Not all our adventures happened during our five year sojourn in the Okanagan Valley. The acquisition of our current acreage home was fraught with many challenges. The possession date for the buyers of our previous house was December 1st, and we were supposed to get ours from the builder December 15th. Unfortunately, the builder fell behind, and we ended up staying in a hotel room from December until January 9th. Christmas and New Years stuck in a hotel with a kitchenette, and the hotel restaurant closed over the holidays was not the greatest celebration.
Our possessions got "stored" in the unheated garage at the acreage, which did not improve some of them!
Finally we got to move in. All was well with the world. Until, a few days later, the sewer backed up into the basement! Frantic calls to our contractor, and emergency pump-out of the septic tank. Some time passed, and it happened again! Another pump-out, and replace the pump. Time passed, and it happened again! Obviously something was seriously wrong, but further investigation had to wait for Spring. We became a regular stop for the "honey wagon". Funny thing was that he was pumping out a lot of dirt and gravel each time.
Before I go any further with this sordid tale, I should give you a bit of our geography. We are the only developed acreage on a half kilometre narrow dead-end road, with a turnaround loop at the end.
As spring came, so the ground thawed, and suddenly, in early April a large sink hole appeared in the driveway between the house and the garage. More problems, since I assumed the land was settling from the construction. Phone calls and arranging for a load or two of fill and gravel to fill the sink hole. Then, a few days later our contractor showed up with another fellow with a big flat-deck trailer and a Track Hoe machine. They parked on the road, unloaded the Track Hoe, and started digging up the yard. I asked if they should not have called Alberta One Call first to have things marked, and Len, our contractor, said he had the plans that showed all the lines.
Now that plan showed two parallel lines running from along side the house towards the front of our property. One from our septic tank down to the septic field, and the other from the Gas Utility line to the back of the house a couple of feet away from the septic line. No problem!
So, following the septic line from the tank, the shovel dug gently down, until, suddenly, there was an almighty whoosh of escaping high pressure Natural Gas. They had cut the gas line, where it was NOT supposed to be. Immediately the operator shut down the Track Hoe. I rushed into the house and grabbed the portable phone, and Grace went and turned off the thermostat so the furnace would not turn on. As Grace came running out of the house the Track Hoe operator's helper told her to go turn off the main electrical breaker. I meanwhile phone 911. No sooner was I talking to the operator, when the phone went dead. Of course, no power in the house to operate the base station! Now I had to go back into the house and find my cell phone, run around the yard to find somewhere to get a signal, and call 911 again.
The response was amazing. Within a relatively short time we had three fire trucks, a County Peace Officer and his vehicle, and eventually an Atco Gas service vehicle all parked along our little road. Unfortunately the Gas Company responder did not have the necessary Pincers to clamp our line.
Gas continued to vent heavenwards for another 45 minutes until a response team from Atco arrived from another call in Edmonton. All these nervous people, and I am sure some were pining for a smoke, but sanity prevailed, and nobody lit up, or we all would have.
Once the second Atco crew arrived, it did not take long to clamp off the pipe. Then the Track Hoe went to work and discovered that the gas company had laid their line off route and cut the septic line in two places. After all repairs were done, the Man From Atco tried to present our contractor with the bill for all the work, since they had not had the line flagged. Len then threatened to present Atco with the bill for all the pump-outs, repairs to our septic line, costs of the Track Hoe and operator etc.
It was rather humourous to watch the Mexican Standoff develop, which ended with neither party suing the other.
Since then, we have no longer had sewage in our basement. Which reminds me, it is time to have our septic tank serviced again.
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Saturday, 5 May 2012
More Explosions.
Up in the hills behind where we lived, just outside Vernon, was an area that had been used for many years to train the Army, before and during World War 2. As a result, and despite more recent efforts to clean things up, there was a fair bit of military material still laying around. Now I don't mean the Army left guns or supplies of any consequence, but shell fragments, practice rounds from artillery and mortars and other bit and pieces. Additionally, the area had small lakes and ponds, rattlesnakes, and other hazards.
Consequently it was a magnet for my young brother-in-law and his friends to explore and play games of various sorts. One of the larger ponds had an island in the middle, locally named Turtle Island. Such a thing as an island presented the irresistible challenge to the lads to build a raft and visit it. After much labour collecting raft makings and assembling something float-able, they paddled over to the island. Now they never told me the how, my presumption being they were sneaking a cigarette, but in the warm, dry summer, they accidentally (or deliberately) set fire to the grass on the island.
