Back at it....

I headed back out to Nordegg on Friday July 27th.  Once again I was out on my own.  It was about 9:00PM before I arrived and I by the time I unpacked everything and got settled in, it was nearly 10:00.  I was tired after a long week at work and turned in early.

I was up at 7:00 on Saturday morning and after a quick breakfast of coffee and toast I went to work.  I cut the remaining pine boards for the ceiling and tried again to install them by myself, with no luck.  So I worked on a bunch of other odds and ends that needed looking after.  I installed the last electrical cover plate, and then set about working on the windows.  I cleaned them all on the interior, and looked after filler and sealant around all of them.  I also put up the two remaining exterior light fixtures.  The soffit on the north side has a wasp nest in it, but they were fairly calm this time and let me put up the fixture without issue.

By the time I finished all this it was nearly 3:00 in the afternoon, and Margarit and Helena showed up.  They had decided to come for most of the weekend, but didn't want to drive out Friday after work.  Margarit had arranged for some laminate flooring to be installed in Anna's bedroom at home and they were dealing with this on Friday night as I was leaving.

With Margarit there to give me I hand I was able to install the last of the pine paneling.  I kneeled on the upper platform of the scaffold and was able to reach the highest part of the ceiling.  Margarit stood on the other platform, one level down, and held up the end of the pine boards with a broom.  It didn't take too long to get the last seven boards installed.

Then we cleared out all the stuff in the kitchen and dinette so that the scaffold could be moved back and forth.  I did all the touch up painting on the walls around the high ceiling.  There were a number of spots that had scuffs and dings and dents from installation of the paneling.  While I was up there I also cleaned the inside of the two high windows, and finished up the filler and sealant around them.

After this there was some pine trim to be installed around the perimeter.  This work was all started on Saturday afternoon, but carried on into Sunday.

We took a break on Saturday evening for a BBQ and then later had a fire and stayed up with our friends Shelly and Eric.  They were finishing up a bunch of exterior work at their cottage further west down Tamarack Trail.

By mid day Sunday the high ceiling was essentially done.... FINALLY!  The only things that remain are to install a trim board along the center ridge [which I haven't made yet] and to hang the ceiling fan.  I will look after that next time I'm out.  Then I changed gears and started work on the stone floor.  There will be an area of natural local stone, about 5 feet by5 feet, in one corner of the dinette.  This is where our wood stove will be installed.  I recently came to realize that I will need the scaffold to install the chimney for this stove.  But, once the fan and the chimney are up, the scaffold can come down.  We arranged and fitted all the stones into place and next time I'm out there I will mortar them all into place.

Things are quickly moving along.  We are still waiting for our plumber to return to fix one of the room heaters, and install the shower.  Once the scaffold is down the flooring contractor will return to finish the flooring.  After that is in place we can put our kitchen range and refrigerator into place.  At that point the only things of significance that will remain are the kitchen cupboards and sink, the interior doors, and the railings.  I can take my time on that, as well as a bunch of trim and detail stuff as the building will be totally livable by that point.  I'm looking forward to that day, which is not very far off, so that I can start to enjoy my time out there more and not work all day every day.  I plan on working part of every weekend and spending the rest of my time fly fishing, riding the ATV's and going out with my cameras...  

Plugging Along

As per usual I was back out at Nordegg on the weekend of July 21 and 22.  This time around it was a solo trip as I continued work on the construction project.  I continued with the pine paneling on the high ceiling.  I framed out the second skylight, finished up the insulation and vapor barrier on the high ceiling, and installed most of the pine.  There are a few more of the tongue and groove boards remaining to be installed right up at the peak.  I can't quite reach these to put them up by myself and will have to leave them for another time when I have a helper....

I also finished up a number of little odds and ends.  I installed all of the cover plates on switches and receptacles.  I switched out a couple of crawl space receptacles from Decora style to Duplex style so that a proper cover plate could be put on.  I installed the thermostat for the electric heater in the crawl space, and finished up a couple of junction boxes.

