More of all the Previous

Although the subject matter is not entirely new, there certainly have been updates.

Baby season: 

The 5 baby ravens who have been making a terrible ruckous have now expanded their horizons, and are no longer totally concentrated in this area.  This means no more strange objects dropped on the balcony (including Saskatoon berries), no more bird feeders emptying in half an hour, and much more quiet.

The wren nest somewhere in a post above the coffee deck is now quiet:  this means that there are no longer calls of about 15 starving babies responding when parents bring food (big racket).  I can only imagine the reprieve for the poor parents.........

Humming bird juveniles are well launched, and you can certainly see the Calliope babies swarming around Mom at the feeder.  They tolerate another much better than the Rufous Hummingbirds.  It appears males of both types have already headed South, but a female Rufous has now adopted the gnarly aggresive traits of the type:  she fiercely guards all feeders against the upstart Calliopes.  An amusing note is that she has taken up guard on a fake plant at the front door, and immediately nails any unsspecting visitor at the closest feeder.

Weeding wars continue.  There are 12 provincially noted noxious weeds:  I think I have 15 of them.

I spend an hour or two each day with the guiding thought that I am reducing seed stock for next year.  The local landfill will accept doubly-bagged noxious weeds for free and I have already delivered 18 bags in the last two weeks.  Today netted another 5  bags.  I let them sit outside in the sun to acclimatize them to the hereafter.  I practically need to wear a haz-mat suit (polyester scrubs) so that seeds don't stick to the fabric, I spend considerable de-seeding socks and insoles of rubber boots, and then spend considerable time in the shower creating mud in the septic pond.  Nothing like determination!

The good news is that I discover new wildflowers such as the Mariposa Lily (far bigger than

a toonie) as well as lovely mauve blooms of a new unidentified plant this afternoon.  It still astonishes me what can grow in such dry conditions.

The landscaping started last week, and after 8 days on site the crew has virtually completed the patio below.  The landscaper has featured neat rocks as well as native plants (really good cacti).

The before and after pictures show the extent of the improvement.

On the other hand, the soil here is so dry that when they started using a Bobcat the soil was churned to fine dust in no time at all.  This infiltrates into closed houses, shoes, clothing and anything else exposed to air. 

The front yard is home to numerous dump truck loads of sand, gravel and rock.

House cleaning is a hourly process at this point.  The landscaper is awesome and his crew of 6 work like crazy.  This is turning out to be a fabulous process--the results are showing to be well beyond our imagination.

Forest fires are obviously a part of life here, but this year has experienced only 50,000 of hectares of burn versus 400,000 hectares of burn by this time last year.  A fire causing smoke across the valley has been so isolated that they have only decided to assign firefighters in the last day.  A large fire in the US is creating more smoke for us.  Our pristine views are much more obscured by smoke.  Nonetheless, for us the fire hazard is certainly lower than it has been previously.

We leave on Friday for almost 3 weeks, starting in Iceland for 3 days and then embarking on a cruise to Greenland.  The ship will have virtually non-existent internet access, so I will have to post the blog when I come back, after August 24..  Rest assured it will happen and I will let you know.