Christmas at Nordegg

We had the annual staff BBQ at my shop on the afternoon of Friday December 21st.  We grilled some steaks and all the trimmings and had a festive get together with everyone before breaking for the holidays.  After everyone had left I stayed behind and tidied up for a bit, and then loaded a bunch of materials in my truck.  I had two of the interior doors ready for the cottage as well as jambs, stops and some other odds and ends.

First thing Saturday morning I hit the road for the cottage.  Once again I was on my own as Hailey had to work, and Margarit stayed behind to drive her.  It was a rather uneventful drive out, with good road and weather conditions all the way.  Some idiot decided that it would be a good day to move a building down Highway Two and this created a lot of traffic congestion.  I eventually turned off to the west without ever completely catching up to this guy, who was taking up two lanes.

There were only a couple of neighbors around once again it was a very quiet weekend.  There had been some really high winds the week prior and this did quite a bit of damage.  I understand that the gusts approached 100 kmh.  There were blown down trees in the ditches along the highway pretty much from Saunders all the way to Nordegg.  I never drove further west than town so it probably was the same further on.  One small tree feel across our driveway and several fell into the ditch at the front edge of our property.  A big pine was uprooted and dropped right across my neighbor Dan's gate.  He made the gate out of steel and it looks to be mostly OK.  No damage to any buildings as far as I could tell.  Lots of branches and needles and cones scattered all over the place though.

I spent a couple of days installing the two interior doors and jambs.  I also worked on some casing and some baseboard, and put up the last of the hardware in the bathroom.  I finished things up on Sunday evening around 5:00, but rather than drive home in the dark I stayed the night.

There was a full moon and it glowed off the snow at night making for a really cool winter scene.  I got up on Monday morning... Christmas Eve.  I didn't hang around long and just packed up my stuff and tidied things up and hit the road for home.  I got back to the city just after noon.  The girls and I headed over to my Mom's place for a big family Christmas dinner.  My two brothers and their families were also there and our usual family Christmas tradition was continued.