The weather out there in the mountains this summer has been abnormally wet.  It rained off and on all weekend... including a rather heavy dump on Saturday night.  There is mud everywhere and I had to run a sump pump for a while to clear out our weeping tile.  We really lucked out with the trenching in of the power lines the week previous as that was one of the only hot and dry days in recent weeks.  Our friends Shelly and Eric are working on there place down the road, and struggling to get at their building with a rental manlift.  They were stuck a number of times and had to get a contractor out to pull them out with a backhoe.  The backhoe operator has lived in the subdivision for over 15 years and he says this is the wettest summer he has ever experienced.  I'm just glad that the bulk of my exterior work is done, and I'm not fighting the weather as much as some of my neighbors.

Renegades - Summer Hockey

My Renegades hockey team played our last game of the summer regular season last night.  Lots of our players have been away in recent weeks and we've had to play with a really short bench the last couple of games.  Last night we only had nine skaters for a game against the Mugslingers.  With only three defense it meant that I was on the ice for two-thirds of the game.  A little much for an old fart like me and I'm feeling really tired this morning as I write this.  We played the entire season in Division 7.  There are 16 divisions in the league this summer, but that is not completely accurate.  The first division was combined to a Division 1/2.  And, partway through the year, as a result of some teams being moved up and down, Division 6 was eliminated.  Effectively we played in the 5th division out of 14.  We had the best record in our division with 13 wins and 5 losses.  The league moved a lot of teams around during the course of the season, and not all teams play exactly the same number of games.  As a result the final standings are based on our winning percentage against teams that remain in our division at the end of the season.  On that basis we finished with a record of 7 wins and 5 losses, for a winning percentage of 0.583.  This was good enough for third place....  The playoffs start next week and if we can string together a bit of a winning streak, we could keep playing hockey for another month or so...

Despite the short bench we won the game last night.  We jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, and then moved ahead to 6-1.  We started to run out of gas at the end but hung on for an 8-6 victory.

Another Guitar

I bought another guitar last night....  Picked this one up at the music store ahead of my lesson last night.  Annelise and I were there for our weekly guitar lesson.

This one is a somewhat inexpensive, Canadian made, acoustic guitar.  A Simon and Patrick Woodland Spruce.  It is very similar to the guitar that Annelise plays, and has a nice clean sound.  This one will stay out at Nordegg and become my practice guitar out there...  Hopefully I can eventually become proficient enough that this will become our campfire guitar...

Construction Progress

I just returned home from spending seven days out at Nordegg.  In the process I missed an Eskimos football game and two Renegades hockey games.  But, it was worth it because there has been a lot accomplished out at our property.  On July 12th I headed out for the day and met with the installers from Rolltek Rollshutters.  They installed shutters on all the windows and doors of our cottage and garage.  These will provide added security as well as storm protection, improved insulation, and light control.  I'm really happy with the quality of the product and way that the shutters function. I returned home from Nordegg that evening, and packed up the remaining supplies needed for an extended stay.

On the morning of Friday July 13th I picked up my friend Rob in Nisku.  He had flown to Edmonton the night previously, from a jobsite he had been working on up in Yellowknife.  He had graciously arranged to come out with me for a few days to finish the electrical installation at my cottage.  We arrived out at the property about noon on Friday and quickly set to work unpacking and getting to work.  When Rob came out with me back in March we did all of the electrical rough in.  Now that the insulation, drywall and painting is done, we came back to finish everything.

All the switches, receptacles and fixtures needed to be installed.  And all the home runs needed to be routed into the main panel and connected with breakers.  There were also a few other devices to be hooked up including the water pump, and electric heater in the basement, and high and low level switches on the water storage cistern.  We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday working on all this stuff and had it pretty much ready to go.

This electrical installation was actually supposed to start last September but an early snowfall on the last day of summer 2017 delayed the start.  We finally got back at it in March, and now an additional four months have elapsed to the completion.  The materials list was originally made up last year, and there were some changes and adjustments made over that time.  Needless to say we had some extra materiel that was not needed, and more seriously we were short a few things.  My contractor Scott of Shunda Creek Contracting has a gold mine of materials in inventory at his place and we raided it a few times to get some of the things that we were missing.  Scott's cooperation was very much appreciated and I have to make sure and bring him out some of his favorite Rum to acknowledge that.

