Camping

The most challenging aspect of the pandemic, to me, is the loss of connections. The loss of the quick coffee chat, the friendly hike, or an actual week long trip–all gone. In their place were video chats, on-line conferences and courses, all taking place on multiple platforms. I am grateful these options exist, but they are not the same. I don’t receive the same feeling of connection. It is the different between a hug and a “talk to you later!” on a phone call. Both are nice, but one sticks with me longer and warms up my heart.

We transferred countries months before lockdown began. Leaving Europe for North America. We were meeting people, making connections, it was all at its infancy. Then borders closed. We were outside of the country our new residence visiting our passport country. Like many people, we had to make hard decisions for all the time since.

The decision to spend more time in our passport country has lead to deeper, quality time spent with a few people we are close too. We have not lived in Canada for years, so previously our trips were sparse and filled with drives up and down the QE2 spending time with family and friends. This time we were able to spend quality time with a small group of people, building new memories.

A wonderful week was spent in July with much of my extended family; cousins, siblings, and parents. With trips cancelled and delayed, many of us were able to meet over a week and camp in our grandma’s yard together. It was a place filled with memories of our childhoods, memories we spent time exploring with each other, our parents, and our kids. We laughed late into the night and started over again in the morning. I missed this.

It is amazing how quickly I returned to my childhood. Going for walks with my cousins in the fields filled with bales of hay. Walking along the driveway as the kids rode their bikes in front of us. Water fights on grandma’s lawn. Campfires in the yard surrounded by family and friends, all of us singing as someone played guitar. Though, as an adult, I noticed the mosquitoes more and hid in the screened in tent when they were especially hungry.

I have cousins who are creative who made us a set decals for the family. Now we have some extra warmth to take home with us and reminisce in.

After the family camping trip, we returned to the Calgary area, happy and tired from the time spent with family. It took a few days to recover from all the laughter, late nights, and family time. But we are fortunate to have more family down here as well and spent time with them.

There is another, important aspect, that drew us to live near Calgary, Alberta: The Rocky Mountains.

Crisp air, gurgling creeks, roaring waterfalls, beaten paths: all call me to the mountains. The air is so fresh it cleans out my lungs and makes me feel lighter. This year was different with the forest fires raging across British Columbia. What looks like fog or mist was actually smoke and every once and a while I would be reminded by its smell again. No matter how high I climbed in the mountains, I could still not see through the mountain pass. It was concerning. But then again, the cedars filtered the scent of smoke from the air, the waterfalls cascaded into streams to feed the cedars and I hope it remains moist enough that the fires do not spread through the mountain passes.

I climbed Cascade Mountain with a friend. There is nothing better than to struggle up the side of the mountain, up through the scree, to realize I am no longer used to the thin mountain air. Living at sea level for the past six years did not help. You can see a picture I took of the mountain at the top of this post.

Upon my return home, I spent a week recuperating from my hike. I needed it. I slipped on the scree and bruised my leg and arm, but all is well now. I was reminded to walk everyday. Even if I cannot make it to the mountains, there are beautiful paths around me to enjoy. I love to be outside, I don’t always need to be surrounded by mountains.

The next few weeks my house filled with family. In fact, we once again returned to my childhood as there are currently only two beds in the house and we had nine people sleep over at one point. We returned to beds on the floor, something we always did when visiting cousins as kids. Everything was as expected. Once bathroom broke down with the first set of guests, and my fridge died when the second set arrived. There is another set returning this weekend and I wonder how my house will respond to that. Maybe it means we are still supposed to be in the mountains? Or is the house hinting at maintenance expectations for the fall?

Moving back into a house I haven’t seen in six years has been more challenging then I expected. We are still living with the bare bones, so not even our basic tool kit is here. Once again, having family and friends close has saved us as we have been leant tools and a helping hand. It turns out I cannot connect a new thermostat panel without causing some physical damage to the house and mental damage to myself. Living in Europe has helped as well as I know how to shop for small amounts of food at a time as we are down to an apartment sized fridge in our house until our other fridge arrives. In the mean time we are eating everything as it thaws from the freezer. I don’t think I will be able to look at another leek dumpling again for a long time. Fun times!

