After a 2 year delay, we finally had our trip to Portugal – 18 days in Lisbon, Porto and driving around the countryside. Thoroughly enjoyed.

About 5 centuries past its peak but interesting country side, great roads winding through mountains and valleys, stone buildings, terraced vineyards and cork forests. People are very nice although apart from the bread and pastries, the food is mundane. Portugal is rather removed from the rest of the world and vice versa .

Finished with 5 days in London – theatre, opera, museums (our hotel was beside the British Museum), and pubs. Noticeable absence of Chinese and Russian tourists. Enjoyed a cigar lounge in each country (accompanied by port in one and scotch in the other). Everyone wore masks everywhere in Portugal, and hardly a soul in London.

A much better and more comprehensive coverage of our trip can be found at daihime.com for you Japanese readers (or those who enjoy google translate).

Happy to be back home with the blossoms blooming and everything turning green. This month I hope to make progress on our bedroom door (using another of the MEC doors) and the tea pavilion (although golf, kayaking, motorbiking and other diversions may slow progress).

More play than work this month. Three guitar concerts (Sue Foley – electric blues, and two classical guitar concerts), several dinners (including another 5 course with pairings at Quaaout Lodge) and lots of visiting friends and skiing (15 times this season) meant not much was accomplished on the house front.

Mizuho had a fall while skiing on March 15th and got a concussion. After a sled ride down the hill, an ambulance to the hospital and a CT scan, no serious injuries were found. And after a week of going slow, she has made a full recovery. Whew. I think my cooking may have accelerated her recovery.

Tea House design now finalized so next step is to source the posts, beams, decking and roof trusses. Finished a guitar hanger so the axes are in sight and near at hand and working on similar ideas for the skis and rifles.

Daily highs above zero for three weeks, then a few cold days followed by spring emerging at the end of the month. Driveway clear and dry but lots of snow still around. Skied 4 times this month and benefited hugely from 2 lessons. Nice to have a season pass and a great ski area so close. Enjoyed several concerts (great show by Bif Naked), dinners and ballet.

Got a few items crossed off the list and was able to refinish the teak dining table that we replaced with the repurposed door (table will be used in the to-be-built teahouse):

Finally sending my speakers for recycling. Bought these JBL-40s in Washington DC almost 45 years ago while in University but the foam and plastic components disintegrated due to their being in storage for over 10 years. Refurbished ones sell for $600 but I have enough projects.

Next month shall hopefully see more skiing and finalizing the designs for the teahouse and the equipment shelter.

The New Year brought more snow, warmer weather and new hope. 2021 was the driest year on record with precipitation about 1/2 of average (206mm vs 380mm) but we are off to a roaring start this year with a couple of good snowfalls and not warm enough to melt any. Had to fire up the Bobcat to clear away some snow in the parking area. And we both got our booster shots!

Although our concerts were cancelled/postponed, we had 4 dinners out with friends, including another spectacular 3 hour dinner at Quaaut Lodge near Salmon Arm.

We again made sausages with 600 smoked and Italians shared 4 ways. These are some of the smoked sausages drying in the downstairs shower and some of the Italians.

On the home front, the drawer fronts for the cabinet in the closet are done but am awaiting handles before I install them (explanation and photos next month).

And after some 30+ years, the long-suffering M finally has a dining table to replace the hand-me-down we used on and off all this time. I cut one of the doors I got from MEC shorter and narrower (7’5″ x 3′), routed out the edges and inserted walnut bands, and finished with 3 coats of polymerized linseed oil rubbed down with 0000 steel wool. Legs are from Rusty Design in Ontario. Although the top is scalloped rather than flat, it works fine so we decided to use it as is rather than flood coat it with epoxy or put on a glass top. It transforms the dining room.

And as all work and no play makes Dave a dull boy, I have a new hollow body guitar from Godin, luthiers in Quebec. Love it.

While green and 15 above at the start, December also had twice (45cm) the usual snowfall (light and fluffy) and was much colder, with 5 days of -20, and the daily highs were usually lower than the historical daily lows. Hopefully that cold will have killed off many of the pine bark beetles. We managed to get out skiing twice before Christmas – 50 minutes from our house.

The door-into-table is coming along with 2 sides done and 2 to go. Am now looking at getting a glass top rather than a flood coat of epoxy as the local shop wants $2,000 for the job. Will be talking to the glass people next week.

We now have another bench (an offcut from the MEC door being made into a table) in the entry and a coat rack. The bench will be seasonal (only needed in the winter) while the coat rack has 4 hooks that disappear when not needed.

