Renos with Rosie - News Bulletin: Bigfoot spotted in Campground!

Here I am laying around with our cat Missy out on the driveway in “Mr. Big”, our 1985 17 ' Bigfoot fiberglass trailer, the two of us are listening to some tunes on our new Bose Bluetooth speaker and while Missy prowls around exploring, I get to do a little writing. How sweet is that?

Over the last few weeks we've been busy getting everything ready for our first actual camping adventure and it's been a lot of work and a lot of fun. The painting was a big job but it has made a huge difference. Going from the 1970s rec room fake wood paneling to a clean modern look with just about everything painted out in white has been huge!

Rose's new fashion accessory, wonder if it will catch on?

In the middle of painting

Me doing the finicky stuff

My lovely wife Rose did her usual magic and reupholstered the seat cushions in a nice, hard wearing gray fabric with piping and zippers and all of that fancy stuff. She started off trying to sew them from some cheaper orange fabric that looked like a steal at $2 a yard but soon realized that it was not going to work. So instead of the orange with floral accents that I showed you in the last post, we now have gray and yellow.

She also whipped up some curtains in a nice gray and white stripe and ordered a fancy custom made shaped rod to fit the 3 front windows so the curtains bunch up nicely in the corners and stay out of the way.

Of course nothing is ever simple so I had to adjust the rod a bit, but being a big time professional installer of window coverings, I pulled a rabbit out of the hat and made it work, with no grumbling!

(Hardly any)

Part of the new curtains project involved sewing and installing them on the cat commode that we built for Missy under one of the beds. This deluxe VIP (very important pussycat) area also has a new floor finished in the same wood look vinyl planks that the rest of the trailer got. It looks great and we haven’t received any complaints from the occupant……yet. 

Private VIP - Cat Commode

After all of the various necessary but superficial appearance work was done, I figured I had better get busy on finding a vehicle to pull Mr. Big around with. Now that we have a "Two bed, two bath, 112 Sq. Ft. trailer" ready to roll, poor old Jimmy just isn’t up to the task anymore.

New vinyl plank flooring over top of old lino

Ready for the road.

Over the last few weeks we thought about it as we hunted through zillions of ads on Kijiji and Auto Trader and after vacillating back and forth between a pickup and an SUV we finally settled on a 2004 GMC Envoy with 158,000 km on it, practically new!

I can’t believe the shape this thing is in, it’s absolutely immaculate! It’s rated to tow around 5000 lb. so it should do okay with Mr. Big’s dry weight of 1850 lbs. We decided to name him “The Boss” and he seems to be happy with that, the only one who’s allowed to push (pull) around Mr. Big is The Boss, makes sense, right?

The Boss and Mr. Big at Moose Lake

After picking up The Boss I set about figuring out exactly what I needed for a hitch and trailer brakes. Everyone I talked to said, “GET AN ANTI-SWAY BAR!” My dilemma was that my trailer is light and I don’t need a big giant expensive hitch.

Not to be defeated by lack of information or experience with this sort of thing, I determined to search the internet and behold! There is indeed an adapter plate that mounts over the hitch, and the ball that comes with the anti-sway bar bolts right to it, I got it at “The Hitch House” and it works perfectly and saved me over $300! 

Sway bar mounted on hitch adapter

I also bought a trailer brake controller, mounted it on The Boss and Voila, now I have trailer brakes. Of course when I went to head out for a weekend foray to Moose Lake for a Men’s retreat, they locked up and the tires made distressing skidding noises, drat! 

I figured I would drive around the block and fiddle with the brake controller and sure enough, now they seem to be fine, although I will probably have to take it in and have all of the undercarriage stuff checked out before any other long trips.

So far everything has gone pretty well, the drive to Moose Lake was almost uneventful, I did have to stop and fix the latch on the storage compartment after it swung open on the highway but a couple of turns of the wrench and it was good to go.

The only other hiccup was clipping a rough approach at Franchere Bay store and bending the step mount a bit, “oops!.” I kicked it back into place however and now it’s as good as new. Now I know that there are low things hanging down under the trailer, who knew?!

I’ve enjoyed picking the brain of the guys who have trailering experience and I’ve learned a lot, including the fact that hauling a trailer adds about 50% to the cost of your gas, ouch! 

When I got home from Moose Lake, I answered many, many, many questions from Rose about what it was like camping in Mr. Big and it was soon decided that we needed to go for a trip together. Apparently hearing about my experiences at Moose Lake are not quite the same as being there. We also wanted to try out a short trip, not too far from home to see how Missy makes out spending an extended period in Mr. Big.

We decided on an overnight trip to Pembina River Provincial Park, just an hour West of Edmonton. Over the years we’ve visited the picnic area many times but never camped overnight so we decided it would be a good test of our ability as a family, (Mom, Dad and geriatric cat) to cohabitate in about a 112 sq. ft. space for a couple of days.

So far, so good! We managed to get out here, get parked, and get settled in with only a minor kerfuffle over setting up the awning, I hope that gets easier over time, it was definitely a bit of a hassle! 

It must have sounded something like this to an observer, “Hold this here, OUCH, my fingers are pinched, don’t let that arm go out too far, drat, you let the arm go too far, move that back, stand here, tighten that knob, no, the other knob……growl, grumble, etc. etc. etc.

Parked at Pembina River Provincial Park

Enjoying our first meal in Mr. Big!

It turns out that it’s a beautiful campground with lot’s of nice riverside trails, tons of wild roses and lovely songbirds singing their hearts out. We went for a nice walk, read our books for a while, cooked some corn, potatoes and pork chops on the BBQ and had a lovely evening playing checkers. After it got dark we set up our little 15” tv-dvd combo and watched “Stranger than Fiction” one of our favourite movies while cuddled up on the couch with Missy beside us.

Of course cats being cats, Missy decided to crawl in behind the water tank in a tiny little cavity and basically disappeared for an hour. Rose was rushing around in a panic looking in overhead cabinets, the fridge and inside pots and pans as if somehow Missy could have become half her size and a lot more spry and jumped into impossible places. I calmly told her that there was only one place she could be and not to worry, she would come out when she was ready.

Of course that was “not good enough Joe” so she had me move the cushions and lift the cover and sure enough, what do I see but two wide cat eyes staring back at me. We left the cover off but she was happy as a clam in there and Rose eventually lifted her out.

Missy's hidey hole

The one other fly in the ointment, (bone of contention) is the ongoing saga of the "Ottoman wars". It started when Rose brought home an attractive but completely impractical yellow rope poof, whatever the heck that is! My first (and continuous) reaction was “this thing’s got to go!”

I rarely get my way, but I convinced her  that being round, it just might present a hazard to everyone but especially the cat, in a trailer designed to move. Yes it is a cat palace, but a rolling one! It also looked very expensive, (not that cost is an object when decorating palaces.

Eventually, she returned it and came home with a slightly less ridiculous alternative that I would still dearly love to get rid of. Unfortunately, the girls are sticking together on this one and Missy voted with Rose to keep it.

Missy votes with Rose to keep the cube thing that I have decided to love.

So there you have it, a 17' Bigfoot has been spotted in the woods, and everything worked out just fine, thanks for reading!

P. S. If you enjoyed reading this story, please feel free to: like, +1, share, recommend forward or otherwise promote it. Thanks

 

Renos With Rosie - A Trailers Tale....in search of Bigfoot

All winter I heard it, "tap tap tap" then the sound of a squirrel or cat video and then again, "tap tap tap, tap tap tap". I should have understood what it meant! After all, I've been here before - in the scary place, that season when a bored wife with a few bucks in her pocket is searching, searching for, "A PROJECT"!

Noooooooo!!!

Rose talked about "the cuteness factor" and I remember her mentioning "Bolers" and "Scamps" and maybe even "Bigfoot" and still I didn't catch on. "Perhaps she's talking about some kind of mutant squirrels" I said to myself. Instead, it turned out to be tiny trailers she was searching for.

I imagined that when the winter was over and we could get out to the cabin and spend some time there relaxing, her new hobby of searching for small, lightweight trailers would come to an end, but "little did he know" as they say. 

When my lovely wife get's an idea, sometimes there is really nothing to be done but get on board and eventually, after much leg dragging, nail biting and clenching of various body parts, that's what I was forced to do.

I got into much trouble the first time she found a trailer that she thought was just right because these things go fast, one minute they show up on Kijiji and the next minute, they're sold! She mentioned it, I think I said "sure, let's have a look, but not until the money clears the bank" (it just so happens that we had just sold a rental property and we were waiting to have access to the funds) and bang, it was sold, "oops". 

Of course she kept looking and the very next week she found another one for sale right here in Edmonton, only 10 minutes from our house. This one was a 17' Bigfoot molded fiberglass trailer in great shape and it had just been listed so we immediately called the seller and made arrangements to come around the next day and view it.

If you know Rose, you won't be surprised to hear that she immediately hit it off with the young family selling the trailer. Of course I played the part of the slightly stand-offish, skeptical, tire kicking buyer while Rose ooohhhed and awwwed and gushed how perfect the trailer is and how cute their little daughter is, (she was very cute). When the time came for negotiating the price and Ryan fixed his low end price at a firm number, Rose offered him $100 more if he could deliver it to our driveway. So much for negotiating!

So we wrote out a deposit cheque and shook hands and went home to talk about what the plan is to transform our new family member into a rolling cat palace.

I forgot to mention earlier that one of the big reasons for getting a trailer is so we can bring our 17 year old diabetic cat named "Missy" on our holidays this year. Since we don't have any kids at home anymore, there's no one around to give Missy her twice a day insulin injections when we go for holidays so now the plan is for her to come with us in the Bigfoot trailer.

So now, where Scarlet (my old 1968 Ambassador that I sold in the fall) once stood on our driveway, we now have "Yeti" (name under review). 

Over the last week I fixed a bunch of little things, set up the trailer wiring harness on Jimmy to match, registered the new trailer and now we've started on the upholstery, window coverings and preparing for painting.

Rose has spent many hours thinking about what the final look will be so right now I'm just trying not to get bowled over in the rush to invoke "the cuteness factor" in the plentiful, but as yet untapped, raw potential of our 1985 Bigfoot trailer.

It's going to be a good summer, right Missy?

Before.....

Stripping out the old curtains.

Rose, making new upholstery covers for the seat cushions.

The new orange upholstery fabric along with the accent fabric and the dusty old striped stuff.

Goodbye dusty old drapes.

The authentic, still working clock.

Saying "Goodbye" to my First Love.....my 1968 AMC Ambassador

Before anyone who knows me gets worried, my lovely wife Rose is doing well and we are still happily married, "whew!"

The "first love" that I am writing about is not a woman, it is a car, the very first car that I ever owned. I have been sentimentally and some would say foolishly hanging onto her for the past 20 years or so, ever since the poor thing was unceremoniously dumped off (by me) at my parents acreage like so much scrap.

Scarlet (that's her name) came into my life on a bright sunny summer day when I was thirteen years old and it was love at first sight! I hadn't really discovered girls yet so a well turned ankle held considerably less fascination for me than did a red bucket seat with a center console and a 343 cubic inch, high compression V8 engine with a 4 barrel carb!

Scarlet and I in 1982, both of us in our prime!

So the girls in my old neighborhood of Goldbar in South Edmonton swallowed their disappointment at my distracted fascination with Scarlet and went on about their lives: a little discouraged maybe that the cute blonde fellow that lived on their block was temporarily off the market.

This is me around the time "Scarlet first became one of the family

For a 13 year old that was accustomed to his dads big 4 door Ramblers, the new 2 door, 1968 Ambassador with it's snazzy 2-tone red and white paint job seemed to be a pretty sexy, exciting mode of transportation!

Gold Bar was a very sedate suburban neighborhood in those days and the Petry household was probably about the weirdest and wildest bunch on that particular block. Between my dad "Ronnie" my mom "Bernie" and my older sisters Cheryl and Chris along with my fuzzy headed older brother "Terrible" (Terry) we all at one time or another gave our neighbors fits.

This was in the early seventies of course so a lot of people were sort of going through the whole "turn on, tune in and drop out" groovy psychedelic phase and the Petry household was not immune. Heady times, what with the moon landing a few years earlier (if you believe it was real!) and the 1972 win over the Soviets in the "Summit Series" Canada vs our arch nemesis, team USSR. Who can forget the last game in Moscow with the Canadian team coming from behind and Paul Henderson scoring the final series winning goal with 34 seconds left! Go Canada!

Final game 1972 Summit Series in Moscow

So for the next few years, Scarlet was a part of the Petry family and I think it was mostly my mom who drove her and of course when I was finally old enough to drive when I was in grade 11 it was mostly the red rocket that I drove. For me there was a very real emotional attachment to the car that I learned to drive in and so when a friend of my dads smashed up the front end one day, I was more than a little bit sad.

Thankfully it all turned out okay when my parents decided to give their smashed up car to me and all I needed to do was find a way to fix her up and get her back on the road. With help from my dad and his buddy "Rolly" a mechanic who worked at my dad's service station "The Saratoga" a Pacific 66 truck stop in South Edmonton we soon had her back on the road.

Of course as soon as that was accomplished my new priority was getting a great stereo system installed. In those days that meant a cassette tape player and I bucked out for a good Pioneer system that rattled a few eardrums as Scarlet cruised down the street. Ah those were the days, faux sheepskin seat covers, Appliance chrome mag wheels on "slicks" (extra wide tires with almost no tread) a leather wrapped steering wheel and Steppenwolfs, "Born to be Wild" blasting from the stereo! Sweet!

But life goes on and Scarlet being a product of the North American auto industry of the 1960's had a few reliability and utility issues and eventually I decided to park her for the duration or at least until I could afford to really do her up nice.

In the mean time I had met Rose, who I might add was never jealous of Scarlet, seeming to understand our complicated relationship. She very kindly made room for "the other woman" in my life and seemed to develop an attachment of her own to my baby.

Scarlet as she looked sitting forlornly on our driveway (for 10 long years)

The cockpit, with some of my embelishments

Kait and Lola say goodbye to Scarlet

Today's me, holding the picture of Scarlet and I taken by Rose in 1982

Speaking of babies, along came Kait and we decided that what we needed was a more reliable, modern car and Scarlet retired to my parents acreage in the Rochester area south of Athabasca and there she remained until my parents sold the place and I had Scarlet delivered to my driveway.

I wish that my kids, Kait and April had been able to go for a ride in Scarlet and had a chance to get to know her a bit but I just never had the perfect combination of money, time and inclination to rejuvenate her once again, oh well.

So after having her sitting on my driveway for the past 10 years or so, I finally gave in to the whispered words in my ear, "sell Scarlet, sell Scarlet" and I did it, I sold her down the river....or hopefully I sold her to a better home where she has at least a chance of being restored to her former glory and once again classing up the streets of Edmonton.

Goodbye Scarlet.....thanks for all the memories!

In Pursuit of Excellence (In Photography)

"You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books that you have read, the music you have heard and the people you have loved.
-Ansel Adams

Photography can be art, but strangely it is also sometimes nothing more than personal record keeping, what we might term a snapshot. Often we just want to record a moment or occasion in our lives without any attempt at creating anything more and that's okay of course, being a perfectly legitimate use of photographic technology. 

The vast majority of photographs taken on any given day are exactly that and no more, a photographic record destined for Facebook or Instagram, possibly to be "shared" or "liked" by members of the recorder's inner circle, their "friends".

But the potential, ahhh, the potential of the medium is so very vast these days, it's a bit mind blowing, that is to say, EXTREMELY INTIMIDATING!

Every time I start to think I'm making some progress towards transitioning some of my work from digital record keeping to creating art, I come across someone else's photographs that very quickly illustrate just how far I have to go. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the perspective) photographic technology is advancing incredibly rapidly and as one technique or technology is mastered or at least partially understood, something new becomes possible. It's quite the challenge to keep up!    

I think the best thing I ever did to help my photography skills move forward was to join a photography club. If I am honest with myself I have to admit that I am guilty of being a bit of a lazy photographer (in the past). These days I am trying very hard to learn better habits and skills and to push, pull or drag my photography to a higher level.

When I first joined the St. Albert Photography Club http://www.stalbertphotoclub.com/
I was a little bit intimidated (and still am) by the skills of some of the members. Most of the members are not professional photographers, but rather they are for the most part, talented, passionate amateurs who love to learn and share their work with others.

Part of the process of a photography club is the submissions night that takes place every month during the club season. On that special night, members bring printed images, (as large as they can afford to print) up to the maximum size of 11" x 14" unframed but in a simple mat, to pit against the work of other club members.

The other way of entering is the digital submissions category and that is how I first entered the fray in an effort to determine if my images made the cut, if they would stand up to the critiquing of the other members of the club. At first I was regularly disappointed by the response to my submissions and in hind sight I see now that I often submitted badly chosen images, it was quite a revelation. 

A Non-winner from the "Country Roads" submissions theme.

It took quite a while to break into the winners circle and that only happened by accident.

When friends used some of my images in their home, they decided to re-print one of them in a larger size (because they liked it so much, wahoo!) and I asked for the old one printed at 11"x14" which was exactly the right size for submissions night.

My first winning image

I submitted it in the open category in October of 2013 and won first place, a very heady feeling let me tell you! That win ignited my renewed interest (my photo-mojo) and spurred me on to print more images, take more photos and much more carefully shoot, select and enter the various categories.

It's a lot of work planning and executing creative entries for themes such as: weathered wood, opposites, alone in a crowd, broken, fog/smoke or country roads. I've noticed though that it's good to be challenged, it's good to have stiff competition that consistently forces you to submit your best work for even a hope of having your images placing well. 

All of last season I was mentally chasing one particular individual who is consistently entering absolutely great images, technically perfect, exciting, creative and well crafted art. There are lot's of great photographers in the club, but this guy consistently submits excellent work and he makes every month even more of a challenge.

I love this one and expected it to do well......what can I say, it didn't even place but I still love it!

I called this post "In Pursuit of Excellence" because I wanted to make a point about how this kind of a challenge can be such a motivator to up your game, to push you and motivate you to spend more time thinking and creating something beautiful or meaningful that is well beyond what we might create on our own, without outside influence and a challenging environment.

You might believe that art is subjective and of course you are right, but until you have had a selection of your work critiqued by your peers (and betters) and you have truly compared your best to the best that is out there, it is very easy to convince yourself that your work is good or even great and leave it at that. 

After all, it's mine and I'm awesome, at least that's what my mom used to tell me and she should know!

A Marriage Blessing

I've been to many weddings before, including my own and I must say that the day that Rose and I got married is about the closest emotional parallel to my daughters recent wedding. Of course when your daughter gets married: emotionally, physically and financially you are bound to be heavily involved!

It started for me years ago when Kait and I (and sometimes Rose and/or April) would sit  down together and watch "Say Yes to the Dress". That's why when the time finally arrived to pick a wedding dress for Kait, I wanted to be involved. I figured I had earned it after watching dozens, or perhaps hundreds (thousands?) of wedding shows over the years.

So I was there for some, but not all of the appointments and eventually, Kait and I picked up the dress together and I was entrusted with hanging it in my "studio" and keeping it safe until the wedding. I must say that I enjoyed the process, spending time with my wife and daughters and really getting into the part of the cost conscious father of the bride.

She Said "Yes" to the dress!

Just for fun, I dived into the role. "Yes it's lovely....but how much does it cost?" 

Of course there were other aspects of the wedding to plan and when the kids announced that they were planning to have the ceremony at Nick's parents "farm" (3 acres just off of the Manning Freeway) we were excited to see it. Kait had mentioned over and over (and over) about the cute little red barn on the property that she envisioned the ceremony taking place in front of.

When we went to see it, I immediately saw that there was an even better place on the property to hold the ceremony and Rose agreed when I pointed it out to her. (Since that day, there has been some historical revision going on and now it seems everyone involved has stepped forward to take the credit for suggesting that the ceremony take place where it eventually did.)

 The truth however is that it was I who first actually said the fateful words, "let's do it over there" in the lovely spot between two rows of towering, leafy green shade trees that we later began calling, "cathedral grove."

Of course, the problem at that point was deciding how to approach Kait and Nick with our idea, (yes you guessed it, like most good things in my life, the idea was a product of a congenial collaboration between Rose and myself).

Couples planning a wedding can be notoriously difficult to influence without causing undue stress and tension so we gave the matter of how to broach the subject careful thought before spontaneously blurting out our idea at the first opportunity.

Surprisingly, it was quickly decided that "Cathedral Grove" was indeed the ideal spot and so it proved to be, absolutely gorgeous and since the wedding day turned out to be hot and sunny (+29) the shade was wonderful.

It was a beautiful day and everything went perfectly, just a few little hiccups to keep the stress level up such as being short one cable for the wireless mic for the officiant, (Nicks Aunt) but an emergency delivery by the father of one of the groomsmen quickly solved that, whew! 

The ceremony was only slightly delayed and thanks to our intrepid wedding planners Evy and Pam who did everything from setting up chairs to arranging various pretty decorations, everything else went smoothly.

No-one was brained during the smashing of the pinatas, the porta-potty didn't fall over and there was very little traffic on the road during the ceremony, all good things!

Kait, Nick and the "dog of honour" Lola

One of my responsibilities (self imposed) was to say a blessing over the marriage during the ceremony and I managed to get through it with a minimum of waterworks. It proved to be a very emotional ceremony with a lot of sniffles among the audience, and the participants. (Nick developed a curious pollen allergy that lasted the length of the ceremony) 

I enjoyed writing the blessing and speaking it over the marriage of my daughter Kait and her new husband Nick Jewell and I thought I would share it here as well for those who missed the wedding or who may have an opportunity to one day speak a similar blessing over someone they love.

Blessing Kait & Nick, July 13 2014

"Good afternoon everyone, I'm Kait's father and I asked for an opportunity to say a blessing over their marriage today. There are many ways that we can choose to bless someone, it could be as simple as "Live long and prosper." (Vulcan greeting/salute)

And that’s a good blessing, but I’m a little more ambitious than that when it comes to my daughters and when it comes to this marriage.

I could choose to bless the marriage as the father of the bride, as a couple along with my wife Rose, the mother of the bride and of course we do give our blessing to this marriage, (whew).

But you already knew that because Nick came and asked for Kait’s hand in marriage and for our blessing and we were happy to give it.

I believe it's important to speak words of blessing over people and especially over those that we love and we love our children, we love you Kait and we love you Nick as a good man and as our future, (very short time in the future) son in law.

And I believe that there is a blessing that comes from being married and today before God and all of us as witnesses, Kait and Nick will be married. And of course we're not in a church, but God doesn't live in churches, He lives right here (inside us), and right here (all around us).

So the blessing that comes from being married is a good thing, it is, but.....it's incomplete. The full blessing available to us in our marriages is not an automatic part of being married, but instead it comes as a result of inviting God into our marriages and into our lives on a daily basis.

So Kait, as your father and Nick, as your father-in law, that is my hope and my prayer for your marriage and for your lives together. 

So now I'm going to pray and I invite you all to join with me as I invite God's blessing over this marriage.

"Love, Respect, Joy, Won't take each other for granted, Home, Children, Prosperity, Health, Unity."

Rose and I are fortunate to have two wonderful daughters and we now have a great son-in -law added to the mix. For now the immediate family consists of:
Five adults, one dog, two cats and a bunny named Basil.

It was an eventful summer, but it sure flew by fast and now the wedding pictures are in so we can enjoy re-living the adventure as we retreat indoors for the lovely Alberta winter.

Hamming it up at the shower

Barb and Rose doing the reception flowers

Making the center pieces for the reception