Monday, May 31, 2010

Stream Exposed! inside the dirt by D.K.


Hey, Hey, every body, how it goin? Well I've had a pretty good week, thanks for asking. Although I'm not too sure about this week upcoming, see it started to rain pretty hard for a while on friday, then on saterday it snowed pretty hard, and from what I hear, sunday it did both for a spell. So now work is under a clay based soup, and we are stuck doing other things.(like today we got to drive a scisser lift around the shop to wash the cielings, and probaly for most of the week too!) Last time we had "rain days" at least we had a floor to install, and as promised, heres the proof!
This type of floor was pretty easy to work with, and pops together pretty quick, with the help of a hammer! It has a laminate top and compressed carboard like stuff, sandwitched between plasticy layers. All this means it can be cut with regular saws! Bonus! As you can see we have a plumming stack running right through our new lunch room.(most people around work call it our stripper pole!) Longer story shorter, floor is done, it looks good, bosses are happy!

Remember last month some time, when most of us did our taxes?(somthing most of you smarter people do reguarly, as to make it less pain full...mmmmm...food for thought!) Well I've not made all that much cash in the past few years, so have sort of put off the taxes thing. I vagely remember owing a bit a few years ago, so was trying to brace my self for the axe in the mail. Well holy sheep dip! Seems I owed more then I rememberd, and for longer then I thought. So my bill was almost $3500! This is the first time I've had more then $500 in the bank for the past 4 years, so I guess it seams about right.(like a slap in the face, with a ring on all five fingers, in a metal glove, dipped in acid, and a poke in the eye for good measure!) Oh well, its my fault for being so causual about the whole thing, its the intrest thats killing me. Maybe if I sent them a goverment sized tube of K.Y., it wouldn't hurt so much the next time they ream me! Hehehe, puttin the Mental back in Govermental, or should that be Govermenstal, would explain why thier bleedin me dry!(ooow, that one even tasted bad on this side, its not easy to offend your self, go ahead and try.)(I'll wait,)( if you do offend you self, drop me a line, I'd love to hear about it!)(Hehehe!)

Well its time for the indepth look at one part of the water feature at Coal Creek. This first shot is from atop a tee mound, the vista offers a panaramic view of the surounding course.(and is not quite nose bleed level.)





Scrambleing down the hill, past the pile of boulders I got to move with the Case loader,(I'll try to remember a picture of that beast for the next blog, I'm going to try to finish each blog in one sitting, the three day blogs are starting to get too long!)so when you hit a huge rock and your ball scuttles away to nevermore land, think of me! I arrive across from old coal processing equipment, this looks cool and will stay for course atmosphere effect.(and as a un-natural hazzard!)

Ever walk along a fairway and think how lucky they were to have a stream or creek running right where they needed it to be? Well I have, and now my innocents has be shatterd! This stream is all faked, it even runs up-hill now.(well it runs down hill, but the land runs up.)(did that help or just confuse you more?) This used to be the road where the trucks got loaded with coal, and as you can see it runs up to the main road, but the creek runs down that way now. The rocks are placed with the small back hoe, in just the right spot so the water will fill a small pond, then spill over in a gental water fall. After laying the floor too quickly, we got to help tamp the clay around the rocks, so the water will go over instead of under/around. There has been no water pumped into this stream,(well there has been now, an unplaned water fountian sprang up from where the hoe nicked a line, but because it was just going into the creek any ways, they left it go for a few days to break in the pump, or some thing. Sure was pretty though.)just the ground seepage, and now the rain. I like this last shot up the road, because if you click on the pic. to inlarge it, you'll see our trucks. Mine is the nose on the right, then in frount of it,(to your left,)is the track hoe, then the back end of the other truck.
My brother Carlin sent me the link to this B.C. comic. All you golfers will understand, and for all you vets or animal lovers, he's just trying to save the rapter, if it passed the ball through...it'd definetly be a dino-sore-ass!(apply laugh track here:)


Last thursday eve, I went golfing in the wind. Heres a thought, if your going to golf in Scottland, come pratice in Alberta first! It seems about 75% of the time its windy, and the other 25% is more of a gale. I played much better then the last time, and wasn't so tired. First hole, with a strong tail wind, helping to the left and everything...I hit the green! 328yrds. away! I kept looking for my ball, thinking where the hell am I, oh there it's on the green!(then I 3 putted, but still saved par, so thats cool, well better then 3 putting for an 8 any ways.)

