Standing Dead

I headed out to Nordegg on July 11th, and didn't even hit the road until late in the afternoon.  When I arrived at the cottage in the evening, my brother and sister in law, Shawn and Lisa, were camped out in the yard.  I knew that they might be there, as they had asked permission in advance.  They were looking to try out some new camping gear, and at the time that they asked, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it out.  So they camped out in the yard and for a couple of days and we had a good visit.  Just as the rain rolled in on Sunday morning, they were able to pack up and hit the road for home.  I stayed on for a couple more days, by myself.  I managed to get all of the things done that I needed to do.  

As I've previously reported, I acquired a bunch of darkroom equipment from my friend Rob and have been trying to sell it.  Most of it is now sold, and out of temporary storage in our living room.  There were a few items that my friend Mike from Prince George wants to take, but I won't be able to connect with him until fall.  When we do connect, it will be out at Nordegg, so I took his stuff out there and stored it... out of our living room, and in the guest cottage.

I also brought out ten 8x10 prints for the Beehive Artisan Market.  These are older images, that I have had in stock for a while.  But they fit the theme of the Nordegg location, and I've been meaning to replenish my stock for a while.  A number of my prints and cards have sold in recent months, and it was time to get some additional prints on display.  So that is now off of my plate until I get around to printing some new work.

I also brought out the prints that I recently framed for the Discovery Center at the Nordegg Historic site and delivered and installed those on Monday July 14th.

Shortly after Shawn and Lisa left back on Sunday, the rain rolled in and it kept coming down for over 24 hours.  By the time it finally slowed down there was an accumulation of almost 1-1/2 inches.  When it finally quit altogether, albeit only temporarily, I got my neighbor Rob to give me a hand, and we cut down three dead trees that were threatening my buildings.

There are a lot of standing dead trees on our property.  I've never actually counted them all, but there must be over 50.  This sounds like a lot, but there are probably five times that many that are alive and healthy.  I think it is because we only have about 18 inches of top soil and below that there is only solid bedrock.  When we experience hot and dry conditions the trees really suffer.  For the most part I just let them stand until they fall down on their own.  We got taken by surprise a few weeks ago when a spruce that seemed healthy, came down in a windstorm and clipped our guest cottage.  In an attempt to be proactive, I took down two poplars and a pine, all dead, that were leaning and threatening our cottage and garage.  I think we are out of immediate danger for the time being, but this will be an ongoing process.

My neighbor Rob came over with his quad and after I climbed up on a ladder and secured a rope, he pulled the dead trees down while I used my chainsaw to cut them off at the base.  It was a controlled process and we managed to drop them pretty much where we intended, and away from all the buildings.

During the worst of the rain I worked on some stuff inside.  I have to do a final report on my Arts Council grant so I worked on writing that for a while.  Then later I worked on the write up for one of the hotels visited by the Beer Parlour Project.  Chris does the research, and sends me all of his notes.  Then I massage that and turn it into a draft of the website write up about the hotel.  Chris rounds that out by adding some quotes from the interviews that he does.  It might seem like an odd approach but the team effort has been working quite well.