Still moving rocks around. This gives a bit of perspective – some of the rocks are too heavy to lift (or even flip) with the bucket but I hope to be able to push them into place over time.

View of the house and garage/shop in the early evening light.

The fruits of the visit of Mizuho’s sister and husband – 15 bottles of wine, 2 bottles of olive oil, home-made pickles and blueberry jam, and maps and guides to jog the memory.  T’was a great visit, most enjoyable.

Pat and Coop came to town.  Had a great visit, made some plum pickle and chili sauce, and toured around a bit.  Here’s Pat painting up a storm – the interior trim for the windows and doors.  She is an excellent painter, and did an amazing amount over a 2 day stretch.

And here is Coop and I putting on some exterior window trim. It is a bit finicky as it goes over the stucco. I hope to get this (or at least most of it) done before it gets cold.

Shades of Putin?  Drove the ATV up a ramp and into the truck to take it to the dealer for some pre-winter servicing. It is 9 years old but only has 525kms and is in great shape.

Well, not for another 2 or 3 months, but we shall be ready. This is about a cord of wood (the upper level is about 8′ by 4′ by 4′), mostly fir with some pine, that came from 3 dead trees and two felled trees.  Felling trees and bucking up the trunks was more work than I expected, but very satisfying.  Most of it is really dry.  Mizuho split it up with the splitter.  We are planning to fire up the stove soon to season the paint – takes a one time burn of about 6 hours with an open window to season it.

When M’s Sister and Brother were here, we did a 2 day tour of local wineries in a rented van, with me as the designated driver.  It was very nice to do touristy things rather than work on the house every day.  They then did some additional winery tours – 15 in total – and took back 12 bottles to Japan.  This is the wine tasting and making room of 50th Parallel, a small new winery that is north of Kelowna overlooking the lake.  When we were there, they were moving the wine from the French oak barrels, where it had been aging since last year’s harvest, to the steel tanks for blending, and rinsing out the barrels to get ready for the new harvest.   The lovely aroma of new wine and oak barrels brought back memories of France.

View from Arrowleaf Cellars, also north of Kelowna overlooking the lake, and also a very modern design.  Great picnic spot.

2015 is shaping up to be possibly the best vintage ever in the Valley – a long hot summer with little rain.

Here is Mizuho’s mother helping me with the sanding of the window sill plates.  It was great to have her here for a week and she enjoyed the visit enough to be talking about another next summer.  Not sure why I have such a look of concentration as I was only sanding.

This is the result of the fruits of the labour of Mizuho and her mother – tomato sauce, dill pickles, blueberry jam, and plum pickle (kind of a chutney jam).  We are continually amazed with how tasty the abundant local fruit and vegetables are.  Next year we will have a freezer ready and more sealers.  My plan this week is to install the window trim on most of the main floor windows, cut down another 2 trees and cut up the wood, begin installing exterior trim on the windows, and doing some more backfilling and driveway shaping.  Weather forecast is great – mid 20’s all week.