A rapid escape to shore by raft ensued, as the flames grew to consume the small sanctuary they had just left. They knew they were in trouble, even though the flames could not spread from the island, and started to hightail it homewards. Before they got far, there was an almighty explosion, presumably from an unexploded ordinance, and Turtle Island was no more. It had totally disappeared, never to be seen again!
I guess there was no harm done, but there sure could have been some dead or injured boys!
Consequently it was a magnet for my young brother-in-law and his friends to explore and play games of various sorts. One of the larger ponds had an island in the middle, locally named Turtle Island. Such a thing as an island presented the irresistible challenge to the lads to build a raft and visit it. After much labour collecting raft makings and assembling something float-able, they paddled over to the island. Now they never told me the how, my presumption being they were sneaking a cigarette, but in the warm, dry summer, they accidentally (or deliberately) set fire to the grass on the island.
A rapid escape to shore by raft ensued, as the flames grew to consume the small sanctuary they had just left. They knew they were in trouble, even though the flames could not spread from the island, and started to hightail it homewards. Before they got far, there was an almighty explosion, presumably from an unexploded ordinance, and Turtle Island was no more. It had totally disappeared, never to be seen again!
I guess there was no harm done, but there sure could have been some dead or injured boys!
Thursday, 3 May 2012
The Time we Amost Drowned.
Once we used to live in the Okanagan Valley, in Vernon to be accurate, and had one of our biggest "adventures" on Okanagan Lake.
A friend was moving away, and a bunch of us decided to hold a farewell party at one person's cottage on the West side of the lake, with hot-dogs and burgers and other goodies. Unfortunately, no one remembered the buns. Some of us volunteered to take a boat ride across the lake to Okanagan Landing and get buns from the store by the Marina. Five of us boarded a 16foot vessel, 3 guys up front, and two girls, one being my wife, in the seats facing the stern. The convertible top was up, and we were lightly dressed for the relatively warm evening.
Now Lake Okanagan is some 70 miles long, and over 2 miles wide where we were leaving from. Our route would take us East, and then past the point of the big peninsular into Beachcomber Bay, and Northeast to the Marina. The big 65 horse motor was roaring at full throttle, and we had all our running lights on, as darkness was falling fast. We rounded the point, well clear of shore trying to stay in the middle of the waterway, when suddenly we men up front heard a male voice yell "Look out"!
Mike reflexively swerved the boat to port, and as we tilted over, we hit something. The boat tipped completely over on her port side and the bow went right under the water as we shuddered to a stop. Water and debris swirled around us in the open cabin are, with the canvas top collapsed and ropes tangling like the tentacles of an octopus.
Five of us were trapped beneath the capsized boat in what seemed like a maelstrom of agitated water. I fought my way free and pulled myself out from under by the side of the boat at the stern. Our running lights were still glowing beneath the water, and another, smaller boat was drifting nearby, disabled by our cutting its fuel line when we clipped its stern. Paddles, life-jackets and a Captain's Cap were floating on the surface, and then another head appeared on the other side of our boat.
Where was my wife? I reached my arm under the side of the boat, and felt a hand. I just knew it belonged to her! I grasped it and pulled her spluttering out from under. Now she was not much of a swimmer, especially in 300 feet of water, so I helped her get over to the other boat. Now it had two occupants, a man and his wife, who was irate that her newly done hairdo had got splashed by our boat! With their help, we got her aboard.
Meanwhile the other fellow, the third man, had surfaced, but the other girl was still unaccounted for. It turned out that she could not swim, but had kept her head, and held on inside the boat breathing air that was trapped in there. Her boyfriend went back under and got her out and over to the other boat. Now we were three guys swimming around rescuing whatever was useful that was floating around, and tying to bowline from our boat to the stern of the disabled one.
After an unsuccessful attempt to remove the fuel line from our boat, in hopes of using it as a replacement for the damaged one on the smaller boat, we all climbed in, and started paddling back towards our original point of departure.
By now it was as dark as the inside of a cave, and with wet clothes I started to shiver and go into shock. My wife's purse, with all sorts of valuable things, including my paycheque, had sunk, but our hostess on board was still bemoaning her ruined hairdo.
We asked if it had been they who had yelled "Look out", but they said not. It was none of us, and to this day, I have to believe it was a voice from heaven.
