So I have a new favorite music source. Our TV package has a steaming music service, Stingray music. It also has a mobile app to allow streaming to my iPhone. Couple that with Bluetooth streaming to the car stereo and it’s pretty sweet.
Yesterday I’m listening to my favorite channel Classic 80s Rock while running some errands. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven comes on, great song. Then, the very next song was AC/DC’s Highway to Hell.
Coincidence?
The path is narrow, a stairway vs a highway . (Mt 7:13)
A 27 hour power outage follows a violent 5 minute storm where severe winds cut a swath just down the road from us and take the tops of two hydro poles. Where are those candles again?
We’re just getting ready to start dinner and this storm blows through and takes out the power. Nothing too unusual for lake life, but little did we know at the time that this would be one of the bigger outages in our experience of 30+ years. Dinner was to be salmon with hollandaise so we switched to something simpler, mainly because the hollandaise sauce requires the blender, which requires electricity.
We call Hydro One which has a fantastic phone service for tracking power outages and providing updates. 400+ customers in our area without power and an estimated restoration of 8:30pm, then 11:30, then 2:30 am then… we went to bed.
The next morning, still no power. Off to town for some coffee and breakfast. On the way back, there are multiple crews of 6-8 guys each working in our area, yay!
Time for some investigation, I’ve never seen power line repairs up close. It’s 12:45 and the truck below is working on Thunder Ridge Road a short distance from the cottage.
Working the line
This is one of the trees that went down. Being on the Canadian shield these big trees have very shallow roots due to the rocks, and are quite susceptible to being knocked down in a storm.
Downed Giant – The tree on our road that took out a power pole further up the road.
Trees get snapped like match sticks but surprisingly the phone lines stayed intact in spite of being dragged all over the place and phone service was never interrupted.
Wood and Wires – One of the snapped trees and the telephone line, 3 feet off the ground.
Here one of the bucket trucks is working to get things straightened out before replacing some poles further down the road.
Line Work from the Bucket
Here is the culprit for our roads outage. Lines are down to the right (our cottages direction) and straight back to another pole up behind Smith Camps.
Snapped – the pole on our road and in the distance the 2nd snapped pole.
A closer shot. The poles are almost 40 years old. First installed when the road was put in and 6 years before we started to build our cottage.
Snapped Close-Up – line down in two directions from this “T” intersection
I continue down the road and over to Smiths Camps and up a steep hill to where the 2nd crew is working to set a new pole.
Pole Placement – lifting the new pole into place alongside the old.
They have a very cool machine or tracks that can drill hole as well as lift and position the pole. Here its getting the new pole into position to drop into a hole that the backhoe has prepped. But there is a catch, literally. The arm on the machine is at its limit and it’s not quite clearing the old pole. To avoid the delay and hassle of repositioning the machine, the crew boss is up the pole and pushes it over the top.
Up and Over – The machine was at it’s limit and the pole needed a helping hand to get over the top to save having to reposition the machine.
It’s in the hole and they are jockeying it around to get it nice and straight.
Positioning the pole with the very cool machine.
With the pole in place he’s moving on.
Pole #1 is done and the Terrex is getting ready to go. Fallen tree in background.
Moving to the Next Pole – driving by the pole that has just been placed while the lines are finished up.
It’s down a steel hill but no problem for this beast.
Like a tank this thing just motors down a very steep incline back to the road.
From this pole, looking back towards our Thunder Ridge Road you can see the phone line in the air but the hot & neutral power lines are on the ground as well as caught up in the trees across the span to the other pole.
Phone but no Power – That line is the phone line but the two power cables are down on the ground. 300+ yard span to the other snapped pole.
A little zoom shot back to the other pole shows the lines clearer. The black one is the phone line and the two low hanging silver ones are the power.
Looking Back – From the pole behind Smiths back to the pole on our Thunder Ridge Road.
The backhoe is finished his work and is carefully going down the steep hill to drive over to pole #2.
