The Squamidian Report – May 5 / 07
Issue #258
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I hope I’m not boring too many of you (a few is OK) with the dirt biking adventures I write about and post. But its what we do this time of year, before it gets too hot to be doing that kind of riding. And besides, the new toy (more on that next week I hope) isn’t here yet. Once it is here I will be adding highway adventures to the mix. So for now you will have to put up with another backcountry ride episode.
The Upper Squamish River Valley road leads into some pretty wild and remote country. So that’s where we headed for on or little dirt bikes. Three of us this time, Warren, Ryan and myself. We trucked the bikes to ‘end of pavement’ at about mile 19 and rode from there. Just a couple of miles up is the Ashlu bridge. Another 20 miles or so along the main is the Elaho bridge. Beyond that was new country for us. Before we got to the Elaho we took a short side toot up toward Kaylee. We’ve been up there before and I’ve posted pictures from there in the past. We had hoped to get up far enough to watch a few avalanches but because the snow line is still quite low we couldn’t get as far as we wanted. So after munching our lunches at a spot with a great 360-degree vista view we dropped back down onto the main and continued on.
By this time two deer and one bear had run across in front of us. Just a reminder of who or what lives out there. Past the Elaho the valley and river climb up toward some pretty good looking mountains with some pretty impressive snowfields. We would have ridden toward them all the way to the end of the road but as the season would have it, we ran into snow. Its still winter in the higher remote outback. But we got lots of pictures.
On the ride back out we tried a couple of side spurs on the south facing side of the valley. Made it up quite high before being turned back by either snow or the trail being overgrown. By the time we got back to the trucks we had ridden enough, our butts were a bit tired, and we were happy. Pics at:
http://www.thedougsite.net/Upper-Sq/upper-sq1.htm
*
Sue has her share of frustrations these days. Case in point. Unlike most managers, she is at her branch every day to either open or close or both. One evening this week she was there for closing and decided to head home a while later. The bank rents several parking spots in a secure underground garage next door. One of the spots is hers. There is a man-door for people to walk in and out and there is a car door for vehicles. The only way to open the car door is with a remote control clicker thing.
When she got into her car and clicked the clicker, nothing happened. The door would not open. After waiting for half an hour or so in hopes of someone entering and therefore opening the door, she walked over to a store and bought replacement batteries for the clicker on the off chance that was the problem. Still no luck. She was stuck in there. She could have gone back into the branch but that would have meant spending the night there. Been there, done that, didn’t want to do it again.
Finally, sometime after 11 PM someone came along and the door opened. New problem, there are rolling highway closures due to construction on the Sea to Sky at night right now, starting at midnight. She made it as far as Britannia where she had to wait an hour sitting on the road with a couple of other cars caught in the closure. At some point someone came along and woke her to tell her they could proceed. She did finally make it home somewhere in the wee hours. Don’t know just what time it was, I was asleep.
doug
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Hello
everyone!
Spring
has sprung for sure around here. I’m sure most of you have stuck your noses
outside during the past couple of weeks to see the beautiful sunshine. It’s
been a bonus for the outdoor people, the kind that love to work, play or just plain
sit and enjoy being outside. The garden centers and landscapers are smiling
from ear to ear with this early season. Home owners are flocking to these
garden suppliers by the thousands already to get a jump on this years yard
work. I know that Carole and I have been busy around our house. It feels great
to have most of our yard work done already. We spent the last week working
outside. I talked to the young man that drove up onto our front lawn last
winter after knocking out three sections of the fence that we have on the
corner of the yard. He said he is an apprentice plumber and he and his dad
would be over to repair the fence. When we talked, he didn’t seem to be
thinking the way I would when we talked about pulling the broken posts out of
the ground. Being an old fussbudget I like things done the right way, my way!
