Good friends and Ben Harper over Labour Day weekend

Wendy & Keizo,
Kes & Andrea,
Barbara & Jyoti (and Kirin & Sheila),
Kate & Mats

and a Ben Harper concert in Vancouver's Stanley Park :)

Porch (and roof) project(s) -- demo & concrete

Well, our porch was a bit rotten and the inspector warned us to fix the stairs too. We wanted a bench and a closed entry. So we met with a local contractor and we started this project. I have learned so much already and intend to increase my knowledge of the building/construction world. By taking apart the porch, largely on my own with the guidance of Carl, I recognize how to properly build (and NOT build). Here is where we are so far. Only two weeks into the work but demo is done and the materials were disposed of properly. We also poured concrete for the foundations for re-modeled porch and entry.

It turned out to be a great project because there were rotten board, and other weak points that might have led to bigger problems down the road. Including a haven for yellow jackets-- right outside our front door :o

I have also spent hours on the roof (of the garage and the house) all summer scraping moss off. This saves us money and new roofing material later down the road. Easy to do but the dangers lie in falling off the roof or getting stung by Vespidae (wasps, yellow jackets, etc) during the process. Happy to say that I am done with the roof maintenance... only thing left to do is put Zinc atop the roof so that it can was down on its own and inhibit more moss growth in this upcoming rainy season.

Here are the pictures, mostly of the porch, that explain the project so far:

Food processing and summer abundance

With the abundance of a garden and fruit this summer we had to process (and are in the process of processing!) so much food. How lucky we are to have had so much allotted to us this year... and a small reward for the toils of hard work too. But this is a tremendous amount of work as we spent all day in the kitchen without even eating all that much yesterday. Some exploits from the summer not already mentioned: MORE pickles, pear sauce, dehydrated pears, salsa, prunes