July 2012 - Canada Day and our first month of retirement!

 July 1, 2012  Canada Day

For many years Ethyl and Marvin put on the Canada Day celebration.  Too bad this year turned out to be Marvin's last, god bless.

Lorne Hilmo and Marvin Bonner

Riel

"Believe it or not, I had to win this!!  

Darlene Ruel and Delores Rawcliff 

Arni

Marilyn

Ethyl

Frank

July 8th

 The sun finally decided to bless us with its warm yellow face!  We've enjoyed three beautiful days in a row and it appears that summer finally arrived.  The time just seems to fly by.  I'm unable to load pictures to the blog as our limited internet will not accept the long transfer.  We are going to look at other options.

 

On Thursday, Ray picked up a German tourist hitchhiking and brought him to the campsite for a couple of days.  He traded getting us a load of firewood, chopping and stacking it for room and board for two days.  Max is a 22 year old electrician and plans to stay in Canada for six months backpacking and trading lodging and food for work.  Quite an industrious young man.  Very nice and spoke English really well.  We took him out Salmon fishing and he learned to do it all as Ray only showed him so as to not irritate his back pain further.  He learned real quick.  Unfortunately with all of the seiner boats and gillnetters in the canal, the fish were not there and we did not catch anything.  Oh well.  He was fed well and I sent him off with some frozen left over spaghetti so his next meal was taken care of!

Off to water my garden as the temperature should be again, in the high 20’s centigrade.

Total for the past two weeks, 7 sockeye, and about 200 prawns!  No crab as yet, maybe today we will be lucky.

 

July 16th

Well it is Thursday and that means Ray is off to Nanaimo for the pain clinic again and next week he finally sees the anesthesiologist so hopefully they can come up with a plan to reduce his back pain.

The weather lately is fantastic.  Lots of sun and warm temps finally.  We are browning up like a roasted turkey without even trying.  I stay out of the sun most of the time, but I think you tan in the shade!  Not complaining though.

Unfortunately the fishing for the other campers isn't gone well.  Lots of fish, but the water is so cold they are moving straight into the river.  Oh well, we are not too interested in catching very many anyways.  Where would we put them!  We finally caught our first crab of the season though.  It was very good.  We are only getting about 40 to 50 prawns a day but that is enough for a feed.

Here are some pictures of the prawns.

Deb's first fish of season.

Deb's flowers are sure coming to life with the great weather we're having.

2012-07-22 15:49

Another day in paradise!  It rained over night and today has been cloudy with sunny periods.  We moved the cell antenna closer to the beach and the internet seems to be working better. Yeah!  Still keeping busy with camp chores and try to be finished every day by 2 or so to relax. Had my first swim of the season last week even though it was a bit windy.  Ray and I have been walking every day as well.

Ray saw the anesthesiologist finally on Thursday and they are going to give him a nerve block in August to try and get his back pain under control.  Sure hopes it works.

Here are some pictures over the last few days.

A load of logs coming into Port Alberni for the sawmills.  Note because of the current that the tug has to pull the barge over before it can get in front of it again.

Francis Barkley

The Skaubryn lumber ship.  The pictures below shows the stern that extends to the dock.

The camp supervisor is doing a great job and is beautifying the "Creek Trail".  We took a walk with Val recently to explore the recent improvements.

First swim of the summer.

July 25, 2012

Ray's mom came for a visit.  She's adamant to take a bus/ferry trip all the way to Port Alberni so we don't have to drive to Nanaimo to get her.