Mid July???
Once again my sense of time feels off. Mid July already? Wow. But it’s OK. I’ll deal with it.
The big news this past week was actually not mine. There was a small fire on the mountain above us. Well, technically the fire is still there as far as I can tell… it’s not out yet. But let me start at the beginning.
On Wednesday, July 12th, I started hearing aircraft in the late afternoon. They sounded like small prop planes, but I couldn’t see them out the windows. I assumed — based on the engine noise — that there was an airshow going on somewhere and put it out of my mind. But a couple of hours later I saw a neighbour outside who mentioned the “excitement we didn’t need.”
Uh-oh.
Turns out a fire had been spotted on Mount Seymour and the local Facebook group was humming with worry. I don’t use Facebook — for many reasons — so I hadn’t heard. And the aircraft that should have tipped me off are very different from those used to fight wildfires where we lived in California. Down there the planes were larger and dropped retardant. Here — at least in this case — the planes in use were tiny, have pontoons, and drop water. Apparently they are called “skimmers” as they refill by skimming water from local lakes or reservoirs. They don’t carry nearly as much, but their reload time is probably a lot shorter. More information is available on this page.
Anyway, I started digging around in the local news sources and learned it was a small fire (listed as 0.3 hectares, or about 0.75 acres) in rugged terrain. The location on the map put it about 3 km (2ish miles) from our home. There was no wind to speak of so it wasn’t spreading quickly. And in addition to at least five skimmers there were helicopters working it as well.
I don’t have any photos because I can’t see it from our home, but anyone who is curious will find photos by googling:
Honestly, though, there isn’t much to see. It’s small and far away.
As of this morning (Friday) it is now listed as “Being held” on the BC Wildfire Service incident page. Crews are on scene trying to get at all the stuff burning underground, and dealing with damaged trees.
Fires in these mountains have been pretty rare, but climate change is heating everything up and drying it all out. Plus, there are a lot of humans up there hiking and biking, and we’ve gone some time without rain. The result is that more fires are likely.
I’ve been tracking this and updating the community association’s website with official information, which has been interesting given everything else going on.
Everything else?
The big one this week is the house exterior is being painted!
The ugly, file cabinet beige is being replaced by a gray (or blue, depending on who you are, how you see, and what the lighting is like). Turns out the crew doing the work is just one guy, but he’s experienced, quick, and doing a great job.
Here’s the front nearly all painted except for the trim around the garage and some touch ups:
He’s working on the back of the house now, and then he has a couple of doors to paint (the new one going into the garage and the new back door).
The place looks so much better. It isn’t as forward or present when you look at it now. The trees and sky matter more than the house itself, which is what we want.
Plus, the wood is soaking up the paint. Apparently he’s used about twice as much paint as anticipated. The house was last stained (not painted) four or five years ago, but before that I assume it was stained in 1994 or thereabouts. The most recent staining could not protect the siding — stain doesn’t do that nearly as well as paint — and so it continued to dry out.
It’s not particularly obvious from those photos, but the entryway is much brighter now, which we like. We selected a lighter gray for that area and on the eaves, and it makes a big difference.
By next week this will be done and we can stop worrying about it, though I have to figure out new (and better) house numbers. The old ones are too small and will disappear in the new colour.
And while we have a pro painting outside, I continue to work on painting our main bathroom:
The toilet was removed and the walls have been primed. If time allows, I will get the first coat of paint on the walls later today, and with luck it will be fully painted before the weekend is over.
There’s still a lot to do of course, but paint on the walls is a big step in the right direction.
Next, I want to answer a question that came up last week: yes, my new hearing aids have rechargeable batteries. In the last few years that seems to have become commonplace. Mine have a case that also has a battery in it, so I can recharge them a few times without having a plug handy. Charging is inductive, and the case has slots that hold the hearing aids in the right position so they can charge effectively.
Some battery driven models are still made, but I am not sure why those would be desirable. They only last 3–5 years anyway, about the same lifetime as a good lithium ion battery.
Why such a short lifespan? First off, imagine what is going on: manufacturers are packing complex electronics into a tiny package which is then inserted into a warm, moist, and moving environment. Consumer electronics have a tough time in such places, and devices that could actually last longer would be much larger, heavier, and substantially more expensive. Beyond that, the technology is changing so quickly that after those few years whatever you might have previously owned is now obsolete. I’ll bet there is some AI component to the next set of these that I buy in 2028, and it will already be old news.
For the curious, what I am wearing are Phonak Audéo Lumity L-RL hearing aids.
One other oddball distraction this past week: more eye tests. For some reason, about two years ago my eye doctor decided I need to be watched more closely for glaucoma. One of the tests involves measuring the shape and height of the ring where the optic nerve meets the retina in each eye. A funky machine scans your eye — probably with a laser because that’s what all the cool tests use — and generates a 3D map of that ring. I had it done twice — at six month intervals — but when I was supposed to get it done the third time it wasn’t possible. There had been a pipe break above my optometrist's office and their equipment had been damaged in the ensuing flood. Getting the replacement machine took quite a while.
On Wednesday I managed to get the test done a third time, and everything is stable. No sign of glaucoma at all. It seems the ridges in my eyes are a bit different from average, but so long as they are not changing everything is just fine. So — yay! — I can avoid worrying about that too.
OK. That’s enough for this week. I have to get this edited and sent out, and then get back to painting.
Take care!