Halloween

    Today is Halloween.  As you can see in the photo of one of McBride’s houses, in North America it has become an important commercial event with pumped up sales of costumes, candy, and yard decorations.  Halloween is the night when kids dress up in costumes, go house to house, and collect candy for their efforts.  As a child, it was great fun, as an old guy, not so much.

    We used to have young want-to-be monsters, princesses, and super-heroes come to our house to trick or treat, but for about 15 years, no one has shown up to scare us at our doorstep.  Of course, that has never stopped us from buying a big bag of candy, just in case.  Unfortunately, we end up having to eat it ourselves.  

    Instead, of coming to our house, all of the kids now go to the subdivision in McBride.  The houses are closer together, which means less footsteps and more candy.  It is not unusual for residents of the subdivision to cater to 200 kids.  McBride usually has a firework display during the night, that is also an attraction.

    Halloween Trivia:  For some unknown reason in British Columbia (and no other provinces) fireworks are shot off at Halloween.  

    When the kids get to a house they say, “Trick or Treat.”  That means that if they are not given some kind of treat, they will return to perpetrate some kind of trick on the resident.  Of course the householders always opt for giving out the treat.  Fortunately the whole “Trick” threat has largely gone by the wayside.

    When we first moved to McBride, we always heard stories of eggs being thrown at houses, and windows being “soaped.”   Halloween was an excuse for vandalism.  Our neighbor, who was a high school teacher, was always on guard for his house on Halloween.  I know that in town, the groceries refused to sell eggs to teens, for several days before Halloween.  

    Like I said, the trick part of Halloween has fortunately vanished and has been replaced by gluttony.

View my paintings at davidmarchant.ca

A Long Awaited Trip to the Dump

    Waste management is an important part of life during these times of excess.  To get rid of our garbage and waste we have to deliver it to the “transfer station” where it is collected and shipped off to Prince George.  We take a garbage bag of trash there about every other week, so going to the dump is not all that unusual or exciting, but this last trip was.

    Readers of this blog might remember back at the beginning of the month, I was excited about finally receiving the trailer I had ordered.  I had to assemble it, then it took me three trips to the Village Office to get insurance and a license for it.  Then I had to wait another week to get the local garage to wire up my truck so that the tail lights on the trailer would work.  When all that was done, I had to clear out a place in the barn to park the trailer when it was not being used.  Finally all those tasks were done, and I was ready to put the trailer to use.

    The first trip was to take all of the junk I had cleared from the barn to the dump.  That we did yesterday. The load consisted mostly of old wooden pieces and bags and bags of 20 year old feed bags, that I was always saving.   I was of course, filled with anxiety.  Would the trailer work?  Had I missed something that might cause it to fall apart?  Would I be able to back the trailer up to the trash bins?  Worry, worry, worry.

    The backing of a trailer was my biggest concern.  While I have backed trailers that many times in the past, it can always be a bit complicated for me.  (We actually hauled all of our possessions from the States up to Canada in a utility trailer when we immigrated, back in the early 1970’s)   Since then I have had to back horse trailers, trailers full of fire fighting equipment, and trailers full of firewood, so I am not a virgin when it comes to backing a trailer, but I hadn’t done it for more than a decade, and I always have to have something to worry about.

    Anyway, the big trip to the dump went very smoothly, and without any problems.  Taking things to the dump and unburdening myself with unwanted stuff always makes me feel good, and I suspect there will be many more “feel good” trips with the trailer in the future.

    Just a note:  you might wonder about the weed cutter amongst the junk.  I could no longer get it to run, and the local repairer couldn’t fix it, without costing as much as a new one, so sadly it is now in a trash bin.

See my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Roadside Grasses

    Whenever I go outside I have my camera on my hip and I am constantly looking for something to photograph.  I came upon these grasses on the side of the road yesterday, blowing in the wind.  I liked to color, the softness of the leaves, and the repetition of structure.  While not everyone would think much of them, to me they were worthy of a photograph.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Jervis Road Walk

    On this gloomy gray morning, it was nice to plug my camera into the computer and bring up these photos I took yesterday on our walk down Jervis Road.  The weather was mild with the Sun beaming down, and there were just enough clouds to make the sky interesting.  

    As you can see, the leaves have left the trees, so we have to glean as much color as we can from the yellowish-tan grass, the blue mountains, and the sky.  

