That month
disappeared in a flash!
Like many
people in Canada, a lot of people in the Okanagan were very frustrated with
winter in February because it was much colder than normal here. Some places were trending towards the coldest
February on record, but things must have lightened enough in the last couple of
days to prevent that becoming reality.
If you like
winter sports, of course, this is wonderful, and most of the highlights of the
month came from skiing at Silver Star, or snowshoeing with our neighbours on the
mountain.
At the
beginning of the month, Silver Star cooperated with the winter festival in
Vernon, which had a theme of “Pirates” this year. The snow sculptures were great and very
creative. The temperatures for skiing at
that time went from -24 to a balmy -21.
Nobody said we were sensible to go skiing then.
Silver Star
is owned by Australians, and they seem to get their staff almost exclusively
from that country. All you hear is, “No
worries!” There are also a significant number of Australians and New Zealanders
who come for a month or so of skiing every year. Assuming this is their summer holidays,
perhaps that makes sense.
The
highlight this month for us was a couple of Irish guys, who had the best ski
pants we have ever seen And were they ever having fun! It is not obvious in the picture, but the
leprechauns holding up the guys were indeed puppets on the front of ski
pants. Apparently they were quite warm
as well.
At home, being up
the mountain, we got lots of snow, as usual, but not to the worrisome extent we
had last year. Snowshoeing was
excellent, and there are many long trails we can take for a good amount of
exercise. We went out with neighbours a
weekend ago and had a chance to see some good scenery since sunset has moved
from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm during the month.
Although
winter still seems to have us deeply in its thrall, there are obviously some
rodents who feel it is time to start getting out and about. We are no closer to identifying the tracks,
but they are intriguing.
Regarding Brian, he met a medical oncologist February 28 for the first round
of doctors’ appointments. It appears he
will have a period of radiation followed by immunotherapy to fight the
melanoma. He meets a radiation
oncologist on March 18, followed by a visit to his surgeon on May 20.
By that time the experts will have
consolidated their assessments, and a program will be mapped out. We both continue to be extremely impressed by
the responsiveness and efficiency of how his case is being handled. It is very reassuring. I’ll let you know what is happening by the
end of the month once we have more details.
We head out
in a couple of days for a trip to St. Louis, Missouri, for a wildlife
conference, so I hope to have many interesting things to feature for March.
