I remember thinking, back at the beginning of Winter, is it EVER going to snow? Should have kept that thought to myself! Now I am sure that this Winter has not had an inordinate amount of snow; Luke and I are just a couple of …Hillbilly Newbs! There, I said it, John! (My brother-in-law reckons that Luke and I are now Hillbillies. The politically correct term, dear John, is Homesteaders!) I mean even if we were still in the Fraser Valley we would still be knee deep in snow, right? And up here in the mountains there is bound to be heaps more snow, right? We are, afterall, sitting at 1,321 m above sea level and I can tell you that the proof is in how long it takes to boil a jug of water!!! Or a quarter of a jug of water because I do want that cup of herbal tea TODAY!

True to higher elevations we have had what I would consider a fair amount of snow and all future years will be measured next to this one: “Oh, there hasn’t been much snow this year, we only had to shovel ourselves out the door 3 times!” Both Luke and I have shovelled and shovelled snow! Usually the both of us get stuck into it, each taking a section but wouldn’t you know it? It snowed Sunday night which meant a butt-load of shovelling on Monday. Well, Luke was excused from snow removal duties because he had to work! I set out after breakfast and got down to the business of moving all that snow. No worries, I like a challenge and besides, I’ll power through my 10,000 Steps in no time at all!!! Ah, but you see, I know NOT to power through; I know that slow and steady wins the race so I plodded along, setting myself lil goals along the way: “I won’t collapse, dead, until the long driveway portion is done; that way Luke will easily be able to get to the truck to go for help.” Had I have collapsed from the exertion of moving all that snow I can tell you that you would now be planning my Celebration of Life as there is no way in the world that Luke would have been able to do a dang thing. Another reason to always keep in mind, slow and steady wins the race! Oh, and wouldn’t you know it? I left my Fitbit charging in the loungeroom!!! Oh well, I know I did a gazillion and a half steps! And I have the aching muscles to prove it!

Oh, right. I ought to let you in on what “laying tracks” means. If you follow me on Facebook you know I say it often enough! So the deal is, after each and every snow fall one must hop into ones truck and “lay tracks”; simply drive to the end of the lane, along Casselman Road  and hope and pray that someone else has laid tracks on Chilko Lake FSR!!! I’ll tell you that with each snow fall the drive got a lil bit tougher. Now I KNOW that you need to add weight to the back of the truck but I was slow to actually get Luke to act on my knowledge. Two snow falls ago we finally loaded big boulders into tubs that sat right over the rear tires. And it helped! But after Sunday night’s snow fall? Wouldn’t even know that we had the extra weight in there! It was a messy drive with too much sliding around and that is in 4Low, 1st gear! I actually didn’t think we were going to make it back and I was thinking about all the things I didn’t grab before we left: gun, ammo, headlight, another layer of clothes, water, water dish for dogs, snowboots for dogs and, well, the patience of a saint. Really, I need only have had the last thing in that list because Luke handled that rough drive like a pro! Wait, you did say you were from Australia, right? And you have had heaps of XP driving in this white stuff, right? Right? Because I can tell you, I …well… I haven’t had to drive much in the snow and therefore I actually kinda suck at it!

When we went to William’s Lake to sign all the papers and stuff for the purchase of the Earthship Luke and I did a HUGE amount of shopping! You think my Norwex bill was big? ($900) I won’t even tell you how much we spent! Luke went a lil crazy in the sports store; he bought just about every kind of winter sport equipment available! I have been eternally grateful for the snowshoes! We use them almost everyday! A great purchase. He bought us each cross country skis even though neither one of us has ever been cross country skiing and truth be told? I haven’t even strapped mine on yet! Luke did but got no where fast. S’all good, I don’t have a lot of spare time for cross country skiing as I am far too busy shovelling snow! And cooking food that either freezes or goes soft in my very confusing refrigeration system. (That is definitely going to get sorted out this Spring/Summer/Fall even if I have to do it myself!) Good thing I am pretty decent and cooking and easily turn a food disaster into something quite tasty. Whoops, off topic! And finally, Luke bought us each a pair of ice skates! You may or may not have heard that Luke and Sammy went through the ice when we tried to walk up Casselman Creek? We haven’t really ventured out onto the ice since then. Was that New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day? Anyway, it has been a few days and it has been COLD these past handful of days and I thought for sure our Brittany Creek has now got to be frozen freakin’ solid and will easily stand up to a bit of rooky ice skating. To that end, after my morning chores in the house I manned myself with a snow shovel, donned my snowshoes and headed down to the creek determined to clear a lil skating patch for us. I’m getting to be quiet decent at shovelling snow so I was happily going about my business, Bear and Sam having accompanied me, were off in the bushes on the far side of the creek, and I was just in the zone. Then all of a sudden…. C   R   A   C  K !!! Not an actual crack in the ice just a loud protestation from the frozen creek! You can bet I replied with a screech of my own; loud enough that Luke poked his head out of the Earthship to see if I was alright? And good thing I was still standing on solid …ice? packed snow? ground? Who knows? Because had I have actually gone through the ice? Once again, there is no way he could have helped! I am fairly confident that the creek is not very deep but it probably has that icky, mucky bottom that I loathe and THAT is what would have killed me! Touching that! Blech! Just thinking about it is making me squeamish!

