This was a challenging but interesting year for us.  We did manage to spend some time at the Farm and even got to some projects from our Job Jar.  We built a stand for a 500 litre cube tank that we had repurposed to be the water supply for my pressure washer.  Lee and I finally finished putting up the remaining rails on our yard fence and installed a gate.  We laid down deck boards on the trailer deck to give it a new surface.  Got around to building a metal top workbench in the garage.  Even managed to change out the batteries in the big tractor (no mean feat!).

We listed our Edmonton house in June with the intention of purchasing in an over-55 community.  With the maintenance and upkeep at the farm and thoughts of going into retirement full time sometime soon, we wanted to lessen the load and free up some of our time.  I had retired from my 30 year career in January 2015 with the intention of doing some consulting to keep me occupied.  As it turned out, I started a consulting gig in Winnipeg within a few weeks of retiring and it morphed in to a full-time job by year end.  So, after 6 years of commuting between Winnipeg, Edmonton and Needles California I was ready to actually retire.  I gave notice for the end of July and celebrated the decision by treating myself, my wife, son and DIL to a guided sturgeon fishing trip on the Fraser River at Hope BC.

Arriving back in Edmonton after sturgeon fishing, Lee was immediately hospitalized for an intestinal obstruction.  It took a week to get that straightened out.  Once she was discharged we packed up and drove to the farm to get in a bit of R&R.  Later on in August we were joined by my brother, his wife, my cousin and his wife for a few days.  While they were there we got a call from our realtor.  There had been no action at all on that front since mid-June.  She now had a solid offer which we accepted.  Now we had to go into moving and house-hunting mode.

Meanwhile, the rheumatoid arthritis in my lower spine was getting out of hand so I started on a series of cortizone injections.  Possession date on the house was September 16th.  We had already made arrangements to put all our possessions into storage containers until we found new digs or went south for the winter.  As well, we rented a storage unit  to store our stuff that we didn't want to put into sea-cans.  We managed to get everything done around the move and were actively looking for a new house at the same time.  Prospects were bleak.  There was very little out there that would meet our requirements and we were outbid on the one place we did find.

At this point we had moved into the Staybridge Suites intending to stay there and up at the farm until we were ready to head south in the beginning of October.  Meanwhile, we found a place we liked online on Realtor,ca and made arrangements for a viewing.  The day after we moved out of our old house we went to the viewing and put in an offer, which was accepted.  Possession date was October 16th.  With not much to do until closer to our move-in date, we headed back to the farm for a couple of weeks.

After spending some quality time up north, we started winterizing and shutting down for the winter on Sunday October 3rd.  During the day I started to feel ill and it progressed as the day went on.  By suppertime I was nauseous, feverish, hurting all over and generally not doing well at all.  After a sleepless night I could barely lift myself out of the recliner I spent the night on.  Lee hastily packed us up, poured me into the truck and made it back to Edmonton in almost record time.  We checked back in to Mainstay Suites and I went comatose for two days.  On the third day I told Lee I needed to get to Emergency so she dropped me off at the Sturgeon Hospital in St. Albert.  The triage nurse knew exactly what I had, Covid.  Actually it was Covid Delta Variant with double pneumonia.  Long story short, they discharged me on oxygen three weeks later.

Meanwhile, while I was vacationing at the Sturgeon, the possession date of our new house arrived.  Lee took possession, hired a crew to move the contents of the storage sea-cans in and set up the house.  I was discharged on the 25th and couldn't even walk from the car to the front door. Lungs were shot and I was weak as a newborn.  Recovery was a struggle but after a few weeks at home I organized the cleaning out of our storage unit, set up my man-cave in the basement, drove to the farm with my BIL to finish winterizing and drove down to Sundre to pick up a new travel trailer we had custom ordered in the spring.  Through all this they were still shooting cortizone into my spine to control the pain from the arthritis.

Needless to say, 2021 was an adventure.  Glad when it was over.  I had recovered enough by mid-January to take myself off the oxygen.  On January 20th we packed the car and away we went, arriving at our RV resort in Needles California three days later.  Spent the winter and returned home April 6th,