Merry Christmas!! 2017
Another year has
ticked and tocked its way out the door, and for one reason or another I am in
the holiday spirit early, not at work, and feeling like now is the time to
continue my tradition of boring everyone silly by writing a Christmas letter.
Firstly, I hope you are all happy and healthy and
maybe just a little bit fatter - like
me!! 2017, in comparison to past years, was quiet. This means the letter will be short! Thank God, you say!
The year got off
on a cold note. Like many of us on the
west coast, we'd forgotten about "Old Man Winter" and all he has to
offer. New Year's day saw heavy snow and winds and power outages,
followed by temperatures dropping to -7c on average for the coming weeks.
What a way to start the year! The snow was here to stay and continued on right
through to early February. I believe
February 3rd was the last snow fall. We survived – we ran out of firewood
though, first time ever; even had to scrounge kindling from our good neighbours
down the road. Thanks Geoshe!
Spring and the big
deep freeze thaw brought with it a really bad tick season. Not only were we pulling ticks of Ajax and
the cats, but I was bitten 3 times. I
react terribly to the tick bites as you can see on the right, and even had to go to a walk in clinic at one
point. I did have the blood test for
Lymes and it was negative so that’s good.
This fall saw another surge in ticks – once of the worst years for these
nasty bugs. I am still pulling them out
of Ajax as of this morning. Temperatures
need to be below 4c to kill or make them go dormant, and it is supposed to be
-5 this weekend, so fingers crossed.
We
normally have a lot of company visiting over the spring and summer. Bowen is a lovely destination on the coast,
but as I said, this was a quiet year. It
was so great to have Chris’s son Mike and his wife Shae come for 3 days in July.
We've not been to Campbell River to
visit them for a while and they were last on Bowen in 2015 for Christmas.
It was great to catch up, we wish we were geographically closer.
Ajax got to meet Frodo and Mike got a chance to play poker against his
dad on poker night.
Chris’s
brother Richard, his wife Joanne and their son RJ also came for a visit with
their pup Polly. A bit of a hit and miss
with Polly and Ajax, but a good visit all around.
Another
highlight was our Calgarian friends who visited in August. It’s great to have friends that can come for a whole week who fit
right in and you never stop laughing, singing or enjoying the company.
Debbie and Rick brought their 16 year old granddaughter Shayana this
time. Shay had never been to the coast or put her feet in the ocean.
We seemed to do so much in such a short time. A stay-vacation for
me and Chris.
We had one of the
driest summers, a drought really, and we did not get rain until September 9th. We were so worried about our pond, as we
never had such a water loss/evaporation like this summer. Our poor koi
survived by digging themselves into muddy water and where there were some parts
of the pond they could swim in, they had
to swim with the dorsal fins exposed. Our veggie garden was pretty
much disaster with no rain for almost 3 months. Watering is not much of
an option when you are on a well. Beet root and cherry tomatoes did
ok this year, and we did harvest a bag of russet potatoes. Apples were good but we woke up one morning
near harvest time and the squirrels had robbed us of every apple. The same night, the same thing happened to a
neighbour. It was bizarre.
A milestone was reached when Ajax turned 1 year on
July 28th. Woo hoo! He is now 17 months and no difference between
12 months and 17 months. Puppies!! He’s a handful is all I can say. Lovely dog, and is 90lbs at the moment.
The cats are fine, they are 12 now. Smoke had a medical issue related to a wound
on his back this fall so he was confined to the indoors with a fabric cone
around his neck until the wound would heal. About 3 weeks. It was a difficult time when you have a
doggie door and a dog and another cat coming and going!
Chris’s health has
been stable, so it is safe to say that life has been good to us on the health
front this year compared to the last 2.
He continues to go for his cancer checkups with positive test
results. Next one is in February with
his oncologist and more bloodwork, but we are optimistic. Chris had cataract
surgery in March, and had some trouble with one of his lens implants after the
surgery. He is going back every month
and using drops. It is the eye that he
had the vitrectomy on a couple of years ago, and the lens has just not molded
itself correctly to the shape of his eye so he says it looks like he is looking
through water. His next appointment is
January 8th. They think they
can sort it out, but it’s dragged on a long time.
We had sad news
last month – Chris’s long time friend from Campbell River, Iain Rowan passed
away unexpectedly. This was a shock to
us, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family. Iain will be so missed by many, and Chris and
I have many fond memories of good times and laughter.
As for me, first time since
2015 if not longer, I had a mini get-a-way. I took my friend Susan to
Courtney on Vancouver Island to visit her mom. Amazing how many meals and
stops and shops you can cram into 2 days. I even spent a wonderful night
at the Kingfisher resort! Yay! But back to reality, work and commuting continue to take its
toll on my stress level. Say no
more. On the upside I have lost 15
pounds since Sept 1st and I am very focussed on loosing another 15
pounds by spring. It helps having an
active young pup who loves hiking – it gets me out and I’m doing 3 or 4 miles a
day when I can. My new hobby is
photography. Nothing serious, just with
my phone, but I now see everything as a potential picture. Of course now that I am on Instagram, I have
my own photo gallery and it is incentive for me to always do better with the
next photo. And I’ve made a few new
friends thanks to Instagram, which is a nice benefit. Candy in Maryland, USA, and Kay in the UK,
and a few others across Canada. What a
wonderful way to share photos and connect with like minded people. If you are reading this and have an Instagram
account, please visit my photos
@josieontheroad and you can also
visit Ajax’s gallery @ehjax1
It’s also been a
year of conversation and ideas exchanged between Chris and I about
retirement. My retirement! What does it look like? This will be a big topic in 2018, so stay
tuned.
Merry Christmas with love from Chris, Josie,
Ajax, Smoke and Gypsy.
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