The girls and I headed out to Nordegg right after work on Friday. There was a traffic jam on Highway 2 just south of Leduc due to some guy with a big RV that got a flat tire. This backed up traffic for several miles, but not nearly as badly as the northbound lanes. They were also backed up, near the same spot, due to a serious collision between a large RV and a big truck. We arrived out at Nordegg, a little later than expected, but safe and sound.
We got unpacked and the girls set up all the cages and supplies for all their pets. Two small dogs, three rabbits and two hairless guinea pigs...! It was cool and wet due to all the rain we experienced through the month of June. We just settled down in the cottage and turned in fairly early.
I had planned for a relaxing weekend without much work, and mostly stuck to that. The only things that I really did was to screw on the upper railing of our interior stairs, and to work on some fire wood. There was a small pile of logs near our fire pit that I had started cutting up a couple of weeks ago. I cut up the rest of this pile with my chain saw and set to work splitting it all. It was early afternoon on Saturday as I was working on this that our friends Jon and Marg showed up with their camper. Jon and I have been friends for many years and have a common passion in photography. Many times we went out for day trips and weekends together with our cameras over the years. Jon and Marg are now both retired so they were off for a few days of camping and hiking in the National Parks. But, they decided to spend a couple of days at our place, over the busy long weekend, before pushing on further west.
We spent most of the weekend relaxing and had a couple of BBQ's went for a couple short walks, and rode around a bit on our ATV's. At one point we took a ride over to the old pump house and Shunda Falls. Everything is very lush and green right now due to all the rain. I found two different kinds of orchids and some lady's slippers starting to bloom down by the pump house. As we were heading back we got caught in a heavy rain shower and had to retreat to the General Store in town for a bit while it blew over. We had a nice fire for a while on Saturday evening.
On Sunday afternoon Margarit had to head home early. She had tickets to see Pentatonix, a vocal group, back in Edmonton. We had taken two vehicles to facilitate this and she and Helena hit the road shortly after lunch. The other two girls stayed with me and we hung out with Jon and Marg for the rest of the weekend.
On Monday afternoon Jon and Marg packed up their camper and headed west towards the Parks. It had been a beautiful sunny morning, very clear and warm, but by afternoon was getting quite cloudy and cool. The forecast was calling for a 100% chance of rain and by mid afternoon that proved correct. The girls went out for one last ATV ride while I tidied up a few things and got ready to leave. I pulled out the log spiltter and finished up the last of the firewood, then did dishes and cleaned up.
We have been having a few issues with a slight amount of moisture in our basement. Fortunately it is more of a crawl space than a basement, and is unfinished, with a gravel floor. All of the mechanical stuff that is down there including our water pump, hot water heater, furnace, etc. is all raised up off of the floor. I have an exterior sump at one corner of the cottage that accumulates water from the weeping tile and I pumped this out several times over the weekend. This has not been an issue in the past and I attribute it to all the rain we've had this June. My weather station has recorded nearly six inches of rain over the past four weeks. Our foundation is built right on a rock slab that is only about 2 feet below the original grade. Groundwater follows this surface and a certain amount of it has dampened the gravel floor in our basement.
It was about 5:30 on Canada Day, Monday afternoon, when the two girls and I hit the road for home. We saw a couple of wild horses near Harlech, and stopped for something to eat in Rimbey, but otherwise it was a pretty uneventful drive. It rained most of the way home and as the weekend weather was less than ideal, traffic back into the city, particularly at this late stage of the weekend, was quite light.
It occurred to me as I was driving home, that it was Canada Day in 2016 that we took possession of our lot out at Nordegg, and took our trailer out for the first time. At that point we had to park the trailer on the gravel approach, as the lot was still solid bush. Here we are, three years later to the day, and our building permit has been closed and we are essentially complete. The most pressing thing left to do is finish up the kitchen cabinets so that we can get a counter top and kitchen sink put in. It is rather annoying to have to continue to get water from the bathroom sink for all the cooking, dishes and cleaning chores. But that day will come soon...!
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