A Good Heart Checkup

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

I had an 8:45 am appointment with my cardiologist in Brandon this morning.  Due to a screw up with my phone and their dialing, I never got a message informing me that the Dr. had been called for an emergency surgery this morning.  

So when I got there, the receptionist apologized and told me he would be about an hour late. She did my EKG and sent me on my way with a promise to return in 45 minutes.  That's good because I was hungry so I went up the street to the Comfort Kitchen for poached eggs on toast.  Mmmmm ever good.

The Drs. office is in the downtown shoppers mall which has been empty of shoppers for years.  It now houses a few businesses and an art gallery and the local paper.  It is such a shame that this awesome place is not flourishing but the day of downtown shopping is over.

I did get in to see Dr. Bushidi at about 11 am and we had a short exchange of information and he looked at my blood work and said carry on!!  Since he changed my meds, I am like a new person.  My energy, although not through the roof, is adequate for an old man.  I am not all pooped at the end of the day like I was this winter.  And no more shortness of breath which is kinda nice.

From there I had to go and pick up some supplies from Superstore.

Both our Cj's and Sheri's Cj's use a lot of potatoes for our french frys.  I picked up 400 pounds today and we will be looking for more early next week, and we are not even busy yet!!!  We will probably go through 600+ pounds a week when we get busy.  Our wholesale supplier who delivers to our door has potatoes on for like 45 bucks for 50 lbs.  However I can get them at Superstore for 28 bucks for 50 lbs so if I get 400 lbs that is a saving of about 150 bucks.  Makes the trip to Brandon worthwhile and we can do other things while we are here, like Dr appointments and breakfast.

Well the rest of the day was quite normal so that is all I have to report!!!  Good Nite!!!

Another Ball Game

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

What better way to start a day than with a Wheat City Brand coffee and an Ice Cap.  We have Forbidden Flavours Coffee and Ice Caps and Blue Raspberry Slushies this year at Cj's.  We are going to put a push on attracting people to join us on the deck for coffee each morning at 9 am. We might even put a toaster out on the deck for a quick breakfast snack.  In the meantime it is just me and whoever happens to be up at attum at 8:30 right now.

Our friends Jim and Marlyn are camped right up the hill from us in Site 1 and today they had to go to Brandon for some appointments.  Archie insisted on being at their campsite almost all morning until they came home.  The first time I walked up there to check on him, he was just laying under their picnic table waiting patiently for them to return.

See him under there!

I went up again a little later and he was stretched out under their camper still waiting for them.   He has really taken to them.

Once they got home and had gave him his treats he headed back home, but not before he did some damage to a gopher hole somewhere.  I will have to grab my shovel and go fill in his holes before the parks people get annoyed with me.  He sure did get dirty in the process.

I took a picture of mama bird (Eastern Phoebe) sitting on her nest.  The nest is right above our order window at Cj's but I don't want to move it.  These birds don't poop all over the place like swallows, but rather they carry the young ones poop away from the nest and drop it so there is no mess under the nest.  Kinda nice of them!!!

Another ball game to go to tonight, and yes we lost.  It was a good game though.

When I got home I saw that some of our flowers for the golf course had been delivered by Kendra and Travis who own Walkers Greenhouse just outside of Rivers. The plants look very nice this year and we will have to get the water system set up on the golf course.

After we closed at 9, Sue and I went up to Jim and Marlyns for a bonfire.  We roasted a couple hot dogs, but mostly we sat by the fire and chatted.  A great way to end and evening.  I did catch what we normally see of a sunset because we are down a bit of a hill.  It was quite pretty.  Good Nite!!

Reunion with Friends

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

A nice quiet Sunday in the Park. Our good friends showed up to camp for a few days.  Jim and Marlyn have camped here since we started Cj's back 1000 years ago and have become really good friends of ours.  They are dog whisperers and have taken over Archie while they are here.  No he doesn't get breakfast like Suzie used to give him in Mexico!!!  But they do spoil him big time!!!

We have a bird nesting under the roof over our deck and today I crawled up there and took a picture inside the nest.  4 little eggs are in there so it will be interesting to watch their development.  I forgot to take a picture of the outside of the nest and the mama bird, silly me!!!  Now I have something to do tomorrow!!

This evening we had the local youth group out to play mini golf and eat ice cream.  It made for a busy evening for the girls, at least for a little while.  Sue and I left them to look after things and went to a bonfire.  We are now tucked up in our wee house.  Good Night!!

Its Garbage Day at Cj's

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

Everyone has a garbage day in their lives I'm sure, and we are no different here at Cj's.  We have a large dumpster that was overdue for being dumped so we were happy to see the truck arrive today.  Its important to keep it dumped so we don't attract the bears.  We get this done every 2 weeks and we manage to fill it almost every time.

Archie is becoming a regular riding with me when I go to town and on wood runs.  He has one bad habit though, and that is his obsession with giving my face a quick lick at the most inopportune times.  He surprises me every time, and it was just by chance that I got this photo.

