Only in Alberta!

Guess what we woke up to this morning! Yah! More Snow! We had snow in October 2006 and here it is May 2007 and we are still seeing a white ground! Our only relief is this won't last. By this afternoon it will be rain so we will have a big puddly mess again. We are so, so thankful to have a paved parking lot. As long as the curbs now cure properly. About 2/3 of our curbs were poured yesterday. They are covered and no one is allowed into the parking lot for now. What a wonderful day to walk across a sloppy wet and slushy parking lot! Snow!




Cool Curb Pressing Machine!



May 24th SNOW!

This sign is old and has seen better days - but it is special! It was posted at the original Lacombe station long since gone. A gentleman, Bruce Deedrick, working for Border Paving gave it to us. He got it from the original building and never got rid of it. He knew once he read the article in the paper about the station being re-built that he should give it to us. Right now it sits in a display area in our stairwell. We think we would like to put it down in the board room once that space is finished. It's fun when people pass on treasures from the former station and desire the article(s) to be in the new/old station. Many people have expressed their amazement that this is not a renovation, but a re-creation. Must mean we look like the real thing!

On the weekend - in spite of the lousy weather - we worked outside. Ron and Peter spent some time installing the handrail in our stairwell. This is a long overdue must! One more coat of varnish some evening and it will really be done. Peter is relieved and it looks good. I think it helped he had someone working with him on it that wasn't afraid to tackle the job! They did a good job, and it didn't hurt at all that they got to spend Friday inside out of the cold wind! Who WAS out in the cold wind you ask? Why Bev and myself. We were up on scaffolding and giving a second coat of color to the tongue and groove soffit under our eaves. By the end of the weekend we were more confident on our swaying perch, tired out from stretching this way and that, all giggled out and had finished painting the soffit across the front of the building. Once the inside work was done Peter and Ron went outside and climbed ladders to give a final coat of color to the brackets, ledger board, beam and back face of the fascia board. They finished just over one half of the front face of the building. Off and on throughout the weekend Kevin and Kelsey worked at coating the trim around the windows and doors. They got about 65 percent of the trim work done. And they didn't have to climb up very high, much to Kelsey's relief.

Enjoy the pics! Sorry Bev - Peter really did not get a picture of us working so hard up high and almost out of sight! Everyone else - use your imagination!

Peter and Ron

Kev and Kelsey

Not Quite All Construction!

Unexpected Visitors

This morning when we came to work (doesn't that sound funny?!) old passenger cars usually pulled by the 2816 were parked just south of our station on the main line. We walked over and saw through the windows waiters in long sleeved white shirts, dark vests and pants serving people their breakfast. Whoa! What's going on here! Then we saw a new engine pulling an old engine backwards on the second track. The engines switched tracks and then proceeded to PUSH these touring passenger cars south. Engine trouble? I think so! If the train was heading back to Calgary then I guess these people have a long "push" home. And if we had slept in half an hour longer we would have missed the whole comical scene!

On the weekend Brent and Kirstin were here and we did some tree planting and line painting. The only reason we could paint the lines in our parking lot is because our parking lot is PAVED! I didn't think we could get so excited about asphalt! But we can - and did!

Friday - a sun-dandy day for paving!

Saturday - equally sunny day for line painting!

Crew of 5 - Sunny but Windy!

Another surprise visitor - Kirstin's Brother

Some of this and some of that!

Tonight while Peter and Kev work at the other end of the office I'll try and get another posting done. I can still faintly smell the aroma of our visit to the Alberta Foundry earlier today. Late this afternoon the three of us left the office early to drive out to Mirror to pick out a light standard for the front concrete pad here at the station. We've seen their work here in Lacombe on our downtown street signs and in Ponoka as well. Peter's been in touch with the owner (Ed) to find out if we could see what he has in stock for street lights. Since he didn't have much for us to see, Peter sat down with him to design something. They sat down at an old table (I think this was HIS office) covered with unfinished business papers and designed something on the back of a scrap of paper that will hopefully meet our requirements and wishes. Now Ed will come up with a light pole to scale and show us before we make a final decision.

Walking into the foundry this afternoon I found myself rushing back to uncounted visits to the Blacksmith shop in Heritage Park. And more recently a cool winter's morning trip to our own blacksmith shop here in Lacombe for a mortgage burning ceremony. There is no scent that remains like the aroma that comes from an age worn building that has witnessed the shodding of horses long gone and the repairing of wagons now shrinking to nothingness behind long unused barns. There is no scent that refuses to disappear, even after walking out into the bright sunny air of a late spring afternoon, like the one that makes it's home in the dark and sooty foundry shop.

This afternoon Border Paving came to finalize the preparations for pavement next week in our parking lot. Everyone in the building is anxious to have it done! Gravel was hauled in and spread around and packed to make sure the grade is one that drains the rain (and melting snow!) where we want it to go - out to the street.

We've been waiting for this all winter!

But even more exciting than this was the arrival of trees last night! We've had a number of trees tagged and potted for us at Centennial Rose Gardens just north of town. Shaun of Trimmed Line brought in five of the largest ones for us with his tree spade. We'll need to pick up more on the weekend that are potted. Last week we brought home eight Columnar Aspens from Costco in the back of the truck. A trip that normally take about 20 minutes took us 45. We had to find every back road possible that would lead us north (and get us across the river) and home. We lost no branches and we still had all the tags labelling the trees and giving us instructions on caring for our new trees. "First step in caring for your tree - DO NOT DRIVE 120 DOWN THE QE2 WITH THIS TREE STANDING IN THE BACK OF YOUR PICK-UP."

Out goes the sign post!

In goes the tree!

Watching- sort of!

Water - fertilize and MORE WATER!

It sure feel good to do some planning and work outside! Before you know it we will need to have it all done - so we have to get moving if we want to meet our deadline!