The Hilltop - Dec 8

I realized the one I sent to you guys wasn't that good...the words were cut off. Let's try this version instead..

So anyways...Dec/8

Well, to be honest, nothing much happened during the 8-4 part of the day...Betty Ann was busy organizing the Annual General Meeting, so she didn't have the time or patience to give work for me to do...so pretty much it's back to emailing/msning/listening to music for almost 7 hours straight. Hence you guys got 3-4 emails that day (don't exactly remember the actual number).

What I want to focus on is what happened after I got off work, because that's where the interesting things are. The Katimavik crew was invited to a barbecue held by Paul and Barel/Barrel/Borel (Paul's wife), who were prominent figures in Blind River (especially Barel - I am going to stick to that) and associated with Katimavik...and somehow Emilie's friend. So around 5:30, we all dressed warmly (Emilie told us to wear snowboots and winter pants, because we may be playing in the snow...I wore sweatpants and hiking boots ;P), hopped into the Katima-truck (Co-Co mobile for Maxime, Katima-van for Zach...yeah it's more like a van than a truck), and drove north of town for 45 minutes into middle-of-nowhere/deep deep forest...this is where Paul and Barel lives, in a cabin in the forest, far away from town...

So anyways we parked our truck/van/coco into a drivewaylike path and got off...when I was about to get off a huge hunting dog (the black and brown one) just leaped on top of me and started barking...my first instinct was to scream my head off, which everyone laughed because they are all dog lovers except for me. The dog kept leaping in/out of the car 3 times barking at me which just made me scream again and again...finally Paul had to pull him away (the dog's name is Shadow) and then I was able to finally get out of the vehicle and enter into the cabin.

Paul and Barel's cabin has to be one of the coolest houses I have ever seen in my life. Inside is like your typical in-the-woods cabin, with cozy sofas/chairs, rugs, furnace, and animal showpieces (deer heads, antlers of different shapes and sizes...apparently he also has one of a bear, which was in his room because he had no place for it...I didn't go and see it) along the wall. They also have eclectic decorations all over the house, mostly consisting of dogs (in honor of Shadow and their past dogs) and Christmas things (such as dancing and singing santas, snowmans, etc...my favorite one is a medium sized decoration piece where you press a button and then Santa starts singing and mooning his butt to Frosty, to which Frosty goes "Oh Santa you are sooooo bad!"....no joke! Oh yes speaking of singing Santas, Shadow is a singing dog...this may be the first time I actually met a singing dog. It's the funniest thing...Paul was just talking to us about the house when all of a sudden the giant Santa starts singing and dancing (it was on a timer) and Shadow immediately ran to the Santa and started barking...then howling...we all laughed our heads off, and for the rest of our stay Maxime would try and get Shadow to sing by turning on different singing decorations or howling to him. According to Barel Shadow has been on radio shows doing singing dog contests and even once in a while they would play the audio clip of him singing...quite cute.

Anyways back to describing the house...Paul kind of gave us a tour, which includes the washroom and bathroom (both look like Swedish saunas) and the upstairs (which I didn't look at). Overall the architecture of the house is cool, but there are 3 things about their house that I really find cool:
1) Their cabin is on a pretty big area of land, which is all theirs...they have part of a lake which freezes in the winter (unfortunately not when we were there) and they would invite people (us included) to skate on...during the summer it's summer/water sports
2) Because their cabin is deep in the forest, animals would come by throughout the season, so they get to pretty much view nature outside their window...Barel told me stories and showed me photos of the animals that came by their house...pretty cool. As well, since they have a big area of land and need access to it, Paul is building hiking trails throughout their property which he is mapping (yes, he even has a map of his property...like a national park, haha). If it wasn't snowy outside, he would have showed us the trails
3) My absolute favorite thing about the house - It is solar powered! Yes...it's quite hard to imagine this to exist in a cabin from middle-of-nowhere, but they actually have solar panels outside the house - Paul flashed his flashlight outside the window to show them to us. And that's where they get their electricity, hot water, etc...Paul started explaining to me/Emilie/Stephen/Cynthia that when there's sun, the panels would collect the energy and bring it back to the house, where the adaptor is (or something like that) located in a room (I dubbed it the "energy room"). Next the energy is converted into electricity, then stored into giant batteries for usage (Barel and Paul gave each other batteries for Christmas presents, haha)...because of this system, they only pay $100-$200 dollars each year for electricity bills, although the whole system cost around $10000 ish?). I love how the house is able to mix savvy technology with their original ways.

