I had hoped to be able to blog that I had resolved the autohelm issue today but after fiddling with it yesterday I discovered that there was more to do than I had thought and it still isn’t fixed. I did find a reasonably local Raymarine repair guy only an hours drive away instead of having to go all the way into Halifax or worse – have him drive 2.5 hours from there to me! Instead if necessary it will be a 1 hour drive. I plan to disassemble the autohelm connections totally and reassemble them so I am hoping that will resolve any issues. I suspect that I might be the author of the failure myself as last year I was trying to get the autohelm to pass fluxgate compass info to the GPS and RADAR and I may have tied one signal or another down to ground or something inadvertently . We’ll see.

Herself is working up a storm in the upstairs hallway finally getting the place painted. Once that is done we can re-hang some artwork and get some more out of storage and up on the wall as well. Maybe, if it is raining up a storm I might get son Chris to help out with the other upstairs projects such as putting in the new floor and walls in the bathroom and installing the clawfoot tub. With the two of us going at it it will probably take far less time than if it was only me. Also, with him bugging me, I might actually get at it. I have the flooring; I just need to get the stuff for the walls.

With the rain interspaced with all kinds of hot humid sun the garden is going gangbusters especially the perennials and the herb garden. In fact I am having to cut back the Marchal Foch grapes a lot as they are threatening to take over the yard. We have tow as yet empty garden beds that we are gong to rush off and get some compost from a neighbour which will allow us to get our squash and cucumbers planted but by then the garden should be finished.

We have a gutter guy come in and replace the gutters on the roof with seamless covered gutters that will be emptying into rain barrels instead of into storm drains and we will use the rain barrels as a home for goldfish and a place to plant water lilies and to water the garden. We had the barrels, I just have to cut off the tops and put in the faucet drains in the bottom, then we should be in the market for goldfish. I expect that once we get them operations we will have a dry spell, wouldn’t you think?