It’s been an emotional month, at times. Our dear kitty cat, Sally, is on day 20 of not eating. She’s taking a long time to say her goodbyes, but she is peaceful and calm, so we are choosing not to intervene, for now.

We skipped most of Thaw di Gras, our town’s spring carnival again this year. Jeff picked up a whopper of a chest and head cold on his trip down to Kamloops, and I just don’t like leaving Sally. I don’t know if I’m worried she’ll need me? It’s a weird transition time. We want her to move beyond needing us, but we are even more attentive to her than ever before. And she doesn’t even need anything. Mostly she’s just asleep.

We attended the Thaw di Gras trivia night at Gertie’s that our friend Kyle was hosting, and his mom, Bunny, was up for a visit from Ontario. The first half was regular trivia, and we did quite well, but the second half involved whiteboards on the stage! It involved a bit of gambling too! Every team sent a person up on stage, and there were to be 3 questions – one easy, one medium, and one hard. The correct answer was worth 1 point, 3 points, and 5 points, respectively. But, you had to get the first question correct to move on, and you could take your points and sit down at any time. But if you got one wrong, you’d lose the points you had earned! I was so nervous on stage, but did okay! I got the first two questions right, and then took my points and sat down. But it turned out, I knew the right answer to the hard question too, so I could have brought home 9 points!

Our team ended up in 2nd place – of 15 or so teams. Yay! Our team won some poker chips, some Gertie’s decks of cards, and a Gertie’s shot glass! And this ribbon!

We did a brief visit to the Fur Show too. It is held every two years, during Thaw di Gras. Local trappers bring in their best pelts for judging. There were foxes, wolves, wolverines, martens, and lynx.

Other than that, I leave the house for dog walks and for museum meetings and events, and not much else. Maybe I just don’t want Sally to die alone.

We’re rolling into spring. We get up to around freezing for an hour or two after work, and then it goes down to -15°C or colder most nights. The thaw is super slow this spring, but the sun is fabulous! It is already still light out when we go to bed!

The streets are getting stripped, in advance of any serious melting. The main streets get a big windrow of snow in the middle for a couple of days until the loader and dump trucks catch up and haul it all away (to the snow dump). The less travelled streets just get stripped with big snow banks left on the sides (like ours).

Jeff shovelled out Hank’s kennel the other day, so it will thaw faster in the sun.

The snow has already slid off the south side of the house in the sun one afternoon.

One morning last week, I went out to fill a Rubbermaid with firewood to bring in the house. We’re getting to the back of this particular stack of wood. I noticed the snow on top of the firewood shift, so I took a step back, and then this massive block of hard snow fell, knocking me on my back, pinning my legs against the cross bracing of the wood rack.

Of course, the one time I don’t go outside with my phone in my pocket, so I can’t call for help.

I was pretty surprised I wasn’t that hurt, except for my right calf that was pinned super hard against the diagonal two-by-four. But I was able to squirm my way out!

Here’s another picture when Jeff climbed over it later that day to fetch the wood I bailed on retrieving! That block of snow was over 4 feet tall!

I guess I shouldn’t have been so lazy and I should have kept up with shovelling the snow off the wood piles! Or better yet, maybe it is time for a roof on our wood racks!

Well that about sums up what’s been going on around here. Enjoy your weekend everyone!