Driver Skill – To get down a steep section the driver is using the bucket as a skid to prevent a forward rollover
Mean while “the boss” is hooking up the wires. All the hardware on the pole is setup and attached on the ground prior to lifting it into place.
Line Boss – This guy was running the show and he kept the guys on the ground hopping with passing up stuff and positioning the gear etc.
Splicing the wires together is quite in interesting procedure. There is a connector device that is a tube into which the wires are inserted by hand. No crimping, no nothing and once inserted into these tube connectors the line is capable of being pulled tight to get the proper sag between poles.
Making Connections – Doing the top “hot” wire 1st
Over at the other site on thunder Ridge Road, a pole is waiting.
Bringing in the new lumber.
Once again the pole is lifted into place and the backhoe fills in the hole and guy wires are attached and tensioned. This time they have the luxury of a bucket touch and the guys working up to don’t have to put on the spurs and climb the pole.
Working the Wire. Two boom trucks required to free the 300+ yard span from some trees
Equipment at work. The track vehicle on the left holding the new pole in place while the backhoe on the right continues to fill in the base around the pole.
The “hot” wire is attached and they are just removing the clamp device that allowed them to winch the cable up. To lift this very long span they attached a bully to the top of the pole and then ran it down to another pull on the back of the boom touch, hooking it onto the trailer hitch. Then they ran the rope over to another truck on the road and used the truck to tension the cable.
Lots of messing around here as when they were lifting the cable, it was caught in some trees down by Smiths parking lot. They sent the other boom truck and had to work quite hard at pulling the cable free before they could finalize the tensioning.
Removing the cable clamp used to pull the wire into place
With everything reattached a decision was made to cut off the part of the broken pole that was now being suspended soley by the telephone cable. Interestingly enough, these guys were only concerned about the power. It was clearly someone else job to come along afterwards and transfer the telephone cables to the new poles. Bell did that the following day.
Up goes the chain saw…
Chain saw hand up
… and off comes most of the old pole.
Off with the old pole
It’s now 6:30pm and the crews are cleaning up and moving on. They were remarkably tidy as no leftover bits of wire snips were left behind. They had to check a few things, remove some grounding wires and do something a short distance away that apparently would not take too long. At around 8:30 the power is on! Yahoo! Good job Hydro One!
I’m spending some time quiet time at the lake catching up on some old emails, checking out some web sites and just in general goofing off. I took Friday & Monday off from work so we’ve made our own “long weekend”. The weather today (Friday) is warm, but overcast and drizzling on and off. There are no big projects on the horizon for the rest of the cottage season, except for the never-ending opportunity to paint or stain some part of the buildings, but none of that today as everything is wet.
For some time I’ve neglected my Flickr account but I recently noticed that my membership was automatically renewed so I guess I should really make better use of it.
One thing that came to my attention was that the newest Grandkids, Dane & Clark don’t have their own albums like the older guys Easton & Parker do. Time to fix that.
I’ve got a system within Lightroom with “smart” collection publishing from Lightroom to Flickr where the collection watches for photos that are flagged, and have the keywords containing “flickr” and one or more of the grandkids names. Now it’s just a mater of reviewing all my photos since about October 2014 (490 so far) and tagging the best of the best with the appropriate keywords. This is a bit of a work in progress and I can feel the couch calling my name for an afternoon nap right now. But, it’s started.
Well, I’ve graduated to the 6th Kyu and have a shiny new yelow belt.
The grading session was pretty interesting. All I really knew going in was which Katas i’d need to be able to performs and a handful of questions that I might get asked. The session started as usual at the GWL dojo at 4:30pm with the typical line drills and a few calestenics. However, I was very aware I was the center of attention. Sensai was watching quite closely and correcting my technique.
