you see a rope or halter??

We dropped off Andrew before heading to Smithers for dinner and to watch the Fall Fair Parade.  We ate at the Alpenhorn and had a pretty decent meal for a somewhat pricey fifty bucks.  We finish dinner a few minutes before seven and decided to walk Main Street before the parade.  The Smithers population is close to five thousand and all but a handful was at the parade making for great people watching.  We saw and talked to several people we know and then watched the forty floats and groups pass.  We have been in the valley for ten years and this was our first Fall Fair Parade and it won’t be our LAST.

While the traffic cleared out (yes, traffic in Smithers) we called Doug and Dave to wish them Happy Birthday.  How in the world could those two be FORTY SEVEN? 

We were back at River House by nine.  Judith pulled off another win at crib and leads 10-6 with only six days left in the month.                          

Andrew won’t arrive until noon tomorrow which should give me enough time to get enough dirt to the new garden before he arrives.                  

Click to enlarge and look at center of picture…..birds enjoying the cool water

It was barely light at six when I awoke to start my day.  It was overcast and has been threatening badly needed rain for the last several days.  I checked the temperature and saw it was forty eight; cool but way above the normal temperatures for this time of the year. 

I turned on Fox and put the Folgers in the coffee pot.  I plugged pieces into the new puzzle until the coffee was ready.  Just before I headed down to my office I looked out at the fish sculpture and saw at least two dozen birds frolicking in the spray coming over the rocks.  I grabbed my camera and got a picture for today’s blog.  A couple of days ago large flocks of these little guys starting showing up on their trek south.  We’ve been scouring the bird books and aren’t really sure what kind of bird has arrived at the River House door.  They won’t stay still long enough for us to get a good look.  Tanya, the lovely young lady that did our landscaping, assured us that by putting trees close to the house we’d have lots of bird sightings, up close and personal.  She is a woman of her word!

Andrew drove in a few minutes early and had a cup of coffee while we discussed the workday.  We headed up to the lake where he started cleaning up the ditch that holds the sewer and water lines and I use the backhoe on the west end of the dam.  With that done we started on the redoing the post under the Lake Cabin deck.  While Andrew backfilled around the posts and footings I rounded up the materials for making the concrete.  Judith “volunteered” to make a run to Telkwa to pick up another Redi-base and Styrofoam to cover the pipes under the overflow.  The ditch will only be a couple feet there and the installation will give more protection against them freezing.   We finished the job a few minutes before five and called it a day.

Gary Haywood, who did a lot of excavation work at River House, called and let me know he found the railroad ties I need for the overflow.  We agreed to meet at his yard at seven so I could pick them up.  Gary is an interesting guy and has a real knack for turning other people’s junk into CASH.  We caught up on the last couple of years, loaded the ties and promised to get together….soon.

A strange colored porcupine climbing up on our front deck.

Judith had the fire going and dinner ready when I got back to River House.  During dinner I noticed a large, almost white animal walking down the driveway.  It turned out to be a huge porcupine with the strangest coloring I have ever seen.  I took this picture as he was climbing up on our front deck.  Judith pulled off another win at crib and took back the monthly lead.  She is ahead 7-6.

Derrick will be out tomorrow to reconnect the Lake Cabin’s water and sewer lines.  Andrew will be here and Job one for us both will be moving dirt in the new garden.