Blizzard and a new CPAP

Although the island is still recovering from the storm of Dec 20th when we lost many trees and power for as long as 2 weeks for some people, apparently there is a blizzard on its way beginning tonight (Friday).

We will be hunkered down in our little rig for a few days while what is - in these parts, anyway - a bitter few days passes. 'They' tell us it will be -12C tonight (10F) and in that range for another 4 days before warming up slightly to the -5C (23F) range - these are windchill temps. This island could get as much as 4 inches of snow according to the people who never get it right and a lot of wind (90km/h / 56 mph) is expected, making this quite a blizzard.

I thought I'd put out this post just in case we should lose power (we were only out for 1.5 days on Dec. 20) which we undoubtedly will, for an extended period. Because of the storm's strong winds in Dec a lot of trees were felled and concern now is for the danger of compromised (ie loose) trees falling and given that the island is covered with rather large trees, this is a significant concern.

On another note:
Brad has been having trouble with his CPAP machine for quite awhile now and on Wednesday we decided that he would go to Duncan and get a new one. First, I called to make sure the place I thought would have them in stock actually had them in stock and they did but the price was around $2500. This is not his first purchase of these things, so we knew they would be expensive but while he waited, literally with his coat on I decided to check Amazon....

His new CPAP is due to arrive today via Purolator. The CPAP was under $500 and his new mask which he didn't need but decided to get anyway, was about $115. The new mask arrived yesterday. Both are from Canadian suppliers (ie not China), while they were probably made in China like everything else, they are not shipping on the slow boat from China. I know a few readers use a CPAP so I thought I'd mention this as these machines are very expensive.

As for prescriptions... if you are ordering an Auto CPAP you do not need a prescription and the pressures do not need to be set. Only for an old style CPAP do you need an appointment with the setterupper guy to get your machine sorted, requiring you to pay a fortune to purchase the machine from said setterupper guy.

Should you have trouble with it at any time, just Google it. There are plenty of YouTube videos of how to change the settings, etc of particular machines. And the new machine of course, does come with instructions. Amazon: one advantage to this Global Economy. We have purchased CPAPs from the states before because they are quite a bit cheaper but these Amazon prices are priceless.

Suck it up Princess

Its been a little busy around here but other than yardwork around the campground and doing our usual eating out at our usual haunts which I've talked about several times already, I just didn't know what to say. Writer's block I guess you'd call it. 

We realized that the storm had damaged a fence, so we had to take out a few posts and replace them.

I made some fairy doors which I plan to put around the grounds (in common areas) for kids to hunt for in lieu of a treat of some kind. The doors are nothing fancy but the kids won't care and the weather will destroy most anything anyway.

Susan and I went for a walk around Mouat's park, which is very close to here but I didn't realize. I had taken a different park to be Mouat's park so it was great to find another trail in another park we hadn't experienced yet. Thank you Susan.

Someone created this and set it in Mouat's park

A handful of no service campsites in this park also but apparently it is abused quite a bit.

Beautiful spot

Not sure who runs these, but I hear Banana Joe maintains them. Banana Joe is a guy I see often on FB and sometimes share his pictures.

This was taken several days ago downtown, the tulips are rising

Ganges harbour, Brad and I took a stroll along the waterfront and sat on a bench and just enjoyed the moment - for about half an hour, it was great. Look closely and you can see the ferry heading in to Long Harbour in the center

A closer pic of the ferry

Beach down Beddis road

Brad and Robbie enjoying the sunshine

This boat is a hot topic on the island at the moment.....long story.

Essentially, this boat is on pontoons, during the storm a pontoon was damaged and the boat started sinking, it was towed ashore as seen here, but some islanders don't want it on the foreshore and many people have been trying to tow it out but apparently it was brought in on a super high tide which won't be seen again until Nov we're told... after a couple of weeks of much kerfuffle, a couple of nights ago it caught fire. I don't have a pic of the burned up shell yet but suffice it to say the boat is a goner.

On my way to Pickleball the other night I had a blonde moment. Whilst plugging in my seatbelt my thumb caught on my pocket as I was bringing my hand back up to the steering wheel, hurt like hell but off I went to Pickleball anyway, not thinking much of it... yes, I played a few games through the pain - frankly, that's just the sort of crazy person I am... 