Then things started to get interesting! Kakomi kumite sparing where 5 karateka participate. One in the center and the other four around in a circle. A sequence techniques are called out and the peson in the middle executes the techniques in an “H” pattern, facing each of the four outside “attackers” in turn. Did I mention that all my fellow karateka are black belts of various levels? I’m in the center, repeatedly, for i think 4 or perhaps 5 rounds. Then it’s 3 or 4 rounds of Renzoku kumite, a face to face straight line kata. I’m always involved and other balck belt students get substituted in. It’s a very fast pace with no breakes in between, apparently quite intentional to see how you preform under a bit of pressure and exhaustion.
Next are my required 4 katas. Each is performed 3 times. The first two times it’s the whole class together with me in the centre of the line, first facing one way then facing the other way for the second. The third, I’m alone and everyone is watching. Things go well for the first 2 katas which I feel are pretty solid. Did I mention I’m getting tired at this point?
On the 3rd, the one I lovingly refered to as “rookie yuckie” when I was fisrt learning it falls apart a bit on one of the turns. I’d practiceds the heck out of those turns, but hey, stuff happens. I carry on and the second half of the kata goes fairly well.
Somewhere in the whole process we also did Sanchin a couple of times, complete with getting smacked at various times (Shime testing).
Suddenly it’s over. After 90 minutes of non-stop work, we’re done. I get my review and feedback which was quite positive along with some areas for improvements. Hey, at this level, there is a lot of room for improvement. But, given a November start apparently, I’ve progressed very well.
After the review it’s the presentation of my certificate and yellow belt and time for a few photos.
Right after this there are about 20 minutes left in the class and it’s right into “Here is the next kata you need to learn for orange belt”.
One of the challenges of the fluctuating water levels on Lake of the Woods is how far below the top of a fixed dock the water level can be. This makes diving off the dock or getting into the boat a little difficult.
Many years ago Gord resolved this issue by building what has become known as the “swim platform”. A few feet below the top of the dock this little platform makes a nice spot to dangle your feet in the water, access the boat or dive in.
Of course when water levels are high the platform is under water. Over the years this in and out of the water has taken its toll. Last weekend, two people on the platform got a surprise as it collapsed and dumped them into the quite chilly early summer temperature (12°C) lake.
This weekend’s maintenance activity is the replacement of the much loved swim platform. This time with pressure treated wood and some beefed up construction.
Saturday was opening up the deck, removing the remains of the old platform and designing the new replacement. After sizing things up its time for a run to the lumber yard. Late afternoon rain brings a halt to the project. Most likely to get it completed tomorrow.
As a result of the boat show, and a few conversations in the family, we’re now the proud owners of a Sea-Doo Spark. On May 10th, our 1st weekend at the lake we’re getting ready to take it out for its maiden voyage. The weather is not the best. It’s cool/cold, overcast and a little windy. Everyone wants to take it for a spin, but nobody is too keen about how cold and wet it might be. On the Sunday, it’s decided, we’re going no matter how cold it might be.
Getting ready to take the Sea-Doo to the launch site
We hook it up to Scott’s truck, load up the family and head over to Smith’s Camps to put it in the water.
At Smith’s we re-connect with Allen, the owner, and catch up on a bit of the neighbourhood news. Some discussion about launch logistics and Eric and Scott are ready to do it.
Rider Up, ready to launchGetting Closer
Down the ramp we go and the trailer and Sea-Doo are christened with their first dip into the frigid water. After all the ice just went off the lake on May 3rd!
We’re not super prepared for this, just super confident. We have no ropes on the Sea-Doo so once it’s set free from the trailer, Eric is on his own.
Well, this is when things get a little interesting. The Spark is not starting and Eric is adrift in the lake!
Fortunately, we’re in an enclosed area at Smith’s and eventually Eric and the Spark will drift over to a dock. But, there is a small chance he’ll drift out the opening you see in the background and out into the lake. Our boat is not in the water yet. If this happens we’ll need Allen to launch a rescue mission for some serious $$$s.
