Sunday, October 16/2016 - Saturday, October 22/2016

My last week of summer work is upon me and for that I am eternally grateful.  I love working at the nursing home but this year has been a bit of a chore.  Both my hips and my back have been causing me grief and I struggled with them all summer.  But....I made it through and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to still be able to work and help the girls here for the summer.
The snow still remains but it is melting like crazy.  With the amount that fell though, I am thinking that it is here for the duration of winter and that unfortunately makes for a very long winter for the folks here.  John and I will be leaving it behind but they will be dealing with it for about seven months!!  Wow!!
Being that I was off all last week, there really isn't much left of the "to do" list so that is a good thing.
I took my uniforms over to Shirley's for their final wash and hung them up in the big RV (ready for the summer of 2017!!) so now they have been dealt with.
Shirley and I headed into Spiritwood for a shopping trip and we both came back a bit poorer!! Flannel sheets sets were on sale at one of the local stores so I bought two sets!!  I put one on our bed in the camper and I must say...they felt so soft and cuddly that I had a awesome sleep.
When Shirley and I got home from Spiritwood,  we headed over to the store with her wagon.  We had two gas cans and two 30 pound propane tanks in it.  She needed gas for their quad and we needed propane....again.  Of course we had to stop at the store for beer so on the way home we looked like a couple of rednecks headed back to the bush!!  Life is good in a small town!!
John decided that the icicles hanging over the walkway needed to be dealt with this week so got busy knocking them down. With all the melting going on, they had slid down and were actually covering most of the sidewalk.  If they ever decided to slide off while someone was walking along there I am sure they would have been killed!!  Not only from the icicles themselves but the sheer weight of the overhang would have crushed you.  I had bought some ice melter and traction aide while I was in town and once all the snow and ice was cleared, spread some of that on the cement to make it less treacherous.  I also spread some on the pathway to the camper as it too had iced over from all the melting.
It was a quiet week as I was really not too ambitious after the marathon of working.  I was ready to just rest, do a few simple tasks and have a beer!!   Life is good!!

Sunday, October 9/2016 - Saturday, October 15/2016

I am off for the entire week now and I will be continuing to work on "the list" for getting us packed up and out of here.
It is snowing again today.  Big snow flowers and although they look quite pretty, I am not impressed with more snow.  I checked the weather and it looks like the shitty weather will continue all this week.  It starts to warm up again by Tuesday of the coming week!!  Shit, Oh Dear....am starting to think that this snow is actually here to stay!!  So much for wishing it gone last week!!

Huge icicles hanging off the shop roof

I did manage to get a lot of the "to do" list checked off so now the task of leaving for the winter is not so daunting.  All the little things that need to be done all take time and it seems to want to just fly by.
I am battling a cold this week so that is not helping matters.  All this sniffling and sneezing is starting to get on my nerves.  And, my poor nose feels like it is going to fall off my face.  Thank heavens for Vicks as I am sure that is the only thing that is keeping my nose where it belongs!!

More huge icicles.  Very weird shapes though.  They
are pointed back towards the building!!

Cool to see though.  Weird shapes and all

Being so shitty outside this week, John got our new "campfire in a can" out and set it up in the man cave.  Now we can pretend we are camping and life is good!!  It kicks off a tremendous amount of heat and so we have to have it on the lowest setting or we would be cooked out!!   The evenings are really chilly now but when you walk into the man cave it is awesome.  Sooo warm!!

Our new "campfire in a can" ....Bigger and better

It works well in the man cave too!!

We are pretty much moved out of the big RV now and into the smaller one.  Time to winterize that big one and hunker down into the new one.  It is much more cozy and will not take nearly the amount of propane to heat as it is indeed much smaller.  John has yet to install the propane radiant heater into the new trailer yet but I am sure he will be doing that before we are out of here.  One does not really realize how inefficient the furnaces are in these RVs until you start buying bottles and bottles of propane!!  Holy Buckets!!
Anyway, a lot got done this week.  John got the solar panels on the truck and all hooked up and the side by side is loaded so actually, the truck is pretty much packed and ready to head South.
Life is good.

Sunday, October 2/2016 - Saturday, October 8/2016

This week can be summed up as work, work, work.  I agreed to work 7 out of 8 days!  Gosh, what the hell was I thinking!!   It is a busy week at the nursing home and some of the girls are on special committees so need days off to attend to their duties so that is where I come in, pick up the slack and everyone wins.  I get the needed hours to maintain some benefits and the girls get to deal with their meetings.
The weather is turning colder and Fall in most definitely in the air.  We have a bit more painting to do and I am thinking that it can only be done this week and we can only hope for enough warm weather to allow the rubberized coating to cure properly.  It was not supposed to get chilly this quickly but I heard there was even a chance of a few snowflakes this coming week!!  What the hell??  So... I am thinking we are painting sometime this week!!
Well.....the snow"flakes" arrived and I tell you.....it was WAY more than flakes.  It snowed for 3 days and by the end of it, there was at least 12 inches of snow on the ground!!  The roads were treacherous and there were several vehicles in the ditch around town!!  I am hoping that this dump of snow will eventually be gone before too long!!  The only good thing about this whole snow thing was that it was not cold.  The icicles are dripping and the snow is really heavy!!
The birds are shaking their heads but they are busy at the feeder so they are managing quite nicely. The geese have been flocking for over a week now and headed South and that is John's and my cue to get into gear and follow!!

Snow came early this year

Arlene gave this card to Marie

The snow even surprised this guy!

I had to save him.  Even though I don't like spiders!!