I have to tell you, after having been …. smothered under thick, heavy blankets of cloud and snow for what seems like forever, we were so excited to see the sun today! And yea, maybe the mercury has stayed below -16C all day but it has been an absolutely glorious day! The thermal mass of the Earthship basked under the long-reaching rays of warmth radiating from the sun. And so as our friend the Sun goes down today we are lounging comfortably in 20C warmth whilst outside it is now getting colder, -18C. And our batts are sitting at 99%!!!! Oh, the power I am going to burn tomorrow! The laundry hamper is overflowing and there is a layer of dust that removes to be moved by a Norwex dusting wand. And tomorrow morning when I wake up long before the day, I am going to turn on a light! And read a real book and not my iPad! Yay. In the slideshow you will see a dark photo with a few pokes of light…that’s how all of my days start if the batts are low. And it is ever so tiresome now. I am going to revel in light in the a.m.!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Sun for coming out to play today!

And it wouldn’t be a post from me unless I ended with slideshow, right?
https://youtu.be/b6A2lnmb09M

Monday January 9, 2017

More Snow

Really? I guess we do live in the mountains now and it is to be expected, right? But to be reading on FB that the Valley has been hit with more snow, that’s not so normal, right? I read back in late November, early December that we could expect a Winter of yore this year and I guess for once the pundits were right.

All this snow makes it difficult for the rookie Homesteaders! But it’s good; we know how to plan for next Winter! And let’s face it; Winter is going to be the most challenging out of all the Seasons, right? Though I am thinking early Spring could be a lil challenging as all the snow starts to melt and make molten lava cakes out of our lane, that bit of road down at…Murray Taylor Creek? It already looked pretty ominous in the late Fall last year! I am sure that Murray Taylor Creek wants Lake status and is going to eat the “road” up to achieve its life long dream. Truth be told, there is already a Murray Taylor Lake. Why doesn’t the Creek just flow backwards and become one with the lake that is already there??
There are a few other spots along the way that have me a lil worried. Oh, I know. A regular truck simply will not do! To live here and have full, year round mobility one must have a vehicle that is part snow-plough, part river-raft and while we’re at it, let’s also give it flying capabilities so we can just fly over the whole mess when it gets too daunting!

To be sure, I am keen to make a trip to the Valley but the snow just keeps falling, both here and there. Now remember we were vehicle-less for many years, all the years it snowed, and there hasn’t been much snow since we returned home in 2010/11. And really, when the snow got to be too much in the Valley you just stayed home. Here’s the thing, I am not a skilled driver when it comes to driving in the white stuff and drive accordingly. It probably drives (haha) other drivers CRAZY! But hey, better safe than sorry, right? My lack of confidence keeps me off the roads and to be honest, Highway 20 is a bit intimidating with all those logging trucks, no centre line, practically zero shoulder, and definitely no shoulder lines… I only drove it once on my own before the snow arrived. Maybe next year I will be better at driving the now scary Highway 20?