Tip of the day: Say your a young rock truck driver, here's a helpful hint. Your truck is bouncy, don't pick your nose!(I think I touched my brain!)(it was squishy!)In fact try to keep you hands out of what I'll call the,"Punching your self out"zone. Also light shoes are good, its amazing the places you can kick yourself! Have a great week, latter DufferKev

Monday, May 10, 2010

Wild Canadian Coffee?





Well Hello everyone, hope you had a good week too, mine was busy! First let me say happy mothers day to all you birthers out there, and a extra nod to all those who even brought the baby home!(my Mom said she didn't know she had a choice.) I know it was yesterday, but I was out with all the realitives, so we'll just say it today...Happy Mothers Day! Here is a brief summery of what I've been up to.
Now its time for you to put on your remembering caps. Think back to last fall. This wandering duffer had fianally come home. Remodeling of the trailer was well under way. And I went down to Lyns cottage at Gull lake. While I was there painting the cottage, the roof was redone. After the roof was finished, many nails were sticking through the inside of the attic and main bathroom. The bathroom was fixed by adding a pine board drop ceiling, and now I've been asked to do the same upstairs. These first two shots are of the attic as-was. Saterday morning I drove out to transform it into something all shiny new!

Next we have a shot of the drop ceiling frame in place. I put in headers between the roof beams, so I could keep my studs evenly spaced. No two were the same distance, the cottage is of 1913 vintage, and as you can see had no insulation.



Now it dose! Though this cottage is a summer home only, the insulation should help keep it cooler in the heat, and warmer on those frosty fall/spring mornings. Hopefully the plastic vapour barrier will help make the ceiling bat-proof.(ever wonder why insulation was sold in batts?)(me too!) End of day one, the first day of project "save the ceiling"



Enter day two. This day was a lot of running up and down stairs, because the frame was built square, I could cut several pieces at a time, but because nothing else was, I only cut two rows at a time, just in case. This day was realitivly easy, day three and four,(this coming up weekend,)will be trickier! Those will be the days when I carry on down the wall, where every stud is spaced differntly, and none of the corners are square! I can fore see a lot of one-at-a-time, "custom" cutting, and lots of trips up/down those stairs!(usally I woudn't mind the extra cardio, ecspecilly seeing how out of golf shape I am! Oppps! you haven't read that part yet! you have no way of knowing I'm writing this over three day's, and it's already wensday. Or that I wrote the golf part yesterday, spoiler alert: I had golf last week!)(Oh yeah and I'm already "draggen ass" as they say, because of an unusally phycical work week. Remember when I said watching them dig our new stream at work would be cool? Well its a one back hoe job, not much need for trucks to haul anything away. I did get to haul some soup(bad dirt)away, for about an hour yesterday, but the majority of my time was spent installing a smack together tile floor in the new lunch room, witch I painted last week!)(don't worry, next weeks blog will have pic's of the new floor, its nice!) Back to the ceiling, as you can see I started the angle down the wall, with the last couple planks I had left. A wise old carpenter once told me,(and he must have been wise cause he hadn't starved to death yet, and he still had all his fingers!) "Old houses aint square, thats what trims for!" I believe I'll be using some trim!
Cool sunset on the end of day two, I decided to go for a walk down to the beach, as you may have guessed from the banner shot. On the way back to the cottage I came acrossed a couple of patches of wild Canadian coffee! I had no idea coffee grew wild in Canada, but there it was. (I won't say how long it took, or how much actual testing I had done before determining my discovery was really deer poop!)

