Give me a BRAKE!!!!

On Thursday morning I dropped my car off at Kootenay Lake Automotive because the brakes were making a weird sound. I asked them to call me with a quote when they knew what was wrong (they did... full brake job - front and back required), and Norm and I headed off to Kelowna in our just-fixed van (oxygen sensor malfunction) to exchange our box springs for low profile box springs (plural because they now split the box springs on new beds so they're easier to get in the house, and to transport... wise invention, that!).


Stopped for gas in New Denver and suddenly the van was lurching up the highway in a most unnatural way. We turned around and went right back to the Petrocan station where we'd gassed up, and the front left wheel was smoking when we got there. 


The guy told us it looked like the calipers had seized and that we'd have to have it repaired. He wasn't sure he could do it overnight so gave me the name of a place in Nakusp that rents vehicles, and while I was on the phone with them, he talked to a service station in Nakusp that said they could tow and fix our van by the next day.

  Waiting for our rental... 

The car rental place in Nakusp not only had a van (remember, we were carrying box springs), but they agreed to drive the 45 minutes to pick us up too! Crisis averted, and off we went to Kelowna to exchange our box springs, and do a little shopping at Value Village. 


This is our rental van... we've stopped for lunch at Lost Lake.

Some of our Value Village purchases... including Norm's new hat. I'm not sure why he likes to point at his watch in photos... it's a posing thing.

Check out the buns! They're real butter croissants!

Friday we spent a short time visiting with my sister and nephew, and then headed for Nakusp to pick up our newly fixed van - which was ready and waiting for us! Talk about smooth sailing. Expensive, but smooth! Thank you SO much to the amazing folks at the New Denver Petrocan... you guys ROCK! 

We enjoy a late coffee and early supper with our 

fixed van back with us... I love our van (and wine)!

And I should also mention that today is Chicken Thursday's second birthday! Happy birthday to the namesake of this blog, and my first (and only, now that we have no rooster) grandchicken!

Our Bees Swarmed Today!

Wikipedia says that swarming is the natural means of reproduction of honey bee colonies. A new honey bee colony is formed when the queen bee leaves the colony with a large group of worker bees. In the prime swarm, about 60% of the worker bees leave the original hive location with the old queen. This swarm can contain thousands to tens of thousands of bees. Swarming is mainly a spring phenomenon, usually within a two- or three-week period, depending on the locale, but occasionally swarms can happen throughout the producing season. 

 Norm grabs huge handfuls of the bees from the bush and shakes them off onto the super, with his bare hands...

Only stung twice, and not while he was grabbing them by the clumpful (is that a word?)!!

This is video of me being brave and Norm in a hurry and not his usual gentle, explaining kind of guy!

 The new hive is set up next to the old one... hopefully they'll stick around!

Halcyon With the Girls

Saturday, May 5th, 9:30 am... picked up Heather, then Patricia, and finally Deb. We are going to Halcyon Hot Springs, about 25 minutes north of Nakusp on Arrow Lake. It's my first, and their annual weekend of soaking, eating and playing Euchre. 

This is my Ford Fusion with the huge trunk. Four women, ONE NIGHT, and there's enough stuff in there to satisfy everyone in a small village for a month.

Heather has to stop and pee lots... our first stop less than an hour into the journey (and she peed before we left her house too)... But the cool thing about Heather is that she is happy and excited and doesn't care if we tease her. She's just glad to be alive and going on a little holiday with her buddies!

A quick stop for shopping and lunch in Nakusp. I love Nakusp!

 Me and Heather in front of the store where I bought a bunch of  neat stuff... Hey Isabelle, check out my sunglasses! Nice, eh?!

 Me, Deb (I think my hand was touching her butt right then, hence the expression of pure delight? disgust? Hard to say...), Heather and Patricia. We're standing in front of the Leland Hotel - nice spot for lunch with a hilarious Italian cook and a view to die for...

Nice paint job! 

Finally, we arrive!

 The view from our kitchen window in Village Chalet 11B... a perfect room with two queen beds, a hide-a-bed couch, kitchenette (only with a barbecue, fridge and microwave, mind you) and a very short walk to the pool.

Ready to go for our first soak and I didn't think to bring pool shoes. Do you have any idea how much it embarrasses me to be seen in public looking like a dork? 

Left the pool because I wanted a drink, so we played a few games of Euchre... Patricia and I are the champions!

Okay... had drinks and snacks and several games of Euchre... back to the pool till we decided it was time to cook supper.

Heather cooked the steaks, I brought salad...

Deb made scalloped potatoes and garlic toast, and Patricia did a lovely lemony cheesecake. A veritable feast with only a microwave and a barbecue!!

It was super moon night. 

After hours of food and drink, laughter and cards, we finally went to sleep. I believe the last words of the evening were, "good night, John Boy". 

Another soak before heading home... it was sunny and some of us got burnt.

                 Applying cream to sooth our hot faces.

 Late lunch in Winlaw and then home. I wanted to blog about all the funny things we said and saw, but I think you had to be there. Either that or the sun fried my brain, because I can't think of a single funny thing right now, even though my stomach muscles still hurt from laughing all weekend.

Thanks to Heather for organizing the weekend, and to all of you for making me a part of the gang!

I'm Still Here

There's this lady named Laura who lives in Eastern USA, has 4 kids and bakes for a living. She's hilarious and every time I read her posts I want to be just like her. Except for the 4 kids, lack of money, broken car, sore neck and husband who's away half the time. You should check her out. Her blog is http://mylifeisapieceofcake.blogspot.ca/  and she's very funny... also an excellent photographer.