The snow that fell last night now needs to be shovelled off the myriad of paths we have created about the Earthship and Luke is working today so I guess I am going to easily get my 10K Steps today! Luke usually knocks off for a lil bit in the late arvo, not too late though as we quickly do a few chores together while there is still daylight. Today’s chore will be laying tracks all the way to Chilko Lake FSR. Groan. Even with the added weight from the boulders we threw in the back of the truck we still seem to have trouble in a few spots. The good news is that there aren’t any real steep embankments up our way; the worst that will happen is we will get the truck stuck and won’t be able to get it unstuck. It hasn’t happened yet so let’s just keep our fingers and toes crossed, hey? Oh, and speaking of the truck, it seems we now have a tire that is losing air!!!! What???? Where does one get that fixed in the boonies? Guess we’ll find out.
We ran the generator yesterday because we were socked in all day before the snow came it. With the generator running Luke surprised me with a small space heater in the kitchen! It didn’t throw off heaps of heat, but just enough to take the chill out of the air. The heater combined with the oven going and soon the kitchen was bearably cold. Meh, once you get busy, moving around and doing things you don’t even notice the cold! We got groceries on Saturday so I had to shift a lot of stuff around to make room for the new arrivals. The day after groceries is usually a big cook day too; cooking all the stuff that sorta, coulda been kept for a while longer but now you don’t need to worry about it. There was leftover Polenta that got fried up into Breakfast Polenta with Blueberry Mandarin Sauce using newly arrived mandarins that already looked worse for wear-you know how it goes when you buy a case of them, right? Then there were a few apples that needed to be cooked up into Apple Sauce, which is now in the “freezer” waiting to be cooked into something amazing! Then there were some potatoes, sweet potatoes and butternut squash that absolutely had to be cooked yesterday so I baked them all off and put them in the “fridge”. I’m thinking a Shepherd’s Pie later this week, making a mash from the roasted veg? Oh, I tried to make Whipped Coconut Cream to go with the Blueberry Mandarin Sauce and Fried Polenta but it didn’t really work so I used that up in a Lemon Poppyseed Bundt Cake! And finally, last weeks Gastropost Vancouver challenge was Tacos so I made Indian Tacos for Lupper. I’ll tell you what; all that cooking generates A LOT of dishes!!! I easily hit 10K Steps without even stepping out of the kitchen yesterday!!

So today is Monday. Happy Monday! We are socked in again today and it is trying really hard to snow but at the same time the Sun is behind the clouds battling to make his presence known; let’s see who wins this battle. I’ll tell you what; it’s absolutely beautiful out there! Yes, the snow is an inconvenience but we have everything we need to stay warm and comfortable in our lil abode. And we really are quite happy with where we are; we just need to be better prepared for next year, next Winter. You know, you read articles where people just pack up and leave the rat race behind not really knowing what to expect. That’s part of the challenge of living, right? To NOT always know what the next moment will bring. It challenges you to really be alive, to really experience each and every moment.

And so now, I leave you, for I am heading outside to live, in the moment!

Cheers!
p.s. It’s snowing 😛
Oh, and I’ll leave you with a few pics!
https://youtu.be/SkV-B154Ht8

Today the Sun got up with me but he seems pretty determined to snuggle under that big, thick grey blankie of his!  Not sure why he doesn’t want to get up? If it’s because he is cold, doesn’t he realize that if HE gets up and shines bright then we’ll all be a lil bit warmer?? Silly ol’ Sun! To combat the cold this morn I did light a fire at 5:00a.m. I was trying so hard to stay warm without lighting a fire! I snuggled into the recliner is layers of clothes, big fluffy sox, a hoody pulled over my head to keep in what warmth I managed to generate and a fluffy fleece blankie to no avail! Cold still managed to creep into my bones so I made the executive decision to go ahead and light that fire! Come on, baby, light [that]fire! That’s a song, right? Even with a fire going, it took forever to heat the loungeroom. In going to the kitchen I saw that the outside temp was reading -13C and inside a chilly 11C. Ever so slightly warmer than yesterday, if you can call those temps “warm”.
Right. Well, I do have the power to warm up the kitchen for a lil bit by baking something yummy and then opening the oven door once the product is ready. It just so happens that as I was freezing my buns off in front of the fire I came across a recipe for Blueberry Almond Scones. Now, please understand; it’s dark out, my bones ache from the cold and lack of sleep, the kitchen is even colder than the rest of the house and I am willingly going up there? SMH (Shake My Head) But I also know that if I get moving then I will work out the aches in my joints and will warm up in the process! Plus we’ll have something yummy for breakfast! Win/win situation, if you ask me!

East doesn’t get a mention because, well, the blue sky forgot to show up in the East today!