Later on in the week,(after recoperating for a few days by going to work,) on a snowy thursday, I decided to go golfing! Yes I had golf!(real golf, not just some backyard delusion.) Of course after I decided to go golfing, it started to snow. The snow lasted most of the day, but was melting faster then it was falling, and being sucked into the thirsty soil just as fast. So in a breif patch of sun, I loaded up my bag and was off.(forgot my new glove in my old pratice bag, glad I didn't throw out the old crappy one yet...I still haven't put the new one in my bag yet, probaly forget it for the next game too...sad.)(Just so you know I havent given up all hope, I might still remember it you know.)(Like maybe I'll put it in my shoe tonight, so then I remember to put it in my bag tomorrow...mmmm...if only my shoes weren't sooooo far away, ah, I'll just remember it latter.)(Oh God, I'm doomed, I might as well just throw the new glove away and get use to the crappy old one, with bright orange paint on it from my gopher golf course, and the big hole where the palm use to be...now where the hell was I going with this agien?...) On my way to Toefield golf course,(with new driving range,)(or new since I've been there last anyways,)it snowed on me agien, but after I turned onto the hiway the sky lighted and I saw no more moister for the rest of the day! Tofield golf course,(see map on right,) is a medium 9 hole trek, a good first effort after the long cold winter,(of our discontent!) No cars in the parking lot, but the gates were open, so I went in. No one inside, but a put-the-money-in-the-slot-box, was there, so I did. I walked slowly to the first tee, giving someone plenty of time to tell me to go away, no one did. First drive was worth the $15 I shoved into the box! Sweet! Ball in the middle of the fairway, no one around to slow me down, no rain for the moment, days of gopher golf pratice for just this shot. Confidently I strode up to my ball, well inside the hundred yard marker, and hit it short of the green. Oh well, I use to be good at the short chips,(thats what happens when you always miss the greens!) I skulled it! It shot 20ft passed the green! All night long my chips had no feel, by the end I was playing one ball till I got close to a green, then chiping three! The greens needed more watering or rain or somthing, quite brown for greens! It took me till hole 5 to get the speed o.k. on the greens, and I consitently two putted after that. Hole 2 had a beautiful drive as well, followed by a medicore wedge shot, and a scary chip. For the first time I noticed two kids ahead of me, it was o.k., they let me pass by hole 4. Hole three, I lost a ball, then, found a ball, so still even. Hole 4 was a good learning experince, I hit a lovely 3 wood to almost right where I wanted it! My three wood as been very inconsistent over the years, so it would be great to love it agien! Hole 5 was a real score for me. My first shot went into the mud bank of the creek, so I hit another.(praise be the mulligan!) While I was getting my first ball out of the mud,(I'm cheap, remember!) I found 5 more! Then went to my second shot. Now heres where it gets hazey. Either I lost my second shot, and found another ball,(2lost and 7found,)or I hit my second a lot farther.(1lost and 6found.) Since I hadn't botherd to look at my second ball...I guess we'll never know! Above is a shot of the hole 5 sign. I didn't take this one, too bad, that would have been cool to see! I realilize by now, that I was getting tired. Sadly the months of not walking a course were starting to show. Bad drive on hole 6, lost it to the right on hole 7.(almost wish I hadn't found it! had to hack it out of some bush thing.) Blocked it to the left on the par 3, 8th. Hole 9! And not a moment too soon! Please don't get me wrong, I was loven it out there, but was getting tired and sloppy. (ie, dug the toe of my driver into the tee box, thus leaving the face open, and hitting it about 45 yards off to the right!) Now I'm behind the trees, greens(browns)over thatta way somewhere, so I'm thinking about chopping it over the trees.(or just chopping the trees by this point!) So as my ball goes screaming over the trees,(well off target!)I notice for the first time, the two kids who let me pass on hole 4, are being picked up by thier dad. Great, entire empty course, and I'm gonna hit some one! I slulk around the trees, thankful my ball dosent have my name on it, and am relived to find my ball just in front of a pond I never knew was there, and 20 some feet short of the child retreival action in the parking lot!
All in all a great time was had by all,(me!)and I'm planning to go agien soon. Hopefully before I go back to finish Lyns ceiling this next weekend.

