Memories of living in the North

We lived in Red Lake in Northwest Ontario from 1972 to 2001.
The photographs here, taken from www.northernfleeceweaver.blogspot.com bring back so many memories. We made many trips to Duluth. It was a stop on our summer camping holidays as well as a weekend destination in the winter for cross-country skiing.




The moose was a common sight, sometimes too common as we drove highway 105 from Vermillion Bay to or from Red Lake.
And Northern Fleeceweaver's country near International Falls was a regular destination when I coached soccer. The high school soccer teams played in Fort Frances almost every year. Teams would stay across the river in International Falls where the girls' team members would insist on a trip to the Payless Shoe Store to stock up on shoes.

It never rains but it pours!

It has been a frustrating morning to say the least.

When we got up we saw that there was a bobcat style of back hoe parked at the bottom of our driveway. "Is that for the excavation for the sanitary sewer break or is it for the installation of the back-flow valve on the storm sewer line?" we wondered. The answers soon came as Fred the plumber arrived. It was for the excavation for the storm sewer. But where is that located was Fred's question. On Monday a City crew had marked the location of the sanitary sewer lines, but not the location of the storm sewer.


We waited until another plumber arrived with a video camera to put down the storm sewer line, and thus locate it.

Then the back hoe operator arrived, and eventually work on excavating the storm sewer line began.







What we were not prepared for was the discovery that the storm swer line was broken in several places in the first 50' of its path beneath my front garden. After the 50' mark, the camera became submersed in water.


My neighbour, Richard, and I viewed the video that shows the breaks. Much of the front garden will have to be excavated. And this is not covered by insurance. It is specifically excluded.

What is next?

Where to replace the sanitary sewer line

This morning a workman arrived to establish where the "dip" is in the saniatry sewer line at our house and next door. Once more the video camera was sent through the line. This time the results were that the line had collapsed 16 meters from our house beneath the sidewalk. The sidewalk in front of our house is now inscribed with graffitti: "collapse."




Green lines also go to the middle of the road at right angles to that evocative word.






Green lines also decorate my front garden. They compliment the red lines that show where there are buried hydro (electrical) cables.

When the workman finishes checking our neighbour's sanitary sewer line, we may have three excavation sites marked. One for the storm sewer and the needed back-up valve and two for the collapsed sanitary sewer lines. It will look like an archeological dig before it is all over!

Outreach to Togo

The photo here is of the church I attend, Glen Cairn United Church in the Glen Cairn sub-division of Ottawa. A month ago, Abdou, one of the people that looks after our autistic adult son, asked Anne and I if we would help him in his mission to help poverty stricken children in his native land, Togo, in West Africa. We agreed and gave him a small donation of clothing and cash to help him.

Abdou's plan is to take a huge container of clothing and school supplies to Togo, and when it arrives there to personally distribute the donated material to children in rural villages who have very little.

Anne and I asked if we could seek the help of members of the church's congregation to help him. Abdou agreed, and the outreach co-ordinator of our church, Kim, accepted the mission as the Outreach Project of early November.

Two weeks ago, Abdou attended the morning service to promote this project. Last week the church bulletin contained a detailed account of his project. And this week Abdou once more came to the church to collect the materials members had donated. We and he were overwhelmed by the congregation's response. Abdou filled his car with the donations of clothes and school supplies. I picked up a child's bike later in the day to add to this collection. And the monetry donations were overwhelming too.

Later this week or early next week, Abdou and his friends will spend three days filling the container. It will then head to the docks at Montreal to be shipped to Togo. It will arive there early in January. Abdou will be there to meet it. He will then drive truckloads of the donations to the rural villages to distribute the much needed supplies.

On his return, Abdou will come back to the church (and other donors) to present a video of the distribution. The local Rogers TV has given him a camera so he can do this.

It is people like Abdou who make a difference in the world.

The end of the renovations is in sight!

At last we can see the end is in sight for the renovations following the July 24th flood. The laminate flooring was finished on Friday and we were able to move things back to more or less where they belong. The cane and willow are now in my storage room. In the far corner of this room (not shown) a cupboard has still to be built over the clean-outs to the storm and sanitary sewers, and the water meter.

Julians sleeping area is now looking a bit more civilised. As you can see, finishing touches still need to be made where the laminate flooring meets the baseboards.

Doors still have to be rehung. My studio work area is here, but it is still not time to bring the baskets down here for display.

The tiled floor is finished in the bathroom. Next comes the re-installation of the toilet and the hooking up of the sink.

We can now sit in relative comfort in the living room downstairs, and even access the piano which just shows in the bottom left corner of this photo.

One job leads to another: redux!

Yesterday I wrote about how this section of the front garden will be excavated to install a back-up valve on the storm sewer line. This morning I received a call from "Steve" of the City of Ottawa. There are two sanitary sewer lines in addition to the storm sewer line. Earlier, in October, back-up valves were placed on those lines, one in our half of the semi and one in our neighbour's half. Now Steve has had time to review the videos taken of these sanitary sewer lines after they were cleaned out. Each has a sag in it. Fortunately for us, these sags are on City property, not ours. The City will pay the costs of replacing the lines and eliminating the sags. It will entail digging up portions of our gardens and lawns since our yards do extend onto City property. At least we will find out where our property lines are!

One job leads to another

Later today (or more likely next week) a back hoe will arrive to dig up the raised garden at the front of my home so as to install the back-water valve on the storm sewer. In order to prepare for this I had to remove the 8"by8" beams that form the edging to that part of the garden that will be excavated. As I removed these I remembered that there were grey and red housebricks beneath them that formed an edging in the Mark 1 version of that raised garden. These were now accessible and could be removed for other use.

I also had a path made of cement flagstone slabs adjacent to the area to be excavated. Surely I could break these up into crazy paving pieces, remove them and add to the incomplete crazy paving path. This I did, to Anne's approval.






I then replaced the uprooted housebricks to make a pathway adjacent to the area to be excavated. Now I need about a dozen more housebricks to complete the path as well as more crazy paving.


As I said in the title, one job leads to another!