Onward! I took my aching self up to the kitchen an set about warming the place up! In the barely dawn of (7a.m.) morning I set about throwing together the ingredients for Blueberry Almond Scones, only having to light a candle so I could read the numbers on my kitchen scale. I’ve been making scones for as long as I can remember and I’m pretty sure I can make them in the dark! Had I have pre-scaled the butter last night I would have been good to go! Obviously my favourite part about making these scones was that I got to turn the oven on! Once the scones were tucked into the pre-heated oven I got started on the Breakfast Polenta; thought I would run with the Blueberry theme this morn and nothing goes better, in my opinion, than Blueberries and Polenta. What’s Polenta, you ask? A cooked cornmeal cereal that is quite versatile; you can change it up depending on what liquid you cook it in;(I used Almond Milk this morn) change it up with extracts, with add-ins; you can make it savoury or sweet. This morning my brain was still half frozen so I forgot to add sweetener but did add a dollop of Coconut Oil and Vanilla for flavour. See? I did say “half frozen”. Besides, the frozen berries that I used to top the Polenta always seem a lil sweet to me? The oven and the boiling liquid had achieved what I had set out to do, warm up the kitchen. Alas the warmth did not last for the duration of my writing session! And now I’m freezing again so I think I’m going to head downstairs to warm up in front of the fire before heading out for a walk with Bear and Sam.

Before I go, I will leave you with a pic of the wonderful HOT breakfast that we had this morning that warmed our insides and our lovely lil kitchen.

First off, Yay! Fitbit is telling me I got 8 hours sleep last night and I LOVE that! I was just saying to Luke last night that I thought I had reached my capacity for sleepless nights and yesterday I posted on FB that I felt I had an 8 hour sleep just around the corner! That said, I still feel very tired today but as Luke always says, a single 8 hour sleep is not going to render me ready and raring to go after weeks of sleepless nights. Taking that into consideration I decided to have a quiet day today. The problem that I have with “quiet” days is that I don’t get 10,000 Steps in! Currently sitting at 5,316 Steps and I haven’t left the house except to go to the dunny this morn.

Anyway, I came up to the kitchen to get stuck into my 15 minute writing sesh; that was over 2 hours ago! I started clearing off my table in the office yesterday; some of the paper and stuff ended up on my office bench in my kitchen and I looked at that pile of crap numerous times yesterday thinking that I had to find time to get it sorted out. Well, heh, it was the first thing in my line of vision when I came up to write so I tackled that instead of writing. In finding homes for that pile of stuff a bunch of other stuff became homeless so that in turn got me stuck into sorting out the “office” drawers in the kitchen. And that in turn rendered some of my kitchen stuff homeless! I’ve spent the morning scrambling to find everything new homes.

One of the boxes that I dumped out contained old photos. Brought a smile and tear to my heart. S’all good! I now have a lovely family photo of Anita and her family on my fridge where Krick and her boys were…are…reigning supreme! I think Anita’s family photo was actually taken at Krick’s wedding! I also came across a card that Anita sent me when I was living in Australia and since it is a picture of a lovely lil faerie digging in a cookie jar I thought it should get a frame and live in my kitchen. In fact, I came across a lot of lil notes that Anita has sent me over the years; a lot of old Mother’s Day cards and they, like the old photos, always bring a smile and a tear to my heart. Anita, after all, is my first born. The first born always captures a special spot in a mother’s heart, right? Now I know that every mother thinks that HER child is unique but you know, I had so many people tell me that Anita was unique. So many people! I suppose that is largely due to the fact that she was surrounded by adults! I was living at home with my family when she was born, my 3 brothers, 2 older, 1 younger, my lil sister and my parents; everyone wanted to take her everywhere! I went back to school after Anita was born so she spent a lot of time hanging out with my parents, hence Anita’s close connection with her Grandma; but that’s a story for another time…
Anita also spent heaps of time with my Dad. I think he had a back injury shortly after she was born and wasn’t working a lot. He WAS working on being sober. He went to countless AA meetings and if he was on Anita duty, he just took her with him. And my brothers were also attending meetings back then too. I’m not sure if they took Anita with them? Could be. Anyway, one time I came home from work at Towne Cinema (only 2 screens back then) and was told a rather adorable story:
Mother and Dad had gone out to a meeting and taken Anita with them. Now I don’t know if you have been to an AA meeting but it follows a set procedure and one of the final things they do before closing with the Serenity Prayer is to ask if anyone else has anything to share? Well, my darling 2 year old Anita marched up to the podium and declared, ” Hi, I’m Anita and I’m a lil girl alcoholic!” I don’t know if she followed that statement up with any qualifying stories but she was crowned the Cutie of Kinghaven!