The smoky days and early sunsets took me back to a trip to Edinburgh. Replace the smoke with a misty rain and the sunset with street lights and I can relive the experience. When we living in Europe, many of our girl trips were spent in the United Kingdom. There is so much to explore and it was so easy to get to. But my heart belonged in Edinburgh. There was something about the city, a place filled with history, culture, and education, that made it feel like home. I walked around for hours and explored the gem street by street. My first time there I saw a quote on the side of a building and it has stuck with me.

Katie Paterson is a Scottish artist (Not the women pictured in the graphic), well regarded for her unique composition of technology, scientific expertise, and philosophical engagement between humanity and the environment.

“A place that exists only in moonlight” was created by Katie Paterson. I researched it when the quote stuck with me through the years and I felt compelled to return to the quote whenever I returned to Edinburgh. I am disappointed I did not see her exhibition, but the book itself is a collection of text based artworks printed with cosmic dust. It is itself a piece of our universe. I am infatuated with art and inspired by poetry, so her creativity moves me. It also reminds me of the mountains. Of the infinite space they take up in my heart.

Now the summer is ending and we will be returning to a schedule ruled by school. I don’t actually mind it, but I already miss the freedom of the summer. The next few weeks are filled with doctor appointments, school supplies hunting (a personal favourite), and preparing for the school year. But my heart is lighter from the memories created and gathered throughout the summer. They will maintain me.

If you are looking for a way to experience the forest of the world through space in time, follow the link below to Hollow – a forest of all the world’s trees created by Katie Paterson and Zeller & Moye. There is a permanent public art piece commissioned by the University of Bristol. When we are unable to travel, there remains the ability to interact with the art piece online.

http://www.hollow.org.uk/

I hope you have a wonderful summer break or winter break depending on where your head lays at night! Happy reading!

I learnt the importance of waterproof-leakproof tape and the necessity of a gas stove over the last two weeks.

It started with a warning. Houston, along with much of Texas, would experience below normal freezing temperatures for a week. Please cover your pipes and gardens and lets hope for the best. So, the company covered the outdoor pipes, and we brought out our winter sweaters and quilts. After all, I grew up in Canada and knew how to deal with below freezing temperatures. In Alberta, I would snowshoe in the Rocky Mountains and winter camp in a tent. I loved it. Houston was different.

While a winter tent has minimal insulation, it does not have water pipes. Our Houston house has water pipes, but limited insulation. No biggie, we will keep all the cupboard doors open to provide the pipes in the kitchen walls with heat. We were okay at first. We still had running water. The power was still on, and so we had heat. But then, on the coldest night, the cold water pipe in the kitchen froze.

We were still okay. We had heat, power; we had to turn the water off, but we had tubs full of water to deal with the emergency. We invited friends to stay with us since they had none of the above for the last 24 hours. The eight humans, two cats, and the dog celebrated warmth at nine pm after we finished making up guest rooms for everyone. The beauty of the air mattresses is that any room can become a bedroom. We celebrated in the kitchen, wearing our winter hats, (most of us had not showered yet and the hats had duel purpose of hiding greasy hair while keeping us warm), and waiting for the first person to admit they were tired. After all, we had our heat turned down to conserve energy, as suggested by Harris County. Then the power went out.

I think it was a troublesome time for our friends. They had their own house without heat, water, or power. Why stay with us? But they stayed for the night because at least, at that point, our house was warmer. So we all called it a night and went to bed. The power turned on again, along with the furnace, at 2:30 am, but then turned off again at 5: am. So three humans and the dog retreated to their own house.

We are fortunate to have a gas stove. So breakfast was pancakes for all! Warm food after a chilly night’s sleep feels decedent. We also boiled water for coffee and tea so the meal was complete. Carbohydrates to insulate ourselves against the cold and caffeine to remind us the day had just begun.