You may be wondering about the mulitpule head shots.(not the first time I've taken multipule head shots!) Well if I've learned nothing about people,(and believe you me, I've tried, to learn nothing about people that is,)its that they like to vote on stuff. You know, let the common voice be heard, and all that good stuff. So send in your votes, help pick the least repulsive hair doo!(polls open to the citizens of this planet only, vote as many times as you like, a handleing fee of $4.95 will be charged per registerd vote, polls open till midnight Jan.01 2072, please note all votes will be estimated and your vote may not actualy count, I retain total "veto" power!, also the top knot may not work after I'm in my 80's but then agien nothing else will either!)
First two shots are just fresh from the beauty salon. I had told the nice lady,(whos name escapes me at the moment, but don't worry, I still remember yours!)I was planning to grow my longer part till I could make a top knot! Well she seamed to take this as a challenge, and in no time flat had me knotted! Still to short for a good one though.
Next two are from the same night, just took the scrunchie out and gave the old head a good shake.(more then three shakes,... and your likely to get brain damage!) I like the velcro effect of the freshly shaven stubble and the longer hair.
Lastly we have what I'll call the "slick willy",(now would you buy a used car from this guy?) And before you tell me, I know its crooked, I was wearing a hat all day. So be sure to cast you votes often, after of course reading the above disclaimer.
Well thats enough for this time, tune in next week for the anatomy of a stream, a before water documentory of Coal Creek's feature water works! Till then, this has been DufferKev, signing off!






Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Don't Pinch the Dream'n Boy!

Hey, Hey! Everybody!(anybody?) First off let me say this blog will not be about kitties! That being said, heres a shot of three, one day old kitties. The mother is young and clue-less, the little grey one was on the cold cement floor, having fallen from the chair the mother had them on.(I don't actually know if she had them on the chair,(like had them had them?) but that morning they where on the chair, mostly.) Sadly, by the next morning there was only one. The mother cats mother,(from now on to be referd to as gramma cat,)has taken over the mothering of the last one. It has been hiding in a pile of boxes, warm, dry, and safe from the every day perils of being a shop cat! This shop is at my new job!(my dream job,) Last may,(my, how the last year has just slipped by!)just before my first blog, I went to Kelona for a Mothers day visit with my then estranged(?) mother and brother. One thing led to another, and we all come back up here for a visit.(now we all sort of live here, and are no longer estranged!)(stranged, yes, estranged, no!) Now on one of our many tours of the rual niebourhood,(cows in da hood,) my Mom took us by a under constuction golf course called Coal Creek. At the time she had commented how cool it would be to move home, and get a job building that course!(and I thought, yeah right, move out into the sticks, give up winter golf, suffer through the cold, live in a old dog trailer,(life is funny isnt it?) and why would they hire me anyways?) So long story short, as I'm raking doggie doo off of Lyns lawn,(hi Lyn!)I get a phone call from Coal Creek, asking if I can be there in the morning to talk about work. And something or other about "rock truck". I hang up,(or press "End" button,)thinking about following a truck picking up rocks. Tuesday morning comes around, and I head over to the golf course,(about 8 miles!)(when I was working in north Edmonton, my round trip was 271km!)(each day!)and get the "insiders" tour. Its going to be a great course, and I was excited about the chance to help build it.(then maybe work there, like cutting grass, when it was done.) I'm told what they need is a rock truck driver. So I tell him I've driven 1 tons, and 5 tons, grain trucks when I was like 12! He tells me this will be a little bigger, and takes me around the side of the building...And there is a truck the size of a house! Ever play with the Tonkas when you were young?(we had home made stuff, made from wood, and old licence plates!)(true story.) Well I kind of went off in a daze of pre-pubence wunderment! Then I hear, "Climb up, and check it out, tomorrow you can take a spin to get use to it, then off to work!"then somthing about sorry the antenas broke, so you'll only have xfm!(I think more time was used explaning the satellite radio system, then the truck.)(But to be fair, the radio probaly has more buttons the the truck!)

So now I go to a golf course every day, and drive the biggest truck I've ever seen.(and paid $1 more per hour then my last painting job! For gods sake man! don't pinch the dream'n boy!)

