Glorious weather and Martin comes to visit.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday ... so far this week has been stellar. The weather is fabulous, warm and sunny. Our irrigation system is on and helping me keep the new grass seed wet so it will germinate. The birds think I have provided them with a feast though. ha ha. The other new plantings seem to be happy.

 After Saturday's lake traffic and noise, Sunday was surprisingly very quiet on the lake. Ray and I took a drive over to where they are clearing trees on the other side of the lake on Sunday afternoon to have a look. They seem to be leaving a strip of trees so it won't be completely cleared. So far they seem to be putting in an access road.

Monday, the noise of chainsaws and excavator is still continuing on the other side of the lake. The neighbour to the left of us has a small crew hammering and sawing replacing the boards on the approach to their gangway. We can also hear another excavator further down the lake towards town clearing another lot for a lakeview house. Ray and I took off to Nanaimo for a Costco run and to stop in and pick up mail at Kristi's and Jason's. A great day to travel on the highway. I now have 3 new hanging baskets for the front of the house. (My Mother's Day present to myself lol) My garden room looks great.

Ray managed to finish painting the lattice for me on the weekend and we installed them today.

To hold up my sweet peas.

We also managed to have the boat pulled out of the garage for us by our electricians who were luckily working next door. Will be ready for launch sometime this week once the car's lighting system is fixed.

Kyle's Kraft emerges from its cocoon!

My strawberry planter finally arrived from Amazon yesterday so will need to pop into Duncan and purchase the plants to put it it. This is for Ray as he loves fresh strawberries and planting them in the yard with the deer is not an option. lol After this I am officially done with any planting, now I get to watch everything grow.

Tuesday went shopping to Duncan, had a pedicure and came back with strawberry plants. Another gorgeous day. We had a huge hatch of carpenter ants, a lot of them with wings. Wow. Ray and I were squishing them like crazy on our front driveway as we were sitting out there. By the end of the day with the driveway so hot from the sun they were "cooking" themselves. The next morning only a few were seen. This all happened over 12 hours. Very strange. Roy, our neighbour says this happens every year about the same time.

Wednesday was "boat day". First thing in the morning we tried to launch the boat ... dead batteries. Ray had charged them he thought too, but we did not think to check them. :( Oh well back in driveway hooked up to the charger again. I took Ray's electric motor and battery down to the beach and they were all hooked up and charger put on it as well. Washing the kayaks came next. At noon I launched and had a paddle around for about 20 minutes but came back as the wind started blowing. Did not want to hurt my neck either ... just need to slowly strengthen the muscles so I can finally get rid of this neck pain.

Now Ray will be able to fish early in the mornings ... the fish are rising and other people are using various craft to get out there, even a paddle board. lol

We also saw a bunch of kids learning how to paddle a large canoe.

I planted the strawberry plants into my new planter. Once they grow Ray should have tons of fresh strawberries to eat. That concludes all of my planting for this spring other than encouraging more grass seed to sprout in the bald spots in our lawn.

Ray and I had a date night and went out to the Chemainus Dinner Theater and saw the production "Foreigner". We had a great buffet dinner and the play was a hoot. Lots of laughing. A lovely venue.

Thursday, surprise another gorgeous day. Our new deck boxes arrived shortly after noon today. A fellow named Ryan came this morning and erected our new gazebo on the dock in about 3 1/2 hours. Unfortunately 2 of the roof panels are a different "black" than the rest. Hopefully the hot sun will bleach them this summer. Too much of a hassle to try and get them replaced!

Ray dealt with the battery issue in the boat by taking the battery in to Duncan to Monti's Marine. Monti's kept it overnight to confirm that it was shot ... it was as it only charged up to 11 instead of 13.



Friday morning out of the house early delivering the coach to Revy RV and pick up new battery at Monti's Marine. With our neighbour Darryl's help the boat was in the water by 11 am and shortly thereafter at the dock.

Here Ray comes ...

One happy camper!

The empty trailer was tucked back into the boat garage. Tonight, Martin is coming for the night and bringing us some firewood ... what a nice guy. Otherwise Ray spent some time putting a deck box together and I did laundry and did some dinner prep in advance of company. Freya spent her time in and out of the water, by noon it is 24C outside.

Our neighbours tree stump was towed away today as well. This arrived because of the high water in December and was getting stuck under docks so the neighbours tied it up to suspend it between the 2 docks.

And there it goes.

When Martin arrived at 3 pm it was 28C ... wow pretty hot. Martin after working in the woods all day was so hot he actually dove into the lake. It was a balmy 58F  Yikes, pretty cold he sure got back out of the water quickly. lol

After a cold beverage sitting on the dock, Martin and Ray drove back to Revy RV to pick up the motorhome. Once back it was time for dinner. 

After dinner we noticed all of the fish rising so Ray and Martin spent half an hour trying to catch them but were unsuccessful.

A great day catching up. We all were in bed by 9:30. Martin tried to stay up and watch TV upstairs but found himself asleep on the couch shortly after turning on the TV. When he woke up an hour or so later then he went to bed he tells me.

Saturday morning after coffee and Carolan's, Ray and Martin headed out to fish in the boat. This will be the first time Ray has been out fishing in our boat as we never seemed to have the time last year with all the work going on at the house and yard.  For "Mother's Day" Ray purchased a new casting rod for me from our local fishing store and Martin will get to try it out this morning.

And they are off!

After a couple of hours the boys came back for breakfast. Ray caught a real small fish but otherwise no luck. They had a blast though and fished a spot that Ray has been thinking about since we checked it out last summer.

Martin and I unloaded his truck with the fir rounds and took them to the back yard so he could split them for me. As he worked through the rounds I did all of the stacking. We now have double the wood all bone dry.

Martin was so hot from chopping he actually jumped in the lake and popped out just as quickly. Next into the hot tub ... back into the lake and back into the hot tub. Thanks a bunch for the wood Martin. He has been working really hard with 12 hour days lately and working in the bush with the hot temperatures this week. He is pretty pooped. One beer and it was "lights out". lol

Ray and I took him out for lunch at Jakes on the Lake as a thank you. Back home he had a half an hour nap and then we sent him on his way back home.

For Saturday night we had been invited to dinner at Pat and Darryl's where we met some other neighbours, Paul and Lynn. Fabulous evening. We had a blast. Thanks for a great dinner Pat. Of course we were so busy yapping we forgot to take any pictures.

A great week of wonderful weather.