An icy overhang in the campfire area

The snow was actually quite pretty but that soon wore off and John kept saying "This is bullshit, Marie" and I kept telling him that this would be gone before the weekend!!  Oh please Lord, let this be gone by the weekend!!

Even the birds weren't impressed!!

Sunday, October 23/2016 - Saturday, October 29/2016

This week started off with Football!!  Sunday, Sunday, Sunday Football!!   Neither John, myself nor Kay have been able to win the football pool yet although we have been close a few times. Unfortunateluy, close does not make you a winner.  Maybe this week will be mine!!

Sunday, September 25/2016 - Saturday, October 1/2016

This week marked by 32nd anniversary of my 29th birthday!!  Yes, it is that time of year when we realize that another year has managed to slip on by.  "Time flies" has a whole new meaning as one realizes that "yes, it does" and where in the hell has it all gone!!  It was a day off for me and John cooked supper and we just had a quiet day tying up a few loose ends on some smaller jobs that needed to be done.
I got the truck camper totally ready for the sellers block, and the herbs are transplanted into their winter pots and,  I managed to get some parsley and rosemary dried for Gary to use over the winter months.  The cupboards are pretty much cleaned out of the "big" RV and the stuff has been transferred to the little trailer.  Anything that can "winter" in the big RV will be left for the season.
I have managed to get most of our clothes into the little trailer so that nasty job is done as well.
Things are all starting to come together and I find myself not nearly as stressed over all the little things that need to be done in getting us packed up and down the road.  My "To Do" list is lengthy but I get a little giggle every time I am able to scratch something off it!!
John has the solar system all hooked up on the truck and I hear that it was quite a job.  All that wiring is time consuming and now that it is done, a  huge sigh of relief can be had!!  John has yet to weld the frame together that will actually hold the panels but he assures me that this will be a relatively easy task.  It was the wiring that took all the time and I must say, the batteries were a bugger to move off the truck camper and into the battery bank on the deck of the truck.  Those things are HEAVY!!
Anyway, that stinking job is done!!  LOL
This week found us putting rubberized liner on the wood that is on the truck deck.  This will preserve and protect the wood.  Anyone who knows me knows it was a messy job and at the end of it....well I was covered with black paint!!  It was a task to get it off but the gas worked and left me stinking!! Gas is very drying to the skin by the way!!
Another busy week.  Gosh, this is getting a little "old" but our departure date is getting closer every week!!  Life is good!!

Sunday, September 18/2016 - Saturday, September 24/2016

This week has brought some beautiful Fall weather and with that, more leaves falling from the trees. John is still busy on the truck and I have been busy getting the truck camper cleaned out and cleaned up so that it can be sold when we come back in the spring.  John has also finally got the little white cargo trailer cleaned out and ready for sale so that too, can be dealt with in the Spring.  Man, we already have "jobs" planned for the Spring!!  Time flies!!
I worked four days at the nursing home this week so before I knew it, the week was over.  The four days I worked were in the middle of the week so it seemed to go by even quicker!!
The National Football League has started another season so,  John and I busy trying to win the football pool and watching the games.  There is just too much football on TV as the Canadian Football League is still on and we are busy watching that as well.  It is a good thing I enjoy the game cause it really would be quite brutal if I didn't!!
Arlene had asked John for a feed of his special, super duper ribs so we managed to squeeze that into our busy schedule this week as well.  She first encountered the wondrous flavour last year and says she has been obsessing about them since.  We combined that with the Saskatchewan Roughrider football game and a quick booze cruise down the North Road where we met Dave and Shirley along the way.   We ended up at the gravel pit where we we got to see even more awesome fall colors. Man, we truly are blessed.   Good food, Good friends and wonderful surrounding scenery.
Busy, Busy, Busy.....the theme of these last few weeks but, never so busy that we can not take time to "smell the roses".  Life is Good.

Ribs

And a Rider game

Trees changing in town

Booze cruise to the gravel pit

sunset at the gravel pit

Got to love the Fall colors.

Sunday, September 11/2016 - Saturday, September 17/2016

It started out as a busy week with my work schedule consuming four days out of the seven.  It is just work, work, work  this week but we had plans for a quad ride on Saturday.
The weather has been chilly and the leaves are turning beautifully.  There is an array of color in our forests and a quad ride during this time is nothing less than incredible.  It makes one feel so very blessed to have the opportunity to witness this changing season.
Dave and Shirley, Arlene and Gary and John and I set out for "The Block" around noon.  Soon, we were down by Deer Lake and surrounded by the splendor of the forest.  It was a beautiful day and we really could not have asked for anything better.  We headed along the lake towards "five corners" and eventually to the far end of Otter Lake.  Of course John would not be  happy unless he actually managed to get my ass wet!!  We ended up on our side (the passenger side of course) in a rather large mud puddle.  We needed the winch to get us up and out of the mess but definitely not before my ass got wet and one foot!!  Holy Buckets Batman!!  Good thing it was good weather and not cold!!
The ride was enjoyed by all and hopefully we will be able to get one more ride in before we pack up and leave for the winter season.
I managed to get another batch of relish done this week as well and that was a good thing.  I am now completely done with all the canning that I intend to do.  John will be taking the lawnmower to anything that is still standing and then I will get it rototilled and ready for another year once the potatoes are dug and stored away.
All in all, it has been another busy, full week.  Man, it will be nice to finally get in the truck and finally just settle down for the trip south.  Life is good.

Headed out of town

Passing the church

Entering the Block

Deer Lake

Gary

Beverage

Slideout

OOPS

Otter Lake

Arlene

Shirley

Hart Lake

Back up on the flats

Timberlost School

Arlene and Marie hugging it out

Another great ride