5C's Que Pasa

Somehow while working in the yard today I pulled a muscle in my back so I don’t want to be online too long tonight.  No worries the fence photos aren’t going away.

I just wanted to share that I am the Canadian collector of donations for helping fund a Christmas Eve dinner for those in need on the Isla. Today would have been our second day on the Isla.  They are hoping to feed two hundred families this year, that includes a whole chicken, rice, beans, vegetables, oil and flour. It is anticipated that it will take approximately $16.00 CAD to feed each family. The following is what has been sent out.

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This is how easily one person can infect 48 others.

The next few months are not going to be easy for any of us. Hopefully we all make the right choices.

 

Colin watched the entire launch ( Sunday ) and docking on Monday  of the Space Shuttle. I liked this shot of the Canadian Arm as it neared the Space Station.

I remember being at the Calgary zoo looking at the monkey exhibit when it was announced that man had first landed on the moon. What a world we live in now.

The fence is moving slowly. In part because of the weather and in part because there are so many measurements with this custom fence.

The fence did arrive on Monday.

Tuesday we awoke to a low snow level and low clouds.

A different view of the mountains as we headed home.

I had Colin stop the car before we neared our turn. I wanted to show you our home from the highway. Hard to see  in the photo but actually it is easy to see because  of the colour of the house.

As we were out for a few hours on Tuesday ( yesterday the 17th ), we of course came back to a fence problem. We had him redo three sections as one was very obviously sloping down a few inches on one side. It was because the ground slopped down toward the lake. We wanted it straight across the top. The fence guy is very good at what he does but he did say that this is the first time he has done one like this and it also involves five different fence types. Plus we always do things differently than most 🙄

A most unusual sunset Tuesday. It did not last too long but was very pretty.

Zoom! Last night was our first experience with the online Zoom platform.Things are moving fast for us. Because of Covid we could not have the annual grand dinner and presentation at the Country Club. The company arranged a one hour event complete with a few fun things and a big treat.

At one point we were asked to open our front door and to check what was there. Sure enough two white boxes were sitting there. We never heard anyone come near the house. There was this apple and the other was a pear. They were from Karat, a chocolate store here in Kelowna. These delicacies included a good deal of chocolate mousse, one of my favourites. What a lovely way to end the evening.

The hedge was removed on October 3oth. It cost us an extra $300.00 for the clean up but was worth every penny. I’m sure that most of you have figured out that we are putting in a fence. The materials were delayed an extra week. The fence should have started to go up on November 4th. Apparently so many are building and doing renovations during this time of the Corona virus that it is this common to have delays. Our materials should have arrived November 5th but were delayed until November 12th but turned up in Kelowna seven days ago on November 9th 🙄

The first step happened on a foggy morning with many ducks swimming around.

However on November 9th, exactly a week ago today, the fence guy was not home. He had not been told of the delivery and would have been there to accept it had he known. So our fence materials drove around the province for a few days. The shipments were to deliver November 12th and then Friday the 13th 😯

On November 2nd, management had to come and approve the fence string line. You can see how much more area we are gaining now that the hedge is gone.

On Friday the 13th, my builder guy, Frank, was very upset. So he made arrangements to go to wherever the shipment was on his day off, Saturday the 14th, to pick up the fence materials. Apparently it took a good part of Saturday to track it down and then try and find the product in a huge warehouse and finally get them loaded on his trailer. He did say that he would start the build today, Monday the 16th. Note, the materials were actually here seven days ago but never landed 🙁

Frank immediately started installing the fence posts. At this point he was hoping that the supplies would arrive sooner than later.  He did all the digging by hand.

Meanwhile we did have some preparation happenings pre fence arrival.

Holes were dug down two feet and steel posts were put in and then cemented it. This happened on November 2nd.

Someone was giving away 24 x 24 x 2 cement slabs. We were lucky enough to get them before anyone else.  You can’t beat free.

We have a plan of moving our shed about 6 inches to the east and then roughly 18 -20 inches to the north.

Colin did a fabulous job of levelling the cement slabs to match the cement coloured patio.  So basically the shed will move to the the left on the coloured part and toward the truck about six inches.  This will give us more front patio space.

However in order to move the shed, it needs to be emptied and then moved into its new place. That will have to wait until the spring. It sounds simple but it does take a good deal of effort on our part.

