Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

May 19, 2022 (This post consists of a challenge of seeing if you can spot Jason at work.) On some of our rare dry days we worked on clearing out the trees that blocked our view.   When we bought the house our view consisted of a wall of trees through which we could not see the mountains or the water.   When the mail plane would come in to land we could hear it, but we could not see it.   Jason fell all of the rotten trees, he topped some of the other trees, and he also de-limbed our remaining trees to about 35 feet up.   We have a 20 foot extension ladder and also a 20 foot extendable pole saw so by using both of these he was able to clear out high up in the trees. Clearing out all of the fallen limbs was quite the job as we either had to drag them up or down our bank, and some of them were the thickness of small trees themselves.   Although we have already taken several truckloads of tree branches to the town burn pile, our pile remains very large.   ...

May 12, 2022 One of the ongoing projects that we have is sorting and organizing our way through our house.   We have done all of the large renovation work in the upstairs and on the main floor, and because we cleared them out completely and only put back what we wanted, the downstairs became a cluttered space.   It has remained largely the way it was when be bought the place except that we added even more of our own stuff.   So, we have been slowly picking our way through it, and it is continuing to transform as we take more and more stuff to the dump, give more and more away, and move things around to reorganize the area.    Our two freezers and the spare fridge shared the small space that was the workshop, and there was another room that we called the craft room, since that was what the previous owners used it for.   We sorted through the craft room, took garbage items to the dump, and moved the two freezers and spare fridge into that room so as to more ...

May 1, 2022 With our water pressure recently fixed, renovating our upstairs bathroom became more of a priority for us.   With the low water pressure that we had had before, we barely had a trickle of water out of the upstairs shower, so renovating the bathroom to make it nice to use was not high on our priority list.   However, with our increased water pressure, we longed for a long, hot shower in a larger and nicer shower space.   The shower stall that we had been using downstairs was quite small and cramped. Back in November and December we had pulled out the sink and large, ugly vanity from the upstairs bathroom.   We had also sanded the walls and they were painted when we finally got the right colour of paint for the upstairs.   So, to carry forward with our bathroom renovations we started by sanding down the wood around the shower and we painted it black.   Then we began the big job of doing the floor.   Since buying the ho...

April 17, 2022 Since the beginning of April we have had our Prawn and Crab traps set, and we have been checking them every few days.   Our numbers are much lower than they were last year, but we have still been getting enough to eat and to freeze.   We have been doing quite well with crab, but not so well with prawns.   We have also been out fishing a couple of times and on one wonderful day we had great luck.   On Easter Sunday, April 17th, it was forecasted to be sunny.   We headed out in Little Red to spend the day fishing.   The wind was calm, and although the air was still quite cold the sun was warming.   It was a beautiful day to be floating on the water fishing.    Our first fish felt like a small halibut, it fought and pulled downwards like a halibut, but when it came up to the surface it was a nice-sized five-pound Pacific Cod.   We were quite happy, not only would we not be going home empty handed, but it was also the first ...

March 28th - April 22nd, 2022 After getting back to Ocean Falls on March 28th we took very little time off.   It was hard to rest when there was such a long list of things still needing to be done.   Everywhere we looked we saw things to do, but slowly our house was becoming a home rather than a construction project.   After finishing painting our living room ceiling we moved all of the furniture that was being stored in the kitchen and dining room area back into the living room.   This allowed us to begin work on the kitchen area.   And after more wall work and painting, our kitchen is now finally a real kitchen, with pots and pans in the cupboards and cutlery in the drawers.     It was so nice to finally be able to cook a meal with everything that we needed easily accessible.     On April 18 th I made bread and buns for the first time in our new home, and we made a big batch of pasta sauce to freeze.       One of th...

February 26 - March 26, 2022 Our time in Victoria was very busy.   Since we didn't have internet at home in Ocean Falls we had been unable to do any research into certain materials that we needed for our house.   We spent more than a day with both of us nose deep into our laptops going through our lists, researching different brands, and figuring out where to get certain items.   Finally, with a long list in hand, we headed out shopping.   Our goal was to get as much of our shopping done in advance, so that it would only be our big grocery stock-up that would be needed right before heading back home.   A pile of stuff began to form on my parents' living room floor, and as the week went on the pile grew and grew, as our list of items got shorter and shorter.    On March 10th Jason and I flew to London with my parents to attend my brother’s wedding.  It was a very busy trip with many planned pre-wedding events, an opportunity t...

February 13th - 25th, 2022   From February 13 th , when we returned home to Ocean Falls from our time in Mexico, until February 25 th we worked on our house every day, trying to get as much done as possible to make our place a nice home rather than a construction project.   In the living room the dark wood-looking wall paneling got removed from the wall, every surface to be painted got cleaned and sanded, drywall repairs got fixed and faired out.   These drywall repairs included replacing some pieces in one of the ceiling corners where there were the remains of what appeared to be old water damage.   The area had clearly been very poorly repaired in the past, and it all needed replacing and repairing again.   Once the last coat of fairing compound went on and was sanded, it was time to clean again.   With all of the dust removed we pulled up the cardboard that was covering the beautifully sanded hardwood floors, which Jason had sanded...