Throne Speech - Bowen style

Now that Jim's back is much better, he started working slowly on prepping the main bathroom, laundry room and powder room drywall installation and plumbing.  We even have a working toilet in the powder room, which is great!

To celebrate our achievement, we had a virtual Throne Celebration Dinner with Jim's brother, Peter,
and his partner Kathleen.  We wore our own hand crafted crowns to celebrate the new throne in the house.

We won't bore you with many details....plumbing, you know...

Jim working near the wall between the bathroom and laundry/utility room.

It's all about the stack.

Cutting a channel in the ICF blocks for plumbing pipes to run.

We took the tool storage shelving out of the powder room so Jim could plumb it for a toilet and sink.

Then he drywalled it enough for now.

Made under sink storage and primed with a grey paint for now.  Tiles in the future.

A plumber's butt free zone.  Phew!

Tada!  Nice marble eh?  Remember good old Mactac?   Yep!

BUT WAIT!!!

 Eventually we needed to unload the pile of 12" x 24" bathtub tiles from the truck.  We had built the porch and dumped the soil, which was great but we still had to get the tiles out of the truck and all the way to the lower level.  Our trusty cart, Red, helped me get 6 boxes of tiles plus 4 bags of cement and grout down our winding cedar path. Each time Jim and I loaded the tile box or cement bag into the cart together then he took the inside stairs and met me at the lower garden gate to help unload.  Each box weighed around 44 lb! Again, getting my weight bearing exercise!

Jim fabricated a second wooden handle to help control the heavy cart.
Didn't want it to tip with a load of breakable tiles!

Made it.  Everyone needs a Red.

So, our next inside project is building our laundry room, installing the water tank and stacking washer/dryer.  Then installing the 6' long bathtub, toilet, sink etc in the main bathroom. Progress!  We're now learning about tile work, grout and installing heated tile floors.  Never a dull moment!

Cheers

Tricia and Jim Bowen

Til next time!

Tricia and Jim Bowen

Malcolm Island Sights

What do we do besides garden, looking out at our view and working on the house?  We've learned to balance things a lot.  Slower pace but easier on our bodies and spirits.

Sunday drives are pretty standard for us.  There are lots of pull outs and social distancing isn't an issue.  Beaches are never crowded. In fact, we usually have the beach all to ourselves.

Public Art along Kaleva Road......

This one changes.  Sometimes there's no cow, sometimes a zebra, a rooster, or all of the above.

The local cows doing a walkabout.

When we bought the property this cherry tree was completely overgrown and hidden by dozens of Alders.

Local alarm clock....sadly this beauty disappeared a couple of weeks after this photo.

Jim's ties are never far away, though time to work on his projects is somewhat limited.

He's fine-tuning his technque! This is a study for a large project he is planning for the future.

He's buying in bulk occasionally, especially with no thrift store visits for ties.  By the way, do you like Jim's COVID hair?  He's thinking about cutting it sometime soon....I hope....

A Sunday outing to "Sam's Place",  45 minutes away on the north side of Malcolm Island.

One other person was at the far end of the beach and that was crowded!

There's something fishy here!

Jim's involved in a Malcolm Island Lions Club initiative to give our local elementary school kids a chance to get a little crazy and have fun. Their task... to paint a fish or two for a total of 80 fish (on both sides) that will then become part of an outdoor art display of swimming salmon.  They'll be attached to a chain link fence mounted at the harbour near the refurbished 70 year old fish boat "Sturgeon".  It's great for community spirit!

Jim drew different species and sizes of salmon.  Then cut nine copies from each pattern.

The plywood salmon were sanded and primed by other willing Lions Club members. Lions provided brushes, paint, the plywood salmon, gloves, etc. to the school, who are coordinating the painting aspect with all kids participating.  Then they'll be mounded. We're excited to see what the students paint.  Stay tunes.

Meanwhile, I've been doing more acrylic pouring but needed to enhance the pours.  

Whales these days on an acrylic pour background.

Icy waterfall or bubbles rising to the surface or ....?

This is a piece of 'pallet art' Jim and I created together.  It's painted on an old piece of wood from an old pallet.  Free surfaces to paint on!

In December I created Brixie's Flower, in memory of my
Mom and had fun painting Christmas ornaments as gifts.

Well, that's what's happening in Sointula.

Until next time...

Jim and Tricia Bowen

Our Great Outdoors at Home

Though we are continuing to work inside the house on plumbing and building our bathroom, spring is in the air and gardens wait for no one!  Here's a  bit of an update.  

Since I had to go to Campbell River for an eye appointment in March,  I brought back a yard of soil. Except we didn't have an easy way to unload it to the garden level.  So... we had to build the porch and install our ramp in order to dump the soil over the edge and onto the tarp below. No problem!  There's another blog entitled "How soil built our front porch for us".  Check it out if you haven't already.

FYI Jim did shovel dirt too, just stopped to take my pics.  Great exercise and we have additional soil!

Looking down at the mound of soil below.   We picked up a second load locally and did the
same thing all over again two weeks later.

Only a few steps then dump. It only took us an hour to dump the yard of soil once the porch was there.

We cut back a bit from last year on starting plants inside. 

Jim's adding peat moss and grass seed to new soil to increase our lawn space.  We cut this grass with a hand push mower and use the clippings for mulch in our garden.

If we could only keep the deer off the freshly planted clover and grass!

Just when you think that there's no more landscaping to do, we decide to improve our view.  Since I'm up for a challenge Jim asked me to cut down an alder tree we didn't want.  It wasn't easy and it was a workout.  

I may be scrawny but I kept at it.  The next day I finished it.  Then I had to cut off the part left sticking up so it was trimmed below finished ground.  No problem!  Took me a while as I had to dig a 'moat' around it big enough to operate the old bow saw.      

Note from Jim:  My Amazon Woman!!

Jim liked the results and decided it was time to trim the remaining alder tree and the top of the hemlock beside it.  Not exactly an approved set up but it worked!

Jim used an extendable trimmer to reach those pesky branches.

We sure improved the view with one less alder and 5' of top removed from the hemlock.

Though we didn't see much snow this year,  we did see some.  It even snowed a couple of days after we planted out some lettuce ....it almost survived the winter!

Squash Mountain got some new soil and plants.

Our flowers, clover, herbs and tomatoes adorn our patio, one year old now.  My two colourful planters were gifts from my sister, Moe, for my birthday last fall.  She loaded them with daffodil and tulip bulbs then planted winter foliage on top. We've been enjoying the blooms for weeks now.  The gift that keeps on giving.  Thanks,  Moey.

With Jim's help I'm learning more than just yard maintenance, though there's plenty of that too.  
We planted some of our early varieties on May 4.

We also decided to reinforce our fence and create a plastic shelter for this year's tomatoes. 

After this season we'll extend it to make it into a temporary greenhouse to use for the next year or five.

Adding supports to the outside of the fence for the plastic to screw into.

Jim's finishing up installing the thick plastic that will shelter our crop of tomatoes from wind and rain.

Tomatoes planted, fresh mulch on top.

So far we seem to be sharing our garden with robins and stellar jays but we don't mind. Bird's gotta eat!

Our crop of California dew berries we started rooting in the fall.  We'll wait til this fall to plant out.  
We hope the deer don't like them on the slope between the road and our driveway.

Could the newly planted grass on the right be the last grass we plant?  
The new grass to the left of the path is growing like a weed too!  Pun intended.

We have no idea if our veggie garden bounty will be as much as last year, but we'll enjoy the flowers, plants and fruits of our labours as well as our great outdoors.

Until next time...

Jim and Tricia Bowen