Christmas has come and gone, and we are staying with Ruth Goodman for a few days, waiting for Vancouver to thaw so that we can get on with our visit. We made our escape from Pender island in a window in the foul, cold weather, December 23. Ferries were being canceled, many were late, and we sat out in the chill for hours at Otter Bay for our tardy ship. We touched down at Tsawwassen in a snowstorm and made it to sister Margaret Shapiro's after 8 pm. That luxurious haven was our home for the days before and after Christmas, but we got out every snowy, frigid day for walks

http://leathersmithe.smugmug.com/gallery/6921305_8hJFF

and spent the rest of the time preparing and eating feast after feast, and relaxing with our family.

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Tomorrow evening is a party at Barbara, Joe & Dorothy's house, we'll take Ruthy with us, and then I'll head out to David Robertson's in Langley to celebrate his 66th birthday. We plan to head back to Pender to arrive in our new home before New Year's Eve. I hope we'll find the road cleared and the electricity on!

December 13, 2008

The move is complete! We've filled the 8' x 12' storage shed to the gunwales, and the house looks like a warehouse. Hundreds of boxes, some with stuff we haven't seen since the move from the Garberville mesa house in May, some from the previous move, some a mystery. Lots of cupboards here, but little other space, so we have to go through it all and cull and hide little-used possessions somewhere.

But it is snug, very well-built, and the radiant concrete slab heating and high insulation make for a quiet house, in spite of the "ice storms" and driving rain of these Artic winds. There is snow on the ridges of Saturna island to our east, temperatures are below zero, & yesterday as I was uploading photos of Jen & Paul's water tank erection at our all-volunteer (the last in the province, I'm told) library, the power went down. The tide was rising, winds increasing, slush blowing around, so they closed the library and I beat a hasty retreat back here.

Today the clouds blew away, the sun burst forth, and we hiked up to the top of our strata ridge above the house. The heady 225° vista takes in the lower Vancouver Island in a sweep of farmland, harbours, South Gulf islands, hills & forests, around to scarcely-populated Saturna to the north.

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I've filled the laundry sink with water for washing and flushing, and for drinking we have wine bottles filled and corked. The airtight wood stove in our Great Room takes care of heating and cooking (3 or 4 cords of split fir are under cover), but the Grundfos well pump requires electricity for our domestic use and for the floor heating. I'm glad I bought that dozen packages of IKEA overstocked fat candles for $1 each, 25 years ago.

Here are the rest of the Jen and Paul water tank erection photos:

http://leathersmithe.smugmug.com/gallery/6820487_wSpVW

December 14

Big snow overnight and cold winds all day. An Arctic nor'easter kept the temperatures under zero and we watched the snow swirl outside our cozy new home.

December 15

Victoria this morning reports temperatures of -18° with the wind chill factor, buses are not running on Vancouver Island, and we lost power last night before 9, so we got our candles and lighters organized and went to bed. 5 hours later the power came back on, and with it our floor heating and well pump. It is a brittle & clear dawn.

We walked 3 kilometers to our mailbox on icy roads along Spalding Road and the meadow our land overlooks. Few cars out this bright, cold Monday.

http://leathersmithe.smugmug.com/gallery/6918920_Rce5f