Leaving City Life Behind

Greetings from my shack on the side of a BC mountain. In my last update dated 7 th  November I said I would provide another in late January or early February, so I am clearly in naval terms “somewhat adrift.” But to be fair I had nothing to show in terms of progress until now. Thanks to those who, having seen nothing from me, made contact in late March to check all was well just as the world went into Covid 19 lockdown.  My readers will recall from the last edition that I had spent the best part of 30 days physical effort in September and October completing my patio’s stone retaining wall, installing my entrance steps (using a system of wooden chocks, slides and levers to move the 220lb cut rock slabs) and completing the groundwork for the concrete patio pour.  Then, ready last week of October, the weather turned unseasonably cold, dropping to between -7C and -14C at night and barely creeping up to +4C by day.  Those conditions are rather more typical ...

Greetings, Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?  When I published my last update on the 8th July I said I would aim to publish this next update late August, and here we are in early November.  Inevitably I once again underestimated the scale of some of the house finishing tasks I had set myself, and wanted to complete those before giving my readers an update.  But in addition I have also spent a considerable part of my summer just enjoying the weather while doing some exercise, a limited amount of local exploring, and enjoying the views from my decks while reading some good books and just "chilling." Further to that, with the initial two years of pretty intense pressure planning and then subsequently project managing my various contractors for the main build up to occupancy over, and then a year largely progressing subsequent finishing work inside, I decided to use this third summer in BC to get to know my Calgary weekend neighbours rather better.  Mos...