Sho-blog

Saving $$$$$$$$$$4

2011-08-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

I know everyone is interested in saving money....I have found that the Great Value brands at Walmart are in fact quite good value. I have tried the popcorn, pasta, tomatoes, paper products and more....anyone else have come ideas on what generic brands work for you?

Our 20th Wedding Anniversary

2010-04-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

An interesting 20th wedding anniversary celebration....we had planned to leave for a week of camping last Saturday, but it was pouring rain all day. On Sunday, we got ready to pack the camper and discovered it was gray-green with mold throughout. Chuck emptied every nook and cranny & I spent 2 days scrubbing every accessible surface with a 10% bleach solution & washing every washable item (not the way we had envisaged our anniversary!).We headed out to Campbell River on Tuesday and had a lovely time camping in the back country. However, the weather deteriorated until it felt like snow, and we headed home on Friday morning. As we headed over the top of the massive Strathcona dam, a construction worker waved us over to show us a huge blister on the inside of our right front tire. After a challenging tire change on top of the dam, we ended up spending $1000 on new tires in Campbell River enroute to Port Alberni.....we were very glad just to be safely home.

Top Ten Signs of Spring at Shobacres

2010-04-10T18:37:00.001-07:00

10. Chester is INCREDIBLY DIRTY and requires a bath before any social interaction inside the Shobode.
9. Chuck spends a whole week watching the Masters.
8. Christine haunts all the local garden centres.
7. Chuck wrestles the ride-on mower into the old pickup to deliver the mover for its yearly tuneup to Bruce's Small Engine Repair.
6. Chester rolls in something OFFENSIVE and requires a bath before any social interaction inside the Shobode.
5. Christine inspects every plant in the garden and anxiously awaits signs of life and/or actual growth.
4. Dandelions pop up fully grown and blooming in every part of the property.
3. Christine buys new plants to put somewhere on the property,
2. Heather and Peter work in Heather's garden and come up with yet another strategy for improvement (this year it is no tilling and a chicken tractor.)
1. Chester rolls in something INTOLERABLY DISGUSTING and requires a bath before even being allowed to enter the Shobode.

2010-02-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

kwout everywhere via kwout

SHOBOAT TOO has arrived at SHOBACRES

2009-08-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

We have a "new" boat - a 24' 1979 Sabre Craft - that we purchased as a "project boat" - a fixer-upper. Information about the boat and our progress towards its restoration can be found at http://www.goboating.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=007618#000000 .

We'll be updating that site regularly as we prepare the boat for cruising and camping. Check it out.

Chuck and Christine.

Shobirds back in Canada - briefly!

2009-02-23T14:03:00.000-08:00

Dear family - As you know, we are now back in Canada. Christine flew from Palm Springs to Edmonton for a (too short) visit with family, while Chuck drove back with the trailer and Chester to Langley, BC. Chuck made a fast trip to Port Alberni over the weekend. We were just reunited as Christine flew to Vancouver today (leaving some miserable snowy weather behind!).
Today Chester goes to visit www.smallpaws.ca, where he will be boarding while we are in Spain. They have their own blog at http://smallpawsdogs.blogspot.com where you will be able to see photos of Chester and the pack while we are away!
We will leave on Thursday for Seattle, and fly off to Spain on Friday, returning March 27.

Snowbirds

2008-11-12T17:59:00.000-08:00

Greetings dear family

We have been here in Indio for 10 days and finally feel like we are settled. Chuck has played golf, I have shopped, and we have been to 2 dances at the clubhouse. We have also got a lot of work done on our contracts, and Chuck built an enclosure for Chester out of plastic lattice, so he does not have to be continually tied up. Chester is now officially back into using a litter box, which only took a day for us to re-teach him....makes it much lot easier to clean up after him!

It looks like Chuck will be able to volunteer as a course marshall at a nice golf course here, and get to play free in return. He was actually offered paid employment at a really posh country club course, but cannot accept due to no work visa!

Tomorrow I plan to start attending the weekly quilters group here in the park, and Chuck played poker last night with the weekly poker group (he was up $4 at the end of the evening :-) There is also a daily aquasize program which I will eventually make it to! We are learning how to take Chester along when we go bike riding....Chester is really very adaptable and the only problem occurs when he stops in the middle of the road to take care of business....

We are still struggling with our email as we can only use webmail at the moment - this is a pain, as there is a limited storage capacity...but hopefully we will be able to sort that out with the ISP. In the meantime, if you want to send us any photos or large attachments, please use cmmarles@yahoo.com

Looks like we may have several sets of visitors here - possibly Wendy, Cindie and Bob, my cousin Elizabeth, and of course Mom and Dad are booked for January. We are planning to go to Houston for Christmas and then come slowly back and do some exploring along the way.

