Al Zylstra

It was October of 2013. Alex and I were settled in to our new home and adjustsing to having space and a yard. Alex decided we should have some backyard chickens. When a nosy neighbour behind us caught wind of that, she complained to the City. Unbeknownst to us, city bylaws were in place where you could only have chickens if you had 1/4 acre of land as your property.

Alas, we were nowhere near that in size. So, Alex said, “If I can’t have chickens, then we are getting rabbits!” Off to the local shelter we went. We came home with two of the sweetest little girls: Caramel – a copper coloured Lion Head Dwarf rabbit and Patches – a White & Gray Netherland Dwarf. We were in love with them.

Two more spoiled rabbits were ne’er to be found. We spent days building them a proper hutch with indoor heat and cooling. We spent so much money on getting heated water bottles, the finest bedding and the best of all foods.

We settled in to having these two little girls for, what we hoped was, a long, long time.

Sadly, Caramel passed quickly and quietly back in September, 2019. We buried her under a rose bush in our backyard. That was where she and her sister liked to hang out. To this day, I still miss her.

That left Patches. We talked about getting her a companion but, after much debate, we decided that she was not going to accept another companion. So, Patches became a solitary girl. She loved getting her morning scratches from me or Alex, She revelled in getting carrots, fresh clover, apple slices and the occasional piece of watermelon or cantelope.

She settled in her daily routine. When it became too hot outside, we brought her into the house where she lay in front of the a/c unit – all the while under the watchful stare (glare?) of Phantom and Beau.

It is with profound sadness that I have to say that at 9:10 pm, August 7, 2026, Patches has also passed on. Alex held her while she took her last breath. She will be sorely missed.

When we bought our home back in 2013, we knew that we would have a SMALL back yard and an equally small front yard. It was agreed by myself and Alex that he would be the one to take on management of said pieces of land. In my wildest dreams, it did not occur to me that taking care of a 8 meter x 15 meter piece of land in the back and a 6 meter x 15 meter piece of land in the front would require SOOOOO much work, time, and money!

This is what the front looked like

This is what it looks like now

The biggest change was putting a new bed of gravel down and installing some garden beds around the perimter of the front. It is somewhat low maintenance.

The biggest changes have happened in the back. These wer taken in 2013

This is what it looks like now

We also installed a pond . It has undergone a number of incarnations since the first one we put in. Last week, however, tragedy struck! We covered the larger of the ponds with a fencing material to keep the urban raccoons out. We did not, however, cover the smaller pond that fed into it well enough. They got in and killed about 1/3 of our stock of goldfish. The carnage was horrific! Half eaten corpses littered the yard.

So, after burying the dead, we got to work. It was time to fix the pond and make it safer, more functional and prettier. We bought a new filtration system, new water pumps, pond liner and hoses.

We decided that we wanted a small stream to feed into the ponds and so that is what we did. Alex did most of the work and I happily admit that he knew what we was doing and in less than a week, we had a stream running into the ponds.

We then got to work on the ponds themselves. We adjust the enclosure on the big pond, added new plants and large rocks to hold the enclosure in place.

Alex then added another screen enclosure on the small pond to secure it. You can see the stream feeding into it. You can see at the bottom of the picture, our new heavy duty filtration system. It has cleared up the water in three days!

He then replanted the small area just beside the small pond. You will notice at the top of this picture a rectangular box – that is a motion sensor that puts out a variety of flashing lights and sounds which will, hopefully, scare off any future attempts to attack our pond.

I am still going to put a small table and chair there to have a zen space. I will just need to make sure that I turn off the alarm when sitting there and to turn it on when I leave.

This year, Alex and I decided that we would not be traveling for my vacation. Rather, we would pick a project and use some of my vacation time completing that project. We have a few items on our list: new windows, new electrical, new plumbing, potentially new insulation, and heating / cooling system.

The heating / cooling system was outside of our established budget for this year, so we picked the most cost effective option: Painting the house!

Here is what our house looked like when we purchased it in 2013

Fast forward to 2017. I never liked the brown and off-white. It was drab, dreary, peeling and downright UGLY. So, we decided to update the colour palatte.

We loved the two tone blue – it was clean and interesting. Not to mention that no one else in our community had those colours.

Another fast forward to this year. The colours were starting to show their age. The paint was peeling in some spots and it was looking tired. So, off to Home Depot we went!

This past week was one week of my vacation and for the first three days of it, we had rain. Then, on the Wednesday, the rain stopped and we were able to start. By Saturday, I was in love the end results.

Celebrating my birthday at our favourite restaurant: – The Old Surrey Restaurant !

Great food, great atmosphere, excellent service

Today was a good day. Tackled our fish pond. Cleaned the small one first. Moved 24 good sized goldfish into it, drained and cleaned the big one. Now just filling the big one back up so they can migrate over to their bigger and cleaner home!

Has it been THREE months since I wrote anything? That is crazy! So, let’s try and fix that right now.

February – Busy month. Filled with lots of appointments, both personal and professional. Had so many meetings with my accounts through work but, I managed to juggle them all and fill them with glee at getting to talk to me…. (grin).

Rehearsals for the production of Moon Over Buffalo were in full swing. It was such a fun show to work on.

