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 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 MoreWeek of Vacation on Galiano
The week of June 7th, I took some time off work and headed over to Galiano by myself, with an intent to get a bunch of work done around the cottage. I had a pretty good list of chores, plus planned to play some golf and relax a bit. Justine and our friends Jeff and Risa were coming over on the Friday evening ferry to spend the weekend - our first visitors in the new cottage.
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 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…
Read MoreCottage Decorating and Landscaping
The next weekend we could not wait to get back to our new cottage. We were supposed to have propane delivered and set-up, but after that fell through it turned into a busy week of work around the property.
Read MoreSpring is Coming
After all the work and stress around getting the cottage delivered and set-up, we were back to the city for a week before heading back to Galiano to continue getting settled in. The weather was nice for a few days,a nd we’re starting to see the first signs of spring as the flowers start to bloom.
Read MoreCottage Delivery - Part II
I’ll pick up where the last post left off, and provide a few more pictures of the rest of our week after the cottage got delivered. Wednesday (the day of delivery) was a hugely stressful, but ultimately rewarding day, seeing the cottage get delivered and set on its foundation. We were staying on the island through Sunday, and still had lots to do to get the place to the point of being livable.
Read MoreCottage Delivery Video
A short video of our cottage being delivered and set-up on our property on Galiano Island.
Read More