December 22nd, 2018

It’s been nearly 4 months since I was last at home in Nanaimo and I was really looking forward to relaxing and spending time with Mark and mom. Burns Lake is over a 1,000 km away and we were exhausted after the long trip home. (Although Mark was pretty pumped sitting in the front with the pilot on the final flight over to Vancouver Island).

What what we discovered when the taxi pulled into our driveway was shocking! We had heard of the Hurricane force winds that hit Nanaimo 2 days before we arrived home, but we were lucky…we had power! However, as the insurance appraiser stated when he arrived…”Catastrophic!”

Well…Actually we were grateful that we did not sustain even more damage and we were still able to stay in our house after Mark temporarily plugged the roof holes in the house and the cabana. Our property is surrounded by many very tall evergreens on adjacent properties. One large branch speared through the roof until it hit a 2×4. It’s still stuck in there! Our 130 foot trees were still standing. Mark’s truck hood was dented, but still ran fine. Massive tree branches and broken brush could be hauled out and removed. However, our plans for January and February were changed completely now.  Ah well….2 days until Christmas. There was much to be done. We started immediately!