But that doesn’t happen and Eric drifts over to one of the docks and after several tense / frustrating minutes and quite a few tries, it starts! Let the fun begin!.
Underway for the 1st time.
After zooming around the bay for a few minutes Eric returns to take Parker out for a ride. Everybody is pretty pumped and excited.
Eric and Parker set to ride.
I’m next to ride and I must admit it’s very nice, like a motorcycle on the water.
Garry returning to the dock after the first ride.
Scott is next to go.
Scott’s 1st ride
After lots of discussion on how it handles, the speed and acceleration, and how much fun it will be this summer, especially when it warms up, we load the Spark back up on the trailer and head back to the cottage where we had an awesome hot lunch.
Perhaps we’ll need to give this toy an official name, something more than “The Spark”?
Part 3 and hopefully the final chapter for another 30+ years.
After detecting the problem in 2013 and doing the first half in 2014, it’s time to finish of the job.
Pipes 3 & 4 get dug up and replaced. Scott & Eric were a huge help and made the job go so much faster and it’s always fun working alongside the guys on a project.
Scott & Eric hard at work on a Lake Project
After the dig & dispose, we made a trip into town for a few pipe parts, and a stop at the Chip Truck. Once back on the job site the new pipes were assembled, connected up to the system and then covered over. Repair complete. Well, almost. The next weekend I re-assembled the walkway to the stairs and sometime this summer we should consider some topsoil and grass seed to put the lawn back in place.
It’s August 2014 now and the problem is back. Apparently the previous years fix was just temporary and now we really need to dig into it, literally, in to it, all of it. “It” is the stuff inside the pipes in the field.
Fully clogged – A section of pipe at the far end of the field
There are 4 pipes going out across the field. It’s decided that we could replace 2 while running the operation on the remaining 2, so the digging begins. Step 1 is to remove the walkway which covers the far end of the field. After doing this and digging part of 1 pipe, the weekend is over.
The first two pipes are fully uncovered.
On he next weekend Len & Darlene are with us and Len is a good sport and a great help as we uncover the two pipes.
Full House – Just about clogged solid.
Here is another example of the extent of the pipe clogging. Within 2-3 feet of the head of the pipe the clogging is about 75% going up rapidly to virtually 100% blocked.
The following weekend I splice in two new pipes and cover them over.
Garry splicing in the new pipes.
That’s a wrap for 2014 and we’ll get to the other two in 2015, preferably with some digging help.
It’s August 2013 and it’s backing up. Never happened before. Another cottage 1st. The “it” is the septic field.
This is not a good thing.
The fluid from the rectangular settling tank is not flowing out into the field. This pretty much puts the cottage on high alert as everything that flows into the tank is about to start spilling out all over the yard.
After probing with a garden host to try an clear any unknown/unseen blockages with out any success, I decide that we really need to dig into this problem a little deeper.
Repair Stage #1
After digging from the settling tank to the header pipe and across the header a bit I decide to cut out some of the pipe to gain better access to the pipes going out into the field in an attempt to flush them out. In the photo black pipe is the old stuff and white is the new. The flushing seems to be effective so I splice back in the new white pipe and call it a day. Time will prove that this was not the complete answer.
It seems to be hard to get everyone together on someone’s birthday so it’s quite the occasion when the family gathers these days with all the Grandkids. With Des’s birthday passed and Scott’s coming up we managed a combined dinner celebration.
Of course for us, the best part is spending time with everyone, especially the newest additions Dane & Clark .
Nana with an arm full of Dane & ClarkGranddad with DanePrepping the candles on the cake
An of course no birthday celebration would be complete with out a fancy Birthday Cake or two!
Getting some assistance with the candles.
With all those candles (somebody was having a “big” birthday”) you need a little help in blowing them all out.
Good food, good times, and having everyone together made for a memorable evening. Super busy with two 2 3/4 year olds and two babies, such a blessing to have such a happy and health family.