We travel to Long Beach this weekend to attend a big antique fair, so are trying to explore a bit further than we did last year. The weather is mainly high 70's low 80's and very cool at night, so we are enjoying that very much.

Hope all is well with you.

Much love Christine and Chuck

Shobacres update

2008-09-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

The summer has literally flown by, and we have been incredibly busy throughout. We have made great strides on the acreage, as we have done a lot more bush clearing, had new perimeter drains dug for the house and then had the yard "re-created" so we can re-seed it. We are now well on our way to getting our re-zoning and subdivision done, having had preliminary approval from both districts and our two public meetings proceed without incident. We are now working on the needed approval from the ministry of health re suitability for septic - this involved digging many holes for a "perc" test and doing lots of paperwork. And of course, fee after fee after fee!

Heather's organic garden has been fabulous, as have our fruit trees and my little herb garden. Right now we have harvested literally hundreds of tomatoes, from our 11 plants, with many more still on the vines. We have eaten raspberries, beets, cabbage, beans, zucchini and broccoli all summer, and are now harvesting cucumbers, peppers, corn, spaghetti squash and potatoes along with the tomatoes. Heather has several huge pumpkins awaiting harvest as well. We ate all of our cherries, although I did freeze one bag of them, and are now picking pears, apples and 2 kinds of grapes. I will be making apple and pear sauce to freeze. We also have picked lots of blackberries, as we have no lack of blackberry vines on the acreage! I have several bags of frozen herbs in the freezer, gathered from my two little herb boxes. Heather and I are already planning how to improve next year's garden so we can drastically reduce the weeding and the rabbit damage (they were the only ones who got to eat carrots!)

Of course, along with this come a few issues - rampant weeds, slugs, wood bugs, deer, rabbits and now bears! We have been trying to keep the fruit off the ground, so transported a bunch of rotten windfalls down to the edge of the stream. The idea is to keep the bears from coming up into the orchard, as they reportedly did each fall, and so far it is working. The other issue is disposing of all the brush - we are eagerly awaiting October, when we can start burning again.

Update from the Shocamper

2008-09-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

Chuck and I spent a week away from technology – heaven! We spent 6 days in Edmonton (thanks to Mom and Dad for the hospitality and for dog-sitting while Chuck and I worked at the U of A ). We then took off on Aug 30 spending some time at Livingston Creek (Crows Nest pass area), and then heading to Christina Lake, and on to Kelowna for a night in a motel and some much needed laundry. Chuck has been overwhelmed with catching fish, although most are quite small! We spent one night at Roche Lake and another night at Lundborn Lake (both close to Merritt) where the good fishing continuted. I have read several books and done many crosswords (the old fashioned way, on paper!) Chester continues to lie down in the lake or stream and then roll in the dirtiest area he can find, as well as digging giant holes wherever we settle for an hour or two. We did see a bear a short distance away from us at Christina Lake, but he disappeared right away. The weather has been good, and there are very few people camping now, so it is great timing. We also discovered that we get half price camping at the prov parks in BC as Chuck is a geezer ( self-described :-) The only negative note was our boat motor being stolen in the Super 8 parking lot on our last night away from home!

The Shobode hobby farm

2008-05-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Greetings dear family!

First things first, Chuck is feeling much better (altho he feels he has heard MORE than enough about the hazards of motorcycles!) I have even convinced him NOT to ride again until he is verified healed. I will say that that "Ribs and things" note got the most response of any of my updates!

We have been very busy working outside, and have been grateful to have help from my paid crew from "Hire A Slave" - 3 girls spent 4 hours helping me put in my new flower garden (took me many hours of digging to get it ready but it is worth it - and you should see my arm muscles!) They are coming back on Friday to help with another one. Heather and Peter have also pitched in - Heather has given me dozens of plants from her greenhouse and garden, plus tons of advice. She also put in a huge veggie garden. I plan to put some before and after photos up on Flickr.

Peter has been working on the Shoboat helping Chuck get it ready for its first outing this year. Apparently we now have marine radio, depth finder/GPS and wiring for downriggers. He also gave us "ears" so we can hook the motors up to the garden hose and run them for testing. And if you want to know more than that, come see us! We also get to have Corynn visit weekly and she and the little girl next door and Chester have great fun!

To complicate matters for our yard work, our garden tractor/lawn mower has broken down repeatedly - I guess we could only run over old chains and pieces of metal so many times before repairs are needed! But we have found most of the hazards now, we think. We have a hanging wicker chair (a great garage sale find) and a hammock set up along with a fire pit and some garden furniture, so have some nice outside living space to enjoy.

We managed, after many dump runs and bonfires, to clear most of the junk from the property. We have spoken to a couple of realtors who encourage us to proceed with our subdivision plans, as we will be able to greatly reduce our mortgage if we sell part of the lot. They know the place well, and have told us the difference we have made in it already is amazing. Of course right now the rhodos are in bloom along with the fruit trees, so it is beautiful.

