December 27: House Tour, the Border and Critters

House Tour

Now that we have almost organized ourselves (or have sufficient places to hide things), I thought I’d give you a little house tour. 

Our front door is guarded vigilantly by Sinister and Dexter, our two annoyed warrior monks (but they are not visible in this gloom).

Right inside the front door is a little washroom (and you can see my brother’s ice crystal pictures reflecting in the mirror).

After a closet, there is a nice little office for Brian, with an opening onto the dining room to give him even more light.

Beyond that is the dining room that looks out onto the valley beneath us (and sliding doors to the deck).

Directly left is the living room (also with doors to the deck).

Opposite the living room is the kitchen.

Behind the living room is the master bedroom with a huge ensuite (massive soaker tubs are the norm here), stacking washer and dryer, and walk-in closet.  There is a little deck outside the master bedroom for morning coffee in the summer.

Downstairs, there is a rec area (again with huge windows) and access to what will become the patio.

The guest bedroom is really a bit more than average.  First of all, there is a little entrance foyer that has been named the “Library”.  Beyond that is the guest bedroom (with sliding doors to the patio).  There is also an ensuite bathroom with shower.  Just to let you know what you will be experiencing when you visit.

There are three storage/utility areas as well as a nice corner for my workouts, another little bathroom, and my workroom (of course with sliding doors to the patio).

The garage is a separate building with room for two cars and a little suite that was lived in by the previous owners while the house was being built.  (And this was downsizing?)

The Border

We went to the US Border yesterday.  All it took was a five minute walk up the driveway of a vacant lot to the left.  The border is marked by aluminum towers with long barbed wire on fenceposts strung in between. 

Naturally I stepped over the border, but Trump appeared not to notice, and no fighter jets showed up.  Out border marker is #121 and you can see the plate on it.

Critters

I have set up the game camera, but appear not to need it as the deer happily walked between the house and the garage a couple of days ago.  These were the famous five, but I only grabbed the camera in time to catch last-minute Charlie.  What you can’t see is one of neighbours at the end of the garage, grandly gesturing all five through.  The deer weren’t fussed at all.

Behind the deer you see my Christmas present bird feeder pole.  It has been up for about a week, with absolutely no signs of life.  Three days ago I saw a hairy woodpecker, two days ago I saw grey jays, and today all hell has broken loose.  There have been several grey jays, several stellar jays, a red-shafted flicker, chickadees and several Clark’s Nutcrackers (a first for me).  These guys are big—about 25% bigger than a blue jay, and they are noisy.  They also fight with anything.

Cheers!

Dec 20 Update Skiing and Winter

We took a break from the house this week, and went skiing at Silverstar in Vernon for a couple of days.  Silverstar is about a 3 ½ hour drive from here, but we had bought season’s passes on sale while we were in Vernon, expecting to live there.  Since there were no refunds, we decided to grin and bear it.  This worked out to be a better decision than we first thought.

Silverstar has fabulous snow and fabulous long runs.  In Moonstone, we could do 5 or 6 runs in an hour, including chair time.  Here we can maybe do two runs in an hour.  And there are 132 different trails!

The mountain is well managed, with good signage explaining all the trails.

Even the facilities have good signage.

Seasons Pass holders get a private lunchroom and lockers for themselves, so there is a place to retreat even with the worst crowds.

As is usual in the Okanagan, everyone talks to each other, and helps each other out.  All we needed to do was say aloud “It would be nice to get a picture of the two of us with this sign”, and the fellow beside us offered to help.

The village is lively but not overly commercial, but as you can see it was snowing fairly heavily when we decided to leave.

As usual, by the time we arrived back in Osoyoos, whatever snow they got had melted, and the temperature was about 0 Celsius.  Up the hill there is more snow, but the daytime temperatures are just below 0, so this is not hard to take.

At our level, we find it not uncommon to be in the cloud, but one unexpected benefit of that is that we get spectacular hoar frost on everything.

And when the sun comes out, all the hoar frost disappears.  (You will probably get sick of these pictures…)

In the meantime, we have embarked on a giddy social life in this community.  Neighbours invited us over for drinks on Friday night, where we met three more couples.  There is a very strong community association here, and Sunday featured a potluck dinner at the local fire hall, with 140 people in attendance.  There were door prizes, raffles, and lots of good community updates provided by the fire chief and his deputy.  In a place where wildfires are a fact of life, we are lucky to have such a dedicated volunteer crew, all 32 of them.

Tonight we have over the two real estate agents responsible for the sale/purchase of this house, and their spouses, so this will be a lively evening.  No wonder there are so few blog updates!

Life at Eagle Point

My apologies for the delays in postings, but we finally got internet a couple of days ago and we are now live again.

It’s been a month since we took possession of the house, and finally this weekend we have enough stuff sorted out so that we can relax.

The unpacking only took a day, but it took 3 weeks to put away almost everything.  Now we have to pull it all out again and reorganize it! 

In the meantime, we were starting to learn some of the foibles of the house.  Here’s our living room with a beautiful wood-burning fireplace made by Napoleon in Barrie, Ontario.  Ironically, in Moonstone we were fully pleased with Pacific Energy products made in BC!

Trees are sparse enough on this property that we will buy firewood here, and I don’t think Brian will mind a bit.

I have mentioned the spectacular view here, and we are still dumbfounded every day by the variety of sights.  Sometimes we can see for miles, sometimes we are right in the midst of a cloud, and other times we look down on a cloud in the valley, which is apparently very typical of Okanagan winters.  The lakes don’t freeze, so when cold air flows in it creates a lot of fog.

