First week of summer at Kyle's Kottage

Hard to believe we are in the last week of June. Time seems to be screaming by. Sunday afternoon clouded up and the rain began. By 5pm it was teaming down. Hardest rain we've seen since moving here mid-May. It continued to rain all night. The forest sure needs it though. This first week of summer was much cooler than the past week. More typical of June weather.

This week we have more meetings scheduled with contractors for various things, mostly landscaping items. Ray has really been having trouble finding people available as most of them have been booked since early spring.  We need to get the stairs cemented in down to the beach and the rock retaining walls on both sides as some of the rocks seemed to have come loose from this past winter's high water.

Monday, was not a good start as 2 of the 4 people scheduled did not show. Hopefully the rest of the week will be better. (Wed/Thur/Fri appointments) Fingers crossed. My new housekeeper did come however .... yeah. Dusting all of our beams is way too much for me to want to take on. It has to be done via ladders. Jackie and her employee tore through the house in 2 hours and will come every two weeks for bathrooms, floors and dusting including polishing my kitchen appliances. The hood fan is a ladder show as well.

Tuesday morning we stopped at Monti's Marine in Duncan before driving to Nanaimo. Our new boat arrived last Thursday an we wanted to see it for ourselves. It will take a few more days to have all the electronics installed. Next off to Nanaimo for an appointment and a Costco run. Must get more dogfood for Freya and all of our other "doggie" visitors. lol

Kristi and Jason are on holildays so we did not get a chance to see them. :( Ray and I ate lunch at our favourite sushi place, Nori. Always worth the drive. Back home in the late afternoon and time to have an hour sitting on our deck until a huge black cloud came over.

Wednesday, up early again. Today Ray's "helper" should arrive by 7:30 am and after I feed him will get back to moving more rock for Ray. Zack arrived, breakfast served and to the rock pile for him! I headed out at 8am to get the remainder of my grocery shopping done in Duncan. Sunny with clouds for most of the day, but we did get some time on the deck late in the afternoon. By 5pm the black clouds had rolled in and showers began. It was short lived though and was done by 6:30 pm.

Thursday woke up to cloudy skies and the wind came up shortly after. Quite the difference from no wind and flat calm lake of yesterday. Of course this is the beginning of the long weekend so inclement weather is always on the menu! lol Today, Price alarms arrived for our security install. We are also having cameras installed to view the dock and driveway for the winter time when we will usually be away. Ray will be able to see the lake levels from his armchair in Arizona. lol Although this is a "gated community", the gate has been broken since last December, so hopefully it gets fixed before this winter. Someone ran into it during last winter's snow event.  Also someone forced it open instead of releasing the peg manually, so 2 problems need to be fixed. There are long-term renters in one of the houses on the street and it is believed they may have forced it. The bent part was done by Slegg Lumber and they have paid a bunch of money already towards the repair. I think the Strata is having trouble finding someone to fix it as we are somewhat off the beaten path.

Quite a busy day here at Kyle's Kottage. While Price Alarm guys were on the ladders fishing wire, the dock people came and lowered the gangway to the ground so work can start on the cement approach to the gangway. Ray had his helper tear out the old decking on the approach a couple of days ago and the neighbours were worried the whole gangway would drop, even though Ray guyed the ramp back to some trees. (I thought the same thing, but what do I know!).  Unbeknownst to Ray, the end of the gangway weighs about 900 lbs. He figured a few helpers would be able to lower it NOT!  Ray did not want to wait ... so after concerns were raised he called Cliff (who is building our new dock) and his dock guys came and dropped the ramp the same day. Disaster adverted.

The "before" picture before Ray's planned destruction!

And just like that "down she goes". In three weeks, the new concrete support for the gangway will be poured, hopefully. We can still get to the dock via the beach stairs. Of course everyone was there at the same time.

Price Alarm guys, (There were 3 of them but I only got a picture of two of them lol)

The gardener's arrived to mow the lawn right when the dock guys were here!

Ray's "vision" is starting to come together.  A slate patio by the front door will be removed (replaced by stamped concrete) and used for the back steps.  Hopefully there will be enough slate pieces left over to finish off the path you can see heading to the right in the picture.

Friday it was cloudy and started to rain ... of course the beginning of the long-weekend. Good thing Garrett and Kat are not coming for the weekend as BC Ferries is down a ship from Horseshoe Bay and they are cancelling people's reservations. Lots of unhappy people. This weekend, here at Laketown Ranch, they are having a 3 day music event. Too bad the weather is so crappy. Some of the headliners are Colin James, Collective Soul and Creedence Clearwater Revisited, not to mention Sass Jordon, Kim Mitchell and Youngblood.

Price Alarm spent the day finishing the install for the camera's and wireless sensors for the patio doors, wireless smoke detectors, as well as a flood alarm for the basement. Ray hired another landscaper who came this morning to finish off removing the rest of the dock approach to the front of the house in preparation for a dump run tomorrow by our gardeners. Ray has some more garden projects for Gord to do including spreading new topsoil for gardens and replanting some grass. We had Zack move a bunch of plants from the back yard to the front on Wednesday.  Eventually new plants will be purchased and then finished off with bark mulch in all the garden areas. Apparently the deer here eat a ton of stuff so we are trying to plant only deer resistance shrubs.

That's it for this week. Even in the rain the young girls visiting next door were swimming! Yikes.