THE JOYS OF HOME OWNERSHIP

July 15/10

Welcome to the new blog and I hope you find it interesting as we share this next stage of our lives with you.  We are unpacked, but still organizing things, mostly in Stuart’s shop.  He is having a wonderful time finding places to put all his tools, supplies and other goodies in such a large space.  Here is what it looks like so far:

 The inside of the house is mostly done although we haven’t put any artwork up on the walls yet.  It takes a while to get a feel for the place and we are still striving for the simple lifestyle—eliminate the knickknacks that are dust magnets and don’t feel obligated to display every photo or picture we’ve collected over the years.

On Monday afternoon, we had a big windstorm that did some damage in the area and we did not come out of it unscathed.  Stuart was outside of the shop cutting some plywood and saw the dead top of a tree in our driveway break off and fall into the neighbour’s yard.  It was so strong that the wind actually blew a piece of thin plywood right out of Stuart’s hands.  We quickly pulled the slides in on the trailer so that the awnings above the slides wouldn’t be flapping and we had to do some work underneath to fasten a tank cover.  That wasn’t much fun as Stuart was getting sandblasted while he was doing the work.

The next thing that happened was sections of the neighbour’s fence blowing down and into our yard.  Then the wind whipped up landscape fabric and wood chips that we have at that back of the house and scattered them all over the yard.  

We went on the deck to secure the BBQ cover when the wind blew the cover off the hot tub onto the glass patio table and broke one table leg and snapped off the umbrella stand.  It was a good thing we weren’t in the way—we could have been seriously injured.  

Next, the soffits in the carport started coming loose so we had to back the truck under that section and Stuart got up on a stepladder to screw them in.  The wind eventually died down and we surveyed the damage.  Nothing major for us but the neighbour is going to make an insurance claim for the fence repair.

It was really hot here for a few days (35 C) and we ran the air conditioner for a while in the evening.  Well, it only worked for about 15 minutes and then blew the breaker.  We checked it out and there is something faulty with the compressor on the heat pump.  We contacted the previous owner about it and he arranged to get it fixed as the unit is still under warranty.  It is great to have purchased the house from nice people who still live in the community.

We drove to Trail on Tuesday and did some shopping at exciting places like Walmart, Canadian Tire and Zellers.  We stocked up on household cleaners and hot tub supplies that are more expensive to purchase locally.  We drove back through Castlegar and had a nice day away from home work.

We are very happy with our new place and each evening before supper, we sit out on the front porch to watch the hummingbirds at the feeder.  Last night, we saw a black bear on the mountain behind our property—how much fun is that?