The Wizard of Oz - Sunday Matinee

The run is over and the excitement still lingers. Who will ever forget Steve Elders computer blowing up (1st photo), the fire alarm caused by the fog machine (me bad) or the wonderful cast (2nd picture), the great music and lyrics, makeup and of course the costumes (Tessa, Jane, Christine and Wendy). Way to go Gabriola Players.

Gabriola placed 14th in the third round of the Aviva Community Fund competition and moves into the semi final. There are 60 semi-finalists and the new voting starts Dec 2nd. and runs until Dec 16th. We must be in the top “25” most voted for to go into the “judging” finals.

Thank you Gabriolans and all the voters from around the world – be ready to start voting again Dec 2nd.

Teazle's think spring has come

We have lots of teazles and usually we cut them for dried flowers. This year there are a few still in the garden and in the last few days they seem to think that spring has come because their seeds are germinating and leaves are starting to grow.

The River runs under - now!

We finally gave up on the river over the driveway and now have a culvert and the road has been back-filled to provide a better surface. After an initial flush of water the stream has gone back to a gentle flow, well at least until the next heavy rains.

Gabriola in the dark - again.

Its hard to believe but we had another 3 hour power outage. After dinner we sat with our head lights on and read.

Craft Fair at the Community Hall

This weekend we had the first of the Xmas Craft Fairs - this one at the community hall near the south end of the island (at least a 15 minute drive).
Its a great way to see what up to 40 of our artists have been up to and a great opportunity to spend time with friends. On the way home we even got to stop of for tea with one of them.
The vendors in the pictures are Elizabeth (http://www.stitchingforsocialchange.ca/Abbypromotion.htm) and Jane our next door neighbor (http://www.gobc.ca/gabriola-island-travel/glassworks-anvil-art-jane-roger-ferland_1381).

Venice in the Salish Sea

The water actually on the driveway is about 10 inches deep. Below this stream we are puting down gravel to reduce the potholes caused by the heavy rain. As you can see we have quite a long driveway.

Our driveway!

This is the water from the 707 acre wood flowing over the edge of our driveway:

Costume parade - Wizard of Oz

These are the costumes for some of the cast of Oz.

The four costumiers describe themselves as a group of people who think that there are never enough sparkles, glue, frills and froth, that GIRO (Gabriola Island Recycling Organization) is our local theatre supply store, and that tea, cookies and tea biscuits solve everything. If this is also your version of reality, come join us.

Its still raining. The water is almost up to the bridge and in fact the stream is backed up and flooding the lower pasture as well as the driveway. We seem to have acquired a heron as a consequence. What a waste of drinking water although perhaps it will soak down into the aquifer. The alpacas are living in the their shed and look very bedraggled, so does Lawrence! Maybe they know something and we should all head for the caves.

Winter Storm - Power Outage

Our second winter storm in a week. Power was out for about 3 hours and came on just after we finished dinner. Between the barbecue and our butane stove we can cook anything. Not fancy but definitely delicious - see Tessa's smile. Candlelight is rather nice and we do have lots of battery lights. We expect 3cm of the wet stuff tonight. For those that prefer to eat out, Suzie's restaurant has a generator and I counted 20 cars as I drove by in the dark at 5pm. Imagine driving in a city with no street lights, well we have no street lights and its really dark on the road, we drive mainly with full beam lights, dipping only when the occasional car comes the other way. Two nights ago a dinner guest couldn't find our driveway in the dark and in spite of calling for directions never in fact made it.

Signs of Fall

Is it fall or winter. In any event the pond is full and the papyrus are still growing. The ginko leaves however have finally dropped. The fence arround the ginko is to stop the deer from eating them. We still have roses though, at least the ones that grow above deer height.

After the storm

Last night the winds got up in the 80-90 kph range and there was a lot of debris on the road. The first picture is freddy eating some of the fallen tree trash - the alpacas think its candy. The second pictue shows how much rain there has been - our season stream is flowing two months early. The bridge to the guest cottage is now a necessity and not just decoration. In fact the stream is flowing over the driveway and Tessa has to park her car at the cottage to avoid the rather deep ford.The cisterns and the well are all full and the tourists are all gone.

The next two weeks we will be hard at it putting the finishing touches to OZ. Tessa has a costumes meeting today, they are finishing off the lion.

After a summer of drought we are now in the rainy season. All this rain is wonderful not depressing or grey. The well is filling up, even our seasonal stream has some water in it. Since it receives the drainage from the 700 acre park that's not too surprising. Water is a big issue here and we are slowly adding to our capture and storage capacity so that hopefully we wont have to buy any water next summer. A lot depends on how wet a winter we have.