Frosty Wonderland

This is part of a post of our last firewood trip up to the Soo for the year, which I hope to have up this weekend. The forest ground covering is laced in delicate hoar frost and it was a delight to stumble across it. Also, I think my micro focusing skills are improving.

Passport Day

While in the city on the 22nd, I decided to renew my passport and brought a camera along just for fun. It was a fairly painless task, and I was out of Sinclair Centre with a new one in hand in less than two hours.

Construction of the new Skytrain line running through Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. Looks to be four stories deep.

Dave mentions from time to time of the 'Puma Store' as an analogy (or symbol if you will) for the ills of urban globalization... but we never thought they actually existed till today, hence the bemused look on his face.

This heavily discounted, horribly shop worn acrylic hair extension makes me feel every bit of the $5 it costs. At your nearest Aldo Outlet Store today.

The Marine Building is often used in American film productions.

The view from the HBC parkade roof where our car was parked. Not a fantastic pic, but the nice lighting was too hard for me to ignore.

Last Toque

I'm officially tired of crochet till further notice. Mona says this one is possibly the 20th or so toque I've made for her since she started shaving her head about 2 years ago. They'll have to last her for awhile.

Let's Hook Up...

... to the municipal sewer line. The powers that be caught up with us and we are the dead last homeowners to connect in Emerald, a process that started in 2000.

Dave found a sh#t covered Garfield doll in the septic field and hid it in my woodpile. Hardy-har-har.

Amazingly, we only lost one tree to the trench.

Before the underground septic tank can be disconnected, it has to be emptied of its contents.

Septic pump operators really know their sh*t.

In goes the pipe... so boring... so expensive.

Those guys covered up and levelled out the back yard nicely.

Our two vehicles had to make room for the heavy equipment by parking on the road. It snowed that day and thus made parking on that side of the road illegal. Muni knew we were getting work done (hell, they issued the work permits) and wrote them up anyway.

First Snow 2007

The white stuff made surface contact for most of last week, in between periods of pounding rain.



The Corona workers were kind enough to put this big rock over a patch of my front yard the neighbourhood dogs use as a popular communal toilet. Originally, it was under the old hot tub deck and in the way of the sewer line.

A runny snow pile in deepest, darkest Whistler Village. The Municipality gets two chores done with their bobcat excavators; snow removal and garbage collection. Discarded plastic bottles, bags and trash emerge as it melts.

Ikea Inspiration

I've done so much contract sewing that the odd time I do it for myself, it feels about as much fun as pulling weeds. I love good fabric and tend to cajole myself to take on 'one more small project' to justify buying a little bit. By that I mean 13 yards worth @ 60" wide.

I'm used to running through thousands of metres of difficult synthetic satins, voile and chiffon. Plain ol' curtain weight cotton is a pleasure to work with.

New sheets for the guest room...

... and shopping totes for friends and family.

Back When People got Waaaay too Close to the Bears...

Click on the photos to go to Mango Falls, a neat series of old pics scrounged from thrift store cameras.

Being this close to a 400 lb bear however is not neat. It's fu*@king reckless.

Shopping Part 2: Joyce Edition

Tidy, organized, clean new stuff awaits at Ikea. I like to make a visit before December, before it gets too nuts with the xmas crowds et al.

'I'll show you mine if you show me yours'.

A giant bin of stuffed pandas in the kid's section. Seeing a thousand unit cluster of them can only cheer you up.

I've got a specific shopping list to tackle though, new bedding for the guest room.

See what I made in the next post.

Of note: David Byrne visits Ikea recently for the first time and blogs about it.

Four Bears and a Chipmunk

A black bear drunk on fermented wild apples. At least he/she isn't driving home in a car.


The average Google or Flickr 'bear' keyword search will often include 'bears' of this nature.


"Clarisse, can you hear them scream?"


Eventually, none of them get to be on the hammock.


Not a bear clip, but quite frankly I did a double take on the title. It first looked like 'chipmunk fisting' to me.

Rememberance Day

Let's all take a moment out of this day to remember those that made our everyday democratic lives as we know it possible, like Dave's paternal grandfather who died in combat during WWII. If only he could have lived long enough to see the intelligent, honourable men his son and gransons have become.

Shopping Part 1: Dave Edition

KMS Tools is across the street from the IKEA store and it would be a waste not to go into both of them while passing through Coquitlam, an almost 3 hour drive south of Whistler.

Ugh, old motors. Are they really worth anything?

Ditto for this stuff.

Dave is attracted to shiny new Husqvarna equipment. Even though it's nearly winter, I just know he wants one of those lawn mowers.

He's already outfitting our proverbial first born son with a replica chainsaw, just like the old 3' long beater he uses.

There is no such thing as having too many screwdrivers, but I think it's a good idea not to buy all your Phillips and Robertson tips in the same damn yellow handles. Looking for that certain screwdriver in a toolbox or junk drawer at home will drive you barking mad.

Dave's finished shopping here and we are hopping across the street to IKEA... Part 2 continues next week with Joyce.

Making Way for the Sewer

The local municipality is forcing us to hook up to their sewer line and the construction company we hired to help is parking their excavator in the front yard in preparation.

God, we should seriously consider into buying one of these things. With this, Dave can get the driveway cleared of snow in five minutes or less!

Bye-bye stupid decrepit hot tub deck. I wish the trees in the background didn't have to go as well. That is where a 8-10' wide trench will go for the sewer pipe. I was hoping to leave Whistler for some R&R during construction, but can't. I guess it won't kill me too much to see the back yard get logged to sh%t.

At least the back view is in tact. It was supposed to rain all weekend and voila, the sun came to save the day.