Floods in BC followed the fires. Am keeping watch out for locusts. Vancouver and the Lower Mainland were inundated with a month’s rain in 24 hours. All three highways connecting Vancouver to the rest of Canada were damaged with the main highway closed for at least 3 months and then only open, at best, to single lane commercial traffic. Rail and pipelines were shut down for a few weeks. Our valley was unscathed although we and our neighbors had a few fallen trees. Travel to the Coast will be challenging for many months to come. Mountains are beautiful but….

Transitioned from summer to winter by harvesting the last of the veggies and cleaning out the garden remnants. We enjoyed 5 dinners with friends and 4 concerts in November so things are becoming more open around here. Had 4 rounds of physio and am now doing daily stretching and exercises. Plus 10 today with plus 15 forecast for December 1.

Having hardly used my truck in the past few years, I sold it to the first person who answered the ad. Very useful when building the house and for a few years afterwards but I was very glad to see it gone (260,000km, a bit of oil burning, rust perforations and some other ailments). The utility trailer I bought a few years ago should be all we need.

Finally installed the drawers in the WIC. Still need fronts and handles. Planning to experiment by making a panel with some western maple and epoxy and then cutting the fronts from it.

Some progress on the Tea House / Ofuro. With the help of Coop and Cam, and a mini cement truck, we were able to pour 6 footings and a pad for the ofuro, and a small pad for the lower back entrance (should have been a bit bigger but we ran out of concrete – even tho’ I ran the numbers twice). Coop helped square it and drill holes in the footings for the anchors. Need to source some 6×6 fir timbers and cedar and will be good to go in March. The ofuro will sit on the pad in the background while the building will be on posts sitting on the footings in the foreground.

The test piece from the MEC door came out OK (will likely become a bench in the entry) so am proceeding with turning one of the doors into a dining table. I need to make wide dados/grooves on each edge of the door that will then be filled with milled walnut inserts. After considerable thought and discussion, I am using a skil saw, a laminate router, and 4 guides. Very slow going as I need to reclamp each of the 4 guides repeatedly, make two passes with the router for the depth, and stand the door on end to do two of the edges. No margin for error and I like margins. Will have success or otherwise by the end of December and then will pass on to a local shop for the flood coat of epoxy (although owner is away until end of Jan).

I hope all are well in these interesting and challenging times.