So I suggested to him that he let Adam and I repair the fence and he just pay
the bill for the parts when I hand it to him. He agreed and kept saying “Are
you sure that’s ok?” and apologizing over and over for the inconvenience. I
said don’t worry about it, I’d rather do it and have it exactly as it was, than
maybe not be happy with the results of someone else’s work. No offence meant to
him or his dad but I assured him that it would make me feel better to do it
myself. So last Sunday Adam and I tackled the job of pulling the 150 lb 4’
chunks of concrete and 4”x4” out of the ground. Man, were they a struggle to
yank out. We used a large “Farm Jack” as they’re called (basically a huge
bumper jack) with a chain around the concrete. We had to dig down about 10”
below the surface to get the chain around the cement. Once we had it set up, we
needed a way to keep the jack from tipping toward the hole while we pumped the
jack handle. I backed the Jeep up to within about 10’ of the jack and attached
a thick rope to the trailer hitch and then to the top of the jack shaft. Once
there, I had to move the Jeep ahead until the rope was tight enough to hold the
jack upright. Adam did the manual labour and jacked the post stumps out of the
ground. Once we had the first one out, the other two were easier to set up. It
took the first half hour to figure out the setup and then the others were a
snap. All in all it was still a lot of work. Once we had the concrete chunks
above ground we just flopped them over and undid the chain. We tried to lift
them but they were so heavy, we decided to roll them to the curb. I was
surprised how heavy they really were. We managed to install the new posts and
fill the holes with concrete by the end of the day. All we had to do was hope
that the neighbourhood kids wouldn’t take a swing on the fresh posts before the
concrete was set. Luckily come Monday morning the three posts were still
upright and nice and level. Adam had to work out of town this week so that left
the remainder of the fence repairs to me. We were fortunate that the three
sections of fencing were still intact after the impact. They were just
separated from the posts with little or no damage to the 10’ sections. Since we
were not able to get the posts set in exactly the same positions as the
originals I had to do a little adjusting. I was very lucky that the new posts
were an inch or so closer to each other than the old ones. So all I had to do
was cut a little off each 2x4 stringer and hang them back between the posts. I
was even able to salvage the old brackets that mount the sections to the posts.
As it turned out, the whole project was very cheap for the young driver. I
still have to call him with the final tally but I’m sure he’ll be happy with
the amount. I had no way of hauling the huge chunks of concrete to the dump and
the garbage man that came by Monday morning said he couldn’t take them because
they might damage the packer of his truck. As I was pondering what to do about
them, a fellow stopped by the curb in a large pickup truck. He said he was
doing some renovating at a house down the street and if I wouldn’t mind paying
for the dumping fee, he’d be glad to take the posts away for me along with his
leftovers. I gave him $20.00 and he came back a half hour later. He broke them
up with a sledge hammer and tossed the chunks into his truck and away he went.
I was very happy to be rid of them so easily. Looks like the whole package will
total around the $120.00 mark. Not a bad fee for all the damage this kid
caused. I’m sure he’ll have no objections to paying this bill.
The fence
looks better than it ever did. It’s nice and straight and looks like it was
never damaged. I’m so glad I decided to do the repair myself.
*
As for
the rest of the week, Carole and I spent a few hours each day making small
changes. We had some flag stones around the air conditioner. We wanted to
extend our flag stone sidewalk another 10’ to cross in front of the garden
shed. Rather than make a trip to the garden center we decided to make use of
the stones from around the AC and replace them with ¾” crushed stone. We were
able to scrounge up enough flag stones to do the job. We then took a drive to
Forwell’s gravel pit on Victoria St to buy the ¾” stone. I took along 3 “Blue
Boxes” to fill with stone. At the garden center last time I was there, they
charged me $5.00/box for the stone. This time when we got there, we discovered
that they no longer sell “shovel your own” bulk gravel. They now sell it in
20kg bags for $3.99/bag. The amount we needed would have come to over $40.00. I
thought that maybe Forwell’s would be a better place to buy it. I’m quite happy
that we took the time to go there for the stone. I checked in at the office at
Forwells and was told that three blue boxes of stone would cost me $5.00 total
but I’d have to shovel it myself. I slapped down the $5.00 and was quite happy
to do it myself. When we got home, we had enough stone to cover the area at the
AC as well as do a large area under our garden swing and repair some spots on
the other side of the house where we have stones instead of sparse grass. It
turned out to be quite a productive week and things are looking very nice this
year. The only project left to fix up is the pond and that’s a story for
another week.
Thanks
for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in
The
Ontarion Report.
Bye for now…. Greg.
PS:
Something To Think About>
The
sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up!
****
The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
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