Saturday we woke to cloudy skies with some wind ... not a great day to try out the kayak so hopefully tomorrow will be better. The sun did manage to come out for the afternoon though. Not too much activity on the lake today. Took a drive into Duncan in the morning so I could go to the farmer's market and see the "massage guy". He sure does a good job loosening my neck. We stopped on the way back home to check on our boat. The electric trolling motor has arrived so I believe we should receive delivery of the boat by Wednesday. :)
Sunday woke to a beautiful morning, so after coffee, off I went in my new "boat".
I only went for about half an hour as I'm still suffering with a sore neck and the massage therapist said a little is good to stretch it, but too much will hurt me. A lovely morning. The kayak travels nicely in the water with little effort.
The rest of the morning was inside chores for me ... laundry, kitchen etc. Ray spent an hour or so hosing out our front porch area ... we have bats in the belfry! We were told the bats roosted there the previous year, but the previous owner had someone come in and fill the holes. Turns out they squished in steel wool and put an electronic mouse gadget in the plug. This obviously is not working so I researched that if you spray their nests with water every day they will leave. So that is what we are trying out now. We will have to get the contractor to investigate and get all holes sealed with foam or something. Unfortunately you have to do this when they're off hunting in the night! They are a protected species. Update ... I looked up above the door and the bats are not inside the house they are clinging to the sides of the siding at the top of the A-frame. There are 5 or 6 about the size of small mice. Don't know what we are going to do. If they were anywhere besides over the front door pooping, we would leave them be as they definitely kill a lot of mosquitos.
Monday was a beautiful sunrise, I guess because it's supposed to rain later today. I got to see the pictures ... Ray was up before me and managed to take a picture.
Today our new contractor comes for a site meeting. Hopefully this will go well and we can start moving forward instead of backwards!
As it turned out, Dave and his builder Roger, are a fountain of information and were able to give us real solutions to the items listed. Hopefully they will give us a reasonable quote and a livable timeline for us. :) Fingers crossed. There is so much to do to seal up the house from weather and the whole sundeck including the supports need to be replaced ... it is more rotten than we thought. Because of the poor decking job (tongue and groove cargo planks) and no gutters for the past 7 of the 8 years, the timbers in the deck that are worth thousands of dollars are all useless. Such a shame. Some of the timbers might be able to be saved if each one was planed down to get rid of the black mold and see if they can be salvaged. The time spent to do this is not worth it, so the deck will be started completely over without using fir timbers. Dave believes they can save the gazebo though. Might just need to cut off a little bit on each post lowering it to get rid of any rot from the floor. It will be just a pain to move it on rollers out the way when they are working as the thing weighs too much to get it off the deck safely. I don't think the deck will get started until mid-September so concrete will probably not be done until after that either.
Our "landscape plan" will have to wait until the fall with the moving of materials in and out of the backyard. He suggests that we just put patio stones on the lawn and get the hot tub here and put there temporarily so Ray can use it. The lawn currently is a disaster anyways.
Dave also has ideas how to vent the hot air out of the foyer without putting in expensive window coverings .... by upgrading the fan in the garage that is supposed to suck out the air. The current one only pulls 250CFM and for it to be effective venting 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms and the foyer that it was designed to do, should be at least 400CFM if not bigger.
The "dock guy" sent a crew over to develop a quote for a new concrete ramp approach. He's planning to start the approach to the ramp later next week. Also the sundeck will get started late in August before the monsoons and after all the company. Not such a bad thing, especially with the weather forecast to be nothing but sunshine for the next 2 weeks after today. :)
Garrett and Kat continue to send us pictures of their twelve day car camping trip to Jasper in their new Subaru. This is the first holiday they've had together to go explore. They are having a great time. Kat is getting some awesome pictures.
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| That's our boy standing tall :) |
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| The took a helicopter ride over the Columbia Icefields (Arn't they cute!) |
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| Great picture with the blue water and clouds. |
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| Garrett said his car almost got nibbled on by these big horn sheep. lol |
I did some reading and spraying them with water will encourage them to move on. Ray sprayed them this morning and after they dried off they took off. Hopefully they don't come back. We will check again tomorrow and spray again if necessary. Thankfully it is only a small colony and they are not inside the house.
Wednesday morning there were no bats so our plan worked to get rid of them but not harm them. We will keep an eye out for further infestation. :) After a quick run into Duncan to stock up on safety gear for the new boat, it was back home to enjoy a swim and some dock time. It was gorgeous out with very little wind. Lots of activity on the lake especially at 4 pm when people get off work and taking their kids tubing. The water is getting warm ... at least the top 8" of it. I sat out in my floating lounger for awhile to cool off then it was time to sit under the umbrella.
Thursday we woke to another beautiful day. My new stove arrives today. Yeah. The burners on the current one are not heating up sufficiently. One burner does not light without a lighter and the bottom oven/warming drawer also doesn't work. A bunch of buttons on the touch screen also do not light up so other functions are not working. Apparently the previous owner bought an Electrolux Appliance package and everything has been replaced except this stove and beverage fridge. Although she replaced the fridge some time ago, the freezer handle is loose and unable to be tightened, (Ray has tried multiple times) so I guess I am kind of getting a "new kitchen" after all. This fridge probably will get replaced as well down the road.
Well the stove is here ... but not put together or connected to the gas. We were not told that it comes in pieces to be put together or that it needs to be converted to propane etc. Not happy. Guests coming for the weekend and this is what I've got. No gas line, no legs on, no deflector on .... and too heavy to move from where it was left! Fabulous!!!! I arranged for a gas fitter to stop by long enough to attach the gas line after his work but this is way more than he has time for. :( So it will sit in the middle of the kitchen at least for the weekend!
Later in the afternoon we did manage to contact a plumber/gasfitter company recommended to us from Coast Appliances. They may be able to come tomorrow. Fingers Crossed! We still need to get one of the upstairs ensuite bathroom showers fixed. It only has hot water in the shower ... no cold. Kristi almost burnt herself. We had called them 2 days ago to come and fix this problem and it turns out they probably can help us with my new range too.
PS Bats are still gone. Yeah. We took the motorhome in for it's servicing this afternoon, making room to get the new boat trailer in the garage when we pick up the boat tomorrow. Lots of stuff going on still here at Kyle's Kottage.
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