Stewart Revisited

So I packed up my gear and I headed North
I wanted to go back to the little town of Stewart and the companion town of Hyder in Alaska. last time I rode North, there were lots salmon and bears and beautiful alpine country to look at, though the weather was not great, so Im gonna go see if the weather gods like me better this year.

Not too surprisingly, the pile of gear I loaded on the bike was virtually the same stuff as if i were going riding for a year, even though im only going for about a week (a bit less clothing is about the only difference)

It was camping all the way since its way too expensive for me to use motels or hotels in north America.

And indeed, after two days of riding North, I found the salmon running in the local stream and the Grizzly bears were therer right on que too... And there were some glimpse of a couple of Wolves in the very early morning 9feeding on the bears' salmon left-overs, though no pictures im afraid  :)

And the tourists and their cammeras were "running" too!

But it wasnt just the bears... The whole area has some absolutely wonderfull scenery

So, on day two there, I went for a ride along a dirt road (used by mining operations in the area to access the
mountains).

The big Salmon glacier that the dirt road (50Km ride each way) climed up along side.

My motorbike is in this pic for scale!

There were lots and lots of helicopter operations running in the area - at least 6 different groups using choppers that I saw... The country is so rugged its really the only way to move around with any speed... And the mining companies want speed... the price of gold and silver and copper on the world markets is whats driving this "glut" of mining activity in the area at the moment.

But I was mostly interested in the scenery :)

 

And then back for another look at the bears

 The smallest church Ive seen (on the roadside on the way south)... its only about 3m x 3m on the inside.

And then, after a couple of days, I rode all the way back to Vancouver and got ready to start my next contract.... so much for summer holidays :))

My Domestic Summer

Well, I guess its time for an update post... Though i have to admit that blogging feels very narcisistic to me these days given that Im nolonger traveling or doing anything of much interest to people ... or so it seems to me anyway...
But, for those who check in on the blog to see what ive been doing, here it is:

Ive been doing lots of "outside" house renovating, or more acurately, yard renovating...
As I think I mentioned earlier (see I dont even remember what my earlier posts were about!) I first cut down the massive Laurl hedges which took over a month of effort.
But that was while I was working a contract. that contract finished about a month ago and ive used my time off to do some more "constructive" yard work

But again, first there was some destruction... Specifically, that storage box i built in the back yard years ago had become very ugly, very leaky and was a kind of storage place for stuff that i didnt have anywhere else to put... Its time had come and it Had to Go!!
So it took a few days to empty all the stuff out of it and then strip off the rotten old tarps,  un-screw and disassemble the panel sections, pull out all the rusty nails and stack up all the resulting plywood sheets and wooden beams.
And that left me with a lovely big clear space again :))
This is a picture of the box immediately after i completed building it several years ago... i dont have one of its current condition, but believe me, its rather delapidated to say the least... winters are very long and very wet up hear and poorly protected wood does not survive well!

And then I needed somewher to store some of that stuff that Id removed from the box, so i built a smaller "garden shed" under a section of over-hanging deck... I built the foundation much stronger this time so it should survive the wet conditions here far better than the old box. I built the new box using the materials from the old box, so it cost me very little other than the concrete for the footings and the sheets of metal roofing (again a significant upgrade from the previous design). i still have to put exterior cladding on the walls but that can wait a while.


And then I moved all the garden tools from my garage (which is used for "everything" at the moment) into there own new space... ahhh much better :)

So, now for the bigger project which was to use that "open space" that i just created to build a car-port so that my little pick-up truck that I spent all that money on renovating is out of the worst of the weather most of the time.
So, first off I spent about a week digging through the asphalt and constructing four good big solid concrete footings and giving the concrete time to cure.


and then I got a load of wood and roofing delivered (cos my little truck just cant take 6metre long beams no matter how I try to arange it... Its got a 1metre long bed! :)
And then fairly quickly I assembled the new car-port. It only took a couple of days to assemble and that was doing it entirely by my-self... Which makes it much slower than if I had a helper because, as I expect you can imagin, its not that easy for one person to lift and hold and bolt both ends of a 6metre long 2x12 beam etc.

