#39 Excitement

Greetings,

as announced in the last post, I went to the lake for the first time on Saturday. It was partially frozen, with very thin ice and had an interesting lamellar shape. I had never seen that before, and when I paddled past an "ice island" and the waves lightly hit the ice, it sounded like a wind chime. Because of the increasing ice surface, my possible paths became more and more restricted, and at some point, I had to turn back. Of course, I also paddled through the ice from time to time when it was possible, but the sounds were so loud and it felt like the boat was being torn apart the whole time. I don't even want to imagine how loud it is when an icebreaker drives through the ice, if this little boat already makes such a noise.

On Sunday, I actually wanted to go with David to photograph the birds before sunrise, but since Friday evening I had such a severe headache that I had to cancel it, so I missed not only the birds but also a bear. Every time David goes somewhere, he comes home and says, "Oh, I saw a bear." Man, I also want to see one again! The last bear was only ten meters away from him. 🐻

Other than that, I continued working on the ceiling cladding until Wednesday. The problem was that my headaches probably came from having my head bent all day, and I probably pinched a nerve or something there. Therefore, I was hoping to finish as quickly as possible because the headaches were tough. But nothing went quickly. The problem remained that each board had different dimensions because the beams were not aligned straight, and I got so annoyed about it because when we set the beams back then, we wanted to set them at a distance of 14.5 inches, and I already said to Jenny back then that we could use the edge of the beams as a measuring point, but Jenny always wanted to use the middle. Now you can imagine grabbing a ladder, a heavy wooden beam, setting a mark somewhere, and then trying to precisely mark the middle of the beam on that mark. It's almost utopian. And this annoyed me the whole time because these are such small things that could have been prevented back then. Gradually, more and more deficiencies (at least to me) become apparent, which now require more time and material costs. During this work, I also thought a little about my former technical students because some of them got upset that I only allowed a deviation of one millimeter in technical drawings, but here is the practical proof: even if the beam only has a minimal deviation, the beam is not straight, and each piece of wood has a different size due to the resulting angle. Therefore, always work as accurately as possible! 😁

Finally, on Wednesday, I was able to finish this work. Even though I really liked working with this type of wood, I was still glad because I hurt myself so many times. I have never bled as much as during this work, I hammered blood blisters, got splinters in, and especially had wood chips in my eyes. So, it's good that it's finally done. 😁 Even though I am not completely satisfied with this work, Jenny and David are excited and they were really happy that it looks the way it does now, and that's what matters.

Otherwise, from Monday to Wednesday, nothing exciting happened, except for lunch on Monday and my boat tour on Tuesday.

I have to say, I see squirrels and chipmunks every day, but I am always so excited about these cute animals and I'm just happy when they sometimes come so close that I could pet them. That's why I'm always happy when they run over our construction site, just like during this lunch. But that wasn't all because suddenly Jenny called out, "Ah, a hummingbird!" And no kidding, there are hummingbirds here. It's AMAZING!!!! These birds fly from Costa Rica and Mexico all the way up here, and we currently have about five hummingbirds here. Oh man! These birds are amazing. In English, they are called hummingbirds, and that's true because you can hear them very early since the humming is really loud. And when they do their "mating dance," they sound like little Formula 1 cars 😂 The males fly very high during that dance and then dive down at an extremely high speed. These birds are incredible; I even have a feeding station in front of my cabin now so I can always watch the hummingbirds. 😅 They are also so tiny. Not even three centimeters, it feels like, and that's crazy. David told me that hummingbirds usually carry two eggs, which are the size of a TicTac! Hello?! How incredible is nature. ❤️ But my excitement didn't end there because suddenly a baby ermine (also called long-tailed weasel) ran across the construction site. Oh man, it was so cute! It was so fast; I couldn't take a photo. It was maybe ten centimeters long and just zoomed across the construction site. My heart melted. This lunch was topped off with a golden eagle flying along the window just a few meters away. You have to imagine, for Jenny and David, that's pretty normal, after all, they live here, but I went completely crazy with joy during this lunch. 😱 I even had to apologize because it felt like I had filled the whole area with my sounds of joy and surprise 😅 This wildlife is incredible! It's simply a dream! Nature is and remains unique! ❤️

Tuesday was extremely hot (I'll get to the weather in a moment 😋), so I decided to go out on the boat in the evening. Actually, this time I wanted to explore the lake much further, but then I was surprisingly surprised that only "our" part of the lake had melted and the rest of the lake was still frozen. That really surprised me, and it was also a surreal image when you paddled on the lake in the sunset at over 25°C and suddenly faced a frozen lake. 😅 But the water is so incredibly clear. You can see several meters deep and watch the quite large fish swimming there. It's amazing! Also, this silence and peace. At that moment, I was so grateful. Grateful that I have this opportunity to enjoy this nature as it is! It was simply beautiful! Moreover, a golden eagle was eating something on a rock and then flew past me.

