Today has been a pretty weird day. One minute it seems to be bright and sunny only to be followed by the next minute when it's either raining or overcast.
As you might have guessed, I tried to capture at least some of this experience via time-lapse technology. And while I have been known to cry wolf when it comes to the quality of my vids in the past, I actually think this one is kind of neat and makes clear that there are at least a few layers of clouds at work.
Enjoy.
[Embedded video]
I bet you're all really jonesing for the vid that I'm currently in the midst of filming - how could a sequel to this hot vid not be even hotter?
Sunday, June 16, 2013
A Few Quick Notes 598
-So after several months without rain and clouds grey skies and rain have finally returned to Regina. For the better part of the past few weeks we've had at least grey skies for part of most days and somewhat regular rain. The upside of this weather is that on Thursday night I got to see my first double rainbow, the downside is that it's almost always not quite as warm or sunny as I was expecting it to be at this time of year in Regina.
-Despite the grey skies, cool temperatures, and plentiful rain the plants we planted in our garden a few weeks ago are mostly growing. Sure, most of them would probably be doing a fair bit better with a few more hours of sun a day and soil that at least occasionally is a little drier, but that hasn't meant that most of them haven't continued to grow - if somewhat slowly.
Not surprisingly, the radishes are furthest along. And had this weekend not been as rainy as it was we would have even planted a second and third row so that we can start to have a stead stream of radishes. The peas and beans are also doing well, though, again, more sun would surely help.
The plants that seem to be growing particularly slowly are our pepper and corn plants. The corn plants seem not to have managed to make it beyond about three inches while the pepper plants don't seem to be any taller than they were when we moved them from indoors to the garden.
In any event, the fact that most of these plants are even alive seems kind of remarkable given the incredible number of weeds and the high clay content of the soil. I suspect that not weeds be an annual battle, but so will the soil. Who would have guessed that in a province known for agriculture that the soil is mostly just clay? In Newfoundland it's always a challenge to put a shovel into the ground because of the rocks - here the rock-free clay is just to dense and goopy for one's shovel.
-A friend of mine from library school is coming into Regina for a conference tonight and I've offered to give her a ride from the airport to where she's staying. Not only am I looking forward to catching up after about five years, having someone else in the car finally provided me with the motivation I needed to finally get around to giving the car a quick vacuum and clean for the first time since we've owned it. Not surprisingly, the back was a fair bit cleaner than the front.
-Now that our balcony rail has been in place for a week we've started thinking about our next project. As some discussion we finally settled on re-roofing our garage. Yesterday I picked up most of the supplies, though I still have to snag some flashing. So whenever the skies clear and the rain stops we'll have to start on this project. I'm a little worried that this is going to be a bit of a nasty project - but at least at the end we'll hopefully have a garage that doesn't leak quite as much as our garage does currently.
Oh, and then once we're done with the roof we'll have to move on to re-siding it. Hooray!
Fortunately, I think we've got the game plan for this more or less figured out - though that doesn't mean that there won't be surprises when we finally get around to it in a few weeks.
Box Kitty
It wasn't long after Marie arrived that it became clear that one of her favourite haunts is Jeannette's desk.
The only thing that seems to have made the location even more desirable has been the addition of a shoe box.
Sometimes she'll spend hours sleeping in such a box while Jeannette works.
Of course, she's not particularly loyal to a particular box - basically any shoe box will do.
And if she happens to be in the bedroom rather than the office she's more than happy to trade a shoebox in for a pair of my pants.
And even then she's not particularly picky - pretty much any pants will do.
Life's certainly a little different around here than it used to be in the pre-kitty days.
The only thing that seems to have made the location even more desirable has been the addition of a shoe box.
Sometimes she'll spend hours sleeping in such a box while Jeannette works.
Of course, she's not particularly loyal to a particular box - basically any shoe box will do.
And if she happens to be in the bedroom rather than the office she's more than happy to trade a shoebox in for a pair of my pants.
And even then she's not particularly picky - pretty much any pants will do.
Life's certainly a little different around here than it used to be in the pre-kitty days.
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Catching up on vids
So while Jeannette and I were in Vancouver just over a week ago I managed to snag a few hot time-lapse vids.
The first I took while taking a break from walking along the Sea Wall in Stanley Park. It seems that even on a grey day in Vancouver the place is fausty with people.
[Embedded video]
Later, when were back in West Point Grey we stopped at a park near where I used to live and I snagged this while we sat and drank coffee. As you might be able to see, downtown Vancouver can be seen in the background.