The Universe works in mysterious ways, hey? I had a lovely Messenger chat with Anita the other day and then yesterday/today the Universe dumped her in my lap. I am eternally thankful for my beautiful daughter, Anita. Thanks Universe for bringing the two of us together! I have always loved being her Maman. Sure it got challenging when she was a teenager but tell me what teenager hasn’t driven their parents crazy at some point in their lives and I’ll award you with ….”1 millllllllllllion dollars!” (said in my best Dr. Evil voice)

Peace out, folks
Remember to hug your kids! And your parents, if you are lucky enough to still have them around. And if you do but they are far away? Give ’em a call!

So it snowed heaps yesterday. It started snowing in the late morning, early afternoon…sometime after Luke and Sammy’s fall through the ice. Oh, you didn’t hear about that? Yea, Luke and Sammy fell through the ice when we were out snowshoeing on New Year’s Eve. We had decided that we were finally going to go and discover Casselman Creek! Bear was well rested and had not been out much so he was in good stead to go for a walk; Bear is usually the reason our adventures are cut short these days as he doesn’t seem to cope with the cold weather despite that thick furry coat of his! Sammy, short-haired lil fella is game to go ANYTIME, anywhere on the condition that we move really FAST!

Anyway, we set out, actually a lil braver than we have been in the past and walked hmmm…20 metres away from the creeks’ edge; as we got closer to Casselman Creek the ice we were walking on made a huge cracking sound so we headed closer in to the shore and stuck to the shoreline thereafter and a good thing to because as we progressed up Casselman slush started to appear in our tracks. You know me, I got up onto shore and continued on, trailing behind Luke, Bear and Sammy. To my horror, I watched first Luke fall through the ice and then lil Sammy! Lucky that Luke was close to the shore and got away with just one foot fully immersed in the cold, mucky, icky, sticky sludge. Sammy was a few metres away from Luke but he also went through the ice and the lil fella panicked like crazy! I seriously thought I was going to have to throw myself onto the ice and fish him out; he was out a lil deeper than Luke and his lil legs couldn’t touch the creek bottom. My heart was in my throat as I watched my poor lil guy struggle. To be sure, all of this transpired over a 3 minute period but still…
Lesson learned! Well, I was already pretty cautious but Luke is a bit more of a dare devil! HE learned his lesson. On our way back home we stuck to the actual shore along Casselman Creek, stuck to the lakes’ edge until we got to Brittany Creek and then got a lil more daring again-we have been traversing up, down, over…not under…Brittany Creek for weeks!  We got into the house, laid out Bear’s bed in the loungeroom in front of the fire where Sammy recuperated from his encounter with the icy cold waters of Casselman Creek. Bear was a lil jealous of all the attention Sammy was getting so Luke rubbed soothing ointment into Bear’s paws; Bear, satisfied!
I was going to share with you the link that Luke went to regarding rules for frozen bodies of water bearing activity but he was all over the map in his research! One of the things that he read is that closer to the shore is actually more unstable so that’s kind of freaky! That’s where we tend to stick to; having said that, at least if we do get into trouble at least the water is not deep and we will be able to get ourselves sorted out pretty quickly. Imagine if that break through the ice had occurred in the middle of Brittany Lake!! The outcome may have, probably would have been more than just a wet boot and a wet dog!

Enough about that. On Wednesday last we took a lil drive to Anahim Lake. Curiosity I reckon. And Luke needed fuel for the chainsaw(s) and the generator. And he had been poking around the internet and found they had a couple of “trading posts” there. So off we went! Chains on the truck, and good thing to because getting out was a lil hairy in some spots! So what is it? We have a kilometre long lane to the Earthship from Casselman Raod; don’t get excited, it’s not a road in the sense you are used to- it’s really just a dirt track in between countless pine saplings, some tottering trees that survived the forest fire of 2012 ( I think that’s when it was) Wait! I have the internet!
Okay, I looked it up and it was in 2003 and if you feel like reading about it, do so here:
http://fonv.ca/media/research/Roads_To_Nowhere.pdf
I liked the title, Roads to No Where and that is where we live! And there are a few pics on the document and darn it, they look like our road!!! A rough track through the forest! So have I told you about how to get here?  Well, let me reverse tell you, all up it is the aforementioned 1 km up our lane, 3-ish km along Casselman Road, 10-ish km along Chilko Lake FSR, 30-ish km along Tatlayoko Lake Road and there you have it. But here, let me tell you, in more detail about the route to our place.
You take Highway 20 to just before Tatla Lake, turn left off the highway onto a narrow paved road which quickly turns into a lovely maintained dirt road; I don’t know the names of the roads which is largely due to the fact that I assume these dirt roads don’t have names! (In rereading this post, it turns out I do seem to know the names of the roads!) Anyway, follow that lovely dirt road for about 30 kms then cross over “the big bridge” as it was first described to us; for you folks back home, it’s like the bridge you cross over on your way up to Cheam. Or that lil bridge over Chipmunk Creek. Oh, I know;  not quite as big as the bridge over the Chehalis River! Got me? Okay, so that big bridge is over the Chilko River which is where we go to get our drinking water.