Long story short, our new neighbours were willing to pay for 50% of the new fence that is between us. However between the legal measurements and the fence string line it showed that they were actually on our property by a few inches. We actually could legally cut into their deck. They are a pie shaped lot but with the small end at the lake, only giving a small list vista onto the lake. The fence post was put right next to their deck. They were upset and so we negotiated to give/loan them 24 inches of our property which would give them a better view in exchange for the option to increase that section of the fence from a maximum of 6 feet to a height of 7 feet 😉  I ;love my privacy. Negotiation complete. However as we had ordered that 8′ wide section to be 6′ high we will need to order a new higher post and more fence height at our expense 😎

So last Monday, the 9th, Frank came to cut down the one post and to add the new one, moved 24 inches on our side. He mixed his cement like a Mexican, except he used a wheelbarrow instead of the ground. He did a proper cement mix, as seen in the fourth photo down from the top in his orange cement mixer, for the original posts.

At this same time he also cemented in the final post next to where the gate will be. FYI we are making the gate and the fence as low to the ground as we can, just in case more doxies are in our future.

The moved post about to be cemented in.

Almost ready for the fence to be installed.

Don’t rely on someone else, it’s up to you do  your part.

Yes, restrictions are returning. Please  do your part.

As I write this it looks like our fourth snow event is underway. We were supposed to only get rain but it seems that we are cool enough to get snow.  It should be gone by morning – hopefully – as we have to head into town for a medical appointment for me!

Saturday morning we woke up to blue sky, sun and very little snow. A nice change of pace.

However it still was cool out there.  We both did a good deal of computer work and catching up. In the afternoon we went to Canadian Tire as we had seen some items  in their flyer that appealed to us.  My goodness what a crowd, no control as to how many were going in. Most were wearing masks. We picked up an unlit 6 foot Charlie Brown tree for $40.00.  It seems that most of the trees are now pre strung with lights. I like using my own lights. Just before we left Colin spotted a lovely 7.5 foot tree posted on a large board in the tree section.  It did look lovely and was marked down from $299.00 to $149.00.  Turns out they were sold out and had just sold the floor model as well which explains why we never saw it with the other trees. As we were about to check out I saw a larger unlit tree high up on a shelf.  A strange place as you can’t see the tree, it was held in place with ties to the ceiling.  Turns out it was the $149.00 tree! While Colin looked for someone to help us I discovered that the tips of the branches were rigid and could not be bent at all. Plus I just thought it was too wide for our home. It turned out this tree had been overlooked and was still for sale. I vetoed the purchase. So we checked out with several items including a remote device that enables me to turn on my under the counter lights in the kitchen. I struggle to be able to turn them on – just too short to reach 😳  Hmm, I don’t think I ever posted about those lights, will do so in the weeks to come. Of course we purchased some lights for the tree and for another project. Once home I measured the width of that larger tree and it would have been much too wide for this home. Charlie Brown tree, it shall be.

Today, Sunday, I did laundry, worked with Colin to clean the house and made homemade tomato soup for the first time in my life. Thanks to my longtime friend Karen, I had the perfect recipe. We have known Karen and her hubby David from one of our first few trips down into Mexico, possibly as late as 2003 or 2004. We saw them a few times  along the road  and as happens we lost contact. Karen found me while online as her Mexico search took her to my blog. We have not seen each other for ages but once Covid is done, we shall.

The recipe for ‘Garden Fresh Tomato Soup’ can be found here. We still had leftover tomatoes from the garden.  These had been picked green and had ripened on our window sills but needed to be used. The recipe says ‘A quick and easy recipe for real homemade tomato soup like no other you’ve had before’. It also said prep 5 minutes and cook time 30 minutes. I guess we are slow, it took longer.

Rendering down the tomatoes. I did 1.5 of the recipe as I had 6 cups of tomatoes left.

The recipe calls to run the mixture through a food mill which I do not have. So we put the yellow colander inside another stock pot and slowly drained the tomatoes in, you can see the steam. Colin did it in two sections.

Then he used the back of a ladle to press out the liquid, leaving the tomato skins and the majority of the seeds in the colander.

If you have an emersion blender ( I do not have one) that would likely work or you could use a blender. Too much trouble for me. While he was draining the tomato liquid I began the roux. I decided to add a cup of milk.  This online recipe actually has over 2000 comments so if you read some you will get some ideas on possible changes. The milk was my only addition.

Many utensils and pots were used to make the soup. The white bowl on the right held the discarded skins, etc.

The soup truly was like no other you’ve had before.  So simple to make and yet so very flavourful. We will be making this next summer and freezing some. I read that many have just used canned tomatoes to make this.  I do have frozen tomatoes from the garden in the freezer so just might try it later in the winter. We enjoyed a large bowl of soup and have enough to enjoy for lunch another day.

Fortunately Colin offered to do the dishes as I was the brain behind this project. Yellow colander in the middle stock pot into which the mixture was poured from the taller stock pot on the left. I made the roux in the saucepan and the white bowl held the skins. Best soup ever.