These two shots are from day number two, just to show a little size scale, feels sooo wierd to drive the blazer home now, feels too small!(and when I got it, it felt so big compared to the wabbit. Oh, the wabbit, I have this recurring day dream, where I back over the wabbit with this truck!) On the left is what my rock truck would have looked like new...its not so shiny now. I forgot my camera on the first day. Too bad to, cause one of the neat things about these trucks is, the frame is not soild. What I mean by that is, right behind the cab,(about 4 feet behind me when I drive,)is the piviot point. If you are sitting still, and you turn the steering wheel, the front of the truck stays still, but the back end moves about 6feet either way! Because of the "piviot-in-the-middle-lika-city-bus" effect, you can have an extremly tight turning radius! Just behind the piviot is another feature of the un-stiff frame. The back half will tilt left or right independently of the cab. This means if you back up onto a pile to dump,(it seems wrong somehow to use the words pile and dump in the same sentence, and then have no punch line!)and keeping the cab totally level, completely tip the back half of the truck!(I mean right on its side! two wheels up and two wheels down!(and two more right level on the ground!)and me inside, looking like that guy on tv, who drove too close to the sink hole. You know the one, with the "ooops" look on his face, like I wish I hadn't just done that!) I guess it happens. The track-hoe came over and tipped the back half up-right agien, and away I went. At lunch break I drove back to the shop for a 15min. repair to the exuast system. Seem like it was designed to break away in a tip over. So now I know how far is too far. How lucky to learn that on my first day! The other driver has never done that, so he's only guessing how far is too far. Me, I know!
I've thrown in some shots taken from my point of view, out the windows of my "office". The first shot is out towards holes one and two,(see included map at bottom of page, or check out thier website at http://www.coalcreekgolfresort.com/ hey cool! it changed colour! I guess that means I got the jabs-n-slashes right! anyways, please do check out the website, lots of cool pics of the course under construction. Plus lots of history of the coal mine and equipment!) Then a shot out my left window towards the trird green, of the D6 cat,(trying to smooth our road, good luck!)and the other truck,(only one serial number differnt from mine, but I like mine better!) That D6 cat looks so small when we roll by him. Its not like I don't know the crews names, I do,I just havent cleared it with them yet.(witness relocation could be anywhere/anyone!)


As we move the rather large hill of clay over towards the third green, we are really rutting up the hard packed road. Have you ever seen that ice road truckers show? Where the wave of ice is pushed up in front of the heavy truck? Thats what happens with these trucks. The earth rises in front of the tires, then squishes down into sometimes 4 ft. deep ruts. We just try to aim for the high spots, its smoother that way. Just for curiosity, I asked the track-hoe operator how much he was loading us down with. Some times we have to take off up hill, and you step on the gas pedal...and the truck slowly starts to move,(like its protesting the motion.) I was told the truck alone wieghs 30,000lbs. empty!(and I heard its like a 108 liter fuel tank, so thats gotta wiegh a bit too.)(for all the equipment I was told they go through a gas trucks worth of diesel per week,)(witch is 10,000 liters!) Oh yeah, back to the load weight, I was told 30 tons! His bucket is at least 4.5ft. to 5ft. wide, and it takes 8 giant scoops to fill each truck.(then he wacks us on the side to wake us up to go and dump,)( just kidding.)(he really only wacks us when the clay sticks in his bucket.)

Right now we are pileing the clay for the cat to form into a L shaped berm. This berm will seperate the course from the county road.(is what I've overheard in the lunch room anyways.) Some time from now we'll get to dig the creek.(he'll dig, well watch, and dump, and watch, and dump, and wat...(repeat will be necessary!)) If the creek is deep enough the coal seam will be exposed. I think that would look cool, shiny black coal, glissining in the bright alberta sun, water dancing over hundreds of scutteled golf balls, dotting the creek bed, standing out like an away fan in a home stadium,(espesilly when home loses.) It'll be easier for cheapskates like me to find our lost balls,(and not in the divorce either...)unless your playing the Nike black ball, then forget it, its just gone. Reminds me of one of my first golf memories...Back when I was beardless by nature, and not just by choice, I ended up at a teachers conference for the whole district. It was held at a local course, and how educational to see all my high school teachers get drunk! Any ways, my Mom was there and decided to stand out by playing a bright yellow ball,(back when any colour but white was rare,) and she did, right up untill she hit it into a big patch of dandylions!(ah, those were good times!)