Unfortunately, the person we hired to handle the subdivision/rezoning request when we left in December, with the thought that we could then sell the new lot this spring - did almost nothing. Chuck fired him yesterday - so we are about to learn the ins and outs of property development! We hope to get our retainer back.......

The family renting our house got the pool running on the long weekend (the temp of +28 C was a great incentive) - a nice bonus when any of you come to visit us! We are looking forward to Mom and Dad's visit in mid June and to the Shobe extended family visit in the summer. And we are supposed to be transporting Andrew, Andrew, Jennifer and Jess up to the trailhead for Della Falls at some point! We will be flying to Edmonton for Cindie's retirement banquet on June 26 so are excited about that.

After much conversation, we decided to buy a pair of (non-breeding) pygmy goats - hence the "Shobode hobby farm." They will be ready to be picked up at the end of the month, so we are madly reading up on them. Hopefully they will get along with the deer! They will be young enough that they should "bond" with Chester.

I was watching raccoons in the trees across the creek yesterday, and there are juncos and robins nesting everywhere. We have had one bear visit to our garbage, which will hopefully not be repeated now that we are putting the can inside the shed. And our renting family has two cats which Chester now pretty much ignores. So quite a menagerie.

Workwise, I was complaining that I wasn't getting enough work from eCampusAlberta - and then 30 courses to be reviewed arrived! So as usual, we run out of day before we run out of work. But we are greatly enjoying ourselves and find it hard to imagine how far we have come in the 10 months since we left Calgary!

Much love from Chris, Chuck and Chester

Ribs and things

2008-05-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

Greetings! Some bad news and some good news.....Chuck bought a small motorcyle a couple of weeks ago. Ten days ago, he took it out on a gravel road and wiped out in a pothole. The bike was OK but he was pretty scraped up, bruised and swollen. Of course I wanted him to go get checked out, but he kept saying he was fine.
This morning, however, he says he felt the rib move around - up until now, he figures the swelling held it in place. He went to Emergency at the hospital to get his ribs x-rayed. He has a broken 7th rib - and of course there is not much to do but restrict movement, and not do anything that makes it hurt!

Sigh. So this afternoon we phoned a handyman to come help us out with some garden work and hauling.....

In keeping with instructions from various offspring and family members, I am letting you all know about this!

Port Alberni Olympian

2008-04-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this great article and photos from MacLean's magazine about a local Port Alberni Olympic wrestler. In the photos, the one in the restaurant is in "our" pub, the Westwind. Nice story and shows what the Olympics can be about!

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/sports/article.jsp?content=20080416_24390_24390&page=1

musings from the Shobode

2008-04-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week despite Chuck and I still dealing with the flu....We are balancing a lot of contract work plus trying to figure out how to manage all the work we want to do with the lot. We have some pruning to do along with brush clearing, getting rid of a lot of the junk left by the previous owner, and rototilling the garden plot. Chuck went out today and bought a gas trimmer which should be good for dealing with all of the underbrush.

We went for a walk down the property today and planned where to put our log bridge over the stream. There are a couple of large fallen trees that we think we can use, assuming we can shift them! Of course Chester walked right into the stream and lay down, as per usual...We also found where the deer are bedding down at night. Apparently our doe has a new faun and her yearling is still with her - but we haven't seen them since we came back. I also found what I think is bear scat....

Heather is quite excited about getting in a vegetable garden in the old garden plot here. She is also starting an herb garden for me in her greenhouse. We are hoping to take produce to the farmers' market if we get lots. I need to do some research on plants that deer don't like before I start planting new ones, though!

Back at Shobacres

2008-04-07T16:52:00.000-07:00

Greetings all!

We returned to Port Alberni, safe and sound, on Friday April 4. We had a nice welcome home dinner with Heather, Peter and Corynn, and then just crashed. Saturday we spent getting the Shobode set up again, and Sunday we finally stocked up on groceries!

We are both fighting the flu - Chuck still after two weeks of it, and me just starting....After visiting all of our clients, we now have more work on the horizon so we just need to both feel well enough to do it!

After seeing all the family in Calgary and Edmonton, we also had lovely visits with Wendy last Wed in Vancouver, and Jenny, Andrew K, Andrew M and Jess on Thursday, so got caught up with the news and some much-needed hugs! Jenny et al are in the process of buying a house together, so they are very happy about that.

We will be loading up more photos on Flickr - we have a new account you can access if you prefer not to use your own to see our photos so will send that info too.

Much love from Chris, Chuck and Chester

Sho-blog

2008-04-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

First Shobode, then Shoboat, Shobacres and now.... Shoblog!