Tuesday, November 28, 2006

 

It's So Cold...

How cold is it?

It's so cold that you have to go north to get warm. That's right! This morning we had colder temperatures than Uranium City where we used to live. In fact from Uranium City north all the way to Alert (as far north as you can go in Canada) was about -25 C. (That's 11 below F.) Here it was -31 (That's about 24 below F.) There were no colder temperatures in Canada except in the Yukon. Whitehorse was the same as here but in central Yukon it was about -42 (F. and C. are the same at 40 below). Even southern B.C. (Penticton) was cold for down there, being about 0 degrees F.

The car has been weathering OK. Thanks in a large part to our attached garage. We warm it up for about 10 minutes. It takes a few more minutes, driving down the road, to actually warm up.

It's so cold that yesterday and today most of the installers for Peace Windows did not work.

It's so cold that some water lines at work frose up. I opened the cabinet under the sink to let in some warmer air and they eventally thawed out.

It's so cold that when Colleen and I stopped at "Tim Horton's" for a bowl of hot chili, we could not get any because their water heater had blown up!

It's so cold that at the school across the street most people have left their vehicles running this evening (even with the high cost of fuel).

It's so cold that it acutally got colder during the day. This afternoon it dropped to -33. (28 below F.) Tonight won't be much colder but the wind chill will make it like -45 (50 below F.). However help is on the way. Over the next couple of days things should warm up to normal, somewhere between 0 C. and 0. F. It will feel like the banana belt!

Here's some more:

It's so cold bears are using electric blankets.
It's so cold a coyote tried to buy jumber cables.
It's so cold a hitch hikes was seen holding out a picture of his thumb.

And with that...

It's so cold its time to hibernate!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

 

Changes, Changes

"The only thing that does not change is change.
 

This is Peace Windows where I work, for now. The business moved into this building less than a year ago and I was given a lot more room in which to build doors.

 

Some doors, of the many I was building this past summer and fall. Things got quite busy and sometimes stressful for a while.
 

More doors! You can see my tool rack and chop saw bench in the background. In the picture below, the smaller frames on the right are windows that others in the shop are building. The window people have now taken over all the space I had and most of the doors are being brought in already built. I have been moved into a little room smaller than our garage at home. Now I put in lites (glass in the doors), make fixes, and build a few rush doors or special ones they cannot bring in. When I'm not busy with doors, I help out wherever I can.

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What does the future hold? Only the Lord knows how long I will work here. Only the Lord knows how long we will be in this area. But for now Colleen (see her blog) and I get up and drived to work together four days a week. On Fridays I take the truck and go to a men's prayer breakfast at 6:00 a.m. before going to work, usually a shorter day. So we are getting up earlier than we ever have (except when I worked at the dairy back when Ron was born), and going to bed earlier too. Until the Lord leads us into a different situation! Wherever we are we are the Lord,s disciples, we are the Lord's witnesses. We are there to honor Him in whatever we do.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

 

Snow! Snow! Snow!

 
 
 
Winter came with a vengence! We got dumped on, and dumped on, and dumped on. It began with about 10 inches of very wet snow. After shovelling our driveway, steps, and walks, I readily realized why seniors are warned of the dangers of heart attacks from shovelling snow. But that was just the beginning. In a ten day period we got some 24 inches of snow all together. We had missionary friends stay overnight with us one night because the roads were closed in almost every direction. I later learned that near Grand Cache, not to far south of Grande Prairie (and in the mountains) four highway plows had gone into the ditch. Why? Because the show was falling faster than they could handle it. For a while most roads were in very poor diriving conditions. Now most of them are plowed out but there are still lots of places with ice packs and ruts. Fortunately the highways are fairly clear.

On a back street in Grande Prairie the other day, we had a pickup truck go sideways in the icy ruts as it was coming toward us. It came very close to our front fender but Colleen quickly stopped and backed up. After a few futile attempts to pass us the pickup backed into a driveway and went the other way. No fender benders, thankfully!

For the past couple of days we had not had any snow. However, the forecast is for more this weekend. Lately I've been thinking: "Any day I don't have to shovel is a good day."

I must admit that the show adds beauty to the otherwise sterile outdoors at this time of year. It's a reminder of Isaiah 1:18. Posted by Picasa

 

Pick your method

A shovel 

A Bobcat 

Or a grader 
As Colleen was out taking pictures of the snow and of her show shoveler (Me), the bigger equipment happened by. They were on their way to clean up the snow at the school across the street. And that after a full day of removing snow around town. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

 

Autumn Colors

 
 
 This is how our home and our town looked in September.Our house is blessed with several different trees around it. The P.R.B.I. campus had a lot of color too. We had little or no frost for a long time so the leaves lingered and flowers continued to bloom, as the did in the park in downtown Sexsmith. Even at that, autumn was far too short for me. (For present conditions, wait for my next blog.) Posted by Picasa

 

More Madness

Here's proof positive that we were there! Colleen took my picture in front of "Firestorm" and Bigfoot." when we were at "Monster Madness" the weekend it came to Grande Prairie on their world tour. The best part for me was getting up close and personal with these amazing machines. As I compared the various monster trucks there, it was obvious to me that "Big Foot" had all the best equipment bumper to bumper. Oops! I guess that would be "front tires to rear tires." They are designed to perform, and that they did. The ride on "Firestorm" was a special experience too. 
 
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