Saturday, November 2, 2013

Not Yet on Two Counts

This post is long overdue and was originally written Oct. 7th.



Only 1 more day till the cast comes off.....Hurray!....or so I thought.
When an email pops up with a heading of “appointment change” you know you really don't want to read it - due to the doctor being away please note and confirm new date of
Oct.16th 8am. This seems an eternity from the original date of Oct 8th. I want my arm back. I want to cut my own food, have a shower without being “bagged ”, roll up my own sleeve, type for more than 5 minutes before it pains me and open the cooler door without having to put whatever I have in my good hand down on the floor first. It's just the little things that drive you crazy.

So what's going on at the OP besides me whining, a couple of things actually.

Birds for one. What's with all the seagulls? These scavengers are always here in abundance when we first arrive. I chalk it up to the fact that there is always lots of fish scraps around for them to make it worth their while to hang out here. Once this stops they leave but not so this year. Quite a social bird if the volume of their constant squawking is any indication and the continuous reforming of groups fight to take over the prime spots on the rocks or docks by the 'dive bombing' method. I've never been a fan of the gull but I'll admit they had been rather entertaining last week.

Don't know if it was a change in the weather or the alpha gull got bored with the location but one day they just flew off and we haven't seen then since.




Rain...to be more precise the rains we have had in September. The skies opened up on September 17th, just happened to be Mike's birthday, and for a week we were inundated with torrential rains which were more reminiscent of January and February.




Along with the overabundant amount of rain, we also had our first storm which would have past with no more than a notation on my calendar except for the fact that it happened at the exact time that the barge was scheduled to make the trip down the coast to the Outpost.

Our anticipation for the appearance of the barge was fueled not only by the diesel it would pump into the tanks but also by what was stored in the container onboard.
Several days of shopping in Vancouver we managed to amass the bulk of all the canned goods and non-perishables that we use throughout the season. Several boxes of wine and a case of spirits plus maybe a bottle or 2 of a favorite liqueur were also carefully stowed. There is one box in particular I was looking forward to getting my hands on. Just by chance I had walked into a 'Dollar Store' looking for cheesecloth when my eyes lit up, my heart rate quickened and all thoughts of what I had entered the store for were replaced by an array of skulls, bats and warty nose witches with flowing black capes suspended from the ceiling. Shelves and baskets piled high with cobwebs, dismembered body parts, mice, spiders and cockroaches, I was in heaven!
Back to the contents of the container......the Halloween mother-lode has me excited but the icing on this year's cake is the new 50'' TV!!! What a treat that will be.

Remember I just mentioned that we had our first storm, at the same time the barge was scheduled......well fate did not shine on us that day. No barge. OK well these things happen but to twist the knife just a little bit more the next attempt will be around the first week of November. So much for my treasure trove of ghoulish delights.

We do have some canned goods and as always freezers full of meats, veggies and fruit so we certainly will not go without and we do have a TV ( but it's not 50'', whine whine)
and we do have several bottles of wine and enough rum for the occasional parched throat. What we don't have in very much quantity is fuel. Diesel runs our generators.... which run our lights, fridges, freezers, water, heat, internet and TV.
From the moment we realized that the trip was a bust we went into ration mode. Here I can truly say “been there done that” ...... deja vu season #2.
There's not much to the ration plan....use less fuel. This means we turn off our genny for a few hours through the day, it always goes down for the night, that is a must. The furnace only gets fired up twice a week not for the heating of the lodge, for we are doing OK right now with a couple of electric heaters but for the purpose of bathing. Being the only 2 here we figure we can get by with only two showers a week, really saves on fuel.
Hot water for dishes gets heated on the propane stove.

Now we wait and hope that the weather will co-operate and grace us with clear skies and calm seas the first week of November. (good luck with that)



It hasn't been all doom and gloom here. We have had some spectacular days, the week right after the barge couldn't make it.





Till next time,
Heather & Mike

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