The banner shot,(on top,) is looking towards tee #6 and hole #9. As you can see there is a mountain of coal dust in front of that building, dwarfing the D6 cat.(the little yellow blur in front of the big black shape.)(If you dont feel like scrolling up to the top agien, you can also see it on the left.) That is left over from the mine, and now some other business comes and mixes it with fertilizer or something.(for somthing, sounds like a multi purpous, third world bomb factory to me!)(or not.) I'm not sure what its for, but they take it out by the truck load, to some where.(This is the kind of informitive jouranalism you've come to expect from this blog isn't it? I know to me the internet sure lost a lot of its creditbility when I found out just any smoe(like me) with a crap-top could get on it! I mean where will it all end?)
All of these shots where taken last thursday,(my 2nd day of work,)friday was too wet to dig. So for my 3rd day as a rock truck driver...I washed walls to get them clean enough to paint,(I try to get out, but they just keep pulling me back in!) So this week we get three days in, and the rain(and some snow!) comes back with a vengence once agien. Don't tell the boss, but I would love to take the truck out in the swampy conditions, just to see how stuck I could get that monster! Hehehe!"Better get a bigget cat...Hes gone in up to the cab!" hehehe.(but we'll just keep that between us O.k.? and the squishing my old vw bit too, k?) Today was the painting day, and with the non stop rain, tomorrow will be as well. Its good to fianally get some wet, now we could use some warm! One of these sunny days I'll throw the clubs in to the Blazer, and head out to Tofield golf course.(the closest open course not in my back yard,) It's been too long since I've played for real. Its probaly a good thing its only a nine holer because I'll likely just go after work.(and I know I'm out of walking the course shape!)
These next two shots are what I look at most,(at least during the important times,)my mirrors. Strange thing about this truck is when your backing up and truning, you see nothing! As you turn the ass end swings sideways to the cab and fills your mirrors. The other side mirrors show only empty space where you've already been.(if there was somthing there, its gone now!)(hope it was a wabbit!)(hehehe!)Even strait behind is a 15ft. wide blind spot, so you just look at what will be behind you. If you time it right, by turning while you can see the spot where you want to be,(and keeping it in one of the mirrors,)you'll end up o.k. The loader gives you a good aim point, and will start dumping when your in the correct spot. Also the dozer is a good target, he likes it right in frount of his blade,(the closer the better, don't worry he'll get out of the way!)The first day he confused the hell out of me with some vage hand gestors, and sweeping arm motions. Finally I just jumped down,(well I took the first two steps then jumped down, I'm not as young as I used to be you know!)and asked him just where he wanted it. Its better to ask then dump 30 tons in the wrong spot!
I hope it rains it self out this week end, I want to re-retire from painting. Tomorrow(friday!)I'll finish the new office/storage room/litter box area, that used to be the coal truck weigh station, as well as the new lunch room, that used to be a old office.(When we where cleaning it out, we found a old record player/radio/8-track cabinet that had to have been there since 1975! Judging from the wide assortment of classic discoish titles.)

This last shot is of the last load of the day. Just a load of rocks found in amonst the clay. One rock was half the buckett size, or about as big across as your dinning room table, with the optional leaf! so not the kind of thing I'd want in the fairway any ways.(dont look for that rock in this picture, it must have got loaded while I was dumping.)
Bachelor tip for any day; When your feeling old, up is too far to get, and over is too far to bend. So a helpful hint is too have a rolling chair and put your beer in the door of your fridge. That way you can just roll on by and grab the handle, spin your self into a graceful stop and grab a tasty reward for being so squave!(unfortunatly for me my kitchen floor is still an inch lower then this room, so any attempt at squaveness would result in a full on face plant followed by the inevitable getting up!)
Now we come to the end of this blog, and as we talked about stuff from today, we are offically all caught up! No more will we have to play the time travel shuffle board shell game(?) No sir, now we're all on the same page. Take the time to look at the map below, if you click on it it gets bigger.(sorry guys, it only works with pictures.) This is a course I can't wait to play, even if I wasn't working there...But I Am! (HaHaHA!)(that was my happy laugh, it only sounds strange cause it hasn't been heard in a while.) Have a great week, next post in may! I've been bloggin now for almost 1 year! Latter DufferKev.
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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Best week EVER!




