The week in review

A review of the week in list form:

1. We had our roof shingles replaced. Relatively soon after the snow melted, we noticed that when it rained or was particularly windy little tiny bits of our roof would wind up on the ground. I had someone come take a look at it, and he confirmed that our shingles were disintegrating. He indicated that it didn't look like it had gotten so bad yet, and since we hadn't noticed any leaking, we had probably caught it at just the right moment. It turns out that our roof is a very simple one, and made the job easy (and as inexpensive as a job like that can be). On Wednesday morning the roofers showed up just before I went to work, and we had a new roof before we got home. Fortunately, they only had to replace 8 ft.² of the plywood underneath the shingles, so that also made it easier, faster, and less expensive. Now we have a ten year guarantee for the workmanship, and a limited lifetime guarantee for the shingles, so any problem we have for a long time will either be covered by the warranty or by our insurance (lots of people here end up having to make claims due to high winds and/or hail, but if you can't prove that the roof was in good shape prior to the severe weather, the insurance can deny the claim). It feels good to know that the literal roof over our heads is strong and secure.

2. We made reservations for camping two more times before the end of summer. Toward the end of August, we will be going up to Prince Albert National Park, which is about a five hour drive north of here. Compared to where we have lived before, Regina feels pretty far north, and compared to Regina, Prince Albert National Park seems pretty far north. And although it is located in the boreal forest (a.k.a taiga which, you may recall learning in school, is a northern biome out-northed only by the tundra), it is only on the southern end of the boreal forest and less than halfway up Saskatchewan. For now, I see no need to explore the northern half of the province :-)

The other camping trip we have planned is for next weekend, which was a bit of a last-minute decision, and there were almost no campsites left anywhere within a three-hour drive of here. In fact, it looks as though we may have gotten the very last campsite in that radius. We're going to Crooked Lake Provincial Park, and we know very little about the park, and even less about why this particular campsite was still available when nearly every single other one in the entire province was taken. It may be a terrible campsite, and looks as though it might be really near the highway, but anyway it will still be fun to go camping.

3. Maddy is on a murderous rampage. While we were away in June, she killed several mice. Last summer, she killed a few birds. We have never been happy about this, but tolerate it to a certain extent because after all, she is a cat. It was rare that she would bring in a dead animal in Eugene or Seattle (although sometimes there would be a streak), but here it is much more frequent, and while most people just don't let their cats outside here, since she had already been an indoor-outdoor cat for nine years before we moved here it would be nearly impossible to force her to stay inside now.

Well. We have never seen anything like this weekend, and are no longer sure what to do. Yesterday, she brought in three birds. The first one she ate the body, but left the wings and head, the second she didn't eat much of, and the third she ate all but three feathers (we know because she brought it into a location where we could watch her eat it, though we chose not to). Mid-afternoon, after the third bird, we locked her in for the rest of the night. Today, she brought in a mouse. Jeff is so tired of cleaning up dead animals that he is currently watching a movie in the basement with the dead mouse still down there – he says he'll clean it up before we go to bed.

Maddy seems to be doing nothing but hunting. Last summer we tried making her wear a cat bib (it is worth checking out the link) to try to stop her from killing birds, but she figured out how to take it off and kept losing both it and her collar. I do wish there was some way to stop her murderous tendencies, but, she is a cat. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Flooding, mosquitoes, and grants

While we were away there was massive flooding in Regina and around the region. Fortunately, our house didn't get any water at all even though nearby streets (a block away) were flooded knee-deep, and many homes that have never had any problems with flooding were hit by sewer backups. I heard of one example of a woman whose toilet suddenly started spewing water, leading to water damage all over the house. We were extremely lucky.

One of the lingering consequences of flooding in the area is a worse than normal mosquito problem. We are relatively close to the creek, and I think possibly because of that our backyard is absolutely filled with mosquitoes – much worse than last summer. This means that in order to be outside, we have to either put on mosquito repellent, wear protective clothing (most people on the West Coast have never heard of a mosquito jacket, but we now own two), or both.

