Is it Summer or Spring?

What a difference from last week. Tuesday, March 19th is spectacular. Temperature is 20C at 3:30 pm. Ray and I did our chores in the morning and spent a couple of hours in the afternoon sitting in the sun on the dock. There was some wind down there so we needed our fleece.  In our driveway, at the front of the house, you could have been in shorts and a t-shirt! Unfortunately our lake is really low and the weir has not been put in yet.  Hopefully, when they install it April 1st, it rains for a couple of weeks or we will be in trouble this summer. See how much beach is showing ... it should be up to the shrubs at this time of year.








Wednesday morning, up early dealing with the paperwork for Dad's final Estate Taxes that are due by the 23rd of March. Just received paperwork from the accountant at 9 pm last night and will have to priority post it back this morning. This should be the end of it other than waiting for the Clearance Certificate. Then I will be able to shred all the boxes of old tax info that I have stored. Shaping up to be another stellar weather day.

Ray and I headed to Duncan to pick up a few things and then back home for the first Wiener Roast of the season at our neighbours, Pat and Darryl's with all of the grandchildren and family. It was a balmy 20C out. What a great way to spend a few hours. They have a beautiful sandy beach in front of their house.


Pat's grandchildren, Ashton, Sevie and Emily.

Pat's family.

The hostess with the mostess, Pat!

Thursday was also a nice day although not as warm as yesterday. We did manage to sit for an hour outside on the back lawn out of the wind to enjoy the sunshine.

Friday morning, David Coulson and the tile guys showed up around 9am. David is definitely supervising them himself and he is also doing the hearth for the propane stove downstairs himself ... he really does want us "out of his hair". The feeling is quite mutual.




The new hearthstone will take about 2 weeks to be manufactured after the template was made so work still to be done. So here we go from finished to "unfinished" again due to poor workmanship and not having the correct materials on site ...we had asked for slate and agreed to the stone only because they did not have it and did a crappy job using stone. At least Dave agreed with our opinion.  Stripped down now for the slate piece.




The tile guys finished shortly before 3pm... David gave up about 1:30 pm complaining his back was too sore and he'll have to stay supervising.

Glad today is over .... and the deck is finally finished since it was demolished on September 4th, 2018, only 6 1/2 months later!

Clouds are coming in with rain forecast overnight. We certainly have not had many days with that just snow. lol

Saturday morning Ray was up pretty early ... I did not get up until 6:15 am, a sleep in for me. lol

Once we had our weekly Saturday morning coffee and Carolan's and later breakfast,we headed into Duncan to the Farmer's Market for my massage. Here is a picture of the old Duncan Train Station which is close to the market.



Next up was to Dinter's Nursery to discuss deer resistant shrubs.There appears to be quite a few choices for me to further investigate.

Picture from google

On the way back we stopped at the Old Farm Market. Several people have told me that they have great mostly local produce with reasonable prices. I found this to be true. Definitely an eclectic place.

They have a really huge oak tree out front.




They also have a small deli restaurant attached to the market. This place is hopping in the summer.






Next up, a place we have talked about checking out since we moved here, Red Arrow Brewing. They are owned by the people who own the Craig Street Pub in Duncan and Jake's at the Lake here in Lake Cowichan. This brewing company makes all their beer for both places. On site at the Brewery they have a Food Trailer called Jake's on the Road where they provide burgers for the clientele visiting the brewery. Lunch was great and we shared a flight of 3 brews. You could eat inside or out on their patio. We started at the patio but it was too cool so went inside.

Nice and cozy in here.

After lunch it was time to come back home to rescue Freya. A lovely morning interlude doing something different. Back home to relax for the afternoon watching the "moods of the lake" with the sun and clouds and sprinkles of rain.

That was our week.