It snowed, not a lot but enough to keep us off the road for a couple of days. They don’t plow the streets and there are lots of hills around here. Tried to go grocery shopping yesterday but the traction on my car just wasn’t up to the task. Fortunately it is warming up today, the snow is melting, and we managed to go to town.

There it is, I finished installing the greenhouse kit today. Although the materials seem flimsy as they are very light, the kit is an impressive piece of engineering and a fun puzzle to assemble.

I ordered the kit from Home Depot on New Years Eve having waited long enough for the Canpar shipments to arrive. HD shipped the order by Fedex on Jan 5. Then on Jan 8 both of the Canpar shipments were delivered out of the blue and I sent them back. Fedex routed their shipment incorrectly from Vancouver but still it arrived on Jan 18, two weeks vs two months!

The greenhouse is small (4’x8′) but three 18″x36″ shelving units fit nicely, leaving good access to the shed interior. I moved in some pepper plants that I was overwintering in the garage and soon it will be time to start seeds.

We’ve had mild weather and I’ve been gardening as if it were March. Although snow is in the forecast, the garden is telling me that spring has already started.

It’s a very happy new year for the world in general with COVID-19 vaccines and a new president of the United States. I have cut myself off from CNN and the few anti-trump twitter feeds that I followed. I continue to hope that Donald Trump gets what he deserves but I don’t want to follow his actions any longer.

This is our first Christmas in Garden Bay. Aimeé has been dreaming of snow but all we’ve had is frost. Today it’s warm and rainy, while in Guanajuato it is sunny with highs above 20C. We cooked turkey yesterday so leftovers today.

There are some flowers in the garden and the days are getting longer now. I will be working outside every dry-ish day that is not too cold. Still have that shed-greenhouse renovation to finish, and lots and lots of gardening to keep me busy.

As the fall weather grew cool and wet I retreated inside to watch Gardeners World and plan for next year. One resource that all serious gardeners seem to have is a greenhouse and so I bought a book on the subject. That led to thinking about requirements and options, and to deciding to integrate a lean-to greenhouse into the front the shed, shown above.

It’s an old shed that was a squirrel hotel when I bought the house. Over the years I’ve made some improvements but it remains a dingy shed. I’m going to open up the front so that light will flow in through the greenhouse. So even though the weather is typically deary, I’ve decided to get this project done now.

2020-11-11: Above, the siding has been removed exposing the old framing and the greenhouse base is in place.

Fortunately the front wall is not load-bearing. Framing is always fun and that’s the next step.

2020-11-13: I’ve framed the wall to accommodate a full-size door and a large window on either side, for if the greenhouse is removed in the future.

2020-11-14: Sheathing and building paper installed. Ready for the greenhouse, which should arrive soon.

2020-11-21: The greenhouse kit is “in transit” with Canpar somewhere between Toronto and Vancouver. Canpar is having a difficult time coping with volumes and customer support. Just be patient I tell myself. I realised that I should finish the front wall first as doing so with the greenhouse in place would have been difficult.

2020-11-28: Still no news on the greenhouse so I’m working on the south side. The siding was applied directly to the studs, enabling water penetration, and the shed is very close to the ground. Over the years the rear corner rotted. In this photo you can see my corner and floor repair. I will next attach sheathing and building paper before residing.

2020-12-01: They sent me another greenhouse kit yesterday with the same carrier. I keep plugging away on the shed in the meantime. Finished putting sheathing and siding on the south wall and I have reached a natural pausing point. I will finish the staining when the weather is more spring-like, and I need to order more materials before I start on the back wall.

2020-12-14: https://www.canada-greenhouse-kits.ca/ issued a refund today. They have two greenhouse kits in the Canpar system. We hope one will arrive before end of year but I have my doubts.

I have just discovered the BBC program called Gardeners’ World. The English have been passionate about gardening for centuries and the show exudes traditional English garden culture. Here is a good place to find episodes. Watching will be an enjoyable pastime during the rainy season here in Garden Bay as we won’t be going back to Guanajuato until vaccinated against COVID-19.

I have been spending a lot of time in my gardens this year. I have been a gardener every since I bought a house in North Vancouver (1992). It was a serious hobby back then but I am upping my game. This year I have started to propagate roses by cuttings and I’m going try planting open-pollinated rose seeds to see what appears. The new front garden beds are filling up with perennial seedlings sown this summer. It will be fun next year arranging all that once I discover what is what.

My gardens are quite full of plants and they have good structure. But after watching Gardener’s World I see lots of room for even more plants, colour, interest, and creativity. I’m becoming a full-time gardener.

Finally, after eight weeks, the workers arrived to install a new septic field. That’s a pretty cool excavator and it just fits the paths in the garden.

This shows the first run. The pipes run through plastic sections that prevent the invasion of tree roots. At the right end is the new distribution box. Today they covered this trench leaving a pile of excess dirt and lots of rocks, large and small. They had to leave early so I spent the afternoon moving the dirt around the yard and piling the rocks for future use. Tomorrow they return to install two more runs, one short and one long.

