Renovations can be a challenge

Yes, I said renovations. One day we're sitting having a coffee looking at the walls and thinking gee, we should paint them. The next thing I know we're in full blown reno mode. Walls, fixtures, switches, plugs, plates, flooring, baseboards, door trim, closet doors and all are getting a fresh look.

We started last weekend and moved all the furniture around and packed the small stuff into blue tubs with lids. This alone has made this job easier than I expected. With the small stuff out of the way, its easy to move the furniture around and just work around it.

Since the walls were the first order of the day we covered the furniture, and got to work patch old nail holes and other imperfections in the surface with drywall mud. Once dry we sanded it down and applied a primer to all the marks and trouble spots. Oh yes we took off all the curtain rods and curtains and light switch covers so we could get down to it.

We also had one wall that was a vertical wood grain venir and we've tolerated it since we bought the house but felt it was time for a change. It helps a bit that our son was in the retail lumber and building supplies business so he gave us lots of good hints and tips. That same primer we used on the walls was used to cover the wood panel wall. Took two coats but covered it beautifully. Then we painted over it with a paint colour called tomchuck its a cafe mocha colour and looks a lot like a Tim Horton's ice cap. The other three walls were done in a colour called kicking horse. It's hard to describe this colour but it is lots lighter than the feature wall. I guess its a pale beigey sand colour. Looks great anyway. Way better than the flat eggshell crap that was on there.

With that said, I'm hitting the hay cause its been a long one and tomorrow brings new challenges. I'll get the names of the paint and the primer so you'll have a reference. Talk to you later. Dave

Frost Makes Gardening Tough

I can't believe it. This weather is absolutely crazy. Here it is the 5th of June and we've had frost over the past couple of nights and have been covering like crazy.

What really bugs us is that we had the garden in and planted back on May 14 and it was coming along pretty well. It's been dry but we've been helping it with daily hand waterings so that's kept it growing. Our tomatoes were getting blossoms, the onions were about 6 inches up and we were looking forward to chopping them into salads. (We will cause they are tough and OK but back to the rest of the story).

Our garden is about 30 x 80 feet and filled with a combination of vegetables including potatoes, corn, peas, carrots, beans, beets, lettuce, zucchini and of course onions. We've also planted some pumpkins for the grand kids and we've even got some watermelon plants coming up. With all this going on you can imagine my the panic the Missus was in when the weather forecaster mentioned frost for Saturday, May 28. We bustled about the garden with all manor of pots, blankets, tarps, cardboard boxes, pails, tubs and even tipped the wheelbarrow upside down to cover momma's precious garden.

The yard looked like someone had dumped their junk off but it worked. We had two degrees of frost that night and we were dang glad we had it covered. Trouble is I think we started a trend. Now the garden seems to want to be covered up every night. Next it'll be wanting bed time stories. Oh, a couple of things got touched but at least we haven't lost anything --- yet.  We'll its starting to warm up outside so we're heading out to roll back the covers and see how things survived. Oh, it only went down to 2 C last night. We've also found some great little tarps at Princess Auto that were designed for wood piles but work perfectly for garden rows. They are 3.5 feet wide and 17.5 feet long. The price was very reasonable at $3.49 each so we bought several. To protect the plants a bit we elevated them on some old plastic starter trays we had in the greenhouse (its just hobby size nothing elaborate). I considered myself fortunate to get to go into Princess Auto cause usually the Missus has me banned cause they have too many things I need. LOL

Oh, I've also got some grape vines going so come back later and I'll tell you how I've got them protected.

Aboriginal Showcase to open in Cold Lake

The second annual showcase of First Nations & Metis culture, dance, song, history and economic potential starts tomorrow (June 2) in the Energy Centre in Cold Lake starting at 10 a.m. and running until 5 p.m.

The event provides an opportunity for all ages to experience First Nations and Metis culture and meet with the people who live in the area. Last year's show was held in Bonnyville  and drew nearly 2500 people and was a resounding success. There is no admission charged and everyone is welcome. 
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