    Jervis Road is a perfect place for a walk because it runs down the middle of the Robson Valley.   As a result, you get a beautiful 360 degrees view of the valley, with the mountains along it’s edge, for the whole length of the walk.  It is rare that any vehicles come driving down the road, so you are alone among the fields and peaks.  The only downside is the weather.  On unstable days the winds can rip across the pastures, but fortunately that was not the case yesterday.

You can take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Kindling

    During the winter we keep our wood stove burning 24/7, so we don’t have to light the stove every day.  However in the Fall and Spring, we wake up to a cold house in the morning and have to start the fire to warm the place up a bit.  To start a fire we need old newspapers and kindling; small pieces of wood that will start burning from the newspapers.  

    In the past for kindling, I would always saw up the smaller branches of trees that I was cutting up for firewood, but recently we visited our friend Jim, who does a lot of carpentry, and noticed that he had neatly sawed up a lot of his left over wood into small pieces to use for kindling. 

    In my life I have gone through periods when I didn’t have a lot of money, and that made me a scrounger and saver.  Whenever I had scraps of wood left over, they always seemed to precious to get rid of, because I would always think, maybe I could use those left over chunks for some project in the future, so I stored them away, very rarely using them.

    I mentioned in an earlier blog how I had bought myself a utility trailer.  After I got it together, I looked around for somewhere under a roof to store it.  The logical place for storage was in my barn.  However the best place in the barn for the trailer, was full of all left over scraps of wood from all my past projects, that I would never get around to using, so I decided I would make kindling out of it.

    I sorted through it, saving a few good pieces, throwing away those that had been on the ground and starting to rot, and sawing up all the rest for kindling.  It was a big job.  The photo above shows one of my many wheelbarrows full of the kindling I produced.

    The sources of this kindling date back from before we bought our house in 1977.  There are pieces of old 2 x 4’s, odd shaped plywood, parts of the wood paneling that lined the walls when we bought the place, leftovers from the siding we put on the house, an old bathroom cabinet I made, and other relics from the past.

    It was a review of my history, sawing all this wood up for kindling.  They will now help keep us warm this winter.

Look at my photo-realistic paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Driving Through a Storm

    A lot of storms generated out in the Pacific, blow through the Robson Valley during the fall.  Lately we have been lulled into not thinking about them because of a stretch of unusually sunny mild dry weather, but it seems that  that system has now moved on, considering the storm Joan and I drove through yesterday afternoon, on our way back from Prince George. 

    As we headed down the highway aiming east for McBride, a dark, moody, charcoal sky faced us.  When we got beneath it and drove for a while, we were presented with a mist-like shower, which lasted for miles.  I chuckled to Joan about how the clouds looked so threatening, but all they were giving out were light showers.  We drove on.

    Soon the storm showed us what it had; heavy rain, mixed with wet snowflakes.  Slush had even accumulated on the road.  We were surprised to see flashes of lightening with the rain/snow.  Some hail also came down in areas.  My GPS when into “Night Mode” because it was so dark.  By the time we got to the Slim Creek Rest area, an hour outside of McBride, things had calmed a bit, the snow had disappeared and we were getting just pure rain.

    As we drove on the last leg of our journey, we began to see that beyond us, the clouds were broken and sunlight was putting on a patchwork light-show on the mountains.  The closer we got to McBride the clearer the sky became; we were out of the storm.

    When we finally got to our road, which turns back toward the west, we could see the dark clouds of the storm we had driven through on the horizon, and figured it would only be a matter of time before it moved onto McBride.  An hour later nestled in our home, the sky darkened and the rain poured down.

You can take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Still Waters

    When I uploaded this photo onto my computer, I wondered why the photo was upside down, and what was my reason for shooting these unremarkable trees.  Then I remembered, yesterday evening when we walked around the pond, I was struck by how still and reflective the pond's surface was and I decided to take a photo that didn’t show any shoreline, just the water.  It is pretty remarkable.  The only hints that it might be a reflection are the few bits of algae (Lower right hand side) floating on the surface.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Women of McBride Exhibit

    Last night we attended an exhibit of photographs by Bill Clark.  Bill took it upon himself to create a calendar to pay homage to some of the women that have contributed so much to McBride’s social fabric and commerce.  The group included fire fighters, public health contributors, business owners, and other women that have done so much to make our community special.  

    The photos of the women are in black and white, but some have unexpected color accents, such as on an earring, jewelry, or piece of clothing.  The photos are very crisp, clear, and expressive.  

