So.
An interval.
That didn't turn out the way I expected.  You know...life.  
I'm probably doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and am right where I should be.

This was a surprise.  Becoming sandwiched between two of the biggest forest fires in the province; the one to the north of us necessitating a week long evacuation.  We returned to find blackened pieces of trees littering our property, flung from an inferno no more than a kilometre away, just across Simon Bay.  
Search and Rescue came through just before the evacuation order, tying different colours of trail marker tape at the entrance to driveways to indicate which properties were occupied and who had been contacted.
We've left ours in place. 
​For some reason, so has almost everyone else.

There's a very cool, authentic little Greek restaurant in Fraser Lake but we didn't discover it until a few years back because it's in a double wide trailer with its featureless back to Highway 16. One afternoon (we must have been feeling terribly adventurous) we drove the half block off the highway to check out the fronts of a few of these little businesses and the north side of the building proved unexpectedly inviting. Once inside we finally discover Stavros - our local, authentic export/expat from Greece - and his bounty of Greek cuisine.  Vegetables from a large garden next door filled the soups he crafted each day or two or sat in as sides on Mediterranean inspired main courses offered for dinner.  Three or four guitars hung in a small room adorned with posters of Crete and he would bring these out to the patio to play old Greek melodies in the evening as warmth and twilight hung in the summer air.
We currently rent their sons' house (he was raised there so it's the original family home) and have been befriended by Stavros and Sandra which I consider a great honor.  It was probably during the very first dinner we ever experienced in the restaurant, while savoring flavors of olives, lemon, onion and feta that I first swiveled my head around trying to figure out how to pitch a mural to Stavros: it had to have a mural.  The smells and sounds (that accent!) of Crete had to be realized visually in some way larger than a poster.
Over the summer, once Sandra discovered my plan, I begun work on what I hoped was the most enticing slice of Crete that I could distill into 75 square feet.  The project had taken on a bit of urgency as Stavros was undergoing chemo and suffering from the effects.  His old friend Marcel Gagnon performed at the restaurant with a stellar group of musicians in August to acknowledge the years of support he had received there and I hoped to supply a visual equivalent so away I went down a rabbit hole of all things Creta - village, sea and sunshine.  
How close I came...  


Stavros never did see it and he slipped out of this world into the light and warmth of his beloved island one week ago today.
 

Here it is - early April - so I've been chomping at the bit to select colours for the roofing and siding.  (We say stuff like that 'round these parts...chomping at the bit and such.)  After deliberating over various combinations of butter yellow, soft green and ivory, I took the easy route and settled on a clay toned trio from the Hardi plank siding selector, relying instead on textures for interest rather than colour.  Make it POP! with the accents!  The siding is paintable so we can change colour in future if desired...and still physically able.  The cabin is going to have to coordinate with a smaller log guest cabin which will be constructed in 2015.
 The Husband was quickly converted from his years long stance in favour of traditional green metal roofing once I pointed out how many people had gone with brown or taupe and the very compelling case to be made in favor of the far greater range of colours that it compliments.
Do I find colour riveting? Just a little.
All details seem to be in order so now it's just a matter of waiting out the thaw and the resulting mud and subsequent heavy equipment ban on the roads and then...four...three...two...one...spring into action in...June.

That would be a bit of set painting for Vanderhoof's production of Cariboo Magi.  Most of the painting involves a wintery twilight Cariboo landscape which I do on site and this saloon sign on which I went to town because it was completed at home. 
If less is more imagine how much more 'more' is??