End of October, Oct 21 - Oct 31st 2021

Nothing too exciting to report. The past few days we had rain on and off mixed with a little sun. Ray managed to get a couple of pictures of the fall colours and reflections across the lake when the sun peaked out for a few minutes. Everyone is commenting this year on how great the colours are.

Thursday I did a run into Duncan for some shopping. How exciting eh! Some of it for Christmas though. :) I am actually done shopping other than for some stocking stuffers for Ray. With all of the news reports of shortages and "get your shopping done early", I took heed and am done. Especially as Christmas is at our house this year with Jason, Kristi and Amelia and Jason's parents.

Friday our gardener cut a bunch of limbs off our alder trees to open up the view a bit. Lots of mess for Trent to take to the dump tomorrow. lol This is the last of our fall cleanup in the yard.

I spent the day playing in the kitchen baking cake donuts and later making lamb shanks for dinner. The InstantPot makes short work of cooking them. I picked the shanks up from Cowichan Meats in Duncan. These are from local lamb and so tasty. 

Saturday morning, more rain. There is a "weather bomb" about to hit the coast of Vancouver Island later this evening and into Sunday morning. Very heavy destructive winds predicted. I think we will be fairly sheltered here but everyone is to prepare for power outages. So Sunday and Monday will be soakers with a ton of wind. Quiet day watching the rain on the lake. 

Received a couple of picture from Kat with Stella finally fitting the jacket we got her last Christmas. lol

Such a cutie.

Sunday, pretty much the same as Saturday. The wind gusts came up a few times during the day blowing leaves from the park over here like crazy. The power bumped on and off a couple of times. The town's emergency siren went off 4 times, I'm guessing with trees on the road etc. More wind to come overnight and all day tomorrow so we shall see how that goes.

Ray managed to get out to walk the park in between showers and took some more "fall pictures". Missing his buddy for his walks though. Soon, especially with all the wind, all the leaves will be on the ground.

Monday morning, we still have power lol Today could be worse for parts of the island. After lunch we went up to Nanaimo to Jason and Kristi's. I have to babysit tomorrow early for Jason as Kristi is working in the hospital tomorrow. Yeah baby time!

We got lots of snuggles, smiles and great fun with Amelia. She sure can move around in spite of her huge cast. She slides around on the floor easily, but usually in circles or backwards. lol

Breakfast time.

Bottle time.

Cookie time with Grandpa

Investigating Zeus's tail. lol

One of Jason's appointments this morning included taking Zeus to the vet as he needs tests and would be gone all day. Poor old thing. Zeus is drinking copious amounts of water and dribbling a little ... kind of like us seniors. lol Hopefully it is an easy fix with meds.

All tired out ... nap time.

She sure goes down easily for her nap. Barely a cry and then the thumb goes in the mouth and goodnight Amelia. She stayed asleep until Kristi came back home. Perfect morning.

After doing my babysitting stint we headed out for a Costco shop, lunch at Nori Sushi and then we picked up the boat and came home. Before we left Kristi's, Ray received a phone call from Allen's Marine and they said we could come and get the boat. The parts were ordered but it could take until next spring for them to arrive. OMG another big delay in goods getting here. Oh well we don't need the boat until spring. 

Nori Sushi's Flaming Viper. Quite the show. They set it on fire at tableside.

We pulled back into our driveway by 2:30. Ray and I just unloaded the car and will deal with pushing the boat into the garage tomorrow when it's not raining. lol It will be nice to have everything settled and prepared for winter. Although Ray blew the waterlines out in the motorhome, I still need to put in the antifreeze into the tanks and sink traps so it needs to be parked permanently for the winter before I do that. I still have to empty canned goods etc. as well. Once the boat is in, the motorhome moved over and the utility trailer parked in front of the coach, the car will fit back into the garage. :)

It sure rained on and off the rest of the day with gusts pushing the rain in sheets across the lake. The lake level has raised about a foot since we were gone for just one day. Now it is just starting up on the beach at the bottom of the stairs from the lawn.

October 27

Wednesday and Thursday, more rain. Got the boat into the garage and motorhome moved into position and heater on for the winter. I still have to empty out some food staples and open up all the cupboards for air circulation, Once the rain quits this weekend, I will get in there and finish. Then we pushed the utility trailer in front of the MH so now we can put the car in the garage. 

October 28th

Friday morning we woke to no rain! Yeah! Will post a picture of the lake once it is daylight to see how much it came up overnight. It is just starting to come over the bottom step. So the lake is not rising very quickly anymore thankfully. With the next few days of sunshine hopefully it will start to recede.

October 29th

After a relaxing morning, we headed into Duncan and managed to get our flu shots at Budget Pharmacy. This is a new pharmacy that has opened in the last 6 months. They are catering to the seniors by keeping their dispensing costs down to $6.99 per prescription instead of the $12.99 they charge here in Lake Cowichan. I think we will start using them. Very nice people.

After doing some shopping and picking up the rest of the parts for Ray's fire pump, it was time for lunch at WhiteSpot. A great outing and glad to have our flu shots done.

Once back home, we spent a couple of hours down on the dock in the much appreciated sunshine. There was no wind and about 10C so very pleasant.

Garrett and Kat with Stella have come to Kristi's for the weekend so the cousins could do Halloween together. 

Hi!

Amelia is quite the contortionist sitting in her bumbo chair. I am always surprised she doesn't hurt herself but the weight of her cast keeps her planted.

Who's there?

Stella 18 months and Amelia almost 10 months.

Jason and Amelia went to their Mother Goose program all dressed up yesterday.

Baby Jedi Knight with light saber.

Sharing cereal.

I think they are having a great visit.

Saturday, a cold start at 1C outside. Time to finish putting antifreeze down the sinks in the Motorhome today. It actually got colder after we got up. By 7 am it was only 0 C outside. When it warmed up I tended to the MH and Ray did a run to the dump. Too cold with the wind today to sit outside.

After dinner we were treated to a lovely firework display from across the lake. It started at 7 pm and we had a lovely 10 minutes of colour in the sky. Ray went with his camera and tripod to the dock while I sat in a chair facing the window staying warm ... it was really cold out there. lol

Now we wait to see if we see the Northern Lights tonight with the big solar flare. Hopefully not too late tonight.

Although I got up several times on October 30th and 31st, no luck on the Northern Lights. Oh well, no one else got very good pictures either, just a slight green glow. 

Here's a few pictures of Halloween at the Perry's.

The last three days of sunshine have been a welcome event. The lake has finally receded down about 8 inches in time for the next storm.

As you see a quiet 10 days. :)