Monday January 3

Christmas holidays have been great this year. The snow came a bit late but now has my yard looking like a deep freeze with no auto defrost. I enjoy the winter in spite of the cold and would like to get a snow mobile some day when I have the space to store it and ride. I have many fond memories of sleds and skidoos and the frustration of trying to start them when they have not yet been plugged in for a few hours. It takes about three hundred pulls of the starter cord before one gives up and goes and makes hot chocolate instead.

It has been three or more years without being able to access or find anything in my basement. This past new years was spent cleaning, rearranging, throwing out and organizing so that once again there is a place to work on hobbies and perhaps exercise a bit too. The first project at the new work table is a doll house for my sweetie. Her brother is also building one but I would like to finish this one first!!! The second project will be the radio control tugboat started some time ago and never completed. I think I now have the correct tools to drill the propeller shaft through the hull which was the road block that halted the project before.

My sister and brother-in-law came over for a visit and we made seafood gumbo and drank wine and cognac. After dinner, we shot aliens in HALO on the XBOX. I had lost my touch and forgot about actually picking up the guns from the left over carnage (I thought running over top of them was enough - no wonder I kept running out of ammo). Soon, I will head over to their house and help wire the basement. They have a cool idea to transform it into a log cabin and it would be great fun to help out on the task. The actual log techniques were found at the Beckers lodge in Jasper.

Sunday January 9

Today seems like a good day to fire up the snowblower and make some paths for Sam (who is visiting the grandparents and will be home later). The neighbors are from Europe and they seem to know everything about gardens and trees. One trick I have learned from them is to bury your shrubs and tree trunks in snow with all the shovel leftovers from the walks. This provides a layer of insulation from the -30C temperatures and also provides plenty of water for the roots during the spring thaw. The first time I saw their impressive apple tree buried six feet under snow, I wondered what the heck is that all about. Now that the tree is flourishing in what I think is probably the wrong climate zone for this species, I think I will follow their strange methods. Look out trees - you're about to get showered in snowblower dust and sweepings of snow from the deck!

Snowblowing the paths for Sammy... 

Clearing the Driveway...

 The Grapevine Lattice with Protective Snow Pile...