Our new family member, Ben

This post is a little off the topic, but we have had several people asking for info on our new puppy, Ben.
Ben is a 12 week old blue heeler-terrier cross we found on Kijiji. We were looking for a buddy for Joey, our 7 year old border collie-aussie shepherd cross. When we do finally move up to the ranch, we won't have the luxury of built-in neighbours to let the dogs in and out on a daily basis, or play with them while we're at work (thanks Patou!). We worried that she would be lonely, or worse yet, vulnerable to the many coyotes that live around the property. The search was on. After a few false starts, we stumbled across Ben. His new owner, Brianna, was unable to keep him so she had put him up for adoption - luckily for us!
We were concerned that Joey wouldn't like him, given her penchant for trying to beat up any dog that comes near her. However, our fears were unfounded, and she has accepted him into our family, if a bit grudgingly at times! They play and wrestle together whenever they are together. We feel so sorry for Joey. Like a real trooper, she puts up with the sharp teeth and constant attacks of her little pack mate. She does have to tune him in a bit when he gets too rambunctious for even Joey to deal with.
So, enjoy the video and the pic. I'm off to the ranch to setup for the slate tiles that go under and behind the wood stove. Wish me luck.
BTW, Carol's parents, Alex and Beverley arrived safely a few minutes ago. Welcome to Kamloops!

"Go ahead and cover."

I am typing this post on Sunday morning at around 8am, while looking out one of the dining room windows in the house at Gull Lake Ranch...
That was the phrase, uttered by Wayne, the electrical safety officer, that removed tons of stress and worry and made me smile with a big, silly grin. We had met, as arranged and made our way to the house. As we chatted outside, while observing the solar modules mounted on the roof, he came across as amicable, interested and helpful. He gave me a couple of great tips as we went inside to check things out. He seemed generally pleased with everything he saw, making a few observations and recommendations before uttering those four simple words that made the day seem just a little sunnier.
That means we can go ahead with insulating and vapour barriers throughout the top two floors. The basement will have to wait for another inspection later on, but we expected that as most of the wiring still has to be done down there. As far as the SafetyBC people are concerned, we can drywall and finish up the main and second floors, however the TNRD have to come and inspect the insulation/vapour barrier prior to actually drywalling those floors. One step closer!
We had a motorcycling friend from Edmonton, Owen, come and camp at the Knutsford property for a few days. He wanted to see the new house before he left (he follows this blog!) so we arranged to ride up together on Saturday morning while Carol brought the car. He gave us a hand moving a couple of heavier items up from the basement (Alex, we miss you already!) before continuing on his way to Kelowna. Thanks, for the help, Owen. We hope you have a fun week and a safe ride home.
Carol and I had decided to stay at the house over Saturday night - our first night in the new place!With Dad and Beverley coming on Tuesday, it would be a good "practice run" for us as we were going to be staying up here during their visit.
Brian and Louise (the neighbours who sold us the property) had stopped by to enjoy the beautiful evening from our deck. We shared some drinks and good conversation before the air cooled enough to send them on their way and chase us inside to watch a movie on the computer. BTW, a quick shout-out to Darren, the Bell TV installer who had come up earlier in the day and installed the dish and wiring, ready for the receiver to be hooked up in a few weeks when we move in permanently. Thanks, Darren - great job!
The night went smoothly, with lots of new noises to keep us entertained if we happened to wake. The coyotes were in good voice and Brian and Louise's cattle (which are now grazing on our quarter) were the orchestra. Their low bellows were accented by the mooing and often high-pitched wailing of the bulls. It was quite the performance!
So, here we sit on Sunday morning, nestled in our couch, sipping our coffee - no milk :( - enjoying the sun rising over the valley with the mountains behind. It doesn't suck!

Electrical Inspection Today...finally!