Like everyone, 2021 was another strange year for us. Fires and floods caused great damage in the Province but mostly spared us in the valley. I finally completed the stair railings and made two light standards for the driveway (which now has a hard surface of recycled asphalt) Our travels were limited to exploring more of BC.

Next year should see a couple of more doors, some more cabinets, a tea house/Japanese ofuro, and hopefully some travel further afield.

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.

Quite a month. Got the furnace serviced (all good) and the two wood stove chimneys swept by the Scottish fellow who installed them (after 6 years he said they were great!). Golfed several times this month and had a last run on the bike last week before storing it for the year. Mizuho has canned and frozen a year’s supply of tomatoes. Sold the wheels/tires from the BMW and some left over wire from the build ( $2k for both). Went to Vancouver to visit my mother and sister, cigars and ink for some pens, Japanese and French dinners, Japanese food supplies and hair cuts. Also ordered a Japanese style tub )although there delivery is only in 36 weeks.

Many projects were started this month but few were completed. I injured my leg helping a neighbor harvest his grapes and then made it worse over the next few weeks. I couldn’t bend it or put any weight on it but still tried to hobble around. It gave out on me a week ago and I passed out from the pain. Went to emergency the next day and the Doc said it looked like I injured it from overuse and I should have a full recovery in about 3 weeks. Had an MRI on Friday with results next week to see if there are any other issues. Need to get this fixed soon as M and I bought season passes at Big White, the local ski area. Still think I’m in my 40s.

Many projects were started this month and last and few finished. Still hope to pour some concrete this fall, install 4 drawers in the closet, complete the trial epoxy piece and begin to prepare the slab for the dining table, trim limbs and cut down some trees, and a host of other tasks. On va voir.

September was a busy fun month. Went to a demo day at BMW and met a 75 year old former bike racer from the UK who lives 2 hours north of Kelowna and came down on his 199? K100 Factory Custom in its original and pristine condition.

Had a road trip to Rossland and enjoyed slope-side accommodation in the slow season, toured their excellent museum, strolled around Trail and ate very well. Rossland transitioned from a mining town to a ski / mountain bike resort. Coop and I squeezed in a 3 delightful days of motorbike camping at Box Lake in the West Kootenays and had 1 of 12 very quiet sites on the lake.

We got new ski boots formed for our feet and are quite excited about the season – I am buying a seniors season pass at Big White! Spent a full day with 6 others helping a neighbor harvest his pinot noir with the chardonnay, pinot gris and gewürztraminer scheduled for next weekend. Had a sore thigh for 3 days afterwards.

Tried to flood coat a trial piece of door with epoxy before doing it on the door that will become our dining room table. Decided I need to dado out each edge and inset some straight-grained fir and will likely have someone more experienced do the epoxy work. Built 4 drawers for the closet and will install soon (drawer fronts and handles to come in the fullness of time). Worked on the site prep for the dining pavilion / cedar ofuro tub and created a drainage ditch at the top part of the driveway. New recycled asphalt is working well so far.

August was a busy and interesting month. The heat abated, the smoke from the fires was intermittent and we had a few days of showers, verging on rain.

Rearranged the garage storage and built some boards to hand tools and the like from some western maple filled with expoxy. The garden cornucopia continues and we had our first of several harvests of edamame. Started building a rock wall beside the finished stone steps (photos next month). Built 4 drawers for the WIC (still need sanding, oiling and installing) that will have fronts made of some combination of epoxy and split mottled wood (if it works – this will be a test). Enjoyed some jazz one evening at a winery and a Bach choral/strings/organ/bassoon concert in a church. Concerts should be back in full swing by late September around here.

But the big news is the driveway!!! The base was formed over the existing road bed with 100 tons of recycled asphalt, placed and graded with a bobcat then watered and packed with a roller for hours. It was then watered again, rolled, and then sprayed 4 times with Reclamite which reacts with the bitumen in the asphalt and binds it. A light coat of sand (finely crushed rock) was then sprayed lightly over it all. It should continue to compact and bind over the next few months and turn into something resembling a paved road. It is wider than before and while smooth, it does undulate more than I had hoped but it is an order of magnitude better than what was there. The true test will be plowing it in the winter and then again during the spring runoff. About 1/7 the price of an asphalt driveway.

I hope all this has not bored you.

1″ (2.5cm) of rain over the past 5 months. Daily highs in the mid 30s but lows in the teens. Extremely dry. Many days of smoke from fires burning in BC and Washington State. So, little getting done outside these days. Taisho had an encounter with a skunk on the other side of the fence and got sprayed on the muzzle. We were able to get it cleaned off with a mixture of H2O2, dish soap, warm water and lots of scrubbing.