Mild Spell

Weather conditions were forecast to be really mild in early November so I headed back out to the cottage.  None of the girls were able to join me, so this time it was a solo trip.  Before leaving town I stopped to have lunch with my friends Brad and Rob on November 4th.  Rob was in town briefly and we took advantage of the opportunity to get together.  This was the first time the three of us had seen each other, face to face, since our trip to Vancouver Island in 2019.  It was great to catch up again and we hope to be able to travel together again next year.

After lunch I hit the road for Nordegg and arrived at the cottage in the late afternoon.  It was a beautiful day, with the temperature up around +12C.  I took advantage of the opportunity and washed all the rocks that Shawn and I had collected last weekend.

I don't think it froze overnight and by 9:00 in the morning it was already up to about +5C.  The temperature peaked again at around +12C and I took advantage of the mild conditions to do some work in the cottage.

While I was away my contractor Scott installed the weeping tile and partially backfilled the cottage.  Hopefully he can finish the rest soon, and get the septic tank covered up.

I cut up some aluminum angle and screwed it to the inside floor.  This was to create a border for the masonry floor that I was to construct.  I laid out all the rocks in jigsaw puzzle fashion and was able to fill the area I needed.  I thought I would have ample rocks for this, but there was only a handful left over.  By late afternoon I had the rocks all mortared into place.  But the mortar was too soft for me to get really serious about scrubbing the exposed surface of all the rocks.  I left an electric heater on inside the guest cottage while I went and had dinner.  After dinner I came out to see what I could do, but everything was still too soft.  I'm sure it will be somewhat set up in the morning, but hopefully it doesn't freeze too hard overnight.  The sky cleared right off and there are a lot of stars out.  By 8:00PM it had dropped down to +3C, so fingers crossed that it stays above zero in the guest cottage.  In the morning I will clean up all the rocks, and then move on to my next project.....