They finished digging, installing, and covering the two additional septic runs. This is how they left the yard. All in all they did a good job of protecting the gardens. Not happy with the look of the D box and it doesn’t smell very nice. I’m going to install some sort of access box. There is a pile of excess dirt for me to deal with as well as many piles of rocks of various sizes.

These past few weeks I’ve been working hard in the front garden, removing the grass from the funny shaped areas shown in this photo taken from the roof. I defined these areas a couple of years ago and just let them go wild. My idea is to have meadow areas with perennial flowers and I was slowly adding plants. It became obvious that the grass was going to out-compete most other plants and so I decided to remove it before planting more seriously.

The house in Garden Bay has a septic system circa 1992. No plan of the drainage field was ever filed but I knew it was out front, and I knew the location of the septic tank and distribution box. A few days ago I noticed the soil around the D-box was very wet and decided to investigate. After removing the soil a puddle formed. Not good. So I called the pumper service and they concluded that two of the three drainage lines were blocked.

These past two days have been spent investigating and worrying about what to do. It will be an expensive repair and will be a major disruption to the front yard and garden. Today the owner of the septic company came to access the situation to then generate a quote. Fortunately he was sympathetic to my concerns and gave me a good feeling about the installation of a new leach field.

more to come as the project progresses …

A cool and wet June in Garden Bay is coming to an end. This is the disappointing June weather that I remember from when I first moved to BC. The garden is growing well with all the water but it saddens my heart to see all those beautiful flowers hanging on the ground.

We have been healthy and feel lucky to be living where the COVID-19 pandemic has been relatively contained. In early June we went to Powell River, ate in restaurants, and spent the night. In mid-June we travelled to Vancouver for the day to get haircuts and shop at Home Depot. This week we resumed playing soccer in Gibsons. Slowly but surely life is returning to normal.

After finishing the plumbing project I installed recessed lighting in the living room. The result is excellent and satisfying, but the job was messy (cutting holes in the ceiling) and uncomfortable (working in the cramped attic).

Next I repainted the guest bedroom. That involved moving all the furniture out, protecting the floor with plastic, repairing all the flaws in the walls and ceiling, masking, painting, clean-up, and finally moving back the furniture. Good work for rainy days.

It hasn’t rained every day of course, and rarely it rains all day. We’ve been to the cabin three times so far this year with the focus on completing the roof over the back deck. It’s almost done and there’s no hurry. We are also going to construct a new outside shower stall and I have been staging the materials at home where it is easier to work.

I have been spending much of my time in the garden, which is the whole yard. Much of it is cultivated and the rest is rather wild as I have a laissez faire policy outside of the cultivated areas. This year the wildness got away from me and I have been working to get it back under control. I’m almost there! The weed policy has been updated to eliminate certain plants that are not charming enough the tolerate. I really enjoy being “in the weeds” because it gives me time to evaluate the garden and ideate improvements.

I finished my plumbing project last week and obtained approval from the building inspector. He asked me to fix one part of the 2″ drain line and I was happy to oblige. It was the building inspector’s second last day of work before retirement so that was lucky timing, as with getting the permit.

The picture above shows the entrance to the hardest working room of my house. You see the hot water heater, Internet gear, and a line of old kitchen cabinets along the far wall which serve as pantry and other much appreciated storage. The water supply pipes used to run along the wall under the cabinets and the laundry drain pipe used to run along the floor. Also in the middle of that wall was the dryer vent exit with a flexible pipe running along the floor to the dryer.

Looking right you see the new laundry sink and stacked clothes washer and dryer, which I did last year and was the start of this renovation. Above the sink and running all along the other side wall is a wire shelf which provides more needed storage space.

This is what the project was all about, adding another toilet and creating a new half bathroom. As the building inspector said when he looked at the toilet rough-in “I see the magic”. It truly is a marvellous addition. You can see the bottom of a nice looking medicine cabinet which adds a bit of elegance to a very utilitarian room.

Welcome to my crawlspace. All the waste plumbing starting in the foreground and back to the far wall I installed. Below you can see all the details: the toilet pipe, the 2″ laundry drain, and the new PEX supply lines.

So the plumbing project is complete and all that remains are some finishing details. On to the next project which I have started planning, recessed LED lighting in the living room.

I’d say we returned to Canada just in time as a week later the world is shutting down to prevent the further spread of the Coronavirus. We are lucky to live in relative isolation here in Garden Bay, but they have just detected the virus on the coast and there are shortages in our grocery stores. Yesterday I applied for a building permit for my plumbing project and later that day they closed the offices to the public.

What is happening in the world is very interesting from many perspectives. The reaction of the stock market has, and will continue to affect me personally. The market has been extremely volatile and some days I buy and sell up to three times in one day. All that trading yields significant profits yet they are buried in the large paper losses that I have incurred along the way. When the market recovers from this virus I will feel pretty smug.

Until then it helps greatly to be safe and sound at home.