On Thursday morning, it was extremely hot again, but in the afternoon, the first thunderclouds appeared, and I hadn't been looking forward to such dark clouds for a long time. 😁 Actually, it really got going for about half an hour, and the thunderstorm definitely revealed the deficiencies in the house. Let's say it's easy to say where no water came in than to say where water came in. I don't know how Jenny plans to fix the problem, but I think she will have a serious mold problem. But it's not my house.

On Friday, David wanted to take me out on the lake in the morning to photograph pelicans and ducks. It's really interesting; I somehow feel that David sees quite a bit of potential in me and especially wants to train me in bird photography. He is always enthusiastic about my photos, so apparently, I'm not that bad in this area. 😁 It's an honor, of course, to be promoted and praised by such a professional, even though (probably) I will never become a professional. However, I gladly accept the offers, and so we went to the lake with the motorboat at half past six. I have to say, I had never been on a motorboat before, and when I got on the boat, I wondered if we should take one or two paddles with us, but then I also thought that David checked the boat yesterday and I can simply trust him. Now, of course, you already know how the story ends. After photographing a pair of goldeneye ducks (they're called that in English because of their eyes), the motor suddenly failed, not ten, not twenty, and not thirty meters from the shore, but on the other side. It was incredible, especially since there is absolutely nothing you can do. Fortunately, there was a bit of wind that pushed us to an island where we could get off and pull the boat a bit. Fortunately, there are also places where the lake is very shallow, so we could walk there a bit. However, the lake is not entirely safe. Tragically, just last year, the neighbor's son had a fatal accident there. One real danger is the lake's bottom, which is somewhat marsh-like. You sink extremely deep, and it's pretty difficult to get out of there. I had already experienced that when I paddled to an island during a boat trip to relieve myself for a moment. I almost lost my flip-flop there. So, it's not entirely without danger, and if you then have to pull the boat, it's also a bit exhausting. Fortunately, Jenny eventually spotted us and saw that we might have a little problem, so she came to us with the kayak and two paddles. 😅

What a start to the day. On Friday, there was a new worker with us. He comes from Tatla Lake and was there for a trial work. That was good because I could work on my task downstairs while he and Jenny finally started closing the roof. Miracles do happen! 😅

And what about the weather now? Actually, until the thunderstorm, we had over 30°C every day. It's still surreal when you consider that it snowed two weeks ago. Another problem: the current temperatures in western Canada are simply 15°C above average. So, it's logical that such jumps are not normal and especially not healthy for nature. Unfortunately, there are already significant wildfires due to the heat. The news reported today that there are already over 100 wildfires in Alberta (a neighbor of B.C.), of which tragically 30 are out of control, and in B.C., there are now over 60 (!) wildfires. Five are unfortunately out of control, and four of them threaten public safety.

However, the current drought is not the only problem. Due to the high temperatures, the snow on the mountains melts too quickly, resulting in not only wildfires but also extreme floods because the soil cannot absorb the water fast enough. In addition, there are strong winds that drive the wildfires uncontrollably. It's just sad to see how this beautiful country repeatedly falls victim to fire. Even though I'm not a fan of cold temperatures, it's quite good that there has been an extreme drop in temperature since yesterday. While we still had over 30°C on Thursday, yesterday (Friday) it was only 12°C, and today it's 7°C.

Oh, by the way, the animal that made the noises the other day was indeed a bat. By now, two of them live there. And what about the woodpecker? Unfortunately, my hope that it would calm down was not fulfilled. Since this week, it's back to its usual self, so it starts hammering me out of sleep between 5:00 - 5:30 am. Slightly annoying. Just as annoying as the mosquitoes here. I have never seen such huge mosquitoes before. They are real monsters! And there are countless of them here, just so annoying!

Today, I will borrow David's camera again because I finally want to photograph that blue bird and especially the hummingbirds!! 😁

Until then.

Samuel