Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Back at the beginning of December, Jason and I went out looking for our perfect Christmas tree.  We ended up finding one that was perfect for us.  

It turned out that it was a Sitka spruce and the needles were needle sharp.  Sitka spruce is a variety of spruce tree that grows along the west coast from California up to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.  It is a coastal variety that seldom grows far from salt water. 

Even the trunk was covered in needle sharp needles.

We needed work gloves and long sleeves to handle our tree, and the process still involved lots of “ouch”, “ouch”, “ouch!”  Since we never intended to be in a house, or in Ocean Falls for Christmas, we did not have a Christmas tree stand.  So, we got creative with our supplies at hand and made one out of a pallet.  It ended up working quite well, although it was a bit more of a challenge to water the tree than it could have been. 

 

We had a box of our favourite Christmas tree ornaments that we had stored at my parents when we left Vancouver, and I had brought the small box up with me when I came back to Ocean Falls with our truck in October.  One of our neighbours saw us making our Christmas tree stand, and when we told her what we were doing she said that they had too much Christmas stuff and we were welcome to borrow anything we needed.  We ended up borrowing some lights and balls, and had fun decorating our tree. 


 

On December 15th, Jason and I ended up flying out on the Goose crew-change plane for an urgent dental appointment.  It was a very unplanned trip, but the timing of everything ended up working out quite well.  It was a stormy day on December 15th, and there was some uncertainty as to whether or not the plane would make it in to Ocean Falls.  Luckily for us it did, and we flew out on a bumpy flight.  Jason got to sit up front with the pilot and enjoyed the spectacular views from the front of the plane.  Because of the storm, we flew low, below the height of the low-lying clouds, and we got a perfect view of the white caps and crashing waves below.  

The timing of the storm coincided with a very high tide, and many of the beaches along the coast were filled with logs, tossing to and fro in the incoming waves.  It was quite neat to get to view the storm from above, and yet from so low, all while being bounced around by the wind.  



At the airport in Port Hardy we picked up our rental car and drove straight to my parents’ place in Victoria.  The required dental appointment ended up involving a root canal, but once it was over, the tooth pain was gone.  We had a nice visit with my parents, and celebrated an early Christmas with them.  

Comments

  1. JanFebruary 2, 2021 at 5:21 PM

    Great looking sitka spruce! Love the smell of them. Sorry to hear about your root canal but now it is over. Happy New Year to you too. Cheers

    ReplyDelete

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