My life has been in flux. I have been learning the symptoms of menopause. Muscle pain, hot flashes, confusion, mood swings, extreme fatigue, night sweats, insomnia, gastrointestinal issues, memory loss... and that's on top of bleeding (WTF? I haven't had to deal with that for months) and cramping. The muscle pain has been very weird. I kept wondering what I'd done to cause it, (I've done very little lately...)  assuming it was the mattress... 25 years old and sagging where we laid, and it definitely got worse a month ago when I put the better of our two mattresses on our guest bed for our nephew and his wife's visit...  So I'm sure it was partially due to the mattress, but I think too that menopause played a part.

 FINALLY we got our new mattress set. It was to be delivered on March 15th, so April 5th ain't so bad. *I shake my fist at you The Bay*..

The box spring is in two pieces... that's very ingenious... and much easier to get up the stairs. The mattress has no handles, which is probably for the best as I curse the handles anyhow.. they always rip. But how are you supposed to manage the thing? It's huge and it sways and it's heavy. We just moved all the wall art, knick-knacks and tippy furniture between the front door and our bedroom and things went so smoothly we barely argued!

I had a great sleep last night. Not the actual sleeping so much, but the muscle part. No back ache when I woke up this morning, for the first time in a year (psychosomatic... I think so!). I wonder though why my arms still fell asleep. I really felt that they should sink into the pillow top and not have their circulation cut off by my body, but they did. And we're now so high up that I can't see my alarm clock, and I can see everything outside, and I'm about 6 inches closer to the beam on our ceiling that gives me nightmares every time I wake up and see it looming above me. And the moon shone in my eyes and kept waking me... I think I'll sleep well tonight because I'm exhausted from last night, and I was outside so much today I got my first face sunburn, plus I was active and now I'm really tired from that.

This was us yesterday. I started off the day by washing and line drying the bed skirt, sheets, mattress protector, and duvet cover, and machine drying the duvet and feather pillows (don't EVER spend your money on dry cleaning duvets or feather pillows... ask me how it's done!!). Then we drove an hour and a half to Trail to pick up our mattress set, drove home, carried it up the stairs and put everything back to rights. I wanted to post this pic on Facebook yesterday but was appalled at how big my gut is and how you can barely see Norm beside me. But today I figure, meh. It's funny. This is me. Tired. Fat. Loving my new mattress set. Hating my menopause. The saga continues...

Momo the Rooster

Momo is our rooster. He's the cover photo for my blog...

Not only is he beautiful, but he's kind and gentle and a lovely rooster. He never fights unless he feels threatened, he always waits till the girls eat first, and he is constantly vigilant, watching for birds of prey, coyotes, raccoons, and any other creatures lurking in the neighbourhood who like to eat poultry. He's also pretty okay with being cuddled, although I have yet to meet a chicken who really likes it.

Yesterday Momo was sneezing a lot... I laughed. A chicken sneezing is a funny sound. Kind of like the way I laugh when he tries to crow.

Today he was obviously sick, so I brought him in the house. The other chickens will peck at a sick chicken, and who knows if he's contagious or not. Momo has been in a box in my living room all day. He's gasping and wheezing and has a rattle in his chest when he breathes. He's also coughing up blood. It doesn't look good. I posted the story on facebook and a couple of people thought I should take him to a vet. What they don't understand is that chickens are kind of like goldfish. They are wonderful pets, but when they die you just get another one. Spending hundreds of dollars on a vet every time a chicken got sick would be ridiculous (as much as I would love to), so I just try to make him as comfortable as possible and hope for the best.

I have cried more today than I have for a long, long time. I pray that Momo gets better, but if not I hope he goes quickly so he doesn't have to suffer much more. He's quiet now, except for the occasional cough.
Rest in peace my beautiful boy...

Update: Norm came to bed at 12:25 last night and I woke up. Momo was gasping in the most heartbreaking way and Norm said he'd been resting quietly and the gasping had just started about 5 or 10 minutes prior. I couldn't stand it so I went down to sit with him. I put him on my lap and held him while he strained to breathe. He was exhausted and I could tell he wouldn't last long (and if he had I was contemplating murder). It took about 20 minutes for Momo to die, and I am so glad he didn't linger because it was horrible to watch. Now I can imagine a parent with an asthmatic child.

So now there are eight... my girls.

Winter Wonderland

It's been snowing for about 30 hours now... haven't seen a snow plow yet and our little dead-end road is silent and untouched.

Winter is very monochromatic. 

I miss color. 

Everything is shades of white and grey.

All our trees and shrubs lose their leaves, so there are just a bunch of naked branches in our yard right now.

My pond has disappeared under a blanket of snow. 

The bridge to the gazebo is pristine and untouched.

Our maples, which are riotous with color in the fall are sound asleep and not trying to impress anyone.

this is what they're like in the fall...

The birds have gone south...

It's very quiet...

A splash of color in the monotony...

The chickens are hunkered down... we built them a lean-to so they can play in the dirt, even in the winter, but they don't like coming outside when there's this much snow, so they're just hanging around inside, doing nothing because there's nothing much to do.

Oops... I guess I was wrong!

I asked my sister to buy me a dwarf Alberta spruce for my birthday a few years ago, to brighten up my yard with greenery in the winter... this is it.

Today is an inside day, except Norm is out snow-blowing with our tractor. We named it Bob - I say Big... Norm says Baby... Orange (we agree on that) - I say Beast Norm says Brute or Boy... we bought it from Bob's widow, our neighbour, and it always reminds us of Bob, who passed away last spring and used to plow us out every winter.

I have assumed the position and plan to remain here much of the day!