    The show took place in the old library building, which is a wonderful venue for such things.  A big crowd turned out, not only to view Bill’s photos of McBride’s Women , but also his beautiful landscapes, that featured both local and land and seascapes.  It was all very impressive.

    The calendars are on sale locally for $20, at the Whistlestop Gallery.  Below is a photo of Bill, modestly discussing his work.

Visit davidmarchant.ca to see my paintings.

Last Remnant of Fall Color

    The leaves have fallen from the trees and they now stand naked against the sky.  I had to look lower to find some color.  Above you see the spectacular shades of some variety of geranium that grows like a weed in one of our flower gardens.  Below shows the leaves from one of Joan’s rose plants that is still showing off some Autumn colors.

Check out my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Ukulele

    I dug out my ukulele the other day, after a hiatus of five years.  Back then I wasn’t playing much music and Joan bought it for me at a Costco Store in Hawaii and surprised me with it.  I started messing around with it for a while, but then wondered, “Why am I spending time learning to play the ukulele  when I already know how to play the guitar and mandolin?”  

     I put the uke aside and dug out the mandolin and guitar.  That led me to form the jam and start playing with other people again.

    So the Ukulele sat dormant for years.  Then the other day I noticed that they were going to start up a ukulele jam at the library, so feeling sorry for ignoring my uke for so long, I dug it out again and started plunking around on it again.

    I went to the Uke Jam, and was surprised at just how many local people had ukuleles lying around.  It was also interesting to see the wide range of people that showed up, everything from a very old woman (older even than me) to a couple of high school students.  One farmer had fingers so stiff that he couldn’t get his fingers to bend into position.  Most of the group were beginners.

    I was at an advantage because of my background with the guitar and mandolin.  I knew how to strum, and my fingers are used to bending around to form chords.  Many of the others really who had no experience playing a stringed instrument, struggled to get their fingers curled around and in the right position.

    I was not without problems however, because chords on the ukulele have the same finger formations as chords on the four high strings of a guitar, but the unfortunately the note that they make on the uke is different than what it would be on the guitar.  So if you form the triangular position that you would to play a “D” chord on a guitar, if played on a uke you get a “G” chord instead.

    It took a lot of concentration and transposing in my head, when we were playing the songs at the Uke Jam.  I would see that I was supposed to play a “C” chord and have to remember that that was really like playing a “G” on the guitar.  It was frustrating, but fun.  I will go back again next Friday.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Hey, That's Supposed to be a Bird House

    It seems that the squirrels around here think that everything I do for the birds, I am really doing for them.  They hog all of the sunflower seeds that I put out for the birds, and yesterday when I went outside, I noticed this squirrel checking out this bird house that I made for the swallows.  It is not the first time the squirrels have claimed this box, you can see by all of the gnaw marks around the hole, that the squirrels have tried to enlarge the entrance to make it easier for them to go in and out of it.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Blue Mountains

    Mountains, like all things, change color depending on the light.  If you gave someone a box of crayons and asked them to draw some mountains, I wonder what their most common color choice would be.  Americans sing about their “purple mountain majesty,”  but up here in our part of the interior of British Columbia, most of the time, our mountains are blue.  I suspect a lot of that color is the humidity in the atmosphere that we have to look through when we are gazing at distant mountains, but whatever causes it, it sure has a beautiful effect.

    Because blue is one of my favorite colors, I find it pleasurable to be able to look out and see that bluish strip stretching across the view, no matter what the season.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Orphaned Kitten on the Carport

    Warning:  This blog does not end well.

    This morning when I opened the door to go outside, I heard a strange sound, and noticed a reddish brown ball of fur curled up beside my rubber boots.  From the way it was lying, I couldn’t really figure out what it was.  When I knelt down to take a closer look, I discovered it was a very young kitten.  It was constantly giving a distressed “mew”.  

    I called to Joan, who was then also thrown into a state of distress.  She warmed up some soy milk and we used a hypodermic to squeeze the liquid into the kitten.  The poor little kitten wasn’t able to keep much in its mouth, but every thirty minutes we tried again.  Joan made some phone calls and did some  internet searches to see what we could do to help the kitten.

    Sadly about three hours after we had discovered it, I found it was lifeless lying on the towel.

    The whole episode is a mystery; I don’t know where the kitten came from, how it found its way to our carport (our house is pretty far away from our neighbors),  There used to be a reddish cat in the neighborhood, but we haven’t seen it for several months.  I don’t know.