And then the roofing iron went on and the finishing end board, and Voila! i have a new car port... :)))

And so, having completed thae main project for my break and still having a week or so before my next contract starts, I decided to take a break from my break...
Now, I'd already spent lots more money than I actually had on the car port, so expensive flights and international resorts were not an option... But I do have my trusty old (though maybe that should be "rusty old") touring bike, so I packed up my gear and headed off on the bike for a few days of riding :))

... next post :)

Stuff Ive Been Doing...

As usual, Ive been keeping my self busy with assorted small projects.
One of which has been mounting and displaying those butterflies that I mentioned that I had in an earlier post... They had mostly been stored in boxes for a few years, but I got them out and made glass box-frames for the ones that didnt have them, and now they are on the wall...

And on a different but related project, I selected a mere two dozen pictures from my assorted travels and advenures for display... I have several thousand pictures to choose from and in fact thats been the problem; There are so many that I hardly know how to go about selecting ones to frame! In the end I decided to mostly just go with pictures that have me in them and are reasonably well composed of some place I went and doing something I enjoyed... And that just left a couple of hundred to select from :)  So then I went with the "just get it over with" approach and did a quick rough selection of two dozen to put on the wall and didnt bother agonising over the choices of which ones to leave out..., I got prints made, and then I mounted, framed, and hung those on another wall.  So now my walls are less bare :)

And now thats done, I dont have those jobs lingering in the back of my mind any more... Quite a relief since Ive been meaning to do them for quite a few years :))

 And on yet another front, I made a spontaneous ebay purchase a few weeks ago of a radio controlled model airplane... Like I say, Ive been building model planes since I was a kid and I come back to it time and again through the years, and it never seems to "get old" for me... I just get lots of enjoyment out of it... :)
Anyway, this one is pretty much fully pre-built and the fun of it is in the flying. Its a model Spitfire (One of the most elegant aircraft designs ever to fly in my opinion) and its made of poly-styrene foam with an electric engine and powered by a Litium battery. Its about 80cm wing span (good size) and also has the option for retracting undercariage, so I of course had to install that - Ive always wanted that feature! :)

And Ive been flying it on occasion after work and on weekends at a nearby playing field... Its virtually silent and doesn't bother anyone.
But the playing field is a bit small for my liking and , well,... there have been a few "incidents"!
Its been quite a few years since I flew a model plane and im aquite "rusty" so to speak. So initially I just did little "test hops" a few feet off the ground and then cut the power and landed immediately. But soon enough I got fully airborn and found that even though its a "low wing aileron model" and quite airobatic, its also been very well designed and flys with very nice "manners"... Quite docile in my out of date hands :))
But it seems my "depth perception" is not what it should be and I mannaged to fly it through a tree while on my final approach and that ripped the tail off and broke the propeller.... So I glued it back together... And then there were a couple of quite rough landings on windless days cos there is not really quite enough room as I said, and that broke the undercarriage... which I then fixed. And then the motor has "cut out" on me twice (probably due to over-heating) which has resulted in one crash into a power line which broke a wing and another crash into a tall tree which broke the tail again (and required me to walk for over a kilometer with a long ladder over my shoulder in order to get it out of the tree!).
So, the model has taken a few beatings, but I keep patching it back up and flying it again... Im definitely getting my moneys worth out of it :)))

New Cohabitants

Well, I went and did it... I got a cat... two in fact!

I ended up with two cos they are "indoor only" cats and it seems a bit unfair to leave a single cat all alone in the house with no social interaction at all except when Im there... Some people would like it I suppose because its sure to make the cat extremely attentive to the owner when they do get home, but to me it seems cruel... So, I let my self be convinced into getting two instead of one (so they can at least keep each other company).

I was browsing local adds online for a cat that I liked the look of and I ended up opting for the "Abyssinian" breed... It was gonna cost me about $150 per cat to get them from the local SPCA shelter (the cost of neutering and shots etc), so if I was going to have to spend hundreds anyway then I didnt feel too bad paying more for a cat with the features that I specifically liked...

