Leaving City Life Behind

Greetings and my apologies, as it is three weeks since my last post on the 23rd July, so I am a week late.  While areas of the build have progressed well there have been some problems which have led to delay while these were discussed and thought through in order to reach solutions.  Further, last week we lost two days, Monday due to the August statutory holiday, and Tuesday as Jason's team were off site pouring concrete for a large garage build he is undertaking for another client down at Sweetwater (further south on the lake near the US border).  So for all these reasons I delayed my latest post. At the end of my last post I left my readers with this photo of all the post and beam system, timber roof and front deck structure in place. Week of 24 July proved productive with nearly four days of Bob Damstrom's team fitting the Tongue and Groove (T&G) 2"x6"clear coat (varnished) pine roof decking over the timber roof rafters.  Readers will recall I and my landlo...

Since my last post on Sunday 9th July, the BC wildfires further north have continued to rage, often with devastating effect.  I think current tote is 150+ fires, most manageable by the firefighters, but some out of control at 3000 to 4000 HA (30 to 40 km sq), and one of nearly 50,000 HA (500 km sq) up in one of the remote parks.  To give those readers back in UK a feel for scale and distance, BC is 944,735 sq km and UK (which at this date still includes Scotland) is 242,495 sq km, so BC is roughly 4 x the size of UK.  The map below gives an overview of where the fires are today in relationship to my location at KCR (Koocanusa Ranch) down near the US border. Of the bigger fires, 100 Mile House is approx 600 km away as the crow flies, and Williams Lake about 800 km away. Williams Lake is a town of 10,000 people and was evacuated a week ago as a precaution.  Down here, so far, we have been fine, with a couple of small fires within 40 km of my location that were quickly ...