Good day all, as the title above notes, this has been one of my best weeks ever!(even though it started out with me raking doggie doo!)(but only on monday,)(hi Lyn!) Unfortunately for you, we're still on last weeks blog,(although we'll still try to make it intresting, o.k.?)(O.k.!) So this week I'll write about last week, then next week, I'll get to this week,(or I could try to slipp in a week an a half, then we'll all catch up quicker!)
The banner shot is of one of my lost, then found golf balls, remember last blog when I was telling you of my half golf game, half easter egg hunt thingy? Well I had placed three styro foam targets out in the alfalfa field behind my trailer, and started hitting balls out at them,(its been awhile you know,) Now the plan was to hit about 10 balls at the first target, then find them all, chip to within ten feet of target one, then hit all ten balls to target two. Lets just say after the long, long, cold, winter...well to be fair I can't be sure how many balls I started off with...so I can't for sure say exactly how many I lost...but it wasn't pretty! I hit at least 12 balls, it was down to about 8 by the time I was off to the second hole, then 6. I did find most of them later, one was down a gopher hole, and as you can see from the banner, they kind of disapear! I have since refined the game,(see bottem of blogg...or better yet, just read your way down there!) and now I hit only one ball at a time, its much easier to remember witch mole hill your ball is hidden behind if you only hit one at at time.
Not sure why this pictures in here, except I'm a man,(damit!)and I think it looks cool! Saddly my fridges looks way differnt now.(yeah, a differnt brand of beer was on super sale, oh and I got two jars of pickles, plus a loaf of bread in there. Fret not, theres still plenty of room for beer.)
Well I'm sure your all wondering, my Mom and her classic country station were right. We got the snow! Unfortunately, along with the snow came 90kmph winds!(not just gusts either, it was like 4 days of 70-90kmph winds, crazy!) Its no joke to say Sask. got our snow, they did. What little snow we got was all piled next to fences, in huge drifts. The second shot is of my Moms front steps, and front doggie yard. One of her little poms ran up the snow bank, and over the other side,(to freedom!)then didn't know what to do, just kind of stood there with a dumb look on its face.(trust me, I know the feeling!)


If you notice all the black coal dust in the snow,(remember last blogg, I knew I was bringing up that dust for a reason!)that stuff really travels on a strong breeze!(in a land so windy as this, anything can be a breeze after 4 days!)
After the wind died down, we did get a bit of really wet snow, and look! green grass! this was taken in my front yard, not off gooogle. (of course now there is lots more, but lets just conentrate on last week, shall we?)

Last weekend,(see more last week stuff, this is easy if we try!) my Mom and I went to the 7th annual Log home and Cabin show, in the same place as the motor cycle show and the golf show, it may seem like I go to a lot of shows...(I guess I don't have a good answer to that one.) Any ways, this was a good show for anyone into wood,(wood is good!) The following is a trip down some of my favorite stuff there.
Shot number one; This one is of my Mom, sitting on a cool bench, with a neat draggon fly carved into it. The detail was burned into the wood. Bench, probably not confortable for too long, but left no splinters!


On to the second intresting thing. Did you know they insulate logs now? Well they do! There where three differnt examples of logs either hollowed out and insulation stuffed in, or logs split in half and sandwitched,(uuuuummmmmmm...sandwitched....)around a core of insulation. So the best of both worlds is achived!





This picture is of a mostly built log home in the center of the exibit hall.
Not much more to say about this one, I like it! Its imposing, very grandious, almost gothic.(hhhmmm, its getting windy here agien, might rain tonight, good thing we're still in last week, nice and sunny then, and hot too, 6 days in a row of over 20* , the last time that happend was in 1916, so thats nice, hold onto that then...)







This was another nice one, very symetrical. The cool thing about this one was, the inside was unfinished, what you see "through" the windows, is a sticker on the windows! Sweet! I need one of those for my truck, of a clean truck inside, or maybe a hot chick, so when I break down, maybe some one will stop for me instead of pretending to be on the phone and thinking I'm just parked looking at the dead weeds in the ditch!



Now this one I took because I really liked the double jointed hinge thing.(I'm note sure why, I know I had my reasons at the time...but...maybe it was the metal, or the medievil look about them? All I do know is if I had them, I'd pinch my fingers in there daily! Or that uncerimonial wack to the fore head when the second hindge opens when your only expecting the first! I don't know why I'd like such dangerous things, maybe I'll think about it...the next time I'm running with sicciors!



