Winter finally kicked into high gear in this shortest of months with a collection of school cancellations for snow days, arctic blasts, spring like afternoons and all conditions in between that Mother Nature could throw at us! There were ongoing home renovations, splashes of trip planning, the tumbles of teaching and, of course, camp time. Here’s the highlight reel!
Let’s start with Feb 3-4, when the thermometer plummeted and Eastern Canada put up some of the coldest temps seen since 2015. So what do you do when it’s -25°C (feels like -40°C) outside? That’s right… you go to the camp 😉… A little man against nature. It was a solo camp trip including a roughly 10km return hike, a couple of healthy meals, lots of time tending the fire (Temps @ ceiling 30°C 🥵 and floor 0°C 🥶), and constant cracks, snaps and booms of the cold penetrating the building and lake ice. Wonderfully, the camp systems persevered (wood stove, solar set-up, power pack, outhouse 🫣) and I learned much about handling extreme weather @Smeltlake!
In February our star border, Monica, put some of her summer work training to good use as she tackled the refurb of Pete’s room upstairs. Ms Lumsden, lead designer, was hard at work prepping a myriad of options on her phone app and keeping organization on schedule and moving forward! Transformation, from “teen grunge” to “guest suite”, began in earnest with the sorting of an array of paraphernalia (the area had become quite a storage depot), emptying and removal of entire space, and dismantling (bunk beds – Thnx Pete 👍). Monica tackled patch/painting duties with several fresh coats of the white stuff from ceiling to baseboard. Dad supported multiple sojourns to Value Village, a huge IKEA run, and the Allen Key assembly.
I also slapped down some fairly serious coursework time for my StFX class this semester… big class of 30 students this time around. February saw deep dives in topics/tools such as GAFE (Google Apps for Education), PowerTeacher, and Assistive Technology. There are moments when I consider “why”, but all in there is an energy I take from the interaction with these future colleagues that keeps me sharp and on that continuous learning track! Goal is to have a pretty bow on this before March Break!
Speaking of break, the February “Heritage Day” holiday saw some full-on trip planning to tie up the dangling ends of our upcoming adventure in Central Europe. I was starting to feel the “tingles” three weeks out! I think, in the end, we have a solid but relaxed itinerary, with fixed travel / attraction / accommodation items sorted, but lots of space for “nothing” and room for changes on the fly. Of note, I’ve utilized more than ever YouTube to research our destinations and source “best practice” knowledge on food, attraction, currency, safety… great resource!
So, in my estimation, a lot going on for what is a fairly quick month. And yes, indeed, February seems to have been “good to us”!