[Embedded video]
Don't forget to keep checking back for hot new vids.
Working our way up the scale
After some painting and then a few weeks of gardening projects Jeannette and I finally got around to tackling one of the more substantial (maybe it wasn't actually all that substantial - but it was certainly daunting) projects associated with our new house - the construction of a new balcony rail.
Soon after we moved in to our place it became clear that what looked just like a little weird balcony on the back of our house was actually a decrepit little weird balcony. As this winter's snow began to melt and expose the places where there used to be wood we began to get a sense of the general decrepitude of the rail - and it wasn't good. As more time passed pieces of rotting wood began to fall onto the patio below. Sitting nearby when there was even a slight breeze became risky.
As obvious as it was that something needed to be done, I was a little hesitant to act before we were comfortable with our plan of action. Of course, once it became clear that my unwillingness to even consider developing a plan became was an excuse for inaction, Jeannette scoped out the supplies and forced me to agree to a plan.
On Friday after work we went to a local building supplies store and picked everything up. And because I was less than psyched about using my mitre box and saw to make all of the cuts we took advantage of the store's cut shop. For reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me (but that may have something to do with an employee's dissatisfaction with his job) we ended up getting all of our cuts done for free.
Of course, it rained most of Saturday so we had to wait until today to get going.
Fortunately, because the rotting process was so far along the task of clearing the old railing was accomplished in just a few minutes.
Before long we were on to the construction phase. And because we purchased a few metal connectors instead of relying on nail/screw based joins we were able to move along confidently and quickly (and with zero bashed fingers).
And then not long after that we were able to start adding the balusters (though our original plan had been to add them from the inside and then flip them around to the outside we decided to just keep them on the inside).
And that's basically all there was to the project. Amazingly, we were done in just a few hours (deconstruction and construction combined). As it turns out there was no reason for my hesitance - this whole process was shockingly easy and straightforward. And as Jeannette just pointed out to me, it wasn't particularly expensive (especially after we returned the extra balusters). I'm just glad my lethargy didn't cause us to try to put it off until next year.
And if you're curious to know how we passed what would have been rail construction time on Saturday it went as follows:
I installed a new cord on this lamp.
With Jeannette's assistance I installed some box shelves on the wall in Jeannette's office.
Assembled a new patio bench.
All kinds of shopping related errands (including the purchase of new sheets, plants, and deeply discounted linen clothes).
Soon after we moved in to our place it became clear that what looked just like a little weird balcony on the back of our house was actually a decrepit little weird balcony. As this winter's snow began to melt and expose the places where there used to be wood we began to get a sense of the general decrepitude of the rail - and it wasn't good. As more time passed pieces of rotting wood began to fall onto the patio below. Sitting nearby when there was even a slight breeze became risky.
As obvious as it was that something needed to be done, I was a little hesitant to act before we were comfortable with our plan of action. Of course, once it became clear that my unwillingness to even consider developing a plan became was an excuse for inaction, Jeannette scoped out the supplies and forced me to agree to a plan.
On Friday after work we went to a local building supplies store and picked everything up. And because I was less than psyched about using my mitre box and saw to make all of the cuts we took advantage of the store's cut shop. For reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me (but that may have something to do with an employee's dissatisfaction with his job) we ended up getting all of our cuts done for free.
Of course, it rained most of Saturday so we had to wait until today to get going.
Fortunately, because the rotting process was so far along the task of clearing the old railing was accomplished in just a few minutes.
Before long we were on to the construction phase. And because we purchased a few metal connectors instead of relying on nail/screw based joins we were able to move along confidently and quickly (and with zero bashed fingers).
And then not long after that we were able to start adding the balusters (though our original plan had been to add them from the inside and then flip them around to the outside we decided to just keep them on the inside).
And that's basically all there was to the project. Amazingly, we were done in just a few hours (deconstruction and construction combined). As it turns out there was no reason for my hesitance - this whole process was shockingly easy and straightforward. And as Jeannette just pointed out to me, it wasn't particularly expensive (especially after we returned the extra balusters). I'm just glad my lethargy didn't cause us to try to put it off until next year.
And if you're curious to know how we passed what would have been rail construction time on Saturday it went as follows:
I installed a new cord on this lamp.
With Jeannette's assistance I installed some box shelves on the wall in Jeannette's office.
Assembled a new patio bench.
All kinds of shopping related errands (including the purchase of new sheets, plants, and deeply discounted linen clothes).
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