Paul Alton MBA

Canada Day was more of a Carbada Day. A day of more carbs than normal. We began with a pancake breakfast at Lion's Park in Meadow Lake. Then, munching on parade candy after the Canada Day Parade in Loon Lake. They had pie and ice cream for sale at the Loon Lake Seniors' Centre, but there would have been a 45-minute wait after the parade.

We headed back to Meadow Lake for Whopper Wednesday.

The fireworks in Meadow Lake in the evening were low carbohydrate if not carbon neutral.

It’s been an unusual July weather wise. Much more rain than normal. The mushrooms are happy. Much more wind. The trees are less happy, unless you count the little trees that get more light after the big ones are blown over.

On July 4^th our phones lit up with the first Tornado Alert we have experienced. “Take immediate cover in a basement or interior room if weather threat approaches.” No basement in our tiny house. Only one “interior room”. I closed all the windows in the outer rooms. We retreated to the bathroom. That got boring pretty quickly. I struggled out of the tub and we abandoned that exercise. Hopefully we will hear a tornado in time to run to the bathroom. Living in the middle of the forest we would never see it coming.

Our area was spared.

This time.

The next day, after church we went for a Sunday drive. I looked up walking trails in the area and picked up maps for one in Battlefords Provincial Park on the shore of Jackson Lake (traditionally known as “Stinking Lake” but some marketer changed that decades ago) and another at Brightsands Lake. On the way to the first trail we detoured to the village of Aquadeo on the north shore of Jackson Lake. It has been a a few decades since we stopped there. The ice cream stand is no longer there. Harrumph!

By the time we got to the trail head in Battlefords Provincial Park rain was imminent. We drove around a bit exploring, walked on the beach and bought a couple of ice cream cones at the convenience store. Leaving the park, we headed south to Cochin and stopped at the marker for the trail from Cochin to Green Lake. People have lived here a long time. Long before roads. At one time there was a trail that went from the Battlefords to Arizona. This is Cree country. North of here is Dene country. Dene and Navajo are close languages apparently. I wonder how that happened.

We carried on circumnavigating Jackson Lake passing through small towns for the first time since moving to Saskatchewan. We passed a couple of SAGD plants at Vawn and beyond. I’m curious about numerous ventilation-like towers at the installations but have no source of enlightenment as to their purpose.

We got to Turtleford and decided not to carry on to Brightsands. We were starting to get hungry. The highway back to Cochin from Turtleford is one we have travelled often. We took it anyway, closing the loop to Highway 4. There is a surprisingly good Chinese restaurant attached to the Gas Plus just south of Cochin. After supper we drove home through the Northern Provincial Forest.

 One of the books I read this week during rainstorms was the quirky “Scharlette Doesn’t Matter and Goes Time Travelling”. It contains such bizarre passages as “…heart on her shoulder with a banner through it that read ‘jam’ – testimony to the danger of breaking up with someone called James in a tattoo parlor”.

It wasn’t all quirky novels. It’s time to top up the woodshed. Our tiny house is , well, tiny. Not only that we built it with one-foot-thick walls. It doesn’t take much to heat. Still, we use some firewood and summer is time to split wood and re-fill the woodshed. Somewhere along the line that became a mommy-do item. I split the big rounds into liftable pieces with wedge and sledge. Juanita splits those and smaller pieces with an electric/hydraulic splitter. An hour a day for a few weeks accomplishes that. I dropped a dead and dried up standing spruce tree near the fire pit, cut it up and wheelbarrowed the pieces to where Juanita could split them. We dragged some of the branches to what we call “the tip”, a low spot at the far end of the cleared area surrounding the house.

We ended the week with picking up a barrel from the Esso bulk station and converting it to a burn barrel. Our existing burn barrel  had rusted through and needed replacement.

Saturday, July 11^th at 8:30 I noticed an email from the church saying that Redberry Camp needed volunteers to deal with over a hundred trees that had been toppled by a windstorm overnight. A tornado had passed just south of the camp but the related system had made it presence known. By the time we got things organized, onto the truck and drove almost to Saskatoon it was midday. Over a hundred volunteers arrived with chainsaws, skid steers, trailers, tractors and a stump grinder. There wasn’t much left for us to do. There was a gaggle of chainsaws cleaning up one last area, but it was already crowded enough. Juanita and I cut and stacked three leaners and left.

The next week was quiet. We finished dragging branches to the tip. The firepit area was clean again. The car got new tires. On the 17^th I started cutting away the roots of a big poplar whose top had broken off about thirty feet up a few years ago. Maybe I can cut enough roots to easily pull it over.  By the end of the week things were looking under control. Maybe I can start to work on some hobby projects.     

It is typical to use the phrase “windfall profits”. In our case we experienced windfall losses.

On July 18 to July 19 overnight (Saturday night/Sunday morning) we experienced high winds, heavy rain and a power outage that lasted through to Sunday afternoon.

Many trees blown over on our twenty acres, including at least three 90 foot spruces trees near the house, several 70 foot poplars and a bunch of smaller trees of various sizes. Some were in a jumble with bigger trees. The poplar with roots cutaway was still standing. No trees on structures or vehicles. PTL.

The top half of a medium sized poplar fell across the  loop of the driveway. Could still get out to grid road if we had too. Tried making coffee on the stove in the RV. Out of propane. Dragged thirty-pound bottle from storage. Pigtail leaking at the bottle. Future Paul’s problem. I’ll get back to it. Made coffee on the coffee pot from the RV on the side burner on the BBQ.

Still no power. No power means no hot water for the shower I skipped the night before. We stayed home from church and cut up the tree on the driveway. Piled the branches to the side. Enough work for the day. The ox is out of the ditch. The rest will still be here tomorrow. And beyond.

Children’s function is to structure their parents’ time. This windstorm would structure our time into August.

While cutting up the two spruces across our lawn areas I cut a couple of six-foot sections in half lengthways to be fabbed into benches for by the firepit.

First week – a load a day to regional dump an hour and a half return drive

Discussing this with a friend at church learned of “compost” drop off at the site of the old dump in town. A third of the distance and half the time. A load a day for rest of the month. And beyond.

July 27 - Meanwhile back at the RV. Knew there was a leak on the pigtail. Figured there was problem with the regulator. We still had spares from when we took the RV to Mexico for volunteering at the orphanage. I dug in the front compartment to get fitting size on spare regulator to get order information for pigtail. Found new pigtail I’d bought at Canadian Tire to replace the last spare pigtail used a few years ago. Installed that. Had propane at stove. No need for regulator. Definitely need to do drop test on propane system to make sure no other leaks. Future Paul’s to-do list, Back to the windstorm clean-up.   

I dropped the big poplar I had started cutting roots on. It became just one more tree to buck up.

July 25^th , granddaughter, Sonja came and stacked wood on her day-off. Towards the end of the month we ventured beyond the immediate yard to cut paths through the trees on our walking paths. There are still more across the property line fences, but those can wait until August. The ones not across paths and just in the bush will probably just stay as they are until they rot.

July 31^st  – surging lawn mower. Mr. YouTube says this is a clogged idle jet. I squirted carb cleaner into the carb throat. Then added 40 ml. of acetone to the gas tank. Ran it for a bit and left to soak. Ordered a new carb in case that didn’t work. Will check next month / tomorrow.