Back to Work

The guest cottage was essentially finished back in January.  In the lingo of general contractors, we reached "Substantial Completion" at that time.  Since then I have been farting around with a few little chores, and setting up some furniture.  Back in July Margarit and I christened the place and made it official... we were the first ones to spend a night there.  Since then, Anna and her boyfriend have been guests.

Recently Margarit and I found a set of Mid-Century Modern dishes.  These were advertised on Facebook and were being sold through a local shop in Edmonton.  It was a complete set of Vernonware dishes, from California, dating back to the 1950's.  The color scheme was perfect for the cottage.  We got a set with dinner plates, side plates, small plates, cups and saucers, dessert bowls, serving platters and serving bowls for $165.  I brought it all out to the cottage on Friday August 2nd.  Between all these dishes, and the small collection of green Medalta stuff, from Medicine Hat, that we previously accumulated, it became evident that more cupboard space was in order.

I drafted up some plans for two small upper cupboards.  I was pretty sure that I had enough plywood left over, and it turns out I did.  But I brought out some paint and a few other supplies.  This was a solo trip for a few days for me to work on this stuff.  But is was also to keep an eye on things.

Just a few days ago a forest fire burnt down the Athabasca valley in Jasper National Park and into the Jasper townsite.  About 1/3 of the buildings in town were lost, and a young 24 year old firefighter, based out of Rocky Mountain House, lost his life fighting the blaze.  A pretty tragic few days to say the least.

There are currently several fires burning in the Nordegg area.  This includes two large ones.  One at almost 7000 hectares is burning out of control down near Ram Falls.  A second one, and a nearby third one, at nearly 5000 hectares combined, are burning near Crescent Falls and Wapiabi.  All are still about 25km away from Nordegg.  I wanted to be out to keep an eye on things, and see if any steps had to be taken to protect our property.  Not that there is much that we can do as there is limited water supply and not much in the way of permanent local fire fighters.  But if felt better just being around.

On the evening of August 4th, and through the day on August 5th we had off and on showers that dumped nearly an inch of rain.  There is more rain forecast through the upcoming week.  Hopefully these fires are brought under control, and no new fires emerge.  There has been a fire ban in place throughout the province for much of the past couple of weeks.  Despite that, I twice had to go next door to the short term rental beside me and demand that tenants put out their fires.  People are idiots and common sense is just not all that common.  Climate change is being blamed for most of these fires.  But the reality is that about 2/3 of all forest fires are human caused.  In the past 25 years there have been hundreds of miles of roads and trails cut into the forests, and the population of the province has doubled.  It is only to be expected that the number of fires would also double.

While I was at the cottage, I cut up all the parts for two upper cabinets that I am building.  I just beat the rain and managed to get all the rabbets and dadoes cut into the parts, and also rough cut all the plastic laminate, before the showers rolled in.  With both cottages now finished, I have to do this work outside.  Before heading back to the city I managed to get primer applied to all the parts, and paint to about half of them.  Then next time I come out I will continue with painting, and then move on to assembly.