Picture from Victor Anthony's Blog

Washing the stop sign at Taylor Bay at Malaspina on a rainy day. For other images on Victor's Gabriola blog click on: http://gabrioladailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Guess what Tessa got for Xmas

Xmas on Gabriola

Claire arrived on this ferry on Xmas day. We passed Taylor at the Alpaca farm wishing all the drivers going by a merry Xmas. What a lovely idea. On boxing day we woke up to fog and the haunting sounds of fog horns. It reminds you that you live on a small island.

The last rose of 2009

This rose just made it, sort of. Sit tight for the first new rose of 2010. It was an interesting year. Started in the emerg. at NYGH; then meeting a whole new part of the family; a very dry summer and how to live when the well goes dry; a trip to Montreal to meet Linda and Uri; the Wizard of Oz and ending getting the clinic into the finals of the Aviva Community Fund. Phew, 2010 looks to be just as busy.

I hope 2010 is a good year for you and we really look forward to seeing all of you on Gabriola.

View from the "Lunch Bunch" webcams on one of the busiest days of the year.

Almost the last shopping day and there are 2 hour waits on the Gabriola ferry. The big trucks are having difficulty getting on because at high tide the ramp on this ferry has a steep bump which can catch low undercarriages. BC Ferries fixed this last time we had a replacement ferry. For some reason they wont do it this year and we are going to have to put up with it till we get our newly refurbished ferry back in April.

En route for Victoria

Nanaimo and Mt Benson from the passenger deck of the Queen of Bowen ferry. The drive to Victoria takes about one and a half hours, about the time it took to drive from home to work in Toronto on a bad day. We shopped till we dropped and then back to Gabriola, eating take out supper while we waited for the ferry. We did have lunch in a really nice Thai restaurant on Fort S., and paid my first visit to Lee Valley - I don't like their system, reminded me of the old LCBO, paper and pencil in hand. On-line works better.

A busy weekend

Lucky was the only one who got to relax in my chair this weekend and next weekend looks the same. Claire will arrive on Friday too. Tomorrow we are going to Victoria for the day!

Gabriola is in the finals - yeah!

Lawrence Spero AVIVA community fund - We ended in 20th position with 19,150 total votes in the semi final. Thanks everyone, for geting Gabriola “the little Island with the big idea” into the judging finals. – January 25th, 2010 – should be exciting!

Day two at Santa's Grotto

More dogs and more kids. But it was a lot of fun. These are the helpers on sunday.

Santa in support of the Gabriola Community Clinic

Spent the day, and will spend tomorrow taking pictures of people and their dogs with Santa. Folklife village are letting us use their empty store and the backdrop is the set from last years pantomime. More dogs than kids!

Lets get Gabriola into the final

Gabriola made it to the semi-final of the Aviva Community Challenge. Please help us get our emergency clinic by voting everyday at http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf3958
this is legitimate and they do remind you to do this daily voting on the site.

Ask your friends, relatives and co-workers to vote. We need the clinic

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.