Monthly Archives: July 2007

Kennel Cough

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Our dogs have had kennel cough since we picked them up from the kennel. The first few days were incredibly hard on me – sitting here all day listening to them cough and gag. Both Winger and Surf did a lot of coughing in their last few days and it must have made me incredibly sensitive to the sound.

They are over a week into it and are doing much better. Now they seem to cough after they drink and when they are active outside.

They were both vaccinated for kennel cough in the spring, and Monty got it after his last kennel stay too. It’s not really vet treatable – it’s more like the croup a child gets.

Here they are 5 minutes ago.

..hold on one minute.. gotta kill the friggin ant that just crawled in my sandal.. yes I’m inside.. this house is full of big ugly ants.. moving date less than a month away.. can’t wait..


Monty recovering from kennel cough

Trooper recovering from kennel cough

Aunt Cecilia braved the summer traffic to come and visit

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Aunt Cecilia drove up from Toronto on Saturday morning to visit us for the weekend. It was a great weekend!

On Saturday we went for a scenic tour. We wanted to see what Parry Island was all about, but there wasn’t much to see so we headed into Parry Sound for lunch and then headed up to Killbear Provincial Park.

I have never seen a provincial park so packed! There were people EVERYWHERE! We took a couple short hikes and visited their visitor’s centre. They had two Massassauga Rattle Snakes living in glass displays. Killbear is known for being a hot spot for these rattle snakes, but we didn’t see any (okay with me – almost stepped on one once with my Dad and those memories will last a lifetime).

Here are some pictures from Killbear:


Cecilia's Visit

Cecilia's Visit

Cecilia's Visit


The weather was nice this weekend – almost too warm. We sat outside and drank some beers and soaked up some sun and then some shade when the sun was too hot. Jeff cooked up some grouse and deer for dinner. It was really good. He made a breading for the grouse that was yummy.

On Sunday we hiked back to the swampy pond back in the property here. We made a wrong turn, or maybe forgot to turn, on the way back and ended up on the highway down by the stop sign. Nothing a hike back up the side of the highway can’t rectify.

Cecilia and I went to Rosseau to see what it was all about in the summer. The little town was packed with summer visitors. There were several antique stores and people peddling antiques and “stuff” on the lawns around the shops. It was totally ridiculous the prices they had on things. Like a set of old dishes you’d pay maybe $10 for, but they were asking a few hundred for. I found a set of someone’s old family photographs from around 1906. They were fascinating to look at. The names were all on the back. People just didn’t smile in photos back then. They looked so uncomfortable.

Thanks for battling the summer traffic to come and visit us Aunt Cecilia – you’re welcome anytime.

Carbonite – I love this service

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The more photos I take with my digital camera, the more frightened I am of something happening to this old cranky computer causing me to lose them.

We experimented backing up my important files onto Jeff’s computer or onto an other hard drive, but the fact is that they are both in the same house so if there is a fire or a break-in – all copies are gone.

I could upload them to my server, but I don’t have that much free space. I could burn them to CD’s but when I tried doing that before, by the time I got around to it, months had passed before my last back-up.


I heard commercials for Carbonite on Sirius for months before I finally tried it. What it is – its a service that is constantly monitoring your computer. You can set what files or directories you want it to back up and it works in the background keeping a copy on their system.

When you first sign up, you can do a free trial for 15 days. It took over a week for it to upload all the files I wanted backed up to their system before it was switched to maintenance mode. You need a high speed internet connection that is always on to get this to work well. You can let it back up every single file on your computer if you want – size is no restriction!

It is free for you to restore files any time you want. It makes a virtual drive on your computer with the same file structure so you can browse and restore, or if you buy a new computer, you can go through your online account to restore files. All your files are encrypted when they leave your computer so the data transfer is safe.

It has never slowed down my computer or my connection, and they guarantee that it won’t. It constantly searches for new or altered files on your computer to back-up. If you use it on a laptop, anytime you connect anywhere it will resume your file back-ups.

I like the peace of mind knowing my files are backed up, so that that my free trial is ending, I purchased a year of their service this morning. It’s only $50 a year. Way worth it if you ask me.

