Brian in the News
Before I
get into current events, I am chagrined to announce that I missed a major item
last month. Brian, our new local
celebrity, made it to the front page of the Osoyoos newspaper. We were at a presentation on Bighorn Sheep,
and Brian was caught viewing the horns (very heavy).
Brian’s Course of Treatment
Brian will
start 6 weeks of radiation treatment on Monday, May 6, every weekday for 6
weeks. It will be tiring given that it
will be done in Kelowna, which is about a 5 hour round trip. Still, it is a relief to get things going,
and this will be the hardest part of his treatment.
Spring!!
We think
that Spring is here, but we are not certain.
There have been conflicting signs.
Good: On April 4, Sagebrush Buttercups were coming
into bloom. These are one of the first
flowers to bloom, and the plants are tiny, only 1-2“ high.
Good: On April 5, White Cherry Blossoms were out in
profusion.
Good: On April 17, Dandelions were in full bloom in
Osoyoos, although they haven’t shown up on the mountain yet.
Good: On April 19, the Says Phoebes started
building a nest on top of one of our awnings.
The picture doesn’t show the extent of the masterpiece, but it has been
very carefully built. I was amused to
see one of the phoebes bring a nice piece of pink insulation to pad the inside
this week.
Good and Bad: On April 21, the first hummingbirds were back. When I tried to hang the first feeder, I was
buzzed by a male Calliope hummingbird who insisted on being fed instantly. That was probably because it was so darn cold
outside he would perish otherwise. Most
mornings during the last part of April the temperatures have hovered around
zero, and the hummingbirds would just sit on the feeder and slurp for as long
as they could.
BAD: On April 29, we woke up to find the ground
snow-covered (yikes!) but the first lilacs started to bloom in Osoyoos.
Good: On April 30, the Antelope Brush near Osoyoos showed
signs of blooming. The yellow flowers of
these bushes (better picture to come this month) are practically fluorescent
yellow when the bush is in full bloom.
Good: The
last week of April, Arrow-leaf Balsamroot has come into bloom and they provide
a display of showy yellow flowers about
1 ½ feet high that dot the hillsides. I
can see the buds on our property, but they won’t bloom for another week or so.
BAD: We have had brief snow flurries every day for
the last week of April.
Don’t Know: We are not certain about the fate of the pink
cherry blossoms, because they have not really shown. They might be still coming, as some
struggling trees suggest, or they may have given up. Who knows?
Local Pictures
The game
camera is being positioned at various places around the property to see what we
can find. We got a good picture of a
male Dusky Grouse displaying near the house as well as that of one of the mule
deer that graze the property regularly.
It’s Dry Out Here
From
another standpoint, this has been a very dry spring. Snowpack was perhaps 85% of normal this year
versus the approximate 135% of last year, a significant drop. We have had very little precipitation: this year 26.8 mm until the end of April
versus 122 mm last year. Wildfires will
certainly be a concern because our local fire department has already responded
to two burnings of brush that got out of control.
April Activities
While Brian
was attempting to get out on his bike (if it wasn’t snowing), Helen had a
couple of events in April.
Bats!!. I
attended a Bat Workshop in Peachland April 12-13 to learn more about bats in
the Okanagan Valley. Peachland has a
colony of bats that return to an old school building annually, and are a local
attraction. The presentations were
excellent, but highlights were the catering (bat cookies) and seeing
presentations to children that involved amazing costumes. I couldn’t help but share these!
FireSmart: On April
27 Anarchist Mountain hosted a film crew hired to create videos of what was
being done in BC at a community level to promote FireSmart. (FireSmart is a program for homeowners to
help modify features of their homes and properties to lessen the potential
damage from wildfires. I volunteered to
be secretary of our local FireSmart Committee and am getting extremely educated….)
The day
started out with snow! The crew were
concerned that it seemed impossible to think of wildfires while it was snowing,
but we tried to convince them it was wood ash in the air. Then the sun cooperated, and there were some
good pictures taken. At the same time,
the local volunteer Fire Department was doing training exercises, so there were
a lot of topics of interest.
This picture, which means nothing to you of course, is that of our Chair FireSmart Committee on the left, with the Deputy Fire Chief on the right. They are looking at a map of our development, which consists of 12,000 acres, has about 460 building lots with about 160 of them having buildings on them. There is conservation space as well. The question is: How do we protect our properties from wildfire given that much space around us has no specific protection whatsoever?
The flooding in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick are local stresses that we have experienced here--life is a little challenging these days.
Regarding Firesmart, our local
website has some of the highlights.
I mention this only because I was a
local gopher for the crew that day, and while the day was stimulating I nearly
froze my personal assets off. In the
meantime, the Malloy challenge is to remove as much pine debris as possible
from our property, given that the needles and cones are extremely
flammable. The last two weeks have
produced over 30 bags of kindling, and I have merely scratched the surface in a
less than a hundred square meters. We
know what my summer project is going to be this year. And next year. And next year……………
Hope this finds all of you well and
happy. Thanks for visiting us here and
we cherish your attention.