So, after submitting our request for our first electrical inspection from SafetyBC on Auguest 15th, they finally called yesterday and booked our inspection for today (Friday, Aug. 26th) at 1:30pm. I am meeting the inspector by the highway and he can follow me up to the house. Of course, not everything is perfect so I am now in "worry" mode. I have no doubt that what we have done is up to code, so I don't really know what I'm worried about. I suppose it's just that this is important so I am nervous.
Assuming that we get a "pass", we will be able to start insulating and installing the vapour barrier on the outside walls and in the ceiling, at least in the areas he is inspecting today. The basement plugs are not yet wired as we have lots of "stuff" from Ontario stashed throughout the basement making access difficult. We are having visitors next week, Carol's parents from Ontario, Alex and Beverley Brown. They will be staying at our current residence in Knutsford. Apparently walls, hot water, showers and a kitchen have some sort appeal to them, so they won't be staying at the new place! Carol and I are going to try and "move in" this weekend. I'm sure that will motivate us to get going and finish the place!

Soffits are done...finally!

Yes, that piece of news is VERY good! The dreaded soffits are finished. Moving on....
I have been lax keeping up the posts recently due to the fact that I'm really busy! Work has been feast or famine but quite hectic as everyone seems to want everything immediately when they do actually send us some work. I go in and try to clear up anything that requires my attention, and then head out to the various suppliers and pick up whatever widget(s) I need for the day. I go to the new house, work for a few hours, and then return to our place in Knutsford to eat and sleep. Working by yourself, things seem to take a long time to accomplish and I have to try and focus on one task at a time. My mind is going a thousand miles an hour worrying about the dozens of things I need to do to finish the house and I sometimes get caught zooming from one task to another and getting nothing done!  
Oh, and the house survived the lightning storm just fine. Some neighbours had gone up in a water truck and controlled the fire until the Forestry Service guys got there and put it out. The Forestry guys were back the next morning to put out a second fire close to the location of the first one. Thanks, guys! We have a new appreciation for the work you do!
I am spending most of my time working on the house electrical rough-in now. We have pulled almost all of the wire and mounted the switch and fixture boxes. Splicing all the wires in those boxes is a bigger job than I estimated (that seems to be a theme here, don't you think?). Anyway, it is progressing well and I should be ready for at least a partial inspection tomorrow.
Bob, the builder, was up to take care of the issues the final framing inspection had brought to light - nothing too serious, but necessary before we can insulate and install the vapour barrier. He has rented out his beautiful log home a few clicks down the road from us, and moved into a house he owns in town.

Lightning!

Carol and I planned to spend the afternoon and early evening working up at the new house. We ditched at the office around 3pm and zoomed up the hill. I quickly got to work on the #$%@* soffits... We were keeping an eye on the sky as the weather was predicted to include some thundershowers. I didn't want to be working on a 26 foot lightning rod (ladder) with all that electricity in the air. After about an hour it started to spit rain so I took the ladders down, put the tools away and generally made sure everything was battened down in anticipation of the storm to come.
We didn't have long to wait... The first lightning bolt hit very close to the house with the attending boom of thunder at almost the exact same time. Soon the house was reverberating with a multitude of cracks and booms and the sky around us lit up like a fireworks display. It was exciting and very scary at the same time. Lightning could be seen striking the valley below the house and even lit up the hill behind us. I was very pleased that we had implemented all the grounding and lightning protection when we installed the solar modules. It was paying off now, as we didn't even get a flicker from our power system. We did hear a couple of clicks and pops when the violent flashes lit up the sky, but everything just kept purring along, just like we designed it to do. Exhilarating!
It was all very intense and by the time we had wolfed down our hot dog supper, we were both ready to hit the road and get out of the area. The lightning was receding but it was followed by torrents of rain that made our driveway slick and slippery.
As we were almost home (back in Knutsford) we received a phone call from Jackie, our realtor and neighbour asking if we were still up on the Range (the Robbins Range, where our house is situated). After telling her that, no, we had left 30 minutes before, she gave us the news that there was a fire raging on the property directly behind ours, no doubt caused by the lightning storm. Her husband and some of the neighbours were going up with a water truck to contain the fire until the forest service could get there to put it out. There was no use us heading back up - we have no lights at the house and it was nearly dark by this time. All we could do was sit and hope that the fire was small and did no real damage around the area.
It's Thrusday morning as I write this. We didn't hear anything else last night so we assume that all is okay and our house is safe. Carol is off to the Western Canada Summer Games this morning - she is a volunteer swimming official. We will take a trip out to check things out after lunch. I will keep you all posted.