In particular I wanted very short hair, inteligent and interactive.

And if I could, I also wanted a brown/red colour, and I prefer a "ticked" rather than "tabby" coat... All of which is the Abyssinian.

And I found an add for some kittens and called up the breeder. Now, I didnt really want a young kitten (though most people do it seems) cos they need lots of socializing and Im afraid Im just not going to give the kitten the time it needs. But, the breeder had a young adult breeding cat that wasnt breeding any more and they wanted to "re-home" her, so I said that would likely be great for me... And then I got optioned up to a second older kitten too because it wasnt as social as most people like...

So, in due course, a couple of cats arrived in my house and for the last couple of weeks they have been "settling in!"

This is the "kitten"... She is about 8 months old, is of the "Ruddy" colour form (there are grey, red and ruddy coloured Abyssinians) and is a classically shaped exemplar of the breed. She has no official name but Im probably gonna just call her "squeeker" cos thats the sort of noises she mostly makes :)

And this is the "young adult". She is a red colour and is about  four years old and her official name is Vixen. Her coat is more "full" and her face/head is more rounded than the kitten, which makes her look more like a regular house cat... Though much smaller (the Abyssinians are quite small cats)... (sorry I dont have a better picture at present... I only get to see them in the evenings!)



So, How is the "settling in" going??

Well, some good and some bad...

Only a single "breakage" of the brica-brac on my shelves so far,

Both cats are very well litter trained,

Both cats are responding well to learning how to use the toilet instead of a litter box

Both cats seem to be comfortable with their new home.

The less good issues are with respect to their personalities... Or, more specifically with the differences in their personalities.

Squeeker is an introvert and is very skittish and also very willfull. She really does not like to be picked up off the ground at all (results in lots of hissing and growling and struggling), though she does love to have lots of short pats and head rubs from me. But she also absolutely hates to have the other cat anywhere within about 50cm of her (also results in lots of hissing and growling). And she is also very Mercurial when it comes to food... She gets very hungry and really wants to be fed in the mornings and evenings, but only eats a little bit before running off to do "something else of interest"... Shes a browser rather than a feaster.

Vixen on the other hand is an extrovert and is confident in everything. She is happy to be picked up and also likes plenty of pats and affection... She is quick to jump up on my bed at night and will get under the sheets too if at all possible :) Shes quieter and spend more time sitting than running around than Squeeker  (somewhat due to their age difference but mostly the personality I think) but shes very interested in anything thats "going on", and even seems to enjoy moving into Squeekers "personal space" just to provoke a response :)  But Vixen also loves her food and will eat pretty much as much as she can as fast as she can...

And therin lies my problem.

If I just had the one cat then feeding would be no problem, but with the two of them together I find that I have to feed them at least twice a day and in seperate rooms with a door shut between them... And thats no real problem at the moment but it does mean that I cant really go away for even a day (its just not reasonable to ask friends to attend to feeding my cats twice a day!). If it was just Vixen then food for a couple of days could be put out and when she has eaten it she gets no more but at least she has got enough to last. Likewise with Squeeker alone, the same food could be put out and she could eat small amounts as she wants too. But with them both there, Vixen would get it all and Squeeker would get none!

And so, that is my current dilemma!

Another factor adding to that is that after two weeks Ive only seen them "play" momentarily together twice, and its always with Squeeker chasing Vixen and not vice-versa (that just results in a hissy fit!).

So, I admit that at this stage, Im considering the possibility that in a few weeks time I may decide that one of them needs "to go" with the other either living alone at my place or a second cat from the SPCA being obtained to keep company (with a compatible personality of course)

... Lets give it a few weeks to see how things progress though before I make any drastic decissions! :))

And Im not really happy with them being just indoor only (seems like a boring life to me), so Im gonna install a cat door in the house so that they can get acces to my back deck which is 2.5m - 5m above the ground at the back... That should give them fresh air and assorted distractions without exposing them to predation by dogs and coyotes etc... Seems like a good plan to me at present... Ill see how it goes :)