chatter

-- Chatter -- 

As most of you know I have worked our business (Brummet Media Group) and balancing that with home-management duties pretty much full time, up to 7 days a week and often pulling 10 - 12 hour days since 1999.  I rarely take time off, even more rarely take a full day off; yet Dave and I do take 4-5 day vacations from the office occasionally. This is why you'll notice the time gap between this and the last post here on the blog... I took some time off. Usually, I'll post a notice before I leave the office... so - I apologize for that.

What a year it has been for us here in our chosen home town in the Creston Valley area of BC (Canada). You know it is one of the most beautiful valleys, filled with gracious, kind, community minded, hard working, creative people. In the 5 years since we moved here we've seen numerous infrastructure improvements from paths and sidewalks to new intersections, landscaping, park and rest areas, numerous new business startups, new doctors and dentists have moved here, older buildings being remodeled and more new businesses planned to fill them... you can see the change in neighborhoods too where every third house it seems is having some kind of improvement done (siding, landscaping, etc.). We've become a part of the electric highway with free electric plugins now available at Creston's Chamber of Commerce building. It is an exciting time to live here in a region with too many non-profits to mention and where up to 60% of the population volunteers for one cause or another. 

This year we installed automatic drip system for the plants around and above the deck, saving time and potential injury (carrying heavy water cans up a step ladder for instance) and reducing water consumption while protecting our investment of plants by keeping them healthy. Last year, I had extended the landscape bed on the inside of the fence (eventually it will surround the property); so this year I got to play with new plantings and Dave built in a bird feed and water fountain area using flat decorative stone and masonry.  We also finished the vegetable garden area by installing the final raised wood frame bed (3.5' x 14') and filled it with compost mixed with peat and other amendments. Last winter we started the project of dismantling the open carport and turning it into a garage: insulated, wired, painted (with trim), installed an insulated automatic garage door, and a back door for us to access the yard from the garage as well. In doing this project we ended up extending one side of the garage, under the deck, as a workshop, built 2 benches and put in a few painted shelves. Well... it took us nearly a year to get that far! lol But at least we are making head-way on the project. We still have to do organizing of our storage and tools, which leads us to the "storage" in what will eventually be a "cold room", and also the "storage" in the garden shed, which also needs work done to it. lol 

As many of you are aware we lost our old, high-ranking website when we inadvertently let our domain name registration lapse, due to lack of communication. Since then we've chosen a new domain name (BrummetMedia.ca) and have gained the rights to that. However we haven't yet had a chance to go any farther with it just yet. We hope to have it active within a week or so, however.

With all of this, and more, going on this last year we were still able to complete the first edits and rewrites of the cookbook (From One Small Garden) - which is now in the final edit and format stages. Whew!  

I'll have some exciting announcements to release when the cookbook and website are up and running! In preparation for that work load, I have been focusing on getting as much done in the office and around the house as possible. ...thus the need for some time off. 

Coming up over the next couple of weeks I have some wonderful article contributions, another product review, and much more planned for the blog... keep checking back to discover new content, or browse the old posts  - and do please consider sharing them via those social networking buttons at the bottom of every post on this blog. :)

Thank you all for keeping in contact and for all the support of our efforts. Do keep submitting work that you (or anyone you know) may want to see on the blog (articles or poetry) and if you want to do an interview here on the blog just let us know. We also love hearing about non-profits and volunteer based activities so if you have news releases about things like that let us know and we'll do our best to share them.

Award-winning authors Dave & Lillian Brummet:

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