Progress paddling was horribly slow, towing the upturned boat behind us, and we started to wonder if we would ever reach landfall. Pitch dark, and no power to any lights on the 14 foot boat, left us as an invisible floating hazard. Then, to our total amazement, we heard the sound of a small outboard motor and saw the light of a flashlight approaching from the West side of Beachcomber Bay.
From out the gloom came an aluminum car-top fishing boat with two men in it. One of them, Bill, was an acquaintance of mine. They had come to rescue us!
We ended up taking their gas line, tying them up to the stern of our capsized boat, and using the gas line to fix the engine on the boat that we were all in. Its 45 horse Johnson worked hard, but we were actually under way! Bill guided the flotilla back to his cottage, and once there we all disembarked. He allowed the couple we had hit to borrow his fuel line to go home.
The other one of our rescuers was a diver, so he unbolted the 65 horse motor from our boat, and then the men were able to turn it right side up and haul it ashore.
That was when we heard "the rest of the story". The young diver was next door to Bill, and he had been out enjoying the evening, when he had an overpowering feeling that someone was in trouble somewhere far out on the lake. Not having a boat of his own, he woke Bill up and persuaded him to get his fishing boat, and to go out on the lake to see what they could find. Like the proverbial "needle in a haystack", they found us.
By the time we got a lift around to Westside Road and back to where the party was, it was pretty well over. No one could figure out why we gone for five hours! We told our story briefly, and recovered our car to drive home.
Next morning, my wife's Mother phoned from Alberta. She was so worried because the evening before she had an oppressive feeling that we were in danger, and had been praying up a storm for our safety. Needless to say, we thanked her profusely for her prayers, and assured her that all were well.
A friend was moving away, and a bunch of us decided to hold a farewell party at one person's cottage on the West side of the lake, with hot-dogs and burgers and other goodies. Unfortunately, no one remembered the buns. Some of us volunteered to take a boat ride across the lake to Okanagan Landing and get buns from the store by the Marina. Five of us boarded a 16foot vessel, 3 guys up front, and two girls, one being my wife, in the seats facing the stern. The convertible top was up, and we were lightly dressed for the relatively warm evening.
Now Lake Okanagan is some 70 miles long, and over 2 miles wide where we were leaving from. Our route would take us East, and then past the point of the big peninsular into Beachcomber Bay, and Northeast to the Marina. The big 65 horse motor was roaring at full throttle, and we had all our running lights on, as darkness was falling fast. We rounded the point, well clear of shore trying to stay in the middle of the waterway, when suddenly we men up front heard a male voice yell "Look out"!
Mike reflexively swerved the boat to port, and as we tilted over, we hit something. The boat tipped completely over on her port side and the bow went right under the water as we shuddered to a stop. Water and debris swirled around us in the open cabin are, with the canvas top collapsed and ropes tangling like the tentacles of an octopus.
Five of us were trapped beneath the capsized boat in what seemed like a maelstrom of agitated water. I fought my way free and pulled myself out from under by the side of the boat at the stern. Our running lights were still glowing beneath the water, and another, smaller boat was drifting nearby, disabled by our cutting its fuel line when we clipped its stern. Paddles, life-jackets and a Captain's Cap were floating on the surface, and then another head appeared on the other side of our boat.
Where was my wife? I reached my arm under the side of the boat, and felt a hand. I just knew it belonged to her! I grasped it and pulled her spluttering out from under. Now she was not much of a swimmer, especially in 300 feet of water, so I helped her get over to the other boat. Now it had two occupants, a man and his wife, who was irate that her newly done hairdo had got splashed by our boat! With their help, we got her aboard.
Meanwhile the other fellow, the third man, had surfaced, but the other girl was still unaccounted for. It turned out that she could not swim, but had kept her head, and held on inside the boat breathing air that was trapped in there. Her boyfriend went back under and got her out and over to the other boat. Now we were three guys swimming around rescuing whatever was useful that was floating around, and tying to bowline from our boat to the stern of the disabled one.
After an unsuccessful attempt to remove the fuel line from our boat, in hopes of using it as a replacement for the damaged one on the smaller boat, we all climbed in, and started paddling back towards our original point of departure.
By now it was as dark as the inside of a cave, and with wet clothes I started to shiver and go into shock. My wife's purse, with all sorts of valuable things, including my paycheque, had sunk, but our hostess on board was still bemoaning her ruined hairdo.
We asked if it had been they who had yelled "Look out", but they said not. It was none of us, and to this day, I have to believe it was a voice from heaven.
