On Thursday night, Justine and I made a first tentative step towards things feeling like they are getting somewhat back to normal, post-COVID. We headed downtown and went to the Orpheum theatre to see a concert! The show was the Bahamas, one of Justine’s favs with Madison Cunningham as the opening act.
Read MoreA Week on Galiano for Justine’s Birthday
In our continuing experiments to understand cottage living, and how well we can work from Galiano, we decide to spend 10 days on Galiano, starting with Justine’s birthday weekend and through the following week. We got some work done around the property, had some great wildlife encounters and spent a lot of time indoors hiding from the weather. We ended up heading home on the Monday morning in the middle of the torrential “atmospheric river” that devastated the rest of BC.
Read MoreAnother Visit to Reifel
This past weekend Justine and I went out to Reifel to have a walk in the sunshine and see what was around. We’ve had so much rain this fall (after the drought that was the summer) that it was wonderful to see the sun for a whole weekend. It was a bit cold (close to freezing) but we’d take the sun!
Read MoreExploring Delta in the Fall
I’ve pulled together a couple of posts into one from some time spent exploring around Delta. We normally spend a fair bit of time at Reifel, but we also spent an afternoon walking on the dyke nearby - not something we’ve done before.
Read MoreA Visit with Kathryn and Nesto
As things start to get back to more of “normal”, it’s been good to start catching up with people again. We had most of my family out at the beginning of September, and in October an old family friend of Justine’s came to visit for a few days. It was great to have Kathryn and Nesto come stay and see Vancouver.
Read MoreFall Catch-up
It’s been a very busy fall for Justine and I, so there hasn’t been a lot of activities to report on, and we haven’t spent as much time on Galiano as we have throughout the year. Plus the weather has been awful - 150 mm of rain in September, triple our normal amount. Don’t get me wrong - we needed it, but it didn’t lead to many adventures or photos to share. To wrap up the last month or so, I thought I’d pull together a few random photos into one “catch-up” post.
Read MoreThe Family on Galiano Part II
Picking up from the last entry, Mom and Dad were staying with us for a few more days. We had a nice mixture of tackling some projects we needed to get done along with exploring and relaxing. The days went by surprisingly quickly.
Read MoreThe Family on Galiano Part I
The first of a couple of posts covering off the fun times we had with (most) of the family coming to visit us and spend some time on Galiano. We missed having Lisa and Ethan there, but had a nice visit and did lots of exploring. The weather cooperated (for the most part), providing us with what we needed to spend most of our time outdoors.
Read MoreSummer Update - the Random Collection
So it comes to an end. It’s been kind of fun sorting through almost a summer’s worth of photos to create the “Summer Update” series. While many of them fit into some clear and obvious categories, I suspected there would be a bunch that didn’t really fit. And so we come to the last post in the collection. This will be pretty random, so consider yourselves warned…
Read MoreSummer Update - the Orchard
Continuing the “update” posts, I wanted to share some progress on the orchard we planted in the spring. As many of you will have heard, the deer devastated the trees the night we planted them (didn’t get the fencing up fast enough), so what looked like a promising first year got ruined. Still, there are some fun bits to share, and progression to be seen over the past few months.
Read MoreSummer Update - the Gardens
This will be the largest of the “update” posts. This year we built quite a nice garden and planted an orchard. This will hopefully server us well for many years to come. We’re experimenting with it all this summer, hoping to build on both our successes and our failures.
Read MoreSummer Update - Critters and Birds
This time I thought I’d pull together all the interesting pictures of birds and beasts and other critters we’ve seen about over the past few months. It definitely has slowed, especially for the birds. I’m sure they’re still about, but now that mating season has passed, it’s a lot more quiet at 5:00 a.m.
Read MoreSummer Update - the Cottage
I have photos from 4-5 similar trips to share. So instead of going chronological, I thought I’d try a few posts built on a specific theme - starting with a cottage update. So for this post, I’m going to go through historically and try and find a bunch of photos that shows the progress we’ve made on the cottage over the past 2-3 months.
Read MoreVisit with Friends - More Visitors to Galiano
The weekend of August 7/8 we had our friends Katie and John come over to Galiano and stay with us. After months of nothing but sunshine, of course it picked this weekend for the weather to turn a bit. Despite that, we had a great visit, toured the island and even got a swim in.
Read MoreBookbinders and Baseball
For much of July, we spent quite a bit of time with the Bookbinders, as Ethan’s baseball season was coming to an end and we wanted to watch him play, and Justine’s Mom and Dad finally got out to Vancouver for the first time in almost 2 years.
Read MoreThe Party is Over - Back to Work!
The weekend after my birthday weekend we were back to Galiano. We came over Thursday night again, but planned to work the Friday as a test of the internet access. We also spent a lot of time working through our huge list of projects. It was not the most exciting weekend - but there were lots of hummingbirds!
Read MoreThe Big 5-0 Birthday Weekend
As many of you are probably well aware, I turned 50 this year. I can barely wrap my head around this fact, but it is true nonetheless. For my 50th, we spent the weekend on Galiano and while it was a busy work weekend, it was also a lot of fun. Not exactly what we had planned - Justine and I were supposed to have gone to Africa. But you know… COVID and all, so those plans will have to wait.
Read MoreBuilding our Gardens
One of my main goals for this spring was to start an orchard of fruit trees and to build out a garden. Both are relatively ambitious projects, and the travel restrictions from the pandemic have made it difficult to manage. Over the past month, we had bought a lot of trees, ordered materials for the garden and got in a position to put it all together.
Read MoreBirds and Blossoms
We decided to spend the Easter long weekend at home, rather than go over to the island. The weather didn’t look like it was going to be great, and we were able to book a trip to Reifel on Saturday. This will be a short post mostly of pictures taken while out on walks while the sun was shining, plus some of the birds while at Reifel.
Read MoreLandscaping and Garden Building on Galiano
We took a Friday off and headed over to Galiano to get our last utilities hooked up (propane tank delivery!) and to continue to work on the landscaping around the property. We also took over a last big load of furniture to wrap up (I hope) most of the inside of the cottage, and tackled a couple of small projects along the way…
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