Use this link to download a free 15-day trial subscription to Carbonite, and get an extra free month of service when you buy: http://www.carbonite.com

Photos of the house we’re buying

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Here are a collection of photos of the house we’re buying. It’s on 3.6 acres on the side of a hill. 4 bedrooms upstairs, 1 full bath, 1 master bath with a shower stall, and one half bath on the main floor. And I will have my very own den on the main floor for my computer and books. As a compromise, Jeff gets to call the entire basement “his den” and he’ll do his fiddling and woodworking down there until we build a garage some day.

Our New House

Our New House

The current owners have already moved out so the beautiful gardens and lawn are starting to look neglected and overgrown. We’ll be busy for the next year getting them back in shape!

Here is the view down the laneway. The wildflowers along the driveway are nice, but not sure if we’ll trim it up to look neater or not.
Our New House

Here is the view from the mailbox looking up the driveway (and there is our rental car we used last week).
Our New House

Here is the view at the end of the driveway looking across the road at Lochaber Lake. Oddly enough the locals pronounce it “Lock Harbour”.
Our New House

Looking across the front lawn from the driveway:
Our New House

Side of the house – there is a porch on the side and around the back. Jeff envisions expanding it right across the front of the house and maybe chopping a few trees down in front (although it’s not our land – it’s Nova Scotia’s) for a better lake view from ground level – it’s a fantastic view from upstairs!
Our New House

Leave a comment if you couldn’t see the photos from the Facebook link and I’ll post inside photos too.

Photos From Last Week

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Here we are beside a lighthouse up high on Cape George – north of Antigonish. That’s the ocean behind us, well I guess it’s probably St. Georges Bay or the Northumberland Strait:
Our House Hunting Trip

We ate some fantastic fish and chips here at Cribbons Point north of Antigonish:
Our House Hunting Trip

Here are some photos from the RCMP Musical Ride. In this one the horses are just entering the park:
Our House Hunting Trip

Our House Hunting Trip

Our House Hunting Trip

Charge!!!
Our House Hunting Trip

Theodore the Tugboat! This is the Halifax Harbour.
Our House Hunting Trip

Here’s Murphy’s restaurant where I had a lobster dish for the 3rd time that week. We sat outside in the fog:
Our House Hunting Trip

I Forgot How To Pack for a Vacation

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I rarely travel – especially by plane. I decided years ago to have pets rather than be a world traveler.

Well I really forgot how to pack for a vacation. I packed my extra-large Mountain Equipment Co-op duffle bag full of clothes. I could barely lift it, let alone drag it through the airport. I brought 3 pairs of shoes and I only ever wore the pair I went out there in. I had – easily – two times the amount of clothes required. I didn’t touch at least half of them. I forgot when you are on vacation, you are allowed to recycle clothes!

Poor Jeff just about killed himself hauling my stuffed bag around the airport when neither of us could find a toonie for the luggage cart.

Friday Night

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It’s Friday night and we are in Halifax staying near the airport.

Today we had our house inspection. There were no real surprises. Lots of little things to do. One big thing that we knew about – at some point someone built a walk out from the basement, but they didn’t seal the outside of the concrete so it leaks like mad. It has a floor drain in the stair well that is too high so it doesn’t drain and the soil is too high and sloped towards it compounding the problem – so we need to shovel up around it, dry it, seal it with some tar layers and then fill it back and slope the dirt there.

We also found out the house is a manufactured house that came there in 4 pieces. I don’t know why we didn’t notice that but we didn’t. No significant problems with that. With all manufactured homes like that, they tend to settle towards the middle within the first year. All the floors slope a bit towards the middle of the house. He showed us how to slowly fix that however the last owners put down new ceramic tile throughout half of the main floor so if we raise the middle of the house a smidge then we run a real risk of cracking those ceramics so we’re fine with a bit of slope – only noticeable with a marble on the floor.

The pellet stove needs a good cleaning but it seems like a great choice – it’ll heat the basement and the main floor well. There is a regular weekly maintenance/cleaning to do with it so we’re having him or one of his guys out in the fall to clean it and show us how to use it.

Today we drove the old coastal highway back to Halifax. It was rainy and foggy and misty. Then we found downtown Halifax and the wharf area and did a bit of touristy shopping and ate some seafood. I had a lobster salad wrap. Last night I had lobster fettuccine pasta so that is lobster 3 times this week! Jeff has had his favourite – scallops – at least 3 times this week already!

