Spring has finally come to the valley, in all its glory.  Everywhere is green, with white blossoms from the bushes and fruit trees just emerging.  Had a nice visit from sister Susan and Steve, and got a few trees cut down and cut up.  Below is a good supply of firewood, nice and dry, for next winter.  It will all be split and stored this summer.  On top are bird houses made by S and S – very artistic.

Finally got around to cutting some brush and small deciduous trees so that this large rock face can be seen as one comes up the driveway. A bit more trimming to do.

And this is one of four large piles of branches too small to burn in the wood stove.  I plan to run them through a chipper in the fall to create some mulch.

The winter was long and with lots of snow in the mountains, 50% more than average. So there will be again some flooding lower in the valley.  This is a road a few hundred meters below us that we use quite often.

For the rest of the month, we are planning some golf, motorbiking, and fence building – the excavator is now planned for the middle of May.  And there are 11 cabinet doors awaiting final sanding, hinge installation, and then oiling.  The fun never stops.  And the music continues to distract in a good way – listening to Leon Russell these past few days.

Spring is slow in coming.  At least a month late.  We spent a few days helping a neighbor prune his 5 acres of vines; he is going to come up at the end of the month with his excavator to help us put in a deer/dog fence, drop a large tree, and clean up a few areas.  In preparation, I located some gabions from a fellow in Kamloops and he dropped 7 of them off last week.  M and I put them together and are ready for the excavator.  They are much nicer but more expensive than the first batch we got from a local fellow.  The vineyard fellow bought 200 of  the cheaper ones to bolster the terraces he made for the vines, and modified them so he has 400 of them.  He has a lot of rock, and  many terraces.

Have decided to put in a deer fence as the they eat everything we plant.  The fence will be 300′, mostly 10′ poles with a steel mesh but some will be cedar posts and verticals.  It will also double as a dog fence as we plan on getting another this fall.  These are some of the posts and where it will go.  The excavator should be able to pound holes in the rock for most of them, but we will need to figure something out for about 6 of them  as the excavator will not be able to reach them.

Got the posts from a local supplier of orchards and vineyards – 31 posts and 7 horizontal supports.

Part of the fence will be a garden shed (8 x 12), which will house garden stuff, and two motorbikes in the winter.  Have prepped the area where it will go and hope to have it mostly build before the end of the month.  Had to move a bunch of wood and firewood.

Also found a bit of time to do some wine tasting. This is the cellar of Tantalus – we enjoyed a tasting from the cask!

And the big news is we bought a set of ML electrostatic speakers.  I first heard electrostatic speakers 40 years ago and was amazed but underfunded.  They are now almost reasonable, and even better.  The detail and presence is quite incredible.  If you have a chance, try them.  When M heard them (after 5 hours of listening to other speakers), she said “Buy them”.  Have them fed with a Bluesound streamer (Canadian) and fed by Tidal streaming (very high res).  Transforms the music listening experience, and ruins one for poor sound and poor recordings.  Such is life.  And also diverts one from work to listening to music.  Remember doing that?  Will be, as a consequence, working more slowly on kitchen cabinet doors, closet doors, the garden shed and tree trimming for the rest of the month.  And perhaps a bit of golfing and motorbiking.