Plain Sailing Weather

“Just give me one fine day of plain sailing weather and I can f**k up anything, anything.” Frank Turner, 2013

We’ve made our fair share of ‘mistakes’ this week on the farm, from putting the wrong mulch along the potato rows to leaving an oily rag indoors (apparently they can spontaneously combust, who knew!). All small mistakes, but a bit demoralising nonetheless. At least it shows we are learning. On the up side, we also had some good weather for sailing and went with our hosts to Ruxton Island, we assume named after their son Ruxton (…or maybe the other way around), to enjoy the views around the gulf islands.

One of our more successful tasks this week was cleaning the trailer with a pressure washer. It was looking a little worse for wear when we moved in, but now it looks sparkly clean and is a good place to hang out and hide from the kids when needed.

Another Rollie success was fixing the electric fences that were failing to contain the horses on a daily basis (they weren’t getting shocked so could lift it up with their teeth and sneak under). We repaired some of the weaker posts and completely overhauled the existing wire. The horses haven’t escaped yet and we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

We’ve learned this week that water on Gabriola Island can be extremely limited over the summer. Most properties have their own well system, so once the ground water dries up the taps stop running. Showers are rationed in the household, so we are going to be smelly pretty soon! They have previously constructed a pond at the bottom of their property in the best location to collect more water. The only problem is that it’s quite far from where the water is needed. So we set up a system with a pump and firehoses to move the water to a big paddling pool outside one of the gardens.

The following day this set-up resulted in the pond water working its way into the drinking taps when an isolation valve was opened (not by us!! hoorah!). Luckily no dodgy stomachs so far, but perhaps we have worms. We will report back next week.

We’re hoping for more plain sailing weather this week, so we can venture out again on the boat. We’re also hoping to learn some carpentry skills over the weekend when we help to prepare one of their woodworking shops. That probably means there are more mistakes in store!