​Moon Over Buffalo

By: Ken Ludwig

Genre: Comedy/Farce

​February 19 – March 8, 2026

Thursday – Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm

Preview performances Thursday, February 19 and Friday, February 20

​​Director:  Miles Lavkulich

Producer: Cindy Dean

Stage Manager: Al Zylstra

Asst. Stage Manager: Frederick Popowich

Set Designer: Warren Johnson

​Cast: 

• George Hay – John Cousins
• Charlotte Hay – Julia Chayko
• Ethel – Deb Tom
• Rosalind – Abigail Walkner
• Howard – Doug Perri
• Eileen – Jenna Leigh
• Paul – Thane Buckingham
• Richard – Dwayne Campbell

Synopsis:

​In the madcap comedy tradition of Lend Me a Tenor, the hilarious Moon Over Buffalo centers on George and Charlotte Hay, fading stars of the 1950s. At the moment, they’re playing Private Lives and Cyrano De Bergerac in rep in Buffalo, New York with five actors. On the brink of a disastrous split-up caused by George’s dalliance with a young ingénue, they receive word that they might just have one last shot at stardom: Frank Capra is coming to town to see their matinee, and if he likes what he sees, he might cast them in his movie remake of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Unfortunately for George and Charlotte, everything that could go wrong does go wrong, abetted by a visit from their daughter’s clueless fiancé and hilarious uncertainty about which play they’re actually performing, caused by Charlotte’s deaf, old stage-manager mother who hates every bone in George’s body.

February was also a sad month for me: My mom would have been 100 years old on February 12. Here she is back in 2014 when Alex and I were able to come and visit.

We stayed with my brother and sister in-law while visiting Anna, my sister, who was dying from cancer. Three short months later, we lost Anna.

March – Once again, lots of meetings and appointments. There were a lot of medical appointments for Alex. His health issues were coming under control but we needed to be vigilant. So, we did blood tests, ultrsounds, examinations, consultations with specialists, etc. I was also getting back into the groove with conferences and networking events for work.

This month also marked the anniversary of the passing one of my only cousins who lived in Canada, John. It was a sad reminder of how short our lives can be.

March 31 was also the anniversary of the passing of a very special young lady. Ariel Boutette was taken from us far too soon. She was an amazing young woman who showed the world that regardless of our physical limitations, we could still be happy and full of life.

April – April 21 was my dad’s birthday. He would have been 106.

The day after my dad’s birthday, Mom passed away.

I hope that, wherever they are, they are together and dancing.

Happy Belated New Year! This year has started off with a bit of a bang.

Alex is not one to sit around if there is a project to be done. The weather has been chilly outside and he found that the cold and damp air was problematic for his breathing. So, he stayed inside. His plants are all doing well and he didn’t need to spend a lot of time taking care of them.

That left new projects for him to take on. About 2 years ago, we talked about renovating our guest bathroom. We talked about replacing the tub and shower surround with a new set up. That proved to be expensive – see my post about our master bathroom renovation – replacing our huge ugly tub with a walk in shower. I don’t regret doing it and I think they did a great job.

However, we are trying to save money. So, Alex took it upon himself to redo the tub and shower surround.

He started with a black base coat

He then added white and gray using a variety of sponging techniques

Next was more colours and streaking using paint brushes and other items

Then, it was the final coats on the surround, painting the tub and adding the fixtures. I think it looks great!

I am finding it difficult to believe that the end of 2025 is almost upon us. It is truly amazing (and awful) that the year just flew by. It feels like it was just Spring and here we are with the middle of December already!

I have discovered that I didn’t post as much this past year as compared to others. I seemed to have run out of time, so there isn’t as much to tell everyone.

January

January of 2025 started off with a bang. I was given the privilege of Stage Managing a wonderful Rom/Com: A Nice Indian Boy

What a fun show! I met some amazing people on this production and I hope I get to work with them all again in the future.

February

February was so busy with A Nice Indian Boy that I didn’t have much time for anything else.

March

February ended and March jumped in with another show: The Ladies Foursome

April

April was a quiet month filled with reflection and memories of my mom and dad.

May

May of 2025 was a big date for me. I reached the age of retirement! Not that I plan on it anytime soon. Too many fun things to buy before that happens.

June

2025 saw a return of traveling for me. I made a trip to Red Deer to work at a conference for the Massage Therapist Association. I had a blast hanging out in Red Deer.

July

In July, I was able to reconnect with coworkers from my time in the Barter Industry. I had so much fun with these people in the past and it just felt right that we got to hang out again.

August

August is when my world got turned upside down. What was supposed to be a minor day procedure to get rid of a kidney stone turned into a week long exercise in what works in our Health Care System and what doesn’t.

September

Alex found his creative juices flowing again.

October / November

We celebrated our 22nd Wedding Anniversary!

December

There is still a lot that is going to happen this month but, we started off with a bang! We have a busy month planned. We have friends over on Christmas Eve, then off to our friend, Nancy’s for Christmas Dinner. We are off to the Old Surrey Restaurant on the 28th for Alex’s 69th Birthday followed up with a small dinner party at our friend, Lee’s for New Year’s Eve!

From both Alex and myself, we hope that you have a great 2026 and I hope to contribute more to my site in the coming months.

Alex has been pining (pardon the pun) for a couple of decades now for a real Christmas tree. So, this year, I got him one.

Meet Bruce the Spruce! He is roughly 2 metres tall, and is a sight to behold!