We have created a corner in the living room where we have our morning coffee and afternoon tea, and we have watched both deer and a coyote from the window.

I tried to get pictures of the mule deer on my game camera, but so far no luck.  There are 5 that hang around, a buck and 4 does.  When we mentioned this to our next door neighbours, they immediately said, “But those are OUR deer!”

The coyote blew into the yard this morning, very agitated about something.  It was looking down the hill, barking and howling.  Then it would run a little up the hill and then bark and howl from a higher vantage point.  I don’t know what was distressing it, but was wondering about a cougar, which is not improbable.

Osoyoos is a lovely little town of about 5000 people.  There are no parking meters on the street, and everyone in the stores talks to you.  They have a nice park along the waterfront (not a good day to take a picture) with a fountain that goes year-round.  A number of waterfowl hang around all winter but none wanted to pose.  A lot of people walk all-year round, because Osoyoos gets an average of 5.3 cm of snow a year and generally what falls does not stick around.

Things are different on the mountain.  I should mention that we are near the peak of Anarchist Mountain, shown here.

We are about 2600’ feet above Osoyoos and definitely get much more snow.  Temperatures are about 5 degrees cooler up here, which will be nice in the summertime.

Driving up here from Osoyoos is another story.  Our driveway is about 100 yards from Highway 3 which goes straight across Southern BC from Hwy 3 (the Crowsnest highway), which stretches along the south part of BC from Alberta to Vancouver.  The road is heavily used by trucking.  A little down from our house is a brake-check pull-off for trucks, with the following impressive sign regarding the road into Osoyoos.

I might highlight that there are six hairpin turns over a 16 km stretch, as well as 3 runaway lanes.  The road is well-maintained by highway crews, but there is mountain weather here, and conditions can change in an instant.  We have found that the yellow “Suggested Speed” traffic signs are to be treated as the Commandments.  Brian came upon a recent wreck of a car that missed the first hairpin turn heading uphill.  The driver was obviously uninjured and standing talking on his cellphone, which his poor vehicle had intimate contact with a very large boulder.  Yesterday, I drove up the hill to find the cab of a semi-trailer engulfed in fierce flames (with the local volunteer fire department out in full force).  I am sure we will find other events like this common on the road.

After the dearth of posts,  I won’t overwhelm you by making this a 10-page epistle, and will save other tidbits for the next one.  Cheers!

(PS I have joined two wine clubs so far, so you may guess what information may follow next.)

We are not dead but we have no internet

We are settling into the house slowly but surely, but we still haven't managed to find an internet service provider.  The fastest we will get it is sometime next week.  Stay tuned for a return of of titillating blogs, hopefully soon!

And, yes--we miss being in contact.

Waaahhhhhh!!!!!

So, the Easterners think they can move to the Okanagan for better winters?  Not!!!!!!!!!!

November 2, 8 am

November 2, 6 pm

See Helen bundled up in her winter clothing.

Of course, the cozy hat and gloves are still in storage!

And it kept snowing.

Just a foot or so of snow (after settling).......

We were impressed, but the Vernonites were appalled.  Snow never happens this early!  We don't get wind with snow (but this time they did) and the snow is really WET.  (Normal for easterners).  We don't have our snow tires on yet!  (Despite all the warning signs.)

Three more sleeps and we get possession of the new home.

October 29 Weekly Update: Happiness!

It has finally happened—we are homeowners.  We will take possession of 111 Eagle Point in Osoyoos on Monday, November 6.  What a miracle!

We are not sure what caused the vendors to have second thoughts, but a couple of days after the failed offer, their agent let ours know that they were proceeding with the electrical, plumbing and heating checks, regardless of whether we were interested on not.  Everything passed, and the conditions were removed last Wednesday.  Given that is only 11 days from the possession date, things started moving really fast.

The thing we are most looking forward to is getting our household back.  Snow tires for Helen’s car, only 5 weeks after they were required!  Fall and winter clothing!  Real cooking utensils!!

The guest room will be one of the first set up, so stay tuned.

Winter is approaching here, with ample snow at the top of the hill where the ski resort lies.  There are real mountain trucks here for those who are not satisfied with the regular ones.

There is more than enough snow to clear.

You can look off into the distance the see the Monashee mountains and all of the highest peaks are sporting at least a little snow.

In the meantime, we have learned about the Vernon winter:  the Inversion.  

Expecting to experience sunlight all year round, we found instead that the lower levels of Vernon are plagued with fog throughout the winter months.  With the lakes being too warm to freeze, they offer lots of moisture into the cooler winter air that settles in the valleys.  

Morning makes the valley look like it has been stuffed with cotton, and the fog stays for several hours until it finally burns off.  It makes quite a spectacular view from above.

Since we don’t have to force ourselves to house-hunt any more, we have gone back to a little hiking and exploring.  Yesterday we went for a walk in Kalamalka Provincial Park.  Our previous trips had most of the scenery clouded by smoke; now they have the fog to contend with.  The views are spectacular once the sunshine burns through.

With clear skies, the sunsets are fantastic.  I will try not to overburden you with these, but we have had 17 years with sunsets obscured, and are most appreciative to realize they are still around.

There will be no update next week since we will be in the midst of moving, but I will pick up as usual the following week.

Hope everyone is doing well!