On The Move

If you asked Kerry why I chose to move the shed she would probably say I did it so I could say I did. She may be partially correct however there are several more legitimate reasons.
1) It was sitting on top of a retaining wall that has long rotted out.  I'm not replacing the retaining wall now but in the fall or spring it will need to be done.
2) It frees up a great area beside our house where we can potentially put a pond.
3) It had sunk into the ground and was starting to rot.
4) So that I can say I did it.

I did consider getting people to come over and help me move it but that would have required a lot of beer and it would probably have cost too much. I also didn't really know how much it weighed so I'm not sure how many people it would have taken. Once I got it as light as I could I think it was still around 750 lbs which would have been at least 6 or 8 people. I ended up raising it up on two 2x4 skids and used a come-along winch. I drove an aluminum fence post into the ground a few meters ahead, connected the winch to some steel cable and started to pull. About 1 inch per pull and about 8 feet before I had to reset the post.

Callie and Carter weren't quite strong enough to move it but  they still helped by pulling on the winch for the first few pulls before there was any tension on the cable. This was quite exciting for them.

It's now tucked safely away in it's new home.  I put it up on new concrete pier blocks with a gravel base and we should be able to get at least another 5 years out of it. Right now it's quite ugly but a new paint job and some landscaping should spruce it up nicely.

Oliver Half Iron-man

For the past week when people asked me what I was doing on the weekend I would tell them I was going to Oliver for the Half Iron man. After waiting just long enough for them to assume that meant I was participating I would break it to them that I was going to drink wine and sit on my in-laws deck to watch the event. The half Iron-man is exactly what it sounds like. The same as a full except all the distances are cut in half. That still means a triathlon with a 2 km swim, 93 km bike and 21 km run. All of this needs to be completed in less then 8 hours. I could probably do the 93km bike in that time but I would drown about halfway through the swim and probably use up about 2 hours of my time getting to that point.

The reason we decided to go was that my in-laws have retired there and their house is situated perfectly to view all three legs. You can see the swimmers in Tuk-El-Nuit, the bikers across the lake via binoculars, (or noculars as Carter refers to them) and the run goes right in front of them 4 times. It ended up being the first really warm day there with temperatures in the 30's and we had a lot of sympathy for the participants as we ducked inside to the air conditioning periodically to ensure we kept our strength up for the entire event.

One other reason for attending was that Kerry has a colleague at work who participates with her husband. She's in the 45+ age group and had a very respectable time of under 7 hours. I just may have to learn to swim properly so I can at least try out a mini-triathalon. Or we can just continue to go up each year and drink wine on the deck.

Bike to Work Week

Last week was Bike to Work week. I've always been a supporter of such a thing but I've always had good "reasons" that I couldn't participate. For several years I lived relatively close to work but I didn't have a bike in operational order. Then I moved out to Surrey and worked downtown. That would have been close to 70 km round trip which isn't exactly a comfortable distance. For the past several years though I've worked in Burnaby and the round trip was only about 45 km. My excuse for that trip though was that there wasn't a good route that would keep me out of traffic.

This year I decided I would at least give it a shot. The lower mainland has been doing a lot in recent years to improve biking routes and after a bit of research I found out that there were bike routes I could take that would keep me out of traffic almost the entire way. The first day was a bit of a nightmare because some of the routes weren't exactly the most direct however by day two I'd mastered my route and it turns out there are dedicated bike lanes or back streets designated for bikes for 80%. The other 20% has bike lanes beside traffic that are clearly marked. The most harrowing part is probably the Pattullo bridge but only because it seems like the bridge could collapse at any moment. The sidewalk you ride on is separated from traffic with a one foot curb and plenty wide to ride on.
By weeks end I'd traveled 225km rain or shine. On Wednesday it was definitely more rain then shine. It took 2 hrs in the drier to dry my shoes. Despite that minor set back I've now decided I'll bike to work at least two days a week. When you include the 45 minute trip each way on transit and the hour I would spend at the gym anyways I'm actually saving time.

Creatures in the Compost

This weekend involved a lot of destruction. Every year my gardening projects seem to get a lot bigger then I expect. Things started simple enough. Move the garden to a sunnier location which happened to have nothing in it. Once that was done though we had to clean up the side yard beside the garden. That involved clearing out a bunch of unwanted dirt. The best place for that was the location of the old garden as I'd dug out a lot of soil and it was a big hole. To do that I had to set the concrete bases for the shed Unfortunately the compost heap was in the way so it had to be emptied and moved over by about a foot.

