Christmas Eve and Santa is coming

Well it is Dec 24,2011 and another year is close to being complete. Tonight Santa Clause is doing his worldy jaunt around the globe. He is stopping at every home with children to drop off his gifts to make millions of girls and boys happy for another year.
 I hope that all of you childred have been good this past year or you just might not get that toy or whatever it is that you asked Santa for. I know that I have been trying to behave myself so that Mrs Blakey could tell Santa  that I have been a good boy and it  is okay to drop off the toys that I asked for this Christmas.
  All of you kids had better get off to bed early so Santa can come into your places with  his surprises. It will be exciting to get up in the morning to check out the tree and your stockings as well.
                    Well we will say good night to you all and wish you all a very
                       Merry , Merry  Christmas

Wilf, Elizabeth Blakey and family

A new member to our family

We now have a new member of our family. The ones we created many years ago have flown the nest  quite awhile ago and have even started their own family.
 I kid Elizabeth that her maternal instinct has kicked in and made her desire to start another family. She has been telling me that she has desired to get a pet kitten for company. Does this mean that I am not good company anymore?
 My wife saw an add in one of the stores for kittens to be given away, already to leave their family and ready for battle. She phoned the people and the long and short of it all is that on Monday morining we obtained a seven week old male kitten. It has been many years since we had a pet and I, personally have been out of touch looking after any living thing much smaller than myself so this is a challlenge to both of us.
 The first day was no problem as looking after him was easy because he hid most of the day and we weren't sure where he was. Eventually he showed up in the evening when we coaxed him out of hiding with some food. Food seems to be a universal tempter of most beings.  By the end of the evening he was running around like he had lived here for ever.

  Next morning he started to loosen up even more and started to accept the fact that he is going to live here forever and it was time to enjoy his surroundings.
We have had him almost one whole week and he is starting to grow on us. We are starting to feel like he is a part of our family for the most of our lives and not just 6 days.
 It is a challenge for us to get used to him as he learns to get used to us. The cats that I have been in company with  in the past have been quite used to sitting on my lap but Morris is not one of these as yet.

I told Elizabeth that one reason I was willing to have a pet is that he can come with us as a companion for us on trips with our camper. As well I have stated that I want him to be our guardian animal for our unit to stop unwanted intruders from entering our domain.

I built a scratching post for Morris and he has found this much to his amusement to be able to view the horizon from where he likes to sit.







Over the last few days that we have had Morris, we have had a few visitors in our home. He is getting a chance to meet his siblings (our daughters and grandson) but he is finding it a little trying to get used to strangers. The only people he has known in his young life have been his brother, sister, mother and his original owners. Well, his world is expanding now and will do so more in the future.

 So much for our expanded family. Family is a large part of life and a very enjoyable part of life at that. However we are looking forward to many more days, weeks, months and years of enjoyment with our now offspring,
      Morris,  welcome to the Blakey family of Kirkland Lake,Ontario
Wilf and Elizabeth Blakey

And now for the year 2010

A long time waiting for another post since last time, I am glad that I didn't hold my breath in between times.
Many things have happened since then, some are good to mention but, as usual, some are not good so we will attend to the first things first.
 I believe the last post was about March 2010. What took place around that time has made a drastic change in my life, I will say that it is not a good change either. In August of the previous year, I found out that I have hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). This is a type of diabeties where the blood sugar level drops too low for comfort and sometimes safety. I had a tough time that fall and part of the winter getting accustomed to this disease. I had no energy and sometimes very little strength either. Let us say that I did a lot of research on the Internet and stayed connected to the doctors for the most of the next year learning how to live with diabeties.

Finally, in the spring, I decided to get involved in working on our motorhome, our baby. I likely mentioned that it is a 1971 Triple E with a  Ford Econoline drive train. When we used it last year we would step into the coach via the entry steps and it would feel like we were standing on a mushroom or something similar. With the help of my neighbour across the street (a welder by trade), we discovered that the floor of the entry well was rusted badly and needed replacing.



 I started working on this by removing the bad stuff and replacing it with new steel plus I totally disassembled the passenger sidewall of the coach and completely rebuilt this wall. I found many of the
wooden structural pieces were rotted and had to be
changed. One piece came out of its' position and fell
on the ground in a pile of shavings.


 The picture to the right shows the original floor material that I removed.



As seen on the right, the overhead bunk sidewall was rotted as well and had to be changed.This was a real challlenge as I had to remake the framework that fitted just inside the roof covering aluminum. The orignal wall above the cab was just a piece of 3/4 inch plywood and no insulation so when I replaced it I made a wall of 3/4 framing material on its' edge and made a cavity to insert styrofoam insulation.






