May 24th to 26th - 100 Mile House

May 24th – Thurs
Terry helped Marg hook up her small boat to go fishing this morning. Earlier we dumped out water that had been sitting in it all winter but Marg didn’t get back to actually cleaning it out. Terry parked it on a hill beside the house and used the pressure washer to make quick work of cleaning out all the green stuff and mud.
After Marg left, I suggested to Terry that we clean the fascia boards on the chicken house as it is going to be painted. Once the fascia board was clean, I worked on a strip along the bottom that was also yucky. Then we decided that we were not going to use red oil paint that Marg bought to paint over old oil paint on the chicken house (other buildings are shades of a rust color) so we needed to pressure wash the whole chicken house so we can use any paint or stain. And that is what we did! We had to move an old rabbit hutch and put boards for scaffolding on top of the outdoor runs to reach the top of the building but we got it all cleaned up & ready for paint.
We loaded up bags of garbage and made a trip to the transfer station. Dad told us about a different route back and we enjoyed seeing different scenery that included a lot of ranches that you wouldn’t even suspect were there.
We were invited out for dinner tonight and I told Marg that if she wasn’t home by 5:15 we would be leaving without her and she would have to come when she got home. At 5:05 I called her truck “phone” and she was 3 minutes away so we could wait for her to change and all go together.
We had a great dinner at Al & Cecile’s. Their friends Herb & Pat (who we met last year) were also there. Oh yeah – Marg caught a couple of nice kokanee today.

May 25th – Fri
I started mowing some grassy areas around the yard this morning. I used the grass catcher for some heavier areas and dumped the clippings for the chickens, sheep, horse & donkey. For the shorter & sparser grass I just mulched it with the mower. In this climate, if it doesn’t rain much (as usual), Marg will only have to mow the areas a couple more times this year. While I was mowing, Marg & Terry went out to limb downed trees & pull the trees out to be split for firewood. They ran out of gas in both chain saws and the saws were dull so they were back in for lunch shortly after noon. By this time I had set Dad up to start power washing the corral fences – again in preparation for painting.
After lunch I continued with the fences and Terry & Marg went back to cutting up trees. They came back after a short time to get the tractor so they could push down dead trees and cut them up. When they were done about 4, I had totally ticked off the 2 sheep in the corral that I was washing and I was ready to quit too. But I had washed our sheets so Terry & I couldn’t start happy hour until we had the bed remade.
Marg went to visit friends for dinner and I cleaned up some leftovers for our dinner.

May 26th – Sat
Marg had a meeting this morning at 10 and we were going to meet her at 11:30 so I set the sewing machine up again to do a couple of things. I successfully shortened another towel and then tried to shorten pants for Marg. My machine started looping threads and I couldn’t get it to stop so I had Terry haul out Marg’s 40 pound sewing machine and was able to complete the job.
When we went to town we stopped at the post office, pharmacy and grocery store. I made an appointment for a haircut and then we met Marg at the hardware store to decide on some paint. We each had another stop and then met at A&W for lunch.
Back home, I set up the pressure washer again and started washing some more fences. Terry came out to help and before long I left to help Marg with the chain saws. Once we he had them sharpened, we went to test the small saw by cutting a few scraggly trees and some dead ones in the area that we are cleaning up. By the time I got back to Terry, he was resting his arms & back so I finished up the easiest part of three fence sections and we put the pressure washer away. I helped Marg a bit in the garden and it was past quitting time.
We filleted & deboned the 3 fish that Marg caught lately and fried them on a griddle on the BBQ. They were a very tasty part of a late dinner that also included perogies.