O.k., now were into the cool table section of the show, this is a piece of wood, that someone found, wiped the dirt off, varnished, stuck three(or four, I don't recall,)legs on, then tried to sell me for like 2 grand! I mean I do like the shape, and color, but I have varnish, and dirty wood so if I really had the room for such a thing, then I'd have to do it my self!


This next table is in the vain of "Punkys tree of woe"(editors note: see last Novembers Bloggs for details.) This is a upside down tree, cut flat, with a nice piece of glass, and a fat price tag to boot, don't these people realilize that people like me have more time then money, and will come to these shows to seal ideas. If I make this table, the most expencive part will be the ticket to get into the show to steal the idea to make this table,(well that and parking!)

I really like the look of this dresser, I like the differnt colors all blending together(just like those Benetton ads!...go ahead and gooogle it, its under united colors of Benetton,...trust me its real!... ah never mind.) I dont care for all the cutsie crap on the top, or the sticks for handles, but for the over all I like it!



The bed, what can I say about the bed...it reminds me of the bed in the corner of the old hunters cabin, you know the one, where the young couple gets lost in the woods, and they stop to asks for a phone, and its like, "No man, don't go in there." But they go in any ways, and he's like chopped up right aways, and stuffed in a old gas powered frige or somthing, and shes chained to the bed for like 3 years untill she dies baring his monsterous offspring...ahhh...maybe you didn't see that movie...nice bed...very homey...like the rustic feel...oh com'on you had to have seen that movie, its on every weekend in some form or another, about 3am.

O.k. last shot from the Log cabin show, then we can get on to the "Gopher golf" segment!(for those of you who havent already skipped ahead that is.) This one I like for the "opppps" factor alone.(I mean I like it for the art reason too, and cause its very Canadian etc. but for dramatic effect, we'll focus on the "opppps" factor for now.) Like lets say Micholageo here sneezes while he chiseling(?)(chainsawing?) this little beavers nose. "Opppps" Now what? "O.K. Boys, we're gonna need you to move this wall back 2 feet agien...Sorry, my bad." Or maybe they didn't trim the ones above, so like he could just cut the broken beaver off and carve a chipmonk, scampering up the side of the house, and if that got messed up, maybe an wise old owl on the top log or somthing? Agien all the black was burned on.



All righty then, time for Gopher golf! This is for all those who are missing the "fuzzy creatures on the ground below" bit. Its been quite some times since I got a good shot of a bunny or rodent of some kind.(and this one hardly qualifies as good, but gophers are a lot harder to shoot then some semi-tame course bunny, probaly cause they get shot at for real or somthing.)

I decided I needed some flags for my back yard "course", you know to make it feel more real. Hitting to a vague target over there some where, was just not cutting it. So in my DIY style, I made some flags. The bodies are straping and the flags are Tyvek home wrap,(I had a home rap once, my DJ got drive by'ed with a nail gun from a white cube van!)(sorry, it was funny in my head.) held on with that red tape stuff. I think after the flags are lost in the next area tornado, the red tape will still be fine. Great stuff, I should have made the whole flag out of it, but its hard to paint! Speaking of paint, I went with the ground marker orange, to bad it was almost empty, but the black stripes cover the gaps nicely.

Remember a while back, when Punky was pulling the old boat behind his pickup? Well after the boat was totaled, some how it ended up behind our place. Now enter the crazy wind phaze, and the boat is out in my course! Must have flew over 65 feet! So now instead of a water hazard, well you get the idea.
One of the cool features about the Tyvek flags is like on the moon, they stand stiff, even with no breeze.(when is there no breeze here?) So the stripy flag is tee box #1 and hole #3 all in one. I just play one ball at a time now, and the last time I was out, with my Mom,(she said she shot a 12, but with no score card, its hard to tell if thats a good round or not.) I found 2 extra balls on the first hole!(only problem is with no one else playing the course, the lost balls were mine to begin with, even my Mom would'nt lost a couple for me to find.)
I has named this sport gopher golf, and I really hope it helps my short game. If nothing else, I should be good from the rough!(the really, really rough, rough that is.)


If there must be a tip for today, let it be this. Let the industrial orange spray paint dry for at least a while longer before you try to jam the flags into the hard, hard ground. O.k., thats it for last week, cant wait for the next weeks blog to tell you about this week! Hope you have a great one, Later, DufferKev.