I also called on our friends Shelly and Eric to pick up a couple extra breakers for me in the city, and bring them out for me on Sunday.  Rob and I made a quick run into Rocky Mountain House on Sunday morning and managed to pick up a few of the odds and ends that were missing, but the Co-op store in town didn't have everything we needed.

First thing Monday morning Scott showed up with his trackhoe and excavated a trench to run the power supply line to the cottage.  We removed the temporary power panel, and strung the line over to the house.  We had left a big coil of extra wire in the ground by the temporary panel so that this could be achieved without any splicing.  I had arranged for Fortis to come out that morning to disconnect the meter for us and shut off the power.  Nick, the technician arrived right on schedule at 9:00AM to look after this for us.  It was smoking hot on this day, and my thermometer recorded a temperature of 36 degrees at about 12:30 in the afternoon.  I suffered a little heat stroke as we worked in the hot sun pulling the cable, sleeving it into conduit, and installing the new meter base.  I had to retire to the shade for a while and felt better by later in the afternoon.  By about 1:30 in the afternoon we had everything back filled and connected and were ready for the power to be turned back on.  We called Nick and he was able to return almost right away and get everything hooked up for us.

When we turned the main panel on there were a few hiccups.  The breakers popped on a couple of circuits due to a couple minor wiring errors.  We got everything fixed up and by the end of the day we had power in the entire cottage.

On Tuesday Rob worked down in the crawlspace finishing up the connection of a couple devices while I worked out in the garage.  We ran a 30amp supply from the main panel in the cottage to a sub panel in the garage.  I installed some receptacles and lights out in the garage and when Rob finished up down in the crawlspace he came out and did the connections out in the garage.  By this time we had complete power in both buildings.  All the receptacles and switches are installed, the water pump and hot water heater are functional and all the light fixtrues and alarms are working.  There are only a few little odds and ends that I will need to look after later.

The two exterior light fixtures on the cottage need to be installed.  One is installed now but it needs a little adjustment.  There is a wasp nest in the soffit by the second one, so we left it alone for now.  A bunch of the cover plates need to be installed.  A thermostat needs to be added for the electric baseboard heater in the crawlspace.  And the ceiling fan can not be installed until I finish the pine on the high ceiling.  Other that that everything else is done.

On Tuesday afternoon, with everything pretty much wrapped up, we jumped in the ATV, threw in the cameras, and took a ride over to Shunda Creek.  That water level was higher than I have ever seen it before and at the waterfall, we were not able to cross.  I brought along two of my 4x5 cameras with two tripods and Rob and I spent a couple of hours photographing.  This was the first time I had shot any film with my big camera since the beginning of May when I shot the old hotel sign in Stettler.  Rob got a chance to try out my Ebony with the asymmetrical rear standard.

I very much appreciate Rob's help with this project.  I am a pretty handy guy and can understand just about anything construction related... but I really struggle with electrical.  I have now learned a little about the basics, but there is no way I could have done this on my own.  I really enjoyed the few days that we spent together this past week, as well as back in March.  It gave us a chance to visit and reconnect.  We used to get out together with our cameras on a very regular basis when Rob lived in Beaumont.  But, he moved to British Columbia a few years ago and although we communicate regularly by e-mail, we don't see each other all that often.  We usually connect for a trip somewhere once a year or so....  This time around there was a lot of discussion about all sorts of topics, we listened to music on the portable stereo all weekend, ate really well with big evening meals, had a camp fire almost every night, and drank lots of beer.

By Wednesday morning there was nothing left to do but pack things up and go home.  We stopped for lunch in Rocky Mountain House, and I dropped Rob off at the airport at around 3:00 in the afternoon.  He was catching a flight home to BC for a few days, but has to fly back up to Yellowknife shortly to go back to work.