Several days later after trying to stabilize my thumb with tensor bandages, I finally gave in and went to the Dr. Yes, me, at the Dr.... he said basically the same thing I had been saying, 'suck it up Princess' (he doesn't know I'm a Queen - we just met LOL) so I went back to Pharmasave and bought a proper thumb stabilizer thingy for my hand, Dr says at least a week - maybe two. I'm having a great deal of trouble typing with it on so if this post isn't perfect - suck it up Princess! 

We've been working - when it isn't raining (this is the rainy season) on cleaning up the campground, raking the bazillion leaves, cutting back the blackberry bushes that are rampant here and pruning the trees before they wake up. Generally getting the grounds ready for the season, yes we have plenty of time yet, but there is a lot to do to get it the way we want it and if we do a little bit every possible day it won't be a mad rush at the season opening.

I have been studying up on Keyhole Gardens, as I have noticed that campgrounds (KOA is a prime example) are taking on a farm to table thing of late and I thought we could do a garden of camping vegetables like lettuce, tomatoe, potatoe, onion, etc. Salt Spring Island has been having a drought in summers apparently, so I've been trying to formulate if and how this idea could work within our little campground here. Keyholes, done correctly, do not attract vermin and do not require weeding (something to do with the height that I don't understand). Problem here -Deer, so it will need to be enclosed somehow. Anyway, all of this is still in the possibility/planning/conception stage.

Our laundry system is still working out well and I'm very pleased with it so far. It will be better when I can hang things outside of course, but the dryer gizmo does work very well, just requires smaller loads which it turns out works better for me anyway.... I've always done laundry as a once a week kind of thing but this twice a week is so much easier. Not having to go to Duncan once a week means a tank of gas last us about 3 weeks. Bonus.

I've been taking a lot of bookings for the summer months already, I mean who thinks about June/July/Aug in January - RVers, that's who! I wasn't expecting this many calls so far ahead of time but it's sure great to be busy. Salt Spring Island is so incredible in winter I guess it isn't surprising that so many people want to ensure their spot for summer. Can't wait to see how Mother Nature will improve on what we've been experiencing here so far... I do want to increase tent bookings and we plan to offer more sites next winter for snowbirds and full-timers. 

A lot of work yet to do.

Windstorm of the Century

Having finally recovered from my death defying Woman flu, it was bagging day. One of the local grocery stores arranges with local groups to have people do the bagging (4 per 2 hour shift x 2 shifts/group) to earn $300 for your group. I was on the morning shift. Very quiet at first but man was it fun and definitely over too soon. This same store allows Customers to put their receipts into a large selection of numbered boxes (Pickleball is #128) and at the end of the cycle (don't know how long a cycle is) they pay 1% of the receipt totals to the group. You can see the receipt boxes in the distance just to the right of my head as people exit the store (white).

Pickle bagger extraordinaire (again, thanks Mum)

It has been raining cats and dogs here for several days and Friday we had a major windstorm. The combination, of course, is deadly. The power was out all across Vancouver island, Gulf Spring Islands and into the interior of BC there were widespread power outages. They are calling it the storm of the century, apparently it is a rare occurrence in these parts, we'll see about that.

Susan & Reuben had a tree fall on Susan's car. We went to visit them after speaking to Susan on the phone and she sounded so distraught so we took their gifts to them - which we had planned to give them today (they've invited us for supper tonight), in an effort to cheer them up and we stayed and chatted for an hour or so. Hope it helped. When we were leaving I was looking at this tree on her car, which just grazed the house enough to take down the gutters but doesn't appear to have damaged the house at all and I realized, if the car hadn't been there the tree would most definitely have damaged the house.

Susan's former car with their current home on the right

Salt Spring Island was a right state. Trees were down everywhere, a lot of them had fallen on power lines, I took a sampling of pics to show this and roads were covered with limb debris.

Using a snow blade to scrape the tree bits off the roads

One of the couples in the campground are building a tiny house on the south side of the island so we drove down there to see if they were okay or needed any help but no one was there. Took plenty of pictures of what crews were having to deal with along the way.

A lot of trees in several clumps had to be cut to clear the roadways

All along the roadways there are downed trees to be seen everywhere

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Our power went out Friday at noon, and we discovered after a couple of hours that our Generator needs servicing, fortunately we have a large battery bank and we were able to just unplug a few things and once the genny died we ran the engine to recharge the batteries. Fortunately our power was restored last night (9pm ish) by these hard working heroes who are still hard at it getting everyone back 'online'. 

The Power Heroes

Today I am going across to do the laundry by myself, I have some last minute Xmas shopping to do and I'm praying that everyone else has theirs done so I can have the stores all to myself.... What?,  it could happen. LOL