Month: July 2013

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More Remote Than Dawson City

I’ve only been at my property a few months and I can already tell that living out here is going to be a major pain for some things.

When I lived in Dawson City, I had no trouble getting anything sent up there. If something was sent UPS or by any other courier service, it would get transferred to the Canada Post truck in Whitehorse. No problem.

Out here, I can’t get delivery by anyone other than Canada Post and if I need a street address for whatever reason, forget it.

I ran out of printer ink this morning and thought it would be a simple matter to jump on the Staples website to order some. Well, they needed a street address. I spent 20 minutes chatting with a rep only for us to conclude that delivery here would be impossible since they ship with Purolator or UPS, who don’t serve the hamlet.

My only option was to have the ink sent general delivery to Assiniboia using the post office’s street address. I figured it would be faster to ask my mother to get me a cartridge and then mail to me here in the Hamlet so that’s what I did.

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Visiting the Assiniboia and District Museum

I took the bulk of the day off from work. After breakfast, L and I headed into town for some supplies and to visit the Assiniboia and District Museum.

It’s quite small, but the exhibits are interesting, especially if you have a farm boy like L on hand who can further explain the farm equipment to you. I enjoyed the small exhibits showing early 20th century scenes like a barbershop, general store, and dentist’s office, but my favourite bit was the classic car display. For $5, the Assiniboia museum is a great way to kill an hour or two.

After the museum, we headed out to lunch. Caroline had warned us against going to 121 Steakhouse, but L wanted to form his own opinion so we went there. Service wasn’t great, but the food was good! L started with a French onion soup that was a 9/10, followed by fish ‘n chips. My chicken and bacon club with yam fries really hit the spot. I’d go there again.

We also did some window shopping at The Bargain Shop!, Fields, and the Sally Ann.

Not a very exciting day by big city standards, but it was plenty of fun for simple folks like us. 😀

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Quite the Storm!

The sky was getting quite angry earlier this evening so I checked the forecast and discovered a severe thunderstorm warning that even advised folks to put in their RV awnings!

I let L know and we got my awning in. Whew. I’m still not convinced it’s a one person job, but his awning is even more convoluted.

Shortly after that, the sky unleashed its wrath and I lost internet when my Yagi antenna spun 180 degrees. We also got some impressive hail!

My computer was losing its charge and it was pitch dark in here because I can’t charge the computer and turn on a light, so I decided to try starting the genset from inside. It worked! I did have to concede that I am still having problems with the fridge since it stops working when the genset is running even though it is always manually set to propane …

The storm didn’t last long and now we are having rather a nice sunset.

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Sharing the Power

It was really grey this morning. Both L’s and my house batteries needed a boost and we also had to charge our computers. So I fired up the genset and then strung a couple of extension cords to his rig. He has had trouble with his converter, so his batteries can only charge with solar or a dedicated charger. So one cord and my charger went to his battery bank. The other cord went into his rig to charge his computer.

I ran the genny for a full two hours and really saw how useless my converter is for charging batteries as I had a mere 3A coming in. As a contrast, I average 10A by running the engine! It’s definitely worth pulling out the charger if I’m going to run the genny for charging. The genny uses about half the gas as the engine, but charges three times more slowly. So that means that without the dedicated charger, the engine is a more efficient and economical means of charging my batteries!

While the genny was running, I came up with a low-tech, but stylish, hour metre using my Martha Stewart chalkboard labels:

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Attending the 5th Annual Willow Bunch farmfest

This afternoon L and I joined up with C&C, Laura, and two ladies I met on the wagon train to attend the 5th Annual Willow Bunch farmfest, an outdoor concert put on by the musical Campagne family. Of all the acts, I best recognized Carmen, a popular French-Canadian children’s folk singer.

The event was so much fun! The music, a good mix of anglo and franco tunes, was excellent. I enjoyed listening to all the French chatter around us. L loves going to music festivals and had a blast.

For dinner, there was the option to buy ginormous grilled bison burgers with sides of coleslaw and wild rice salad. Charles had me try his burger and to my immense surprise, it was nothing like beef, which is gummy, rolls around in your mouth, and leaves a lingering taste. I decided to have one of my own!

For someone who doesn’t like red meat and who has had perhaps five portions of it total in the last fifteen to 20 years, eating that entire bison burger was quite a feat! It actually went down very well as the meat is very dry and crumbly and actually doesn’t have that much flavour. It is just very hearty. Dressed with tomato, onion, cheese, mustard, and relish, it felt more substantial than an equivalent-sized chicken burger. It wasn’t quite ‘yummy’ as I would have put some onion and garlic in the meat itself, but I really enjoyed it and had no trouble eating the whole thing. I’ll be danged! The venison on the wagon train went down well and now so has bison. Maybe I’m more of a game than domesticated meat person….

The only thing that spoiled an otherwise enjoyable evening was the weather. It was COLD, which is NOT normal for this time of year. Those of you who have read my blog for a while might notice that whenever I land somewhere, they have weather that is NOT normal. I may be cursed. 😀