Here is some of the installation of the foam insullation. I glued the panels to the inside panelling and left a gap around the outside of each piece so I could fill it in with spray foam.After the foam hardened, I trimmed it level so it would make each cavity solid. This should make the motorhome warmer and quieter then ever.
 There is a wire crossing the cavity beside and above the space housing the furnace. This wire had to be replaced as I found a hole burned through one conductor of this AC electrical wire.





 I also made and installed new aluminuum siding.This siding was made from aluminum flatstock sheeting by the roll. I bought a 50 ft roll and used all of it but about 2 ft.










After this I painted the side wall to match the paint
scheme on the cab.








 This little job started about early May and I shut it down around the end of August so it was an involving job for sure. There were still some small tasks to finish off but these are items for another time and another year. Since I spent so much time on our motorhome this year, we were not able to use it for camping this year. We will see what happens next season.

I will continue on next year's activities and see what I can write about next time.
Wilf Blakey

Evan's visit

On March 14th, the Pentecostal Church in Kirkland Lake had company in the way of a couple and their son. These people put on a program for the congregation that was very enlightening and enjoyable. The people were Sharon and Wilson Kindred and their son Evan. Evan is not really their son but we like to call him that as his name is Evan Hardwood Kindling and is actually a puppet. Wilson has become very adept at ventriloquism and has worked out a few skits for himself and Evan. Today's skit is about Evan and his report card from the school that he attends, "The school for dummies". It seems that he has not been handing his report card to Wilson so he can check up on Evan's progress in school. Evan has been hiding the card so Wilson will not see what Evan has or has not been doing in school. He eventually does surrender the evidence to Mr Chandler (Pastor Rob's father in law) who has been a school teacher and principal for many years and has a good knowledge of teaching and dealing with kids. There is a good conversation going on amongst Wilson, Evan and Mr Chandler as the details of Evan's progress is revealed.
As the story goes on we were rolling in the aisles with laughter with the comments that were flying from Evan to Wilson and between Mr Chandler and Evan.
Wilson also provided some good old Southern Gospel songs and a little teaching on the gospel. All was very well appreciated by all and no doubt Mr and Mrs Kindred and Evan will be invited for a return visit sometime in the future.

This is a post that was composed quite awhile ago and was not published at the time. I thought you might enjoy it even at this late date.
Wilf Blakey

A catch up report

I apologize for not posting anything lately, I have been occupied with personal things and it seems to be rather quiet around the Ponderosa lately.
Actually the Winter Carnival has been on the go in February in Kirkland Lake, we have been hearing sounds in the sky for two weekends (Feb 26/27 and Feb 27/28) We finally found out what the noises were, there was a helicopter offering rides to people letting them see what the area looked like around our town only it was an aerial view for a change. I have always desired to take one of these rides but maybe next year.
Cabaret was playing at the LaSalle Theatre from Feb 24 to 27th and I hear that it was a very enjoyable show that they put on. Good work people.
This current weekend, the Baptist church sponsored a fund raising dinner for Teen Challenge to raise money to pay for a year's stay at the Teen Challenge ranch ( I believe it is at the Sault Ste Marie ranch) for a young man in need of rehabilitation. We like to support the work of this association as they definitely do good work with the people who go through the program.
Our church, Living Faith Assembly Pentecostal Church, hosted a group of young people from Cochrane, the Cochrane Young People. There were a total of ten young people, five making up a musical group and five younger boys and girls who made up a drama group. All, in all, the group put on an excellent program of music and skits. After the service, the visitors and our own group enjoyed a carry in lunch in the basement as well as socializing with each other afterwards.
Besides these events, I have been busy with our youngest daughter moving from one house to another and also taking care of some needed medical affairs for myself. Nothing serious, just things that needed to be done.
I will try to post more items in the near future as I find subjects to write on and pictures to take.
I just remembered an item that may be worthy of mentioning. Last summer, myself and a few friends installed a new steel roof on our shop to replace the old dilapidated shingle one that was on there before. As you know, our weather is improving with the warmer temperatures working on our snow on the ground and also on my steel roof. The snow decided to slide down the roof and onto the ground in front of my shop creating a pile about 18 inches deep from the deck stairs to the far side of the garage door. This happened while my wife and I were having our Pentecostal snooze on Sunday afternoon. I went out for a walk that evening and saw the results of my avalanche of snow but decided to work on it Monday morning. Monday morning came and when I tried to blow the snow with my blower, the snow was almost like a block of ice since the temperature had dropped since Sunday evening and had frozen the slushy snow. I had to hire a backhoe to remove the snow from the front area and that was easily done by Mr Crema.
Well I will say goodbye for now and will try to report more in the near future.
Wilf Blakey