Nordegg Snapshots

Here's a few snapshots taken up at Nordegg last weekend.  Big push is on right now to get some of the construction stuff wrapped up and numerous trades are working out there this week.  Mechanical rough in is being completed.  First load of water will be delivered and loaded in the cistern.  Gas line will be trenched in from the propane tank to the house.  Rollshutters will be installed on all the windows and doors.  Electrical installation will be completed.  Temporary power panel will be removed and the cottage will be energized.  Following that I need to finish off the high ceiling once and for all, so that we can get rid of the scaffold.

Dad and Helena Weekend

Like usual, I headed back to work out at Nordegg last weekend.  This time around my youngest daughter Helena decided to come with me.  Margarit and the two older girls stayed home.  For the first time all year, I decided to head out on Friday right after work.  In the mad rush to get out of town I forgot to grab the keys to the cottage.  I got as far as the airport when I realized my mistake.  I called Margarit and asked her to run the keys out to me, hoping to save a little time.  It did, but I neglected to tell Margarit that I needed the keys to the ATV's as well, and she only brought me the cottage keys.  We pushed on and made the best of it.

My next door neighbor Dan was out with his family, including his 11-year-old niece Avery.  Helena and Avery hit it off really well and played together all weekend.  This left me free to focus on my work.  In finished roughing in some electrical down in the crawlspace.  Then I tried to work on some electrical stuff out in the garage.  I mounted the subpanel and installed some boxes for receptacles.  I strung a little wire, but the ATV's were in the way and I was unable to finish, or to put up any octagon boxes for lights.  I had to leave that for another time.

On Sunday I carried on with the installation of pine paneling to the second side of the high ceiling.  I got the first six or seven rows of tongue and groove boards on, including fitting around the flue for our woodstove.  I also put up more vapor barrier and insulation in the high ceiling.  I think if I could spend one more weekend out there I would be able to finish the ceiling.  I have a bunch of trades coming out over the next little while and the push is on to try to get things up and running.  Rollshutters, mechanical, electrical and flooring should all be wrapped up over the next month or so.  Then it will be substantially complete and I can back off a little from my rigid work schedule.  At that point I hope to be able to slowly tinker away at some of the interior stuff, and spend part of my time enjoying the outdoors.  I haven't had my camera out in ages, haven't taken an ATV ride yet, and haven't put a fishing line into the water....

New Jerseys

A couple of seasons ago the Renegades got new hockey jerseys.  They were modeled after the old 1926 Detroit Red Wings jerseys and are white with a red band in the center.  This season we are looking to add new dark jerseys.  This is a mock up of what they will look like.

Losing Skid Ends

The Renegades played a hockey game on July 4th against a team called Riverfolk.  We had our full roster out for this one, and hoped to turn around our losing streak following the two lop-sided defeats last week.  Riverfolk quickly jumped out to a 2-0 lead, and it was looking like deja vue all over again...  We got one back and then the game became close, with goals traded back and forth.  Early in the third period we managed to tie the game 3-3.  Then they scored a short handed goal to take the lead.  One of their players drew a double minor penalty with only a few minutes left in the game.  I called a time out with 1:36 left on the clock and we put our best five players out on the ice.  We were ready to pull our goalie for an extra attacker, if needed.  But the guys scored with just over a minute on the clock to tie the game.  It went to a shootout and our goalie Steve stoned all three of their shooters, while we scored on one of our first two shots to win the game.  Sure feels good to put the losing skid to an end and see a strong team effort from our guys on the rebound.

Canada Day Long Weekend

It was cool and overcast and threatening rain for most of the long weekend.  Margarit and I went to the Eskimos football game on Friday night.  On Saturday morning, bright and early, Hailey and I hit the road for Nordegg.  Margarit and the other two girls drove out separately later in the day.  My brother-in-law Shawn drove out too... and arrived at our place just a few minutes before Hailey and I.  This would be his first visit to our place... and he seemed blown away!