    This thing does make us shake our heads and wish people were more responsible for their pets and have them fixed and look after them better.

    I wish I could have told you a tale that had a happier ending, but it is what it is.  

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant.ca

Cannabis Canada

    Well the day has arrived and pot is now legal in Canada.  We have had to suffer through days and days, and weeks and weeks, of hype and fear-mongering from the media about this day, but I am pleased to report that the Sun came up as normal, everything looks the same, and I am still sitting here at my desk like I do every other morning.

    BC especially, has always been awash in marijuana, although underground, it was a major driver of the BC economy and it was widely available to anyone who sought it out, and over the last 10 years, it has been openly sold in stores in the big urban centers.  People could smoke it without a lot of worry, because the law pretty much turned a blind eye to it.  That being the case, I found it ridiculous, how the media recently went on and on about all the terrible things that were going to happen when it became legal.

    People wrung their hands worrying, “What would happen to teenagers when pot became legal?” (like teenagers aren’t doing pot now).  “What about driving under the influence?”  (Duh, it’s been happening every day for years).  This assumption that somehow with legalization this substance would suddenly newly appear, drove me crazy.

    The ridiculous thing about Canada legalizing pot is that with legalization, pot using will not become more free, it will actually become more restrictive, due to all of the new laws that the provinces have introduced.

    Although I am not a marijuana user ( I don’t even drink alcohol or coffee), I have long supported the legalization of weed as a means to take money away from organized crime.  I am afraid that with all of the new restrictions now put on pot, organized crime will continue to have a huge market.  If taxes on pot are too high, criminals can undersell, and I’m afraid they will still have to teen market with all the high, age restrictions (19 in most provinces) that have been set.

    One of the huge benefits of legalization will be that now scientists will be able to do all kind of studies on the effects of pot, which because of its criminalization, they had been prevented in doing.  There certainly seems to be a lot of evidence out there that grass probably has a lot of medical uses, especially to those that have severe epilepsy.

    Another really positive thing about this legalization is that the Canadian government is now going to erase the criminal records of thousands of people, who in the past, had been convicted of having a small amount of pot.  These criminal records for something so innocuous as pot, have damaged so many people’s lives, much more than smoking the stuff would have done.

    While I don’t see that today is going to change my life, I do believe that being more realistic about what is happening in society is always a good thing, and if it hurts organized crime that will be a big plus.  I welcome this brave step that Canada has taken.

My paintings are on display:  davidmarchant.ca

Sandhill Cranes

    The other day on our walk down Horseshoe Lake Road we heard the strange “grackle/gobbling” sound of Sandhill Cranes.  While we couldn’t see them, there seemed to be two groups of them, one on each arm of Horseshoe Lake.  As we walked, one flock took flight and flew over toward the second group.  

    Maybe they were here, but I don’t remember seeing any Sandhills during the first 25 years of our living in the Robson Valley.  Their presence is certainly more obvious now.  Many of them are just passing through during their migration, but some do spend the summer and raise their young in the Valley.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

House Mice

    It is this time of year when the mice that live outside start to think that life might be easier during the winter if they move inside.  We used to have lots of mice act on this decision, which inspired me to do lots of mice cartoons.  Here is one of them.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Leaf Litter

    Most of the leaves are now off of the trees in the Robson Valley.  Their main job of generating food for the tree is over and they now will begin their second job, that of feeding the unseen insects, bacteria, and fungi that will breakdown the nutrients they possess and redistribute them back into the soil for their mother tree and other plants.  It is one of those natural cycles that keep everything going.

    I hate to see this cycle disrupted by people who rake up the leaves, bag them, and then ship them off to some unknown trash heap.  Then next year many of these same people will buy fertilizer for their lawn--what stupidity.

    I gather up a lot of the leaves that fall on my lawn and put them into the garden where I rototill them into the soil.  Other leaves that fall on my lawn are chewed up into little pieces by my lawn mower, and are left to quickly decompose so that they put nutrients into the lawn.  Pete, the local gardening guru makes a pile of leaves, then props up a piece of plywood beside the pile, runs his lawn mower over the leaves several time, blowing the pieces agains the plywood, so he can easily gather them up and use them in the garden or compost pile.

    Since childhood I have always enjoyed walking over leaves and hearing them crunch and crackle as I walk.  It’s amazing how quickly the leaves, now sitting on our trail, turn into soil.