Progress paddling was horribly slow, towing the upturned boat behind us, and we started to wonder if we would ever reach landfall. Pitch dark, and no power to any lights on the 14 foot boat, left us as an invisible floating hazard. Then, to our total amazement, we heard the sound of a small outboard motor and saw the light of a flashlight approaching from the West side of Beachcomber Bay.
From out the gloom came an aluminum car-top fishing boat with two men in it. One of them, Bill, was an acquaintance of mine. They had come to rescue us!
We ended up taking their gas line, tying them up to the stern of our capsized boat, and using the gas line to fix the engine on the boat that we were all in. Its 45 horse Johnson worked hard, but we were actually under way! Bill guided the flotilla back to his cottage, and once there we all disembarked. He allowed the couple we had hit to borrow his fuel line to go home.
The other one of our rescuers was a diver, so he unbolted the 65 horse motor from our boat, and then the men were able to turn it right side up and haul it ashore.
That was when we heard "the rest of the story". The young diver was next door to Bill, and he had been out enjoying the evening, when he had an overpowering feeling that someone was in trouble somewhere far out on the lake. Not having a boat of his own, he woke Bill up and persuaded him to get his fishing boat, and to go out on the lake to see what they could find. Like the proverbial "needle in a haystack", they found us.
By the time we got a lift around to Westside Road and back to where the party was, it was pretty well over. No one could figure out why we gone for five hours! We told our story briefly, and recovered our car to drive home.
Next morning, my wife's Mother phoned from Alberta. She was so worried because the evening before she had an oppressive feeling that we were in danger, and had been praying up a storm for our safety. Needless to say, we thanked her profusely for her prayers, and assured her that all were well.
Monday, 2 April 2012
A Family Blow-up?
Many years ago I moved our young family to the Okanagan. Being in search of employment, we ended up renting a small farm house a short way out of town, small but adequate for the two of us and our young toddler.
It did not take long before we discovered that we had friends and relatives coming out of the woodwork, all hoping to come and stay with us during the popular tourist season. How could we say "no" to my wife's parents and four of her younger siblings? More importantly, where were we going to put them all?
Being a former farmstead, we had some outbuildings; a small garage inhabited by families of black widow spiders, a dirt-floored machine shed, a pump house for the well (small and noisy), and a small cabin that had been used to house pickers back when the farm had been an orchard.
The house had a small third bedroom that we used for storage. This we cleaned out and used for some of the kids, combined with a tent in the yard, but my spouse's aging parents needed more regal accommodations. Thus we moved a bed and table and chairs into the cabin, which had a small closet as its only appurtenance. No electricity, so we equipped it with a couple of coal-oil lamps to lighten the gloom.
The visit went well.
When they departed for home, they left us a gift, one of my brothers-in-law, a twelve year old, to stay with us for a year. The young lad was mischievous, but fun to have around, and we got on well together. He quickly made some friends from up and down the road, and they would often use the old cabin as a play house and place to sneak cigarettes.
One day, just as I came home from work, my wife announced that our boarder and friends had something to show me in the cabin. Upon joining them there, they told me there was a bottle of something on top of the closet, complete with a hand drawn "skull and cross bones" on its label.
I climbed up on the table and looked on the closet top. There was a bottle towards the back, which I just managed to reach. Stepping down off the table, I placed the bottle on it. The hand-made label was faded and worn with age, but I could still easily make out the words "DANGER, NITRO" beneath the piratical symbol. The bottle was the size and shape of a large bottle of Aspirin, and contained about one ounce of clear, thick liquid.
Immediately after clearing the lads out of the cabin, and banning them from entering until I gave them permission, I phoned the local RCMP and tried to convince them that this was not a hoax!
A short time later we were visited by the police, and after showing them the subject of my concern, they decided to contact CFB Chilliwack and request a bomb disposal unit.
The next day we had the RCMP Sergeant, in his vehicle, and an Air-force officer and a Sergeant in a military car parked in our front yard, plus two more RCMP cruisers blocking off the road in either direction, about a quarter mile on either side of our driveway.
The Air-force Sergeant went to examine the cabin, and returned to ask me if he could blow a hole in the field a couple of hundred yards away. He then got a padded box, and tongs, and retrieved the bottle, carrying it gingerly up to his designated hole-to-be. A small brick of plastic explosive, and detonator and wires were laid and strung back to our vantage point. Upon his command, we took shelter behind the cars, and he detonated the explosive.
