A lot has happened since my last blog.  We did spend Thanksgiving with my family in Swan River, the highlight on the Sunday was a drive up to Thunder Hill, where the  nieces and nephews walked to the club house from the top of the ski hill—too steep for these senior citizens.

  We got to meet our new doctor in mid October, and he agreed to take on the two of us as patients.  Later in October, I transformed my grandmother’s  china cabinet from a dark brown to a light green, with a couple coats of paint.

  I had contemplated selling the china cabinet, but once I changed the colour, I decided it would be  great in our new place.

 

At Christmas, we hosted the McMorland family gathering on December 18^th for the last time in our house, there were about 30 people in attendance. We spent Christmas in Fort Frances with Andy’s sister and brother-in-law, which was much better than being just the two of us. In the new year, Jack spent part of a week with us, while Erin and Jason took a trip to Vegas. We had a fair bit of snow over the winter, and I kept busy  shoveling. We also had a couple really cold weeks in January and again in February.

In late January, Andy went into hospital for a hip replacement,  we expected he would be in hospital for 2 or 3 days, but he liked it so much- he stayed there for 9 days.  The extended stay was because his knees were swollen and couldn’t support him , so  he didn’t get out of bed for 5 days. 

 He came home on February 3^rd, and spent about a week in his easy chair, using a walker or cane to get around  before climbing the stairs to our 2^nd floor bedroom. He will need the other hip and knees replaced in the future.

As of December 31^st, I became a member of the Facebook crowd.  My real reason for taking the plunge was because I wanted to sell excess furniture and household items, and I had heard that Marketplace was better then Kijiji.  Over the next few months, I sold a desk, coffee tables, tire rims, table saws, bed, rocker, dresser, couch, loveseat,  paintings and  many, many more tools.  In mid-May I advertised a garage sale  only on Marketplace, and had quite a few people stop buy.  

We sold our patio set and dinghy as part of this sale. The first person arrived one hour before the start time, and he wanted to see the LP records we had for sale.  I was shocked, by the end of the afternoon- all our records and CDs were gone.  Some of our excess clothing, appliances and tools that didn’t sell were given to a woman working with Ukrainian refugees, and the items will be distributed amongst that community. One of my former work colleagues stopped  by in late April and cleaned out my shed  buying  the lawn mower, snowblower, a band saw, bench, and rototiller, as well as some gardening tools. So, a lot of our excess belongings have been purged!

In early May I also met with some retired colleagues from the CGC, it was great catching up with them.

Finally on May  2^nd we put our house up for sale.

  An open house was scheduled for May 6^th and 7^th, so we decided to go up to Swan to visit with my family, so we wouldn’t be in the way.  On our return we brought back 5- 5Kg boxes of breakfast sausages, locally made in Swan River.  Why so many?  Well one box for us, one for Andy’s sister, Elaine, and the other 3 for the  upcoming family reunion.

The last family reunion had been held in 2018 in BC, and it was time for the McMorland clan to meet again in Manitoba.  Andy had sent a letter to MB Parks in May of 2022, requesting the booking for Camp Morton (north of Gimli) for 4 days  following the August long weekend.  We found out in early March that we had the park from August 7-11th,  but we needed to know how many cabins and yurts would be required before the end of March.  The family responded and we had commitments for all 14 of the cabins ,the family camping area and one yurt.  There will be about 65 people coming for the reunion.  A highlight will be the  family golf tournament on August 9^th at Marvellous Meadows in Arnes, which Andy is taking care of.   We had a planning meeting in late April at our place for the event, for menu planning and figuring out what would be needed to feed 65 people.  One of the meals will be a fish fry, and we have already ordered 60 pounds of Lake Winnipeg pickerel for this dinner.  I found these MB cookie cutters,

and have made about 8 dozen gingerbread cookies to share with family.