You can take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Watching the Mountain Tops

    One of the reasons we moved to the Robson Valley forty years ago was to be able to look up at the mountains that surround us.  I have been doing that faithfully for all those years, but in the Autumn especially we look up at them to see how much snow is accumulating up there.  These days, every time we get rain on the valley bottom, snow is falling up on the ridges and peaks of the mountains.  

    During the cooler Fall temperatures, we note how far down the slopes the snow has come and how lucky we were it didn’t come any lower, but we know it is just a matter of time, before we get it. 

    I have been scrambling around trying do get ready for those days when the white stuff starts piling up on us.  I have the garden put to bed, the firewood all stacked and covered, and the snow tires on the vehicles.  The potatoes are all dug, but they are drying off in the shop, before I put them into our “root cellar” in the crawl space under our house.

    I am pretty much prepared for snow, so when it comes it won’t be too much of a problem. 

View my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Exhibits A & B

    This morning when I went outside to fill the bird feeder, I found evidence that indicated we were secretly visited last night.  There on the ground beside the driveway was a chewed up plastic milk carton.  It had be snatched from our recycle tub on the carport, chewed, then carelessly dropped.  I tagged the milk carton “Exhibit A.”

    I then walked to the barn and filled up the coffee can full of sunflower seeds for the birds.  When I got to the bird feeder, I discovered that it had been completely cleaned out of seeds.  Usually there are a lot of seeds left over from the previous day by the wasteful birds.  The empty bird feeder was “Exhibit B.”

    Since Joan slipped on some fresh bear poop the other day, I was pretty confident who the main suspect was--the neighborhood black bear, trying to load up with food in preparation for a long winter of hibernation.  I haven’t actually seen the bear this year, only the evidence of it’s presence.

    If we still had Skye, I’m sure she would have sensed the critter, and gone into a ballistic barking fit inside the house, but these days (or more properly, nights) the bear gets a free pass. 

    Fortunately this year the bear didn’t tear up our fruit trees, which is always the most negative aspect of having them around.  I am always happy to know bears still exist in the neighborhood, when nature is taking such a beating around the world.

Check out my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Autumn Colors; While They Last

    Please excuse my indulgence, but I am trying to hold on to the Autumn colors as long as I can.  Many of our trees are have now been denuded of their leaves, but there are still a few around boldly showing off their colors.  Here are some of the remainders I spotted around Horseshoe Lake.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Old Trail Revisited

    It has probably been at least a year since Joan and I were on our old trail that meanders through our neighbor’s woods.   We had discontinued those once daily walks because of our neighbor’s two pit bulls.  Yesterday we thought we could sneak down to the fields by the river by using the lower part of the trail loop, figuring that the dogs wouldn’t hear us.  They didn’t so it went well.

    It didn’t really start our well though.  As we were walking along the dam of our pond, Joan slipped on some fresh bear poop and smacked the ground, but she wasn’t hurt so we continued on.  I am always hoping to see some animals, but the only “animal” we saw was the one in the photo above.  Can you see it?  It is well camouflaged, hunkered down in the leaves.  I wouldn’t have noticed it, except I saw it hop out of the corner of my eye.

    I was really surprised to still see this small frog out jumping around when we have been getting nighttime temperatures dipping below freezing.  I was also surprised to see it down in the woods instead of up around the pond, but I guess it knows what it’s doing.

My paintings can be seen at my website:  davidmarchant.ca

Last of the Autumn Colors

    There are still a few trees hanging on to their yellow autumn leaves, but they are loosing them quickly.  It is sad to see them go when you consider all those months ahead with nothing to offer but shades of grey, brown, and white.  

    Yesterday on our walk, the Sun was obscured by cloud, and that dulled those colors that are still on display.  It was still worthwhile to snap some photos.

My photo-realistic paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant.ca

The Potato Diggers

    After several delays due to weather, members of McBride’s Community Forest bundled up and finally were able to dig the potatoes.  There was a cold wind and even a few snow flakes that floated down from the sky, but we got the potatoes dug, washed, dried, and despite the impromptu dig, we got the word out and sold some.  The crop is a fund raiser for the Community Garden.

    This wasn’t the best year for potatoes due to the dry summer and thick smoke that blocked out the Sun for weeks, and the potatoes were not as prolific as past years and on the small side, but I’m sure they will be tasty and some will no doubt get eaten during the Canadian Thanksgiving dinners that will occur over today and tomorrow.

