Just Plodding Along

We haven’t been blogging that much lately as most of what’s been happening is same old – same old. You know, Pickleball, yard work, house repairs and RV prep, as well as travelling to visit family. The outdoor Pickleball is shut down for the season as it’s gotten pretty cool here lately, but I’ve managed to play some indoor Men’s league games. It’s a different game indoors, and I’m not that sure I like it. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

That’s not to say we’re not busy. We have lots to do before we head out of here for the rest of the winter, and the house, yard and RV have kept us busy just getting things ready for our departure.

The house is pretty easy to close up, but we decided to do some painting to freshen up some of the wall before we leave . The previous owner had the entire upper floor painted back in 2008 and it hasn’t been done since, with the exception of a few spots he ‘fixed’ (NOT!) before they moved out, to repair nail holes and the like after removing their paintings and wall hangings. It seems that he was pretty good about applying filler to the holes, but not that good at sanding them smooth before he painted over them. They are not real obvious, as we’ve been able to live with them for 3 years now, but it was time to get them fixed. All in all we painted 3 walls and the short hallway into our office, and just covered everything in the same colour that was already here. It covered well, and as we like the colour it looks like we’ll be able to continue to do the painting in smaller sections with no issues. Then again, Sylvia might just decide to get it all done at once next fall, and we’ll be busy for a couple of weeks. We’ll see.

This pic is from the eclipse of the moon back in September. I finally got around to getting it off the camera and into the computer to share.

The yard is pretty well finished off and ready and waiting for the deer to invade once we’ve departed. Most of the leaves have fallen and are ready for pick up next week, and all of these tall grasses are now cut down and have been taken to the recycle center in the back of the truck. I even managed to trim the various hedges this fall, and am sure glad I purchased a gas powered hedge trimmer. It made the job quite a bit easier.

We had one last rose surprise us this week. We pruned the bushes back a couple of weeks ago, and lopped off quite a few buds, but obviously missed this one. Glad we did, as it looks pretty good.

Even the Northern Flickers look pretty well fed this fall. Usually by now they’re desperate enough for food that they’re climbing all over the houses looking for grubs.

We’ve seen quite a few critters in the yard this fall, including a large brown bear, a coyote and our regular well fed deer. Mostly the deer have been content to sit in the ravine and stare at us as they contemplate where they will bed down this winter.

One day though, while I was off playing pickleball Sylvia found this deer family in our yard trying to get the final pickin’s from our blackberry bush. As she proceeded to take their picture they wondered up into our neighbour’s juniper bushes. They are kind of spread out here but there were six of them all together.

The RV is all cleaned up and ready for loading. We plan to be out of here around the 20th of November, and will meander down to Arizona, arriving sometime around December 1st. Can’t hardly wait.