Honey Harvest

The bees are dwindling and I don't expect they will make it much longer. So we started to pull a bit of honey and the stuff on top still seems to be in pretty good shape. Trying out some different ways to harvest it. The heat gun works pretty well for uncapping but is on the slow side. Trying gravity and time out but sun is needed to warm things up enough. Haven't seen sun in a while. 

The girls are on spring break now! They had their last ski club on Thursday, ending things with a pizza party. Naomi has been busy with registration, but we did get a chance to check out the end of season party at the ski hill. They made a pond and riders tried to skim across, but most of them got wet. So cold. 

I made some progress in the downstairs bathroom, but still lots to do. Got distracted with some new cross country skis, and now I am pretty sore from all the wipeouts! They are a little too fast for my skill level at the moment. Guess I need to practice more. 

View from the lift.

I'll pass on this challenge. 

New skis. 

The Blizzard

What a storm! The wind was so strong that I was wearing my goggles and helmet when I was outside clearing the snow. Seemed rather pointless as the drifts were moving so quickly. The upside was that it didn't accumulate on our roof at all. Nearly half of it has already disappeared. Must be March. Did give us a chance to have fun sledding off the roof again! Even had a friend come over with his snowboard. 

Out of six consecutive school days the girls had five snow days. We had some fun, but everyone was definitely ready to get back into the routine. Luckily we could enjoy snow club. The wind had blown most of the new snow right off the back of the mountain, making some impressive drifts in the process. It was fun to hike up and check them out. 

Didn't have much time for the bathroom, but the water is finally hooked up and working. That was a big milestone. It is really a time sink of a project though. So much detail. Hopefully I can make some good progress this week. 

What a drift.

Digging down to get light downstairs.

The compost is alive!

Over 100 degrees under there.

The sunken greenhouse is sinking!

Getting organized.

What a view.

Out towards our land and above the treetops.

Fun ride down.

Hot Water, Cold Snow

We got a tankless hot water heater installed this week very similar to the one we had in the NL. There, it not only gave us hot water but heated the house. Here, we have a separate furnace. Everything is more expensive here. There, the unit plus install was under 2500. Here, the unit plus a much more complicated install was 5500 this fall, but the company that gave us that quote has since then raised their prices to 8-10k. Hard to understand. Luckily I have a friend who is a plumber, so he recommended someone who did a great job for around 3000, but I did help him. Same price another friend was charged just to have a basic tank model swapped out. Sure is a relief to have that job wrapped up! 

The girls had a couple snow days this week, and we spent a lot of time at the ski hill. They just got back from a sleepover and my mom came up for a couple nights. Naomi and I had a really fancy dinner last night. I tried out some cross country skiing as well. Need to pick up a pair. 

We have a giant snowstorm on the way. An inch or two in at this point. It's supposed to go for 48 hours and drop a couple feet of snow. Very high winds as well. Hoping we can hold onto power again, but there will be a lot of outages. 

Beautiful day at the mountain.

Uh oh. Units switched from inches to feet.

It works!

The Melt

It's been a warm week! Seems like we have lost about a third of our snow. More on the way this week though, but today we will lose a lot more. Supposed to be nearly 50 and sunny! Nice to have Naomi home for the week. She was able to wrap up the paint job in our bathroom, and it sure looks a lot better. 

I picked up a cold, so wasn't very productive, but we still had fun. Got the countertop built for the sink downstairs and working on the finish. Also finished up the electrical, so we finally have lights and power in the two new rooms!

Had a lot of fun fat tire biking last Sunday with my friends Scotty and Matt. Also got to go snowboarding a couple times with Matt - he showed up for ski club on Thursday. We ate an early dinner and then stayed for night skiing. The girls have been asking to do that for years. Check. Enjoyed a couple of dinners with Pish, too!

Amélie baked some banana muffins for Pish.

Fun on the fat tire bikes!

Pizza night!