Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Let's Paint the House...It Will Be Fun!

For the past couple of years we have been debating on to either paint the outside of our house or get new siding.  After looking over the pros and cons it was more cost effective to paint the house but now the dilemma is what colour as our roof is red tin.  We decided or should I say I decided on Wedgewinkle from General Paint, a blue grey colour. We are nearly complete but we still need to touch up the trim and paint the back fence.  Thankfully during this time the weather cooperated and some nights were started painting at 6pm and finished after midnight...there are more pros to Midnight Sun that one would think. It took us about 2 weeks to complete the project as there are not only slats on the top and bottom of the house but there are smaller ones in between. We had to cut in so much but in the end we are pleased with the results and so are many of our neighbours. Here's some pictures of the house.

Painting the back of the house
You can see the difference in the colour

Craig painting the final section of the garage

Painted the back gate white and getting ready to paint the landing
where we get water

Front stairs are also painted white

House & garage are completed!

The weather had been extremely hot up here and we had set some records.  +24'C up here feels so much warmer than further south due to the fact we are closer to the sun and our sun does not set so the house doesn't cool off at night. Our porch thermometer was reaching above 30'C on many occasions and the inside of our house was even higher, hate to see our electricity bill as we had 4 fans going all day and night.  Just about every day after work we brought the dogs out for a swim in one of the ponds as they too were hot. With the warm weather came the mosquitos and came they did but on the positive side it also brought out the tundra flowers.  The ground was alive with colour and this week the nuna (land) is purple with the Arctic Fireweed. 

Look closely and you can see the mosquitos

Lots of geese and ducks to point at, even if it is 
your back leg

We had a scare with Molly a few weeks ago, she swam
out chasing some geese, got disorientated and 
had a difficult time swimming back.  
I ordered a life jacket for her and now we have some peace of mind 
and she has the freedom again to swim

That's not dust on my lens but mosquitos

The Arctic Poppy

Fireweed everywhere even on the side of this cliff

I find that there are more cotton grass than last year

This pic was taken a couple of weeks ago when the 
mountain avens covered the ground

Took this a couple of days ago and as you can see
the ground is purple from the fireweed

The Arctic Fireweed up close

The vet team from Alberta was up again and saw about 125 pets.  Here is Dr. Audrey performing a spay on a dog.  It was another success and it was good to see many pet owners return with their pets for check ups and new owners bring in their pet for surgery.   Sadly Bernie and Al who had ran the vet clinic and Diamonds in the Ruff, (the rescue group) have left the community.  They will be sadly missed by all including Craig and I as we had become friends a few years back.  


Waiting patiently to see the vet 

Gorgeous Riley also waiting to see the vet for her check up

KIA - Kitikmeot Inuit Association celebrated their 40th anniversary and they couldn't of asked for a better weekend.  They combined the celebration with Nunavut Day, July 9th and the weekend was full of entertainment and great food.  People from all over the Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut and Northwest Territories come in for the celebations.

Local band EMMO played some good ole fashion country music
for the crowd.

Jessie was making bannock over an open fire, for a good portion of the day
Did I mention it was free and delicious

My beautiful friend Amy
It was good to see her out enjoying herself

I don't know how Karen and the rest of the drum dancers performed
in their fur outfits. What a great performance they put on

The gorgeous and talented Trisha performing

The weather was so hot that Kim and I decided to head to our local "car wash" to clean off some of the dirt off the Commanders.  Of course we did not use any soap - just good old fashion scrubbing with rags and a bucket.  


I think Kim got more wet than her buggy

Our friend Adrian had his family up here so a bunch of us got together for a quad ride or two.  His son and friend have never seen the beach (Long Point) so a bunch of us decided to go for a ride and enjoy a great evening of laughs and hot weather.  So hot that 5 out of 8 of us decided to go into the ice cold water and hop on a small ice float...crazy boys but it made for some great pictures. 

On top of old smokey...I mean Augustus Hills

Funny how I didn't realize that I was the only girl until 
after I looked at this pic. 
left to right: Clyde, Adrian, his son Eric, Toby
Jamie, Jim and Craig

Toby and Eric trying not to freeze their butts on a small ice float

Toby and Adrian 'surfing' the Northwest Passage
The calmness of the water, the reflections, the ice in the background,
the many colours of blue - love everything about this photo

Hmmm did Adrian make it?

Here's another evening of quadding to Mount Pelly
Kim and Doug also joined us to go fishing and guess who caught 
the only fish...

Kissing her prize

For the past 3 years I have been visiting an Arctic fox den and this year there are two pups that came out for a visit.  This den is huge and has many entrances and exists.  The pups were curious of me and the Nikon but also very skittish which is a good thing.  It started to rain and it became cold this so we didn't visit too long, would love to bring a chair and sit and wait for that perfect shot.



Miss Molly had been a bit off this past week so no pics of her in the fireweed but to end this blog entry here are a couple, one of Blitz and then one with me and my boy.  It was pretty windy that day and the mosquitos were out in full force, I had spray on but Craig did not and was getting eaten alive by the little buggers.  I couldn't resist a pic of me and Blitz with the fireweed as it is covering the land this year.



Talk soon!

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Celebrations

Since my last blog posting we celebrated our little Molly as she turned 14 years old on June 21st.  She is the first dog that I ever owned who has lived to see her 14th birthday.  She has slowed down these past few years and instead of 'running like the wind' she is now running like a gentle breeze.  She still loves to go for rides in the truck and whenever she gets the chance she is my co-pilot.  She has bad hips and elbows and there are days when she doesn't want to eat her breakfast or it's hard to get out of bed in the mornings but she is still doing great for her age.  She will still seek out any water body and head straight for it, even if there is still ice on it.  At only 45lbs. (give or take) she is one tough cookie or like we like to call her our Princess Warrior. 

The much younger Miss Molly

Miss Molly on her 14th Birthday

Blitz & Molly 

Molly & Blitz
That's arctic willow behind them

Blitz catching some midnight sun rays

Enjoying some warmth and blue skies

For a week we have been busy painting the outside of our house.  Not sure when the last time this house was painted but the dark royal blue is chipping and the colour needed to be changed.  So anything blue is changing to a grey/blue colour and anything brown will be an off white.  With a red  tin roof we didn't have a huge choice of what colour to go with.  The 40 some odd year old wood is very thirsty and sucking up a lot of paint, so far we have used about 5 gallons of paint for 2 1/2 sides of the house.  We wanted to finish the back of the house today and start on the final side but the weather was not co-operating with us today with temps sitting around 8'c and rainy periods.  Tomorrow the weather is supposed to warm up again so after work we will be at it again and hopefully by week's end we will be onto the garage.  

Craig pressure washing the house before we paint

As you can tell the house is in need of a fresh coat of paint.

We started painting last Saturday when Craig got off work and we 
painted from 6:30pm to 12:30am and got the front of the house done.
I painted the bottom and Craig does the top - a lot of cutting in due to the slats on the house

Finishing up at midnight - thankful for the midnight sun

Finished two side - I had painted the front stairs the same grey colour
but the house looked too drab so I painted it white and it looks so much better.

I will do another blog posting once the house and garage are completed.  We have a deck in the back which we will likely be painting the off white as well.  I haven't been out much taking pics but shot a couple of the flowers that are blooming.

The locals call these the bumble bee flower as it attracts them

The mountain aven

Talk soon!