the furnace, the discovered aluminium wiring, the next storm

When the furnace was installed, it was discovered there was aluminium wiring from the furnace to the on/off switch.  Aluminium wiring was big in the 60s and 70s.  It was cheap, and sadly prone to causing fires.  We called Danny the electrician to replace the wiring immediately.   Yesterday Danny found that the wiring continues straight into the electrical board.  The job was too big for the remaining hours of light, so he has returned today.

More discoveries awaited.  There is no easy way to get from here to there, so I was called upon to stand in the middle of what was formerly ceiling, now rubble, to take a decision about the direction he might go in order to try to circumvent the firewall, the pipes, the cold air vent, the stairs, and goodness knows what else.  You know there are those mornings when you just don't feel up to being an oracle?

From my office, I can hear him removing vast chunks of basement ceiling.  The Accumulatorium (a.k.a. basement) looked pretty scary before - old chairs, Tupperware boxes of Tupperware, my light table,  Xmas ornaments, luggage, shelving of canned goods and Costco products.  Plaster dust has not improved things in the least.  Fingers crossed that business be good so that we can restore it to some sort of a place where children don't fear for their life.

So much for inside, let's talk about the weather.  The next storm is headed our way - a Texas low and an Alberta clipper are expected to smack into each other in the next 12 hours - we've been warned that we'll have 50mm of rain (I believe that's about 2" - which would have been 24" of snow) - so we must clear those gutters and downspouts!  I'll finish off this post, drink a cup of coffee, before I go out to dig down through 1.75 meters of snow to make sure they're clear.  We'd all hoped for a bit of a melt, but this seems a bit extreme.

Here are a few photos from this past Monday - Kevin and I got over to the RBG Cherry Hill trail with Bart.  So wonderful to be outside in the sunshine, feed the birds, and not have our face fall off from the cold.

You can't imagine the joy of feeling the heat of the sun on our backs through our snow gear.

Some nice parent had pulled their children through the woods making the path nice and even.

Someone had a bit of fun on St. Valentine's Day.

So many good smells.

You could see where folks had taken the path less traveled along the frozen creek.

You can imagine on a grey day that the only colour you'd see would be the red dogwood.

So hard to believe that this will be water and green in another month, or six.

The last view from the bridge.....going to see if I can find a summer one to compare.....just wait.....

here it is:

Could it be that it's not the seasons or our love of them that tie us together as a nation, but perhaps it's our collective ability to forget the winter as soon as we see something green emerge?  Calendar spring is but a month away - may the real one be close on its heels.