One of my projects today was to find out why our furnace in Percy quit working on our trip home.  We travelled in a rain storm and that was the last time it worked.  Actually now when I turn the thermostat to heat, the roof air conditioner comes on.  I did some research and found that this is a common problem with these furnaces because the control board gets wet and the way it is mounted, it just sits in the water and shorts out.  I guess I need a new control board because when I took it apart, it was sitting in a puddle of water.  There are a couple fixes for the problem which I will do before remounting the new control board.  Stay tuned.

the area in the middle is where it shorted out.

So I had a little talk with some of the new girls to Cj's about my OCD about keeping the ice cream freezers free from ice cream spills.  I told them that I want them to be as clean as possible at all times.  They had a little spare time shortly after and this is what I found when I went in the shack!!  Bethany wins the prize for taking instructions, however I didn't mean to get down and dirty while doing it.  LOL.  I guess maybe her arms are too short to reach the bottom of the freezer!!

 Tonight was my favorite evening of the week.  It's "Music in the Park" night.  We had the same performers as last week, but they always come up with something different to entertain us will.  The crowd was down because there was a threat of rain.  We did get a shower right at the end, but nothing to speak of.  Thanks guys for taking the time to entertain us!!

That was another day in my life.  Good Night!!

Rain Delays

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

It was just another day here in the Park.  Always lots of chores to do, but in the mid week in May we are normally not that busy.  Our busy season starts when the kids get out of school in June.  But there is always something to do.  Today we received the final document to finalize the importation of Percy to Canada.  The RIV people send a sticker which has to be placed near the drivers seat in the RV as a permanent record of the importation.  It will also be needed to obtain a TIP to take it into Mexico next fall.

Sticker is bottom right

As you know I enjoy watching our local ball team, the Comets play.  They were scheduled for a 7 pm game but we got a little bit of a rain storm here in the park about 10 to 7.  It poured for about 5 minutes.  

Because of the rain I was late getting to the game and was surprised to find that there had not been any rain in town at all and they were already in the second inning.

It did give us a little shower about the 4th inning.  We had about a 5 minute game delay before they were back on the field to complete the game.

By the time I got home, Cj's was all closed up for the night so I called it a day. I guess there will be no supper for me!  Good Night!!!

The Things I do in a Day

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

This morning when we woke up we heard a vehicle by the shack.  Kevin Jay showed up with our other paddle boat this morning.  Apparently they were on top of some dance floor panels he needs for a wedding in one of the municipalities storage sheds.  Thanks for returning them Kevin.  I'm sure there is some free ice cream somewhere waiting for you and Barbi!!!

Sue headed off to Brandon for some things and I stayed back to do some things that need to be done.  I am in charge of getting the 5 kayaks out of storage today.  They are in a different storage than the paddle boats were.  We keep them in a boxcar owned by the municipality at millennium park.

My last trip to town and I picked up a couple of garbage cans for outside the shack.  One thing we do is generate lots of garbage!!

Archie had to give up his seat on the way home.

Next job was fixing a leaky sink.  We have a triple sink with old faucets that leak and an old arbourite counter top which is getting soggy.  Water is leaking down the back of the counter and dripping on the floor in a few spots.  We are in the search right now for a used triple sink stainless steel unit but they are hard to find.  So I will patch up this one to get us to a new one.  I drilled a couple holes on each side of the faucet that leaks so the water can be directed down a pipe and into an ice cream bucket.  Crude but it works.  Just have to empty the bucket a couple times a day.  What....Me a Redneck!!!! Never!!!! lol

See the 2 holes with pipes in them!

They drain into a bucket

Next job was to plumb a outside faucet close to the boat rack so we can hose down the boats after each rental.  They get lots of sand in them from people getting in and out.  Its so easy to do with pex pipe.

About 5 pm my golf course grass cutter guy showed up and we did some work on the course.  We want to have it open this weekend if the weather will cooperate a little bit.  First job was to trim a bunch of trees and haul the branches away.

Then out came the mower to catch up on the grass, followed by the weed whacker, and then the blower.

While Terran was doing all that I took a drive up to the woodpile and put a tarp over some of it so I have dry wood for the weekend if it rains.  

Then I installed the new tarp that Sue bought me in Brandon.  I screwed the front end down to the truck so it won't blow away.  Its always good to keep the wood in the truck dry too.

We must have some baby Canada Geese around because Dani found part of a goose egg in the weeds by the water.  Hopefully it wasn't a fox of coyote that found the nest!!

One of the things we do is watch the weather to see what the weekends will be like.  The weather affects how much food we need to prepare because we are not a dine in restaurant.  Well lately it is almost impossible to make any kind of reasonable decision because the weather changes almost hourly.   However this forecast looks pretty grim.  We only have about 16 weekends to make ends meet and loosing one is not what we want.  As well we want to make sure "Music in the Park" happens.  Oh well there is nothing we can do so I'm going to have a good sleep and see what tomorrow brings.  Good Nite!!!