Wishing you all very Merry Christmas!
We started off the year in Cranbrook, staying mostly at home – Deb’s curling was of course cancelled but her team started a weekly walk that continued throughout the year and adapted with the weather to include biking and kayaking. Pat and Sadie put on the miles walking in the community forest. We had a big heavy snowfall during the holiday season which resulted in some tree damage in the community forest but made for some pretty walks. Unfortunately it also resulted in a few problems with our “shed from hell” – remember from last year. The snow was so wet and heavy that it collapsed part of the roof of the shed – onto the kayaks and trailers. Although we were able to shovel it off, and monitor it throughout the rest of the winter – it wasn’t until spring that we were able to determine that nothing was seriously damaged.
In April we decided to move out to the cabin on a mostly full-time basis – leaving the house in town closed down – except for when Deb had an evening out with the girls or was working. Yes working – because although her official retirement date was May 2020, she continued working on a part-time / call in basis. She figured that since COVID would not let us travel, she might as well work and put money aside for her future scuba trips and supplement her retirement income.
Deb put the house on the rental list for locum medical staff and made arrangements to temporarily rent out our house to a visiting doctor and her family for June to test how that would work out. When it was just the doctor here, Deb would occasionally stay overnight in a basement bedroom. When the doctor’s family came to visit – Deb commuted back and forth to work from Moyie. It was an interesting experience but not really what Deb was hoping for as it seems that all of the arrangements are short term and so would not work out very well when we are away travelling.
Due to a staffing crisis in the social work department (not unlike many other places) Deb decided to accept the Professional Practice Lead position for a short term. She really enjoyed the challenge of being in a leadership and mentoring position. She was able to support the new employees and hire more including someone to take on the PPL position on a term basis. However, she did not like it so much that she wanted to give up her summer working and so she took her planned time for her annual kayak trip and her end date was just in time to go to Loon Lake in July.
This gave time for Pat to poke around the Moyie cabin and start completing some overdue tasks. First and foremost was trying do repair and reinforce the roof on the “Shed from Hell”. One day when Deb was at work he jacked it up on his own and she came home to see that it looked nearly new. He then moved on to integrating a kayak rack that also supports the roof structure, and suspending a large tarp that would hopefully take some of the snow load and allow it to slide off more easily. Other projects building terraced parking spots up the side of the cabin and gravelling the driveway. These activities were interspersed between Pat feeding many squirrels, chipmunks, nuthatches, wrens, and unfortunately also the gophers. He operates a series of up to a dozen feeders and at the peak can go through a 20 lb bag of seed in two weeks. In the morning if the feeders are empty – the racket is enough to wake the dead. However the antics of the critters competing for the food keep us amused when we sit down and relax.
For most of the summer – Scott and Kelly were out for the weekends and they encouraged us to stop for Happy Hour at 3:30, and evenings were included games and paralizers. Cross -Crib and a nastier version of Uno (introduced to us by Keelan and Josie) were the main staples. On other evenings, like many people we binge watched a number of shows – courtesy of our Roku and now having internet at the cabin. This included Justified; Money Heist; Peaky Blinders; Longmire; Game of Thrones; Foley’s War; Midsommer Murders, etc. (When you are not current in your streaming habits, you have many choices open to you).
The summer also saw the completion of the frame reconstruction on the Jeep – and the ability to get it on the road. Pat had not driven the jeep since it was bought – so this first road test gave him the opportunity. Keelan drove it down to the end of the lake road, and then gave it to Pat to drive back. Halfway back, the drivers front tire broke away from the jeep and rolled down the road ahead of us (one of us forgot to tighten lug nuts). Despite this set back, the Jeep started and ran well for sitting for two years – and was then transported to a friends shop for the remaining body work and paint. We will hopefully see it on the road by this coming summer.
In late March, Mick received notice from his landlord that his place was being sold. He had been reluctant to look at moving when we had visited just before the notice but now he had no choice. With the support of Arlene and Ross asking where would he like to live and then providing transportation to view housing, he widened his initial search in both price and location. He was lucky and found a townhouse type rental in trendy Kensington area. He negotiated with the land lady to keep some of the furniture and as it was empty was able to move in quickly. Deb returned to Calgary for two 4 day weekends to assist with packing and cleaning and he moved in within 3 weeks. His place is quite funky, has an open area upstairs that he has set up for his office, a spare bedroom (yay!) and a basement for his gaming systems. It has made a very positive change for him, he has found wonderful walking areas and has easily 30 little restaurants within walking distance, Safeway block away and if\when he returns to work in the office C-train right next door. The biggest challenge has been that they tore up and closed the sidewalk in front of his place so the postman cannot deliver the mail and he cannot find out where if anywhere it is going to. Luckily most things are online and he has been able to work around it.