So after the tours and stuff, we got down with the barbecue...I had 2 burgers, 1 hot dog and 1.5 sausage, and again the crew made fun of me for eating so much. After the barbecue, because Paul and Barel has a karaoke machine, we decided to sing karaoke...we must have done that for an hour and a half, and it was quite fun. Most of the songs were old (reflecting on Paul and Barel's age, haha) but classics...in general the crew (except for me) knew the songs and would sing along (somehow "The Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash is very popular in Blind River). Cynthia probably sang the most songs out of everyone (5-6 i think?), while I rocked the mike, haha (3-4 songs, everyone cheered after I finished). Oddly enough, although most of the crew are really loud at home, singing and dancing all the time, people in general are pretty mike-shy (especially Mike - pardon the pun, since he was the only one who sang no songs despite the fact that everyone pushed him to sing) and most people would not sing unless they are doing it with someone else. So pairing wise...

Zach/Rebecca, Cynthia/Me, Rebecca/Me, Maxime/Me (notice there is a lot of me going around) the Frenchees, Charles/Emilie, Emilie, Stephen (the brave one), Cynthia
I am really surprised that Zach wouldn't sing karaoke by himself, since he is the one that's always starting the dance/singing parties at home during cooking/dishwashing...but he said he hates hearing his own voice...sure...
Mike is a party pooper

So after karaoke...Paul or other people came up with the idea of going out into the woods and play hide and seek, which half of the crew were excited/less enthused about...but pretty much everyone went out and played in the snow except for Cynthia, who chose to stay inside. I was going to go outside with everyone, but because I only wore sweatpants and hiking boots instead of what Emilie told us to wear, and because the snow was shin-deep out in the woods, I had to return to the house...which was a shame because Paul was showing me his night-vision binoculars, and when I looked through the binoculars I can see everyone running away, haha. This is the price I pay for listening to Emilie, I guess :P

So I returned into the house and had a nice chat with Emilie and Barel...she was telling us about the community, the cabin, her family, etc. etc...while showing us her scrapbook with photos of the cabin, her family, etc. It was really interesting, and she knows a lot about the community and is well-connected. Here are some information about the cabin:

Name of cabin - Hilltop (because it's on a hill)
Age - 111 years old (100 years as a barn, converted into a cabin 11 years ago)
(There are more things, but I can no longer recall anything...)

Anyways the crew returned a while after...they all had a good time, even though they only played one round of hide-and-seek because it was way too dark (plus they couldn't go too far because there are wild animals)...so Paul took them on their snowmobile/4 wheeler...not quite sure what it was and they had a lot of fun from that...damn! They settled in and had hot chocolate...I got tired and fell asleep...people kept bugging me from my sleep...stupid kids.

At around 10:30 pm Emilie decided that we needed to go home...so away we go...I got into the car and immediately fell asleep next to Stephanie. The next thing I know, we arrived to the house.

Shower/Bed....the crew decorated the house all Christmas-y

Angel

FYI/POI - If you guys want to know why Maxime calls the Katima-truck "Co-co mobile", here is the reason. According to Cheryl, the term is "Cocotte-mobile", which in literal English is "Pine-cone mobile"...but apparently the French thinks it's cute to call their honeybunnies "cocotte/pine cone"...why I wouldn't know. So cocotte=darling/sweetie/love...which in term makes the Katima-truck the "love truck"....hahahaha, only Maxime can think of something like that...

Tomorrow (not actually tomorrow, but Dec 9) is a drama-packed day, stay tuned