You can see my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Evening Walk

    This was the scene we saw yesterday at 6:15 when we took an evening walk down Jervis Road.  The Sun had already disappeared behind the Cariboo Mountains.  A couple of months ago the Sun would have still been visible at the end of the valley after 9:00.  The days are getting noticeably shorter.

    Those dark spots in the foreground a few deer grazing in the pasture.

View my paintings;  davidmarchant.ca

Alluvial Fan

    Even though I live in an area that reeks of geology, I go around my everyday life without noticing a lot of it, but the other day when we were walking on Horseshoe Lake Road, I noticed the Sun highlighting a grove of Aspen trees at the base of the slope just below Rainbow Falls.  Suddenly from somewhere deep in my brain a bit of geology from university popped up, “Hey, it said, ‘That is an alluvial fan.”

    As I looked at it I had to agree.  

    Creeks running down steep slopes carry a lot of rocks and sediments with them.  When they get to the bottom of the slope their current slows down and the rocks, pebbles, and sediment drop.  Over time all these dropped particles build up into a fan-shaped hill.  That is what you are seeing in the yellow grove of trees at the end of the blue line that represents Rainbow Creek.

    I have been driving up and over that alluvial fan for 40 years, and it never registered as to what it was.  Having the Sun point it out and seeing it from a distance suddenly makes it pretty obvious.

You can take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Enough Firewood

    I thought it was time for another cartoon.

    This time of year, wondering if I have enough firewood to get us through the winter is constantly on my mind.  I have what seems like more than enough stacked up and ready to go, but then you never know.  If we get an extended period of really cold weather and we are constantly shoving firewood into the stove, the supply can shrink very quickly.  

    There is also the question of what kind of wood we have.  This year I have a lot of Cottonwood, because I sawed up the trees I cut down by the greenhouse.  Cottonwood isn’t the best firewood.  It has a lot of moisture in it and so I am hoping it will have dried out enough over the summer.  It also doesn’t put out a whole lot of heat, so you end up going through it faster.

    I  guess it won’t be until the tail end of winter before I know for sure if I have enough firewood.  If I don’t, I have a lot of old boards and planks in the barn I could burn, and then there is always the furniture if things really get dire.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

My Trailer Came

    Because I live outside an isolated little village far away from other centers,  shipping and getting things from outside the area is always a major problem.  Weeks ago I noticed that Costco Online was having a sale on utility trailers, something I have been wanting for a while.  When I noticed on the ad that there was “Free Delivery,” I couldn’t pass the offer up, so I ordered it.

    Then began a period of unease for me when I started to think about how it would be delivered.  This was a fair sized trailer, 5 feet (1.5m) wide and 8 ft, (2.4m) long, and it was made of steel so it would be a pretty heavy item to deal with.  From past experience I knew that the big truck that generally delivers things to the Robson Valley couldn’t get down my driveway, so if it parked up on the road, I had to figure out some way to get the boxes containing the trailer down to my carport myself.

     I assumed it would come in several boxes and decided I could probably just load the boxes into the back of my small pickup truck then just drive down the driveway and unload it.  Okay, that is the way I would do it.

    Then yesterday I got a call from the freight company, who were about to deliver the trailer and was approaching McBride.  He asked me a question that threw my whole theory of how I would get it down the driveway into doubt.  He inquired, “Your heavy parcel (450 lbs, 204 kg) is on a long pallet, do you have a forklift to unload it?”

    “Yikes, a forklift?” I thought to myself,  “What would I do?”

    Fortunately, the trucker had a suggestion.  He suggested that he deliver it to the local hardware store and they could unload it with their forklift.

    That would solve his problem, but what about mine?  Then a thought of a solution.  The trailer pallet could be unloaded at the hardware store, then I could probably pay the hardware store to deliver the thing to my house (their truck is smaller than the shippers, and it could get down my driveway) but that still left the problem of getting the 450 pound box off of their truck and into my carport where I could assemble the trailer.

    Hans at the hardware store suggested that once he got it to my house, we just rip open the box and hand-lift all the pieces individually to the carport.  His idea worked and as you can see in the photo there all of the pieces of the trailer sit, waiting for me to put it together.

    I am always surprised at how we eventually find some kind of solution to those problems that often seem unsolvable.

You can see my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca