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| The 2017 blackberry crop - should be ready for picking in August |
- took the deposit bottles in for a refund of $14 - put towards our August Ucluelet fund
- steam cleaned the carpets in our house (2 bedrooms and an office)
- steam cleaned the carpets in Mom's home (entire condo)
- did 2 hours of landscaping at Mom's house
- weeding and mowed lawns at home
- 1 day (2 months) worth of catch-up accounting for the business
- Powerpoint presentation for the business (4 hours)
- cleaned entire house
- did 10,000 plus steps every day plus made sure dog was walked (all but one of the days)
- spent 4 hours on the phone with quickbooks getting our accounting upgraded from a five year old version of software on an 8 year old computer to the online version. This was very time consuming as they had to upgrade the software to a 2015 version just to be able to upgrade to online. Now we will never have this issue again and I can access the information from any computer any time. No more waiting to do accounting until hubby is away from his desk. I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal though. Now I have to learn the new version which is completely different than the old version (*says yay very sarcastically)
So...basically I am exhausted. I did a bunch of other things too but can't even recall them. It's 9am on Sunday and I am still in bed in my jammies with my tea by my side and dog at my feet typing this. Moving rather slow today.
We had a bit of a scare yesterday after picking up hubby from the airport. We went to the farm market that is about half a mile from the airport and could clearly smoke from a bush fire another half a mile away. I went on facebook and saw that they were calling all the volunteer fire fighters in from surrounding towns to assist. It took a couple of hours but they put it out, thank goodness. This spot is within 4 miles of our house.
British Columbia has so many forest fires right now there is a state of emergency that has been called for the whole Province. They do that so municipalities can access funds for things like extra resources to fight the fires and get law enforcement assistance. Thousands of people from the area around where I went to high school have been evacuated and homes have already been lost. Our island has been mostly spared the fires other than this fire and one on the north end which is mostly contained. The thing about this fire is that if it had grown there are many homes, an airport and an airforce base all within 5 miles. It could have been quickly catastrophic. And they say it was human started since there was no lightening at the time. When will humans learn?
Other than making a donation to the Red Cross (a repeat of last year's donation for the Fort McMurray fire victims) I was left feeling a bit helpless. After yesterday I decided I will be making a list of everything to take in case of evacuation. There are lots of lists on the internet to assist you if you want to make one of these lists up. I was surprised at all the things I had totally not thought of like blanket if we had to sleep in a vehicle. Things like water, dog food, passports/cash/all the extra keys to the house and vehicles. Medications, and for us, all our company laptops which hold the information for us to continue to do business. We bought two usb backup batteries two years ago and have used them for traveling but they would go along too. Snacks/food. Also super critical would be to shut off the water and natural gas for our home before departing. Sometimes you only have a few minutes when you are evacuated. We don't have a travel trailer so would load up the truck and the car with the dog and stop and get Mom and hit the road. She is only 3 blocks away so no matter what she would be coming with us - her kitty of course too.
A friend from highschool was very close to being evacuated so she painted her phone number on her horses hair as well as hooves in case she had to let them go suddenly. I found that so sad/scary that she couldn't take them with her. So far the fires have gone further from her house so she hasn't had to leave yet.
So what would you take if you had 10/20 minutes to pack? Wouldn't an emergency packing list be helpful?
Great post. We started our list last night and will complete it today along with some pre packing. We have two large desktops to pack along as well as one laptop. Oh well we can use blankets to secure them. Then we have the camera equipment, big load. Colin has decided to leave things like tripods, cords and other things in his car now. That way he will only have to grab his lights and camera bags. Having been evacuated due to flooding in early May we have things like turning off power and gas down pat. Our home insurance expires in a few weeks and we are increasing it by $70,000.00. Don't forget to take photos of all the contents in your home including inside cupboards and drawers. We haven't done it for a few years so it is time for an update.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine your friend having to face turning her horses loose. Hopefully it won't come to that.
We don't know yet what caused the fire here yesterday but they think it was set. Homes have been lost and at the moment with high winds it is still a rank 3 although 80% contained. What is it with people and stupidity?
No idea....humans are pretty evil. I just saw on facebook our small fire has flareups again so they again are calling our volunteer firefighters back in. They left a couple there all night but they needed more help. We have no fulltime firefighters here, all 100% volunteers. Without them we would be lost. I actually think a movie of your stuff would be quicker, take it with a camera or cellphone including serial numbers. We have yet to do that too.
DeleteColin says photos are much better as you can't freeze a video or see details. We actually have a manual on all appliances and other things that have serial numbers.
DeleteSorry to hear about your flare up. Our fire is now at 55 hectares. We have a few paid firefighters but the rest are all volunteer here in Lake Country. However we had fire trucks come from many miles away to help as well as the wildfire crews and their aircraft.
The Lower Mainland is gearing up for 13000 evacuees... Chilliwack and Cloverdale will be welcoming places... This is the worst I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteOnly worse by the Ft McMurray fire but the devastation will be pretty equal. So many fires. The neighbor RCMP officer got called out last night to depart at 330am to assist with the evacuations in the interior. Very scary.
DeleteA good friend of ours is on his way to Williams Lake. He is an RCMP from Winnipeg. Praying for you all.
DeleteMy goodness, that is not something I have ever given any thought to because I don't live in that kind of "at risk" area (I hope). And it's amazing what you would never have thought about isn't it. On another note, I am just in awe and admiration of all our emergency services. They must see some terrible things but do a fantastic job. In the UK my favourite "charity" is the RNLI (the lifeboat volunteers). They are actually not a charity as they don't want the way they run their shop being interfered with by the government so net result is they have to do all their own fund-raising and they are ALL volunteers. The kind of people you would be really glad to see when you needed them right. Stay safe. Anna
ReplyDeleteA lot of these areas have never been at risk before, just a hot dry summer with lightening strikes and careless humans. So so sad
DeletePhew! You have been busy.
ReplyDeleteManaged to pick another decent raspberry harvest this afternoon, our blackberries won't be far behind (I hope!)
How scary about the fire and awful to hear that your fire service are all volunteers. xxx
Wish I had some raspberries. There is a blueberry farm not too far away that I might go and self-pick though. I have to be really careful about freezing things until after we go fishing next week as likely will be filling up the freezer with fish.
DeleteI meant to say most Firehalls in Canada are volunteer, except major cities like Vancouver, Nanaimo and Victoria, Almost every single small town has a firehall full of the most giving people.
DeleteWe are supposed to have a hurricane evac plan, but we don't. Those lists are so long and daunting. They freak me out and I never get started. I keep asking my husband to get on board and help because it's overwhelming for me, but he doesn't. Never thought of a fire evac though. That's terrifying!
ReplyDeleteHurricanes would freak me out too, one tropical storm in Mexico was enough for me. Maybe start with a small box? Maybe your daughter could help?
DeleteWatching the BC news and checking FB for current reports on the fires. This has not been seen in such a wide area of the province in my memory.
ReplyDeleteJoy
No, and I went to highschool in Quesnel and don't ever remember anything like this.
DeleteSound like you been busy and organized. Hope all your next week goes well.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is on
Thanks Dora, you too!
DeleteWhen you are in a fire risk area it has to be scary. We only have them during years of extreme drought, like last summer. Sadly there were several then.
ReplyDeleteWe have had very dry summers the last five years and although we had a lot of snow it is really dry now. We are not normally in a risk area at all. This is our new normal
DeleteI'm glad you posted about the fire situation because I had planned to make a donation to Red Cross but forgot. Now I have. That was pretty scary to have that fire so close to you! I didn't think anything like that would happen on the island but then again you can't control everyone's stupid, careless and dangerous behaviour!!! I don't think I have to worry about forest fires (though London is called the forest city, but years ago I prepared a box in the basement in case of tornado or power outage. I think it was in 1997 that the whole eastern seaboard's power grid went down and we were without power for 3 days....in August!! It quickly became a time of neighbours helping neighbours and lots of BBQing to use up everyone's meat before it went bad! I have several 24 hour candles, a crank radio, and 2 shakeable flashlights. We have used up the cases of water so I need to replace those. I never buy plastic bottles of water but for an emergency I would do so. We have had a couple of days with tornado warnings this summer so I need to update this box soon!
ReplyDeleteIt hasn't rained since you were here :( so things are tinder dry. That fire was within 1 km of Goose Spit where we went when you were here, just around the next bay area. I don't miss the tornado warnings, we had them every summer in Alberta (and there were a couple when hubby was just there). We have some emergency items, mainly for earthquake but I didn't think about evacuating before due to a fire so that list is slightly different.
DeleteWhy not just go ahead and pack everything on your list that you can? It would be an easy matter to put away things like passport, durable snacks, etc. Keep it in a suitcase or backpack, and you've got instant peace of mind. Sort of.
ReplyDeleteI realize there are some items you need now, like the laptop, so can't be packed ready to go. But it should be a simple matter to grab those at the last minute, compared to running around like a crazy person trying to get everything on your list.
Hopefully it will never come to that. But we here in Colorado have had our share of big forest fires in past years. It's dry as a bone now, and the state is full of careless tourists. A lethal combination.
The forrest fires are so terrible and the situation makes me so sad.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get rain soon. i will make a list of things to bring as well because you just never know.....