In July, Keelan decided that the real estate market in Kimberley was booming and that he should put his house on the market. His difficulty was finding a place he could rent with their two cats. In chatting with Pat while working on the Jeep, Pat suggested he should talk to his mom about renting out our place. So on her way home from her annual Kayak trip, they chatted about the plan. It would provide Keelan and Josie with a place that allowed pets, Josie would not need to commute to Cranbrook for work, it would provide someone consistent in our house covering the costs and give us a place to stay for short periods of time when we could not be at the cabin or travelling. Keelan’s plan also hinged on his finding employment in Cranbrook, again Pat had heard that Rob our old neighbour who owns RiteWay RV was looking for employees. Keelan contacted him and met with both he and Dan (who he’d enjoyed working with at Dixon’s Service Centre), got the job and the plan moved forward. They moved into our house in August so they get themselves (and more importantly the cats) out of his house so they could set it up for showings. After a few days of cleaning, moving and staging, they house was on the market then next week. Although it took a little longer than he’d hoped, he received an offer in October with possession Nov 11. We quickly moved his furniture partially to the house and partially to the loft at the cabin along with some of our furniture. As he loves to cook and use his own equipment, he moved nearly all of Deb’s kitchen stuff out and put his in. Deb, to the amazement of Keelan, was able to pack it all up and stuff it under the stairs for storage rather than move it out to the loft for storage.
At about the same time the US border opened to non-essential vehicle travel so we decided to make a run for our cabin in Kentucky. Pat has not been down since the end of his retirement trip in 2019, and Deb has not seen it for several years prior to that. Purpose of the trip was to first off to see if the cabin was still standing and whether the mice, squirrels and/or snakes had taken over. Second goal was to see if Deb thought it was adequate to spend extended periods of time at (or if it should be sold). Third, if deemed as functional – what work needed to be done to it to make it more comfortable. So we closed down the cabin at Moyie, spent an overnight with Keelan and Josie and then headed off November 8. We had Deb’s vehicle, packed as full as possible with things for the cabin, the dog and the two of us. The trip went via Mick’s in Calgary, and to Pat’s aunt in Regina and then south to Kentucky. Although nervous about what hassles or delays we might hit at the border we crossed easily with no issues. Thankfully dog got more comfortable with car travel as the trip went on, stopped being carsick and started to understand staying in motels. When we got into Cadiz late on a Friday night – we got the last motel room in the town as hunting season opened the next morning and all the motels were full of hunters. We showed up at the cabin the next morning – and after clearing off the driveway from the tree limbs and two years work of oak and elm leaves, we were able to get in. We had a little difficulty getting the water turned on but by late afternoon, we had water, power and heat. The cabin, all things considered it was not that bad, with no evidence of snakes, and moderate sign of mice. We spent our three + weeks there – alternating between cleaning, organizing, and going on day hikes around the area. Sadie really enjoyed the hikes and was very helpful in finding the paths at times as they were covered by leaves and difficult to find at times. I think that Deb likes the area and cabin well enough – that we are planning on coming back in February for a couple of months (if allowed).
On the night of Dec 5, as we were going to bed we received a tornado warning for the area. It started in the evening and went on for 7 hours with the primary warning concern in our area being for 3 am. In an effort to prepare, before we went to bed, Deb had checked all the things to do – go to the basement (no basement), go to a root cellar (no cellar), go to an inner room with no windows (don’t have one), go to a closet (okay have one of those) which Deb cleared out so that we could fit. If needed, we would grab the mattress from the futon and put that in front of the closet door. True to the prediction we woke up about 3 am with severe wind and rain for about half an hour but luckily nothing more. When we got up the next morning, water was running over the culverts, and there were a few tree branches down – but we came through relatively unscathed. With a cold front coming in, we made the decision to pack up a day early and head for home. This proved to be a good decision as it was far more comfortable to drain the water system in sunny weather rather than the freezing temperatures the next day. We have since heard from neighbours in Kentucky that our cabin withstood the second round much larger tornadoes that caused numerous deaths and damage several days later.
In both Deb’s car and Pat’s Scion (which had been stored in Kentucky for the last few years) we headed for home. Deb was really not impressed with up to 7 lanes of traffic (in Kansas City) or getting off track due to construction in Sioux Falls but she toughed it out although she made it very clear to Pat that she did not enjoy driving the way that he did. We were lucky in skirting snow and storms throughout the 5 day trip. True to Boyle fashion we arrived ‘home’ earlier than expected including a last minute decision go come on Friday night and forgo our hotel room in Kalispell due to an impending storm.
We are learning to live with house mates as we stay in bedroom in the basement of our house, using the basement family room as our living space, and share supper meals with Keelan and Josie. We will pick Mick up to be home for Christmas here and are grateful that we can be together.
In this unusual year, we hope that everyone has been able to take care of themselves and those you love, and are able to spend time doing those things that are truly important.
Time to close off – wishing everyone a great holiday, and stay safe and healthy.
Love,
Deb, Pat and Sadie
Pat, Mick, Deb, Josie and Keelan – December 2020
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