The week started out like most others bright sun with a weather report promising 35 degree heat. The weather report proved to be correct. At 9:00am the backhoe arrived to dig up my front yard and build my new driveway. This was preplanned so was no surprise.
I just didn’t know how long it would take of how much work I would have to eventually do. It only took a couple of hours for the hoe to get the dirt dug out and piled up and place the crushed shale, I had picked out, placed and mostly leveled. Ron Harris did a good job and it looked not bad when he left. You can only get a driveway so flat using a machine like this so I proceeded to water the driveways, did I mention I now have two, down to let the shake settle out a bit. Once it dried up which isn’t too long in the desert I proceeded to run my car over it to pack it out a bit. The bid driveway packed out well and was quite flat. The smaller driveway packed down a lot. Ron couldn’t pack it much as it is close to the house. I then had to wheelbarrow about 1.5 yards of shale all the way across my yard it took me the better part of two days and 1/2 a case of beer. Although I don’t drink alcohol they love me at the non-beer section of the store. I just can’t drink water or pop all the time. Finally the job was done and all that is left, and that will be done over time, is to rake out the driveway so the shale comes to the top and looks like I have a brown driveway. That’s about 50% done and looks quite nice so far.
Yesterday after Aran’s kids Camp and his swimming lesson we drove into Penticton to look at a SUV. We’ve been looking for the last month but just couldn’t find what we wanted. I was beginning to think I was too picky as all the cars here seem to have a quarter million kilometers on them but the one we looked at had it all. Low mileage and all the accessories work. Although I had to refer to the owners manual more than once to figure out how. We bought a 2001 Subaru Forester that’s just loaded. It looks like new except for a few small scratches and a ding you can hardly see on the bumper. The interior is clean as a new car as is the engine and undercarriage. Things like heated seats, heated mirrors, specialty alarm system, 4 wheel disks, ABS and a 6 CD changer made it a no brainer. The only thing I didn’t like much was the color, Black. Although this morning when I looked out it was looking pretty good. Now we can transport our canoe to go fishing and I can get to some of those places where pictures really need to be taken.
I had to drive between Keremeos and Penticton 4 times yesterday and encountered the proverbial tourists and slow moving trucks on every trip and a tropical rain storm on two legs. It’s funny how you can be driving down the highway here and, like a line in the sand, go from bright sunny conditions to wipers on high speed in about a hundred meters and then be out of it just as quick. That’s always amazed me.
It was one long day yesterday in fact it was one long week and now it’s raining and the Cars Under the K car show is on Sunday. What a day, what a week.