Now I'm ready to move the compost heap to it's final location, fill the shed hole with dirt and then filter cloth and stones and finally move the shed. I manged to get the compost heap back in place but I had to add a bit of "creature defense" while I was at it. Let's just say that some animals enjoy the warmth of a warm compost heap and seem to move in every winter. I'm hoping the wire mesh will keep them at bay. I still have to build a lid for the birds.

We did manage to get all the flower baskets planted and the side garden in place. At least this portion of the yard is finished. (For this year anyways. I have longer term plans to redo everything in this area with some proper pathways, raised planters and a bit of stone work.) 

The vegetable garden is coming up nicely. I think everything has spouted and if we can get some warm weather it should really take off. It got up to 20 degrees on Sunday and you could almost see the beans growing. They came up about an inch over the course of just a few hours.

Next weekend I just have to figure out how to move a 6x8 cedar shed across the yard.

Callie's First Dance Recital

On Saturday I got to attend Callie's first dance recital and I'll be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it. Sitting through four hours of kids hopping around stage so that I could see Callie for approximately 3 minutes was not my idea of fun. I did end up being presently surprised however. The entire event was themed around Alice in Wonderland and it wasn't just little kids. The teachers as well as some other semi-professional dancers were also involved. The music was also a very good mix with quite a few current chart songs which made it enjoyable as well. Overall I felt the event was very well done.

Callie started a bit slow mainly because the girl beside her stopped right in front of her at the beginning and it threw her off for a few steps. After that she did really great and you could tell which steps she liked the most. I went with Kerry and my mom and they both bought her flowers along with one of her friends mom. I was very impressed about how Callie did in front of such a big crowed. I don't think they can see much up there with the bright lights but she seemed to really enjoy being on stage. My favourite part was probably when all the dancers were on stage for the final scene and they moved to Katy Perry's "Firework". Callie was jumping higher then everyone.
If all these things are as good as this I won't mind watching her for years to come. (Once a year of course.)

You can view the Callie's Dance Recital Performance on YouTube.

Vegetable Garden Complete

This year I hope to get a much better crop from our garden. Last year the deck was in this spot and we've had the garden in the south west corner. With the 15 foot cedars behind our house this meant it only really got sun in the morning. Not very good for a vegetable garden. Now that the deck is gone I was able to move it to a prime location. It should get sun almost all day and it will be easy to water now that it's closer to the house. It also frees up a spot for me to move the shed to. It's in the way of a retaining wall that needs replacing. (There's always a project waiting to be done.)

Construction was relatively straight forward. About $30.00 worth of 2x10's and some left over stain from the deck. Most of the soil came from the old garden or the compost pile. I had a pile of wood shavings from the planer that ordinarily I would compost but I figured I would just add it as the bottom layer. It's only about half an inch with another 8 inches of soil on top so it should have plenty of time to breakdown before it gets tilled up next year. The kids of course couldn't pass up a new way of getting dirty.

The concrete feet came with the house and I've used them for numerous purposes. Here they make a nice sturdy clean path. (Good thing considering the kids like to check out the seedlings every day.) It would have been good to get it planted about a week earlier. We had nice cool weather with just a light rain the week before while this week has been hot and sunny and it's been difficult to keep things damp.  Hoping for potatoes, beans, lettuce, carrots, basil, chives, dill, radishes, tomatoes, broccoli, onions and strawberries. You can really pack a lot of food into a small space.

Child Development Center Run for the Kids

Today the family participated in the Child Development Center Run for the Kids. This was our fourth year participating and for the second year in a row Carter didn't fit into his shirt. Paired with the band-aid over his eye where he ran into the bed, we got a lot of smiles and sympathetic looks. I think it's because Carter's so small people think he's in need of the Centers services. Hopefully next year he at least fits into the kids small.

There are three options for the event and it only costs $20.00. There is a 2k around the track, a 5k and a 10k and all proceeds go directly to the center as everything is donated. Kerry was doing the 5k again this year and I did the 2k with the kids. Or at least I attempted to do the 2k with the kids. Callie wasn't too happy about Kerry leaving so I had to carry her the whole way. Carter was a trooper and probably would have walked the entire way but I was getting tired so I carried him for the last 600m. Carrying 40-65lbs for 2k was all the workout I needed this weekend.

For the $20.00 we got a great deal.  (Even greater because the kids were free.) We got a pancake breakfast, a shirt, balloon animals, Ronald McDonald high fives, lunch and face painting. The balloon animals were quite amazing. Carter got an elephant and Callie chose a lady bug. This will be an event we participate in for a long time to come.