Back to the house,  we had about 35 people go through the house during the open house weekend, and viewing seemed to be scheduled every day or two after that.   It was really tough to live in a house and keep it clean for all these showings—I vacuumed more in the past month than I had in the past 10 years. We received one offer around May 15^th, but countered, and didn’t end up accepting it.  Our second offer came on May 23^rd, and once financing was in place, and an appraisal  was done, the sold sign went up on June 3^rd.

 I was busy  the last week of May, with the Eastern Star Grand Session Tuesday May 30th as well as completing some yard work  and getting stuff packed up for the boat. Knowing that there was nothing more for us to do except wait for the house to sell, we left Winnipeg  on June 1^st headed for  Ontario and the boat.  Our plan is to spend June and July on the boat, and explore more of Georgian Bay. The reunion in early August and our scheduled move to the apartment August 22nd, doesn’t gives us enough time to explore all of Lake Superior. That trip will have to wait until 2024. Here’s a view of what our apartment building should look like-our suite is in the left hand corner on the 3rd floor.

We spent our first night in Wawa, long day, we had left the house shortly after 5:00, and with the exception of stopping for gas, Andy drove 13 hours arriving at the motel just before 7:00 p.m.  The next morning, we left around 7:30 and stopped in the Sault for breakfast and gas.  Then it was on to Parry Sound for more gas, and then across country to Brian and Helen’s in Bancroft.  Andy had heard from the marina on Thursday, and we knew our boat was in the water, however none of the upgrades ( Lithium batteries, more solar, and monitors ) was complete.  We drove up to the boat on Saturday and saw that the canopy over the sundeck was done.  It looked really good;  this canopy will be the support system for our four solar panels. We unloaded the car,  our one issue on Saturday was that the boat  fridge didn’t seem to be working even though we were plugged in to shore power.  We came back to Bancroft to spend another night.  We returned to the boat, and by hooking up the batteries, the fridge would run on D/C power so  that was great, as fixing the fridge would likely take weeks, and a replacement could be months.

On Monday morning, Andy went to the boat, to supervise the upgrades, it was determined that the new canopy was not going to be strong enough to hold up the solar panels, so the canvas was removed and additional support poles were added. Instead of going to the boat with Andy, Helen and I went in to Peterborough for lunch and to do some shopping, and pick out some perennials to plant in one of Helen’s shadier flowerbeds, we/she selected a couple daylillies, lamium and a cranesbill. Here we are planting them in the front flowerbed, the air was very smokey from the fires burning in Ontario and Quebec, thus the mask that Helen has on.

On Tuesday, Andy returned to the boat, but I stayed in Bancroft again as I would have just been in the way. In the afternoon, we did some shopping, and then went to visit our friend Muriel. The electrical engineer, Karl, from Ottawa arrived at the marina around 3 pm, he was overseeing and troubleshooting the installation of our new electrical system. Here’s a pic of the 3 Lithium batteries that will be our new “house” bank, powered by our alternators while running, as well as the 4 solar panels.

In the afternoon Cindy from the canvas shop, added more support braces on the canopy for the solar panels. Andy, Todd from the marina and Karl worked on the boat until after 9pm, had a few issues with fuses blowing but seemed to get the systems working and communicating. Karl installed software on Andy’s phone for monitoring the system. Next week, a monitor will be installed on the boat, for easy viewing by both of us. On Wednesday morning, after a little more grocery shopping in Bancroft, we departed for the boat with all our stuff. After unloading the car, I cleaned up after the last two days of renovations in the boat. I then washed the deck and flybridge. I then planted my garden, two tomatoes plants that I had started back in Winnipeg at the end of February. They both have flowers on them already, so hopefully we will have tomatoes before to long. I also planted some radish and cucumber seeds.

Our plan is to stay around the area for the few days , testing out the system, while we wait for the last piece to arrive and be added. Tonight will be the first night on the boat, tomorrow morning we will leave the marina and go to the Buckhorn lock wall or one of the other locks.