Theodore the Tugboat was at the docks so we got some photos of him too – really cool to see in person! It must have been too foggy and rainy because you can normally go out on a tour on the tugboat but it was docked. Some of the tallships were in the harbour too – we saw some of those yesterday in foggy Port Hawkesbury and got to board one and look around. That is no kind of life for me, but if you are interested I picked up a flyer for how you can spend a summer on the ship.

Tomorrow we get to pick up our dogs. I can’t wait to see them. And then Zeus who is probably completely bored and lonely and will be hoarse from crying and meowing. I hope they are all okay. They are going to love our new place. We have to figure out where their outdoor kennel runs will go and whether we’ll be building a fence or doing an electric underground fence or what.

Okay I’m so uncomfortable from typing in bed. More when we get home, complete with photos.

Thursday

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It’s Thursday! Today we mostly have a free day. This morning we’re going to the lawyers office to meet her, and we’re dropping off the water sample we took last night with the agent.

We also want to shop a little. It’s rainy now but hopefully it’ll clear up so we can get out to Port Hawksbury for the Tall Ships that are in the harbour for a couple of days.

We’ve been up around Cape George a couple times and ate some fish and chips at a restaurant at a wharf. It was very good. A chipmunk kept coming to look for crumbs around our feet so I guess he liked the food there too.

We’ve eaten dinner at the Boston’s pizza beside the restaurant 3 times already. Yesterday we got up to go from dinner and our real estate agent Kim was in the booth behind us – we ran into someone we know in town already! HA

Friday is the house inspection and he likes to do it himself and then show us what he found, but we’re planning to go out at the same time and make lots of notes and take photos and really memorize our new house because we won’t be back until closing at the end of August. We are registered at Sears for our wedding so once we figure out colours we can add a few more things.

We were out there last night. The gardens must have been so beautiful once but now there is a LOT of work a head of me. But I’ll get them looking like the covers of my Harrowsmith magazines in no time :D

I googled the old owners and found out a few things about them. He is a PHD and the both worked at the university here. She painted water colours of the gardens and loves vibrant colour (see bathroom wallpaper photos for evidence). She has some original paintings for sale in a gallery downtown. They’ve lived all over the country and have moved for a promotion where he’ll be heading a university department.

Yesterday we got the information for satellite internet and Bell Expressview. Looks like satellite internet is our only choice for now. I have read so many horror stories but dial up just isn’t going to satisfy me. They have a 30 day money back guarantee.

Soon my sister is off to Europe – have a good trip Julie! Email us updates when you can and take LOTS of photos!

Okay Jeff is ready, off we go!

Update: Offer Accepted

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We met the agent today and she was tying up another deal so we waited with her last words being “The listing agent is showing the house right now”.

Pardon?

She’s showing OUR house? The one we put an offer in on?

We sat in disbelief and fear that someone was going to outbid us.

When the agent came back to us 5 minutes later she explained that they could only put in a back up bid and as long as our financing and everything was in place, it was ours!

WHEW!

So today we lined up house and vehicle insurance. Bank appointment is in the morning. House inspection is on Friday. We’ll meet her to grab a water sample one night and we drop that off at the hospital to get inspected. They emptied the septic 6 months ago. We got the land survey today. Turns out we won’t own right to the road – it’s all Nova Scotia Hydro property so we own more up behind and to the sides of the house – it’s all bush. I’ve added photos to Facebook ( you don’t have to login to see these I don’t think ):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36464&l=3116f&id=847550057

This evening we went to see the RCMP musical ride! SOO amazing. The Mounties must have been totally overheating in their hot red dress uniforms. I think there were 32 horses in the formation – they did circles and charges and well a hundred different neat formations. I’ll add photos when we get back home.

Then we went to the Lobster Treat restaurant – and I had my first lobster!! It was yummy. It tasted just like the snow crab legs. Jeff had his favourite scallops. It was all so delicious.

OURS! (almost)

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Holy smokes they countered just $5K more than our lowball offer! DEAL! We’re going to adjust the offer within the hour.

It’s this house: http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=5319381

I’ll add better photos that I have later.