Feeling of Fall Sept 7 - 16

September 7th - The feeling of Fall

New plant in my front garden finally bloomed nestled in with my rosemary bush. Should provide some fall colour for a few months, I hope.

Tuesday, last day of really nice warm weather. We drove into Duncan to run a few errands. Sure nice there is very little traffic on the roads and in the stores, with the kids back to school. Back home by noon and after a quick lunch we sat ourselves down at the dock for the rest of the afternoon at 28C. If Martin hadn't help pull up the last ladder for the winter .... I might have gone swimming. lol

Wednesday morning we woke up to showers. Great hearing the rain on the roof. By 8:30 the rain had quit and it just stayed mostly cloudy for the rest of the day. Nothing too exciting happening here. :)

Thursday. so interesting I forgot all about it. :) except for this picture of Amelia helping her daddy bake. lol. We've opted not to see Amelia for 10 days after having Martin and Suzanne come visit, as Suzanne was in contact with a bunch of other people while in Victoria. Amelia's hip surgery is coming up on September 21st and being a baby she is not vaccinated we did not want to take any chances. 

Oh yes, I took Freya for her annual Vet Appointment... not too impressed!

She is doing OK for her age. Upped her gabapentin, otherwise we decided no annual vaccinations and medicine for her yeast infection of her ears. It really is a wait and see game as to when she loses her interest in living, as her pain level increases due to old age and blown out knees. She's happy to come home and slept for the whole afternoon.

Friday morning, although cloudy, it's quite warm out, so we went fishing in the narrows. Spent a couple hours washing our gear. lol No fishies today. 

Saturday woke to some showers, hopefully the skies open up and really rain today. An inside day today.

Sunday morning the sun managed to come back out. We really did not get a "downpour" although it drizzled all day yesterday. Looks like there may be some substantial rain later this week. Fingers crossed.

Spent the day doing laundry while Ray went out and tried fishing... nada. Later in the afternoon Pat texted for us to go over to view their new, to them, motorhome. Lovely. Pat and her friend Mary came back over to our house for Ray's famous margarita's. We sat on our deck for an hour. Great end to the weekend. We also saw a Harbour Air flight take off in the lake in front of us which is quite unusual

Clouded up again at 5 pm.

Monday went by in a blur. Didn't do much but the day went. lol

Tuesday, we took the motorhome in for service to get a coolant leak fixed and Ray's cruise control installed. I'd ordered and finally received the part from Tiffin. Our RV Tech is still sourcing out the parts needed for my stove. Apparently there was a recall on this valve system October 2022 for the very problem we experience of it eating up the gaskets and leaking propane! 

It is also Grandparents Day, so Kat sent us this picture with Stella, our other granddaughter. She is getting so big at 16 months old.

After dropping off the coach, I picked Ray up to run our errands and grocery shopping. With the vaccine passport now mandated, we decided to bite the bullet and go to one of our favourite places to eat in Duncan, Original Joe's for their fish and chips. It's been over 2 years since our last visit due to Covid. As usual it is great beer and even better fish and chips. Just like we remembered. Back home by 2:00 pm. Freya is happy to see us. :) She had a rough night last night with pain and constantly licking so I left her all dressed up in a t-shirt of mine so she would not cause a hot spot while we weren't at home. It lightly showered on and off all day.

Not impressed!

Wednesday, the clouds parted and it's shaping up to be a nice day. Unfortunately, Ray's back is worse for wear so it will be a down day for him other than taking the car in for new tires in preparation for staying here for another winter. Towing our car seems to wear the tires down more than it should.  

I spent the morning putting away all the furniture on the deck that we don't need for the winter and put the rain covers on top of the other furniture under the gazebo. Dock boxes were emptied of cushions etc. and the white plastic loungers put in the deck box for the winter. I was quite tired after all the "stair climbing" I did. Great exercise. lol This all in preparation for the big rain storm coming on Friday. The first of many I expect.

An unexpected squall come through at about 7 pm. Great rainbow. Got very dark looking down the lake.

But towards town there is this beautiful rainbow, that morphed into a double one.

Thursday morning we hit the road at 8 am for Nanaimo. We needed to get our old barbecue up to the kids, as they've no time to come and get it. It's taking real estate in our garage, and it is now the time of year where stuff goes back into the garage for the fall/winter. lol

We were at Jason and Kristi's by 9 am for our short visit with Amelia. Freya came too. Kristi is back working fulltime. We waited for her to wake up from her nap. Lovely to see her again after three weeks. I gave her the bottle and then Grandpa got his turn to hold her. Lots of smiles. She is fascinated by Grandpa.

She is sitting up so well, so I sat her on the couch with me to play. Amelia loves the new book her Auntie Kat sent her. Of course the flapping trout also is a hit. :)

Jason was taking her swimming at the pool for the first time this morning with a bunch of other moms and babies, so our visit was pretty short. We did our Costco run, leaving Freya and the trailer at Jason's. After shopping ,we ate lunch at Nori Sushi adjacent to Costco. Never disappointed coming here. Fabulous sushi.

There was just enough left over for Ray's dinner. :)

Back at Jason's, we picked up Freya, Zeus and our utility trailer and headed home.  Unfortunately, Amelia was napping again so we did not stick around. We are taking Zeus for a week as Amelia goes in for her surgery next Tuesday and Kristi and Jason will be taking her to Victoria on Sunday in advance of her surgery.

On the way home we stopped and picked up the motorhome so it's back in our driveway. Repairs to the coolant system was poor connections with the hoses. Cruise control is back working with new module installed and they fixed and repaired our wiper blades, apparently they were barely hanging on. lol They did not that we have a recall for "something" on the Cummins diesel so have ordered the part, fortunately we won't have to pay the $2000 or so for that repair.

That's been our last 10 days. lol Nothing terrifically exciting. Fire ban is now off so we can have a campfire again when the weather permits.