Oh, I forgot to tell you to turn left at the Cochin Refuse tip sign. Luke says there is a sign that says Chilko Lake, Tsuniah Lake….humph…that sign has eluded me? I don’t recall it at all! Guess that is why I was so freaked out the one time I did the drive to William’s Lake by myself! Luke didn’t give me any road names he just said turn right here, turn left there, follow that road until….Anyway, then you go along the Chilko Lake FSR for 10 km before turning left onto Cassleman Road and that’s where things get dodgy.  And DON’T forget to turn here or you end up on an…adventurous drive toward Tsuniah Lake with only sketchy places to turn around.  Casselman Road  is a really rough road and I think it must be Murray Taylor Creek that looks like it is just biding its time before it swallows the road! So not looking forward to the Spring thaw. (Dethaw, according to Luke) Righty, so you travel along Casselman Road for about 3 km and then there is a left turn; there’s not much of a chance you will miss this turn because to continue straight along you would want a beaten and battered off road vehicle that you would trust to get you anywhere – if you’re not driving something like that, you won’t even consider going straight!  Ah, but the lane to our place? Holy crap, it is rough as guts! We will do our best to tame the wild beast as time and weather permits over the Spring, Summer and Fall of 2017 in order to entice more of you to come and visit. Oh, and when you do visit, don’t be surprised if we throw a pick, shovel, D-saw or hammer and nails into your hands and put you to work; I promise, you will be well fed…on the groceries you will deliver to us…and we will have somewhere comfy to sleep and you will sleep well! Oh, our lane is 1 km of teeth jarring expanse you will be happy to be over and you WON’T want to leave once you get here because, well, you will have to driver over that!
hmmm…a comparable, rough as guts FSR that you might be able to relate to? The upper reaches of the drive to Cheam but minus the ditches, except for that Murray Taylor bit but it’s not so much a ditch as it a drive through a gigantic puddle, and there isn’t a grade to speak of. Hope that helps you put it into perspective. The previous owner told us we would likely enjoy the drive more during the snowy Winter and while it can be dodgy, he was definitely right about that ! It seems to be heaps more easy to drive on the compact snow!

Well, now that you know what our lil drive from Highway 20 is like you can better comprehend why we don’t venture out that often! But I digress; our trip to Anahim Lake. So the Trading Post we pulled into was a rustic place, popular as, though! Luke filled the truck with fuel as well as filling the chainsaw jerry cans with premium petrol. While Luke was out pumping fuel I ambled through the 4 aisles in the shop, picking up this and that which eventually led to my having to search out their adorable lil shopping trolleys!  I was completely delighted to find a small assortment of fresh produce; a big deal to a Vegetarian! They also had a limited supply of deli meats which I got for Luke; a very limited choice of cheese from which I selected a marble cheese as we already had cheddar, havarti and mozza at home; I picked up their last case of mandarin oranges!!! Oh, yum! They also had a single litre of eggnog left which I knew Luke would totally appreciate! So we spent a few dollars at the Trading Post and you know what? It was fun!
On our way back we had to stop in a Nimpo Lake Trading Post as Anahim didn’t have any distilled water which Luke needed to fill the batts. I went in to the store with Luke; big mistake! I remembered all the things I like to have on New Year’s Eve so I picked up olives, kalamata olives, Triscuits, Socialbles, Sweet Pickles…okay, salivating now just writing about my New Year’s fare!

The Charcuterie Board I was able to build with ingredients bought at Anahim and Nimpo Lakes Trading Posts. I won’t tell you how much I spent but I will tell you it took us 8 hours to drive there and back again! But well worth it!

I have so much more to tell you about but like I said at the beginning of this post, it snowed heaps last night and all our hard work removing snow has been rendered undone! Luke is out there shovelling like crazy but I suppose I better man another shovel and give him a hand. Besides it’ll rack up my Steps quickly! Oh, and to your delight or chagrin, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to write more.

Until next time, folks, Peace out!