Summer is short here, and there is a bit of a feeling of urgency around enjoying time outdoors. So in order to be able to spend as much time outside as possible, I decided to purchase a screen tent, which we will also be able to take camping. It is currently out on our back patio, tied to bricks to keep it from blowing away in the wind. I think it was a worthwhile purchase.

Another piece of news that I got while we were away is that I got a grant that I had applied for in February. It is a relatively substantial grant, that will partially fund my graduate students, allow me to hire a lab manager for ten hours a week, and provide money for recruiting and paying research participants. The grant will provide funding for three years, starting in September.

The granting agency is the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF), and I am lucky that an agency like this exists here, with funding priorities that are very much in line with the research I want to do. The grant is to study people who have a history of exposure to trauma, and their experiences with healthcare providers and healthcare systems. I am really excited to be able to do this research, and actually sort of amazed that I got this grant. It is yet another indication that I am in the right job, and in the right place. We may not like the mosquitoes in the summer or the extreme cold in the winter, but from the perspective of day-to-day things like work, we couldn't be in a better place :-)

Oh the paces we went!

I have been negligent about blogging, I know, but there are good reasons – we spent a good deal of time out of range of Internet or cell phone service, when we were in range we were busy with vacationing and other matters, and when we got back (one week plus one weekend ago) we had many important and urgent things to attend to (so many weeds!, and rows of densely planted carrots that would not thin themselves). And so now, I will provide a partial update on the things we saw and did, by choosing some photos from my cell phone to share with you (Jeff has additional photos from his cell phone and his camera, but all in all we were not so great about taking photos – we were too busy actually enjoying what we were doing to take pictures of it :)).

A bathroom in Portland – is it necessary to tell people not to drink toilet water?

The Dee Wright Observatory in central Oregon

Taking a walk through the lava fields

Peterson Rock Garden – a very odd and interesting place, worth the slight detour

Painted Hills of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

Sheep Rock, also at John Day

Wallowa Lake

Joseph Canyon

Two Medicine Lake, at Glacier National Park

The view from our campsite at Glacier

And an attempted visit to Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, largely thwarted by mosquitoes. You can't really tell in this picture, but there were thousands of prairie dogs. I used to love watching the meerkats at the San Diego Zoo, but seeing prairie dogs in their natural habitat is similar and in many ways better. Unfortunately I'm not sure that you can actually see them in this video, so you'll have to take my word for it :)

Seattle, Eugene, Cape Perpetua, Portland

We have been continuing to enjoy our trip, and here is another short update, with photos. We have actually been terrible about taking pictures, but here are a few that we do have:

We arrived in Seattle last Tuesday, and visited with an adorable baby

and her parents (only one of whom we have a photo of).

Going for a walk in our old neighborhood

We made our way down to Eugene, where we saw my family,

A visit to the rose garden

then headed with them out to the coast.

Getting out to these rocks was a huge accomplishment, and involved my walker, trekking poles, and a lot of help from Jeff

On an "accessible" trail that is actually not so accessible, but I managed it with some help

We are now in Portland, and have managed to not take a single photo here. We will be sure to remedy that before we leave!

Calgary and Coeur d'Alene

I am trying something new, posting from my phone. This will be a short post, because I am tired, and because the capabilities on the iPhone are limited. We are sitting in a hotel room in Coeur d'Alene Idaho, having just driven all day from Calgary. We spent the weekend with Jeff's brother, brothers wife, sister, and niece. On Saturday we went to the zoo, and on Sunday we did a 5K walk in support of the Alberta ALS Society.

Today we crossed the border into the United States, and it was a bit of a milestone for Jeff. Having now moved to Canada, with no immediate plans to return to the US, it was necessary for Jeff to surrender his permanent residency documents. If we had known where we would end up and when, we probably would have pursued US citizenship for Jeff. He would have been eligible after being a permanent resident for several years. As it stands, if we move back to the US, Jeff will have to start the whole process over again. But we have been told that he can't just hang on to his permanent residency indefinitely while living in Canada.

Here are a few photos and videos of our adventures so far:

And one more that I can't seem to embed but can provide the link to:

http://youtu.be/treX10-qnkA