There was a loud "woomf", and a sharp "crack" combined with a black and crimson fireball. A smile of satisfaction appeared on the demolition man's face, and he said to me, "that was definitely nitroglycerine, I could tell by the sound of the "crack'". You were very lucky it didn't go off when you picked it up, since it becomes more unstable with age, and fumes could have leaked from the cap as well. You were fortunate it was never near an open flame, or it could have demolished the cabin, and most of your house."
My thoughts immediately went to my in-laws and the coal-oil lamps they had been using!
It did not take long before we discovered that we had friends and relatives coming out of the woodwork, all hoping to come and stay with us during the popular tourist season. How could we say "no" to my wife's parents and four of her younger siblings? More importantly, where were we going to put them all?
Being a former farmstead, we had some outbuildings; a small garage inhabited by families of black widow spiders, a dirt-floored machine shed, a pump house for the well (small and noisy), and a small cabin that had been used to house pickers back when the farm had been an orchard.
The house had a small third bedroom that we used for storage. This we cleaned out and used for some of the kids, combined with a tent in the yard, but my spouse's aging parents needed more regal accommodations. Thus we moved a bed and table and chairs into the cabin, which had a small closet as its only appurtenance. No electricity, so we equipped it with a couple of coal-oil lamps to lighten the gloom.
The visit went well.
When they departed for home, they left us a gift, one of my brothers-in-law, a twelve year old, to stay with us for a year. The young lad was mischievous, but fun to have around, and we got on well together. He quickly made some friends from up and down the road, and they would often use the old cabin as a play house and place to sneak cigarettes.
One day, just as I came home from work, my wife announced that our boarder and friends had something to show me in the cabin. Upon joining them there, they told me there was a bottle of something on top of the closet, complete with a hand drawn "skull and cross bones" on its label.
I climbed up on the table and looked on the closet top. There was a bottle towards the back, which I just managed to reach. Stepping down off the table, I placed the bottle on it. The hand-made label was faded and worn with age, but I could still easily make out the words "DANGER, NITRO" beneath the piratical symbol. The bottle was the size and shape of a large bottle of Aspirin, and contained about one ounce of clear, thick liquid.
Immediately after clearing the lads out of the cabin, and banning them from entering until I gave them permission, I phoned the local RCMP and tried to convince them that this was not a hoax!
A short time later we were visited by the police, and after showing them the subject of my concern, they decided to contact CFB Chilliwack and request a bomb disposal unit.
The next day we had the RCMP Sergeant, in his vehicle, and an Air-force officer and a Sergeant in a military car parked in our front yard, plus two more RCMP cruisers blocking off the road in either direction, about a quarter mile on either side of our driveway.
The Air-force Sergeant went to examine the cabin, and returned to ask me if he could blow a hole in the field a couple of hundred yards away. He then got a padded box, and tongs, and retrieved the bottle, carrying it gingerly up to his designated hole-to-be. A small brick of plastic explosive, and detonator and wires were laid and strung back to our vantage point. Upon his command, we took shelter behind the cars, and he detonated the explosive.
There was a loud "woomf", and a sharp "crack" combined with a black and crimson fireball. A smile of satisfaction appeared on the demolition man's face, and he said to me, "that was definitely nitroglycerine, I could tell by the sound of the "crack'". You were very lucky it didn't go off when you picked it up, since it becomes more unstable with age, and fumes could have leaked from the cap as well. You were fortunate it was never near an open flame, or it could have demolished the cabin, and most of your house."
My thoughts immediately went to my in-laws and the coal-oil lamps they had been using!
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Where to start?
I have been encouraged by friends to share some of the adventures of my life. It is hard to know where to start, having never blogged before, but at least I have set up the start of a blog.
I hope that I can add and edit easily, and create new episodes as they come to mind.
Please bear with me until I get more experienced, for this may be the start of a new "adventure".
I guess I got into this because I was sharing some of the things that have happened in the past, and they said I should write a book. Now that is a daunting idea, but my wife suggested a blog as a start.
I will try to share some of our "adventures", including nearly being blown up, nearly drowning in a boating accident, and nearly killing us in an airplane. Fortunately, the word nearly can be used in all of these.
I hope that I can add and edit easily, and create new episodes as they come to mind.
Please bear with me until I get more experienced, for this may be the start of a new "adventure".
I guess I got into this because I was sharing some of the things that have happened in the past, and they said I should write a book. Now that is a daunting idea, but my wife suggested a blog as a start.
I will try to share some of our "adventures", including nearly being blown up, nearly drowning in a boating accident, and nearly killing us in an airplane. Fortunately, the word nearly can be used in all of these.
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