Snow, Snow, Rain and Snow

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February 2017 continues to bring a small dedicated group of Dhamma workers to the Centre. Insulating the whole house is 80% accomplished and work is now focused on the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms.  The main bathroom was completely gutted due to much of the drywall being in poor shape under its blanket of purple tiles.  See accompanying photo of both bathrooms viewed from the smaller bedroom. The kitchen is now fully functional (minus a dishwasher installation) and gives us the flexibility to use either the house or the pumphouse on the upper property to prepare and serve meals.  This will be particularly helpful when we being drywall in the house. A generous donation of drywall was made by “Gordon’n’ Gordon Interiors” and “Slegg Lumber” for the upper bathrooms , the previous porch area and the entryway stairs and hallways.

After that dust settles a deep clean will commence including removing/replacing carpet, washing windows and painting the entire upper floor for the luxury of short and long-term servers.  Present comfort is ”the reading room”, or dining table.  See photo viewed from the front entrance. Thanks to Pariyatti we have new additions to our Dhamma Workers Library.

Over a foot of glorious snow this season has hampered use of the Dhamma Hall.  Our good neighbour Randy has plowed the road to the house twice (the 2nd time @no charge!), but not up the hill.  We shut down for a weekend when power lines were down all over the Cowichan region.  See photo of route to the outhouse prior to the 2nd plow.  The rains opened the roads accessing the top of the property allowing an old student to successfully completed a 3 Day self-course around the third week of February.  During his retreat the student  kept the woodstove in the Dhamma Hall going, and we all appreciated the warmer space for our daily group sits.

The burn pile on the side of the house has been sorted for two large trash and recycling runs for the Center truck.  A natural ring of wet earth made a very safe fire pit in the parking area away from both buildings. The burn grew to a 5 foot diameter over the afternoon, which made only a small dent in the volume to be burned!  Other dents to be filled include potholes in the road, and nail holes on walls in the house… ha ha.

The joys (and occasional) sorrows of work, good company, and wonderful times of silence are abundant at Dhamma Modana so far this year.