The canoe blessing at Nehemiah has an aftermath!  The man in the picture taking (lots of!) photos is Reg Mess, a professional photographer, of Masters Touch Inc.  Unfortunately, I cannot give you a link to his site as, at the moment, when I google it, a message comes up warning me of spyware.  I wondered what kind of photos he would be taking at this point – here are a couple of them.

And later, as we came to shore…

Reg kindly gave me the photos when the canoe crew came to visit at the end of their trip.  They were supposed to stay at Nehemiah for 10 days, and come to Ginty Creek for an overnight stay at the weekend before going home.  But the weather was atrocious. The morning after Jimmy and I came home, storms had put fresh snow on the mountains.

The sky rapidly clouded over and the afternoon was gloomy and raw.  The next day the wind was maniacle.  We had sun but on the Lower Mainland they had rain as well with hundreds of fallen trees and power outages.  The forecast looked dismal for the next few days and I received a phone message saying that Chris and the crew were going to abandon Chilko and come to my place early.  Here is that wonderful canoe parked in my yard.  My canoe looks very plebian beside it!)

Some of the crew slept in vehicles, but others erected tents among the trees.

(It is sunny at the moment of this photo, but by evening, it was gloomy and spitting with rain.  The wind blew all night.)

As they had time on their hands, the crew decided to spend two nights.  So guess what I did – I put them to work!

Some split wood…

Reg (the photographer) fished off some details on the cabin above the deck.  He even cleaned the attic windows while he was up there!

(Note the storm over the mountains.  We had mostly sun  until late afternoon, then the cloud flew overhead and we actually had a decent rain. The third of the summer.)

But the big job was collecting rocks.

I had hoped to finish the outdoor stone oven before my housewarming party at the end of this month, but thought that, with only Jimmy to help, that plan would have to be shelved.  Now I had a willing and energetic crew!  Steve, on the left, is from Leeds, Yorkshire, and has drystone walling in his background.  Jimmy (the volunteer) is immensely strong and was able to lift huge rocks alone.  Trevor and Sandy also both had a lot of power.

Most of the rock work to begin with was just making a base to the level of the baking stone, which is currently on top.  Then we were able to build the oven walls.  Mass is important, as large rocks hold heat much longer.

Now for the roof!

This one was very heavy.

But they did it!

When I came to write this post, I realized I did not have a picture of the finished oven, so I went down (after another heavy rain stopped this morning) to make the shot.

(Jimmy and I still have some refinements to do before we can try to bake bread.)

The chipmunks absolutely loved their new home!

I wish the crew could have stayed longer.  But they packed up and left this morning.

Here’s Harry supervising.

Before they left, Reg decided we should have a group shot.  It was cold and raw, and Badger wanted to stay inside.  He is under the camera’s tripod, not moving a muscle.  This was a dog who had spent 8 months in the SPCA because he had been beaten by, and hated men – he would always growl at them.  He has no trouble with men now!

And here is the shot Reg took.  Thank you, Reg – hope your website is user-friendly soon.  And thank you all the canoe crew.  I LOVE visitors like this!