More of the same

We started the weekend early, after abandoning Loni and Bill at the office before lunch. We needed to get the soffits finished, complete pre-painting all the trim and get the domestic water system working. It was a long shot, but we've never done anything the easy way!
We stopped at Home Depot to pick up a vanity for the downstairs bathroom. Carol had spotted it the day before and we both liked it, especially since it turned out to be on sale when we got to the cashier. We purchased the matching mirror. Now, if only finding a bathtub was as easy.
We needed some special tools to connect the Pex piping to the water pump, so we put that on the shopping list for Saturday (the "shopping list" never seems to end!).
Carol soldiered on with the trim. Since it was all stored outside, she had to wash and wipe down each 16 foot piece and let it dry before hitting it with the white paint. The trim comes pre-primed so it takes the paint well, but there is soooooo much of it!
The soffits, I've decided, are a nightmare job. I just hate it. It is difficult to motivate yourself to do something you dislike, and do a "quality" job of it. I tried to make the best of it, and for the most part I'm pretty happy with the results. After working on it all weekend we have just the very difficult front of the house and the northern dormer "eyebrow" to complete. I am back at it again today (Monday).
We were able to get the water working, so now the toilet fills by itself after flushing - yay! The vanity sink now sports a nice tap set and is working great. We have left the drain disconnected for now to enable us to do a neater job with the drywall. A bucket serves nicely to catch the drain water for now. Alex helped us move the clothes washer up from the basement. We had bought it used a couple of months ago and since we had pressure water now, thought we could employ it to help keep the towels and dishcloths clean and ready for use. Hooking it up was easy as the plumber had installed one of those nifty tap and drain kits in the wall behind where it sits. Cool!

Soffit Update

We spent the long weekend at the house working on our long list of projects. The weather was spectacular with only a gusty wind making dealing with the lightweight aluminum soffit panels a real challenge. Carol kept busy putting the finish coat of white exterior latex on the exterior door and window trim. We chose to use LP Smartside trim products for the trim and fascia on our house. Smartside is a great product utilizing what would otherwise be scrap wood fibre and strands, bonding it together with a treated resin to prevent rot and insect damage, embedding a wood texture to the surface (smooth texture is also available) and then coating it with a latex primer to ensure excellent paint adhesion. The trim boards come 16 feet long and are a little cumbersome to move around, but because there are no knots or defects, the entire length is usable. We set up a little paint shop in the basement, enabling Carol to paint 6 lengths of the board at a time, supported on our homemade saw horses. Over the weekend, she managed to get about a third of it done.
Meanwhile, I was struggling with the soffit installation. Not a horrible job, but certainly a fiddly one, and one that is performed at the top of the outside walls. Of course, this is accomplished while working on a ladder or two. The idea is to install "J Track" to the side of the house and under the rafter tails and then cut and fit the ventilated aluminum soffit material to fit in the tracks - not too tight though, to allow for expansion and contraction, but tight enough that it doesn't fall out of the tracks. It sounds so simple doesn't it? Well, I have to say that I'm developing a healthy respect for all the tradespeople out there. Over the three days I managed to get about 1/3 of the job done. Understand that this is the easy 1/3 - none of the gable ends have been attempted yet and they are by far the most complicated parts of the whole job. I am getting much more efficient at it though, and should be up to the task for the rest of the job.
Robin at Groundwater Systems promised me that the water system would be completed and tested yesterday. We will see as I am headed up there this afternoon.

We picked up the sink, vanity and mirror for the main floor bathroom this morning. We will get it installed over the next day or so...yay!