Did I mention that we are moving this month?  We’ve been sorting, packing and giving away stuff since April. But it’s down to the crunch of yard sales and major cleaning now. Our new place is a gorgeous log house on a long, narrow bay occupied by oyster operations. The house has been well cared for but only used for brief getaways by the owners over the past decade.

A few things had to be done to transform it into the live/work space we need. We managed to get satellite internet by mounting a receiver on a steel pole which we dug into the ground and cemented. It took 450ft (138.5m) of cable to reach the modem in our basement. The satellite server only provides 300ft (92m). The staircase required 3 levels of bracing; a dozen 2 x 4s to support my baby grand piano and 5 of us who dragged, tugged, braced, pushed and slid it up the stairs to its new home. I was holding my breath the whole time!

There is a sewage system which pumps sewage uphill to a septic field. It exudes stinky odours and will need a long hose to carry the piquant perfume away from the house and ground it in the forest floor. The  downstairs toilet outlet pipe isn’t angled properly so it doesn’t flush completely. And log houses are so beautiful that everyone loves to live in them –  including rats, mice, squirrels, and wasps…… and carpenter ants. In fact a colony of ants have eaten the supports for the back stairs. Oh joy.

Terry found a great recipe for making wasp traps out of 2litre pop bottles with vinegar, sugar and water. It works. The traps are full of yellow jackets. Nothing seems to work on the legions of mosquitoes though.

We’ve hardly had time this month to think about whales. We keep hearing that they are in the area but the closest we can get to the water is repairing leaks in our RIB (rigid-bottom inflatable boat). sigh…..