Last chance

This is the weather forecast for Medicine Hat, Edmonton, and Ottawa. The forecast for Ottawa for the rest of the week +10C, +14C rain, +12C. So this is the very last chance to get the caulking done before the cold weather arrives on the weekend! (Forecast is -5C for Sun/Mon.)

A busy Saturday

Tawny enjoying a bit of a run, waking up the geese. :)

This is what the entrance to our road looks like now, with the granular A (GA) down. It is about 10' wider than the previous road.

Yes, I did mow the lawn today.

Amazing for two reasons.

1st, that I could mow the lawn - since it is November 25th!

And 2nd, that the grass even needed mowing! It has been so mild that the grass has kept growing.

Neighbours moved in

Some neighbours moved in on Tuesday (Nov 21st). There house is completed (only deficiency is the cold air returns in basement are not flush with the wall).

Quite incredibly, we are at Day 597, and we are still having to fight to get the deficiencies fixed!


Photos taken: July 10, 2006 (after footings were poured etc) and November 17th, 2006: moving van.

Our neighbours moved everything in on November 21st, a mere 134 days after their house construction started.

Finally, the road prep

Finally, the road prep has started.

Quite a long time after it was promised.

All we have see thus far are survey stakes and a few loads of sand/gravel dumped in a couple of spots.

Kanata Santa Claus Parade

Santa was riding on the top of a fire truck. This was the last vehicle in the parade.

The fire truck and police drivers kept doing their whoop-whoop sirens which freaked Tawny out.

She didn't like the big trucks either. I think their noise frightened her.
There was only one horse-drawn float in the parade..

And it had no decorations on it.

The lack of decorations or even creativity that went into the parade overall was quite disappointing and extremely unexciting.

Most vehicles had a few simple last-minute decorations like just a bow, and windows open blasting Santa Claus is coming to town. This Pontiac Soltice one such example, except the decorations consists only of a hat for the driver!

This is the Scion xB - made by Toyota but supposedly not available in Canada. Paul Williams, one of the best writers on Canadian Driver (IMO), says "Toyota says it would cost too much to bring the dealer and service infrastructure to Canada, to justify the sales that they would expect here.".

This company had 3 xBs in the parade. Cheap advertising, I guess, as this one only had a big ribbon on it.

Some deficiencies fixed

This post shows the results of the deficiencies that were addressed on Thursday, November 16th.


This is the before photo in the cold storage room.

This is the after photo in the cold storage.

The loose hanging plastic has been cut down. The dryer duct has been covered with insulation.



The white drain pipe has been added to the pressure relief valve for the boiler - this is a safety improvement.







Since it was raining, Charles went into the attic and found that the chimney was leaking as we had said, and then went onto the roof and found where the problem was. Since he couldn't fix it right away - he had to order something called a "chase top" (I am still not sure what this is) - he tied some garbage bags on top to keep the water out. It rained all day today. I think the chase top was supplied by the roofer, so think this was the roofer's screw-up. The same company did the caulking, and if you have been reading this blog you know what a major mess that was.

We are glad that this significant issue was finally acknowledged and the root cause of the problem was identified.

Insulation deficiency fixed

Charles came on Monday and took care of the attic insulation deficiency. This is a photo of the insulation over some of the pot lights.

Pot lights have a plastic vapour barrier (building code requirement) and then the insulation goes on top. The insulation should be about 10 inches thick, but the insulation contractor did not do that properly. Charles addressed the situation by putting a batt of fiberglass insulation over the pot lights and fluffing up the insulation where it had become compressed.

Although we were hoping all the deficiencies would be fixed today, only the insulation ones were addressed. Charles is coming back Thursday to take care of the rest (we hope!).

Remembrance Day 2006

Remembrance Day 2006. Cold rain. Just like most Remembrance Days.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

On this day, we remember the eternal sacrifices of our relatives and others:

Bill Christopher - virtual memorial - Calgary Highlanders. Circumstances of death unknown. More details can be found in the Remembrance Day 2005 blog entry.

Ron Taylor - virtual memorial - Royal Canadian Artillery. Killed by a mine explosion. Circumstances of Ron's death are documented in the RCHA book "Right of the Line: An Anecdotal History of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery from 1871" by Mitchell, MC, CD Maj. G.D. (1986).

A tidy garage!

I wrote on Sunday that I put up a shelf and cleaned up the garage. Well - mostly did that on Sunday. Tonight I finished cleaning up the one part of the garage so I can park my car in that spot. There will still be lots of space for the snowblower, etc.

The other single car bay still needs a bit of organizing - that is where we are going to store the patio furniture for the winter.

No show

So I worked at home on Monday, waiting and waiting for nobody to show show up.

This photo was taken at 12:30pm on Monday Nov 6th.

Garage cleanup

Today we cleaned up the garage. It was a mess since it has been the "workshop" whenever the builder's crew or someone else needed to come back to do something. (And as you know, they have had many trips back to correct this and that.) I built a shelf across the front of the garage to store the various gardening bits. I still have about an hour of cleanup to do, but that involves taking my car out of the garage and doing some rearranging, so I left that for another day.

We are expecting more people tomorrow - we don't know who is coming as of yet. We asked Charles to please co-ordinate everyone for one final day. We also also asked Charles to give us a list of who's coming and what are they fixing so we can make sure that there is alignment between our expectations and Charles' plans. As of right now (11:30pm Sunday), we haven't heard if there are any plans.

I brushed Tawny tonight. The pile of hair almost covers an entire tile! What you can't really tell from this 2-D photo is that the pile of hair is about 3" thick at the middle.

Tawny won't sit still for Freda to brush her, but she will sit still for me. She sometimes gets her legs going if I find a particularly spot where she enjoys the brushing.

Beautiful!

This was a panorama photo I put together from 4 others. This was an awesomely beautiful day!


This is Tawny, waiting patiently on the front step of the neighbour's house, hoping that their dog Vasha can come out to play. They run and chase each other like the crazy canines that they are.

Tawny is younger than Vasha (3 1/2 yrs vs 5), but Vasha is a more slender dog (being a mix with Lab and something else). They do play very well together.