Good Neighbours

... view from the tongue and groove cabin ...

Random thoughts today about yesterday's "good neighbours"

1. Dave gets the burn registration number for 3 fires: Greg’s, Arta’s and Dan’s. 

The burn index is too high right now. 

The registration only lasts 2 weeks. 

He hoped it would be lower today and tomorrow while the bob cat is here. 

He comes by and asks if there are any groceries I need in Sicamous.

2. Glen drops by to give moral support with the grading of Richard’s lots. 

He says again that the idea is to have the slope accommodate a lawn mower passing over it.

... the rock from the side of the cabin is gone ...

3. Dave – cuts up the trunk and branches of the apple tree and carts them away for winter wood.

4. Glen shows me where there is a sopalily bush (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soapberry)that should come out of the driveway since it is taking more than three meters of what could be parking space.

5. Glen and I walk up to Five Corners.  I e look at the pile of fill at the top my lot. The sign says CPR ---> and  shows the CPR which way to turn on the road. 

I make a mental note that the sign must not be taken down. 

Because he missed it, one CPR contractor turned right instead of left and ran into the corner of Wyona’s house. 

... the bucket stretches out to pick up large rocks ...

Some stories I could not make up. 

 I am wondering if the size of the pile of fill should be spread on that slope, or somewhere else on Lot 4. 

Or should I just save that material until someone needs it, which indeed they will – so many people are making use of the machines, now that they are on the property.

I have been saving it for 25 years.  

Now is the time to move it elsewhere.

6. Wyona – has cooked a casserole, Mediterranean orzo, a vegetarian dish. 

She had chicken in the house as well, so added that and delivered the food with a warning to vegetarians that the nature of the dish had changed. 

No vegetarians here though.

7. Moiya brings a container of salsa – a new recipe she tried. 

She could not count how many variations on salsa she has made over the years. 

One is so full of garlic, but this recipe is milder. 

8. I look at the new flat place between Miranda’s and my house and  I see sticks that need to be carried to the burn pile, and roots, some of which are too deep for me to pull out, even though I can get a good grip on part of them. 

I tie survey tape on them, hoping Paul Vike will see them and take them out. His machine can do more work in one hour than I can do in two months.

... large rocks are on the perimeter of the drop off now ...

... hundreds of pounds of rocks,
too heavy for me to move ...

8. Greg comes over to borrow a wheel barrow. 

From my house he delivers back to me (where I am pulling roots), a rake, a shovel and some clippers.

9. I take pictures – a lot of pictures, all the while knowing that no one else will want to see them. 

But oh well, these pictures are important to me. 

Today has been is a bit like having my own Might Machines video running in my head, though this is more than in my head. 

This is actually happening on the space between my house and Miranda’s.

I linger longer to enjoy the sound of the machine and I marvel at its power.

10. Paul Vike does not take coffee breaks, or lunch breaks. 

Well, he does step down out of the cab of his machine, unwrap a sandwich, but walks around and tells me that he has to take the claw of his machine and loosen up the soil, it is so tightly packed. 

He has 3 piles of top soil put aside – not enough for a perfect yard, but enough for our purposes.

12. Dave Wood comes back reporting that Moiya is watching and now she is getting ideas of more things for the bobcat to do on Daniel’s yard. 

Dave Wood does not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but he agrees with me that the work being done today is spectacular.

Arta