Back at the Homestead

The last leg of our trip took us from Calgary to Lethbridge, and we were making the delivery ourselves, it was a bit annoying as we were sat about 500 yards from our final destination and had to wait about 2 hours to be unloaded.

It wasnt too much of a problem coz it gave us chance to close everything down and get packed away so when Jan turned up all we had to do was literally throw everything in the car and bugger off.

So after dropping Mike off at the hotel it was a quick dash back to Raymond as Jan had to be up for work in the morning.

Oh im sorry.......................

I forgot to mention, Jan is a working girl now, working full time at Canadian Tire. Its a bit like B&Q back over there on the rock. It looks as though our immigration process has moved into a new era now, it feels as though we are even more part of the community.

Things do seem to have changed over the last couple of weeks since we came back from our little european vacation. It feels strange and its difficult to explain but i guess its normal and i think it might have had an effect on this blog, some of you might have noticed that i dont post so often now.

Just lately i seem to be very busy at home with various projects, its probably because now we have our own place there are a million and one chores to do.

My home brew hobby takes up a fair bit of time and i have just invested in an oil heater so i can maintain the correct temperatures. The guy who owns the local brew shop in town is an accomplished cider maker and i usually pop in there when i am in town to pick up more gear or just to bounce some ideas off him.

While down in the states i picked up a circular saw which has been put to good use this week. As i said before we have a wood burning stove in the den and i have been stockpiling wood from where ever i can get it. There are a number of places in Lethbridge where they put out scrap wood on a regular basis and its free to take, usually pallets and off cuts.

Thanks to the fact we have a Focus Estate and a new saw, we now have a woodpile that is about 4 foot high and almost the length of the garage. Since i have been back in town i have run the stove every day and despite temps of -5, my central heating furnace hasnt had to kick in yet.

It looks like we will be using the den a lot more now though coz sitting down there with a real fire is fantastic and the heat seems to soak or permiate through the whole house and even when we let the fire die down the house is still toasty till the next morning. Talk about free heating. Its not all good news though, i screwed up this morning and smoked the house out, it comes with practice i guess.

I made my first Canadian curry last night in the slow cooker, the ingredients are a little more restricted over here but i managed to get all we needed, i think i am going to have to search out some East Indian or Asian warehouses.

Anyway thats about it for now apart from the fact it snowed for the first time today and when we woke up it was white over. Tomorrow i set sail for Pensylvania, its just me this time so i get the cab to myself, its a 4 day journey and maybe a run into Ontario or Quebec then a run West back to Alberta then a few more days.......................

Back at the Homestead.