Most of Saturday was spent unpacking and setting stuff up.  I puttered around a little on some work in the cottage but didn't accomplish a lot.  In the evening we had a big communal BBQ and our friends Shelly and Eric and their daughter Amy joined us.  They are also building a cottage out here... about 12 lots over to the west.  We built up a big fire in the evening and sat around visiting and blasting tunes on the iPod.  It showered off and on a few times during the day, but never really became rain.

Sunday I was up early, determined to accomplish a little more.  I spent the better part of the day working on the high ceiling.  I got all the pine paneling finished on the kitchen half of the cottage, including the light shaft of the skylight and the ceiling trim.  Shawn helped me out passing stuff and helping me secure the tongue and groove boards up on the high scaffold.  The girls put the seats and handles onto our canoe, and also assembled the electric log splitter.  With Shawn's help they set to work on our big pile of logs and got a number of them split and stacked.

That evening we were all pretty worn out and turned in early.  Shawn had spent the first night in his tent, but this time around there was more rain in the forecast, so he moved inside.  There were no fireworks in town this year and perhaps my recollection of previous years is wrong...  I could have sworn there was a show, but perhaps I am just recalling some of the neighbors setting some off.

I was up at 7:30AM on Canada Day Monday.  The sky was clear and the sun was shining but I could see my breath in the air and the temperature was only about +2C.  By the time the last of the girls got out of bed at the crack of noon, it had clouded right over and was threatening to rain.

Shawn packed up and headed for home in the early afternoon.  Margarit and the two younger girls did the same a little later in the afternoon.  I spent the morning adjusting one of the entrance doors and finishing up the last of the interior casing.  Then I cleaned up and organized the interior of the cottage so that some of our trades could continue with their work over the next little while.

Our mechanical contractor will be back to finish up some of the rough in work.  And, with the casing now on, our rollshutter guys can install in the next week or so.

Next time I come out I will finish up some electrical rough in down in the crawl space and out in the garage.  My friend Rob is coming back out sometime in mid-July so that we can finish all the electrical and move the power supply over from the temporary panel, to a permanent connection on the building.  Once all of that is done then I will return my attention to the rest of the pine paneling on the ceiling, and the other interior finishing work.

By about 3:00 in the afternoon, when Hailey and I finished tidying up, it began to rain fairly heavily.  It rained most of the way home.  I understand that there was a Heavy Rainfall Warning in effect for the area all day on Tuesday.  We missed most of it through the long weekend and only got dusted with some light showers off and on, and on the way home.  But, it was cool and overcast for most of the weekend and felt more like early May than July.  Not surprisingly the subdivision was very quiet and a lot of our neighbors didn't bother to come out.  That didn't really hurt our feelings and we enjoyed our time out there despite the weather.

Losing Skid

The summer hockey season for the Renegades started out really well.  We were undefeated through the first nine games.  Then the wheels fell off....  Following the release of our updated schedule and the realignment of the divisions, we played two games last week.  One on Tuesday June 26 and a second on Thursday June 28.

On Tuesday the Mudslingers beat us 12-2 and then on Thursday the Hat Trick Swayzes beat us 10-2.  Being a short week due to the Canada Day Long Weekend we only have one game in the first week of July.  Sure hope we can get back on a winning streak and turn things around   There are only seven games remaining in the summer season and then we will roll into playoffs.

17th Anniversary

On the weekend of June 23 and 24 Margarit and I went out to Nordegg.  Helena came along with us, but the two older girls stayed home in the city.  We went to the football game on Friday night and then hit the road first thing Saturday morning.  It was a really mild and pleasant weekend and we marvelled at how quiet it was out there, and how few people were around.  Exactly the reason that we are creating our weekend place...!

Saturday June 23rd was our 17th wedding anniversary.  We enjoyed the day together but didn't have any special plans.  Just an evening fire and BBQ and some relaxing at the end of a busy day.  Like every day on my calendar in recent months it was just another work day.  I continued with the installation of pine paneling to the high ceiling, and also worked on window and door casing.  The girls pitched in and helped around the place, but also took breaks and went out for a ride on the ATV a couple of times.