What next? Time to rake more leaves.

Colin was getting ready for the next part of the ‘big project’ but managed to capture me raking. This is the first time that we have seen the leaves fall from this tree as we have always been gone. I never quite finished as the wind came up rather strongly and kept scattering my piles, but I did fill the bag. Phew, quite a busy day.

I saw the following today in an article by CBC News on snowbirds still flocking south, you can read that here.

Despite the Government  of Canada’s advice, folks are choosing to travel.  I think I would rather suffer this one winter in order to have many many years ahead to travel.

Looks like we are staying home.

*** Having so much fun. Halfway through this post Colin went into the sauna and chose Abba and Mamma Mia as his music tonight. I have been dancing in my computer chair. Once his sauna was done ( the music kept playing ), he had his bath and I was just finishing my final proofing. Guess what?  Some, well lots of dancing was involved. How fun. I will always remember doing this post. The other night he listened to jazz. It just might be a fun winter 😎

We awoke to a winter wonderland this morning.

The snow must have started in the early morning hours. It was very pretty.

It snowed until about 1PM. My neighbours hedge.  So easy to see the snow fall.

The was our third snowfall in exactly three weeks. Sadly it was also the third accident from our street out onto the highway. This one was just a bit to the left towards Kelowna, in front of the Jammery. A multi vehicle collision that left a 26 year old male deceased at the side of the road. We could see all but the actual accident scene from our home, we heard and saw multiple emergency vehicles including several ambulances. We saw the highway closed down to southbound traffic except for those coming out of our road. Northbound went on at a crawl for several hours. Such a sad waste of life. So many drive much too fast for the road conditions. We knew that snow was in the forecast so we had cancelled our appointments in town in order to stay safe. We really don’t have to be anywhere at a certain time; it is our choice. There were accidents all over Kelowna and to Vernon. I heard of a roll over of a tow truck that was towing a vehicle. Despite the beauty of the snow it was a somber day.

These geese must have stopped for the night due to the snow. Once it stopped they were gone, likely heading south.

Colin had pulled out six  ( not the seven we had thought ) large bins holding what was left of our Christmas decorations. It was fun but all bittersweet to go through them all.

We each have one of these. Twenty two years ago and more, this is what we filled with Christmas gifts for each other. I meant to get the bins in the photo but they are piled up behind him.

It seemed like a good day with the snow on the ground to get reacquainted with our decorations. I had a theme of dusty rose and gold backing the day. I made so many things, guess I was crafty twenty five years ago.

I was disappointed to discover that what I had been hoping to find in the boxes were no longer there. We did have a huge garage sale about two years before moving here when we downsized from 5600 sq ft to 3200 sq ft and now down to 1000 sq ft. So none of my large retro as they call them now, Christmas strings of lights, none of my garlands that I spent days weaving in white mini lights to wind up our grand curved stairwell to the second floor. Only some of my large gold bows was left that I placed every so many feet. I loved Christmas and had four trees, one of them with white mini lights and only dusty rose and gold decorations and white crocheted lace like snowflakes.  I have most of those decorations. My Charlie Brown tree ornaments are in the motorhome along with some of the rose and gold decorations. I must have been brutal when I packed things twenty years ago. Most is gone but I have some items that I am going to try and create something special with.

The bottom one is from my grandmother.

We made some decisions, such as only using what we have here and to leave what is in the RV to be only used when on the road. Except for a few items, Colin wants to find our five tiny stockings that I knit that we hang on the visor. They represent the 5C’s. You can see them at the end of this post, one of my Christmas posts taken last winter.  It made me sad finding and looking at those photos. However I have to remember that we are here ( not by choice ) but we are safe. We were going to get a real tree. From when we first got married back in 1987 we have always had real and lovely smelling trees. However because it is so cold here and we have so much heat on, a real tree would dry out quickly. We also realized that we will have to put away some of our things as we have so little space in here in order to decorate for the holidays. So likely we will start to decorate sooner this year.

These are very old and there is small box full. Two of the three glass blown ornaments that I had in the RV have broken. I will use these here this winter. I was hoping to sell some ornaments and lights but have decided to keep everything for now.

When do you put up your tree, outdoor lights and such? I have read that many are doing so early this year to give some brightness to the season and especially because of  this particular year. We used to only decorate outside on December 1st and the tree went up around the 10th of December, a tradition carried on from my family. Mom’s birthday was the 15th and the plan was to be ready for her birthday. Again it was very dry inside back in Edmonton and real trees only lasted so long before the needles started to dry and drop which is why we decorated later in December.