Our remaining guests stayed through lunch for a second hot meal before they headed home. We played games in front of the fireplace and created a mountain of blankets to read from. We had splendid company, entertainment; it wasn’t so bad! Uno was the favoured game, but they played many others. I snuck away to read and drink coffee. I knew if the power did not comeback on, I would have no light, so I prioritized reading for a couple of hours:) Then our remaining guests left and we were back down to three humans and two cats. We prepared an early dinner; we didn’t want to cook with head lamps. As we love backcountry camping, we have all the supplies; so we repurposed the headlamps to deal with the dark. Then the power came back on!

The heat was welcome. Even more important that the lights and internet. Well, to me. Our daughter celebrated when the internet kicked back on. With the heat came an additional side effect. The pipe burst in the kitchen.

Behold! The frozen pipe after we took off the wall boards. At first, we knew the cold froze the pipe when the water stopped running. Fortunately, I was in my office next door when I heard the rumble of water escaping the pipe. I yelled for my husband as I reached the kitchen and found a wave of water pushing out from beneath the kitchen counters. He turned off the water while I started the towel trench, followed by mopping.

Even with the pipes warmed, we were waterless. And so grateful for the pool. Eight people use the toilet over three people. That is just a fact of life. There is only so much water in a shallow tub. I redirected our recycle bins to focus on water containment. One per toilet. Refilling involved a jaunt outside the house. I needed the exercise as I switched to hibernation mode under the covers.

Wild cats taking over the backyard and having a party

This is where we spent all of our waking time while the power was out.

By the end of the week, temperatures warmed up outside. Most of Texas had power again, and a lot of us were looking for more permanent solutions for fixing our busted pipes. Once again, we were the lucky ones. I was in the next room over when the water pipe blew inside. We contained it right away. So far, we limited the damage to the kitchen wall and under the cabinets.

In the first house we bought, we had a ceiling fall in. The roof had passed inspection, but the water worked its way. One day I was sitting in my dining room, looked up and noticed the ceiling was bulging. In the past year, I had dealt with many leaks in my work building and the remediation that took place after it. I knew what I was looking at. A big bill. To mitigate the size of the bill, I pulled the garbage can under the bulge and stabbed the ceiling directly above it. Water sprayed out, much like in the top picture in this blog post. I stabbed several more holes before the water switched to pouring instead of spraying me and the room. I brought in another garbage can. The storm rages outside for a week and I spent four days alternating garbage cans and dumping them out the back door until the storm ended. I saved the floor. But the roof, ceiling, and wall all needed to replacement. I wasn’t going through that again.

But then my husband inspected the outside of the house and found the lovely shower from the irrigation pipe. He contained it with self-fusing repair tape as well. We were now out of tape. But, as far as we know, the leaks were temporarily contained. This week we finally found a plumber available to fix up the house. The plumber repaired the kitchen pipe, including a new, stylish, insulative jacket. As does the irrigation pipe. Unfortunately, the large metal piece was not replaced as Houston is experiencing a shortage of plumbing supplies. But the house has water and boy was my first shower in a week amazing.

The plumber fixed the pipe and insulated it. The big metal piece is cracked and needs to be replaced.

My lessons from the last few weeks:

Always keep a roll of self-fusing repair tape that is waterproof and airtight in the toolbox; duct tape can’t fix anything (this was new to me as a Canadian)
Wrapping a pipe in an insulated jacket is not enough
Teenagers feel the worse part of power loss of the loss of the internet
Always have a secondary means of grinding coffee beans not requiring power
A gas stove means warm food, water drinks, and the ability to boil contaminated water
Camping supplies are just as fun to use inside the house
I prefer camping outside to roughing it in the house. At least then, I am expecting the conditions.

We were lucky in so many ways. I also learned to appreciate that infrastructure has different weaknesses depending where I am dwelling. The best news is that I now have justification for upgrading some of my camping gear before camping season begins.

Have you experienced a local natural disaster? What learnings did you gain?

2021 Summer’s End

No Water, No Heat, Lots of Learnings

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