Saturday Feb 27th.
This is the electrical shed at the entrance to our property as it looked a week ago. The door lying on the ground has now been replaced. The broken glass cleaned up and plastic put on the window. More importantly, Ted Hansen, the electrician came over today and took a look at the connection, the breaker panel and the shed. He pronounced it all good and useable for our immediate needs which are power to the well pump, power to the trailer and power for construction. This is a big relief because any electrical work is expensive and a new connection costs $3500. Yeah!

After meeting with Ted, Tasha and her daughter Bella paid a visit to look at the garden. They live close by so they walked over. Bella is 5 years old and very bright eyed. Tasha is a professional gardener and landscaper witth clients all over the island. She would love to garden on our land but feels she can't invest a lot of time, energy and money into building fences and preparing the land. So I realized that this year will be about just that. We will repair useable fences and build new ones. We will get someone in with a rototiller to turn the soil and then, on Tasha's suggestion, mulch the heck out of it with cardboard, straw or whatever. Then we'll leave it until next year to start a garden. At which point she is very keen to get involved.

After saying goodbye to Tasha and Bella, I drove over to the Jim and Diane Henschel's place on Taka Mika Way. Their house overlooks the entrance to Manson's Lagoon and is in an absolutely gorgeous spot. They had invited me for a simple lunch and we enjoyed a very happy hour together. Their house has many of the features and ideas that we are looking at incorporating into our place... open plan with kitchen, living and dining areas all in one big open area centered around a wood stove. Their "big room" looks out onto a big covered porch with skylights and a lovely post and beam chunky feeling. Inside they have used beach logs and rough cut wood extensively yet the space has a very nice "finished" look to it. Upstairs is a big multi-purpose room with skylights, a separate bathroom and extra storage under the eaves.

Di also showed me their guest "cabin" which is closer to the water on a rock bluff with a view to die for. It's a beautiful space with a bedroom entrance I must photograph and post here.

Moving on, my next stop was Good Libations where Doug had saved me a sample of their Malbec which I am sipping as I write. Very good. I think I'll go back on Monday and put a batch down.

I then drove over to Squirrel Cove for gas and some plastic to cover the window on the electrical shed. Went back and installed the plastic and then came "home" to David and Annie's place. Another very enjoyable day.