Sorry, folks, I ran out of time to do something intelligent, and we are going to be extremely busy during the holiday season. I will resume normal reporting at the end of January.
In the meantime, please have a safe and enjoyable holiday season.
We'll look forward to being in touch in the New Year!
The
Weather
I may as well start off by
declaring we are not inundated by water like our unfortunate neighbours to the
West.
A couple of factors can explain
this: we are 1100 meters above sea level,
and we are above a desert.
That doesn’t lesson our pity for
those flooded out. A new term for us was “Atmospheric River”. Despite its newness, Mother Nature has sent 3
atmospheric rivers inland in 8 days, just hammering Abbotford, Merritt, the
Fraser Valley, etc.
We were directly affected right
after the first river damaged major roads.
We live literally yards away from Highway 3, also known as the Crowsnest
Highway. It is a MAJOR trucking route
travelling the south side of BC, from Vancouver right through to Calgary and
beyond. Highway 3 was closed due to
damage. No big deal, eh? Two days later, I attempted to go grocery
shopping. The shelves were literally
empty in the stores. There was no milk,
no eggs, little bread and no produce. It
literally was shocking to me. Eight days
later, there are still restrictions on egg and milk purchases: customers are rationed to one of each. There is more produce now. It’s a lesson how how much we take for
granted today.
The temperatures have been very
mild this month: on November 30, our
high here was 8.1 and the low 4.5. Any
snow that had fallen during the month, about 3”, was completely gone.
Despite living above a desert, many
winter days are characterized by fog rising up the valley. We can see the first wave starting to roll in
before us, and soon the fog starts to surround us. Highway 3 can be a little challenging in
these circumstances.
The
Bears
Throughout BC, the milder weather
has fooled the bears thinking it is not time to hibernate yet. Normally I can hang my bird feeders out
safely by the middle of the month. Not
this year…
After seeing the scene of
destruction, and realizing the peanut feeder would never be the same, I stopped
hanging the food. In the meantime, I
bought a new peanut feeder. Near the end
of the month, I tried leaving the feeders out again. Wrong decision. The new feeder was flattened and one of the
other metal ones had been partially torn apart. After some rehabilitation, the new feeder will survive but now it is certainly eccentric.
The game camera did not capture
the event, but it was not needed as I looked outside the next morning. We think this is the mom that brought her
cubs here for two years. She is now
named Ursula.
She was not impressed when the
feeders were gone overnight, and left two large piles of bear scat to show her
disapproval. Oh well.
The Orchards
Despite the harvest having been taken in some time ago, there is still a lot of activity as pruners trim trees and vineyards. Things look really bare once so much has been
cut back. The pickers don’t get
everything, so you can see signs of missed fruit all over, especially if it
along fence lines.
A lot of orchards are burning off these cuttings at the moment, so it looks like little campfires here, there and everywhere.
We have also noticed a number of orchards being torn up, probably to be replanted with vines next year. I hope it doesn’t go too far that way.
Our walk took us along orchards/vineyards to the border of Osoyoos, which is also the US border. There is little to see that's different from one side to the other. My question: If the neighbourhood kids play frisbee, who oversees retrieval from one country to the other?
I will
confess to a little bit of performance pressure each month…the last one was so
interesting, how can I possibly make the next one better?
I think the
answer lies in the fact we live in a rich environment, and we are lucky to be aware
of things happening around us.
So, here is
the boredom for this month….
Fall
Colours
I have mentioned there is little
colour here because of the predominance of conifers, but now I must admit I was
mistaken.
The cherry orchards, showing all kinds
of blossom colours in the spring, now show different leaf colours in the fall.
And, we have larch here, providing
a beautiful contrast to the conifers.
Brian and I ended up transplanting some seedlings from the roadside,
hoping they will now give us colour at home.
Orchards
September and October are apple months, and it
is impressive to see how much a trimmed tree can carry. There are special fruit crates everyone uses,
but I didn’t get a chance to photograph them for you. All the grapes have been harvested and the
crushers at the wineries are now fully occupied. Like last year, Covid has prevented many of
the Mexican and Jamaican pickers from coming in, thus leading to a lot of work
on the part of owners, or just plain loss of harvest.
Fall
Skies
With the advent of fall, we start
getting much more interesting skies, with many variations of clouds, and some
great colour for sunrises and sunsets.
Precipitation
October was a “wet” month with 43.4
mm rain, or 32% of the year’s total to date of 136.6 mm. The deer have been on a diet, and every plant
that might even have nutrition has been eaten to death. I think I mentioned the planters last month,
but in October the deer have come back to further finish the job.
Snow
It wouldn’t be October without an early snow,
which occurred overnight on October 13.
The cacti were not amused.
Across the valley, the snow line is clear on
the mountaintops, and has persisted to date.
The driveway markers are in, and we are
prepared. (Whine….)
Halloween
Of course the best things happen
near the end of the month!!
Our favourite coffee place in town, Junction 3, went all out to celebrate with pumpkins.
This year we have a number of children on the mountain as younger people move in, and one enterprising couple has found magnificent ways to get everyone involved. With Covid still on everyone’s minds, they invoked a “Trunk Party” where vehicles met in a common parking lot. It was impressive. Adults decorated the trunks of their cars, and gave out candy. (They also had some darn good costumes…) Kids were dressed up and had lighted loot collectors. Someone got a safe fire burning in the middle of the parking lot (very popular on a chilly night) with cooked hot dogs on tap. For the parents, it was a safe and fun night while the kids got treats in a relatively simple way.
The ultimate event for us on October 31 was “Witches
on Water”. If you live near a lake, this
is apparently a popular thing. For Brian
and I, it was certainly new and impressive.
As you might expect from the name, it features witches going out on the
lake on various unmotorized watercraft, from canoes to kayaks to paddleboards
to whatever. The costumes were
inventive, and the cackling over the water was impressive.
As it was winding up, we went to the local
microbrewery near the beach, only to find the coven started to congregate there. The lady on the left had the best cackle I
have ever heard. It doesn’t get better
than this.
Thank you
for visiting! Let November continue to
be a safe and healthy time for you while we all can widen our horizons a bit.
I confess that, after all the major drama in the last couple of months, there is little exciting news this month. Having said that, a nice calm fall has been a welcome treat.
Carmine
and Bear and the Steam Room
In June, we
hired Carmine (our Italian Stonemason) to reconfigure our guest room shower
into a steam room. With things like
standard construction delays and shortages, and wildfire evacuations, and
anything else that happened, it wasn’t until the end of the month that we
finally got the door installed and can now get hot and bothered.
It’s turned
out well. Carmine is a craftsman of the
nth degree, and settles for nothing less than perfection. He is also quite a character. With classic Italian temperament (he admits
to it himself), life is full of moments for intense personal combat with the
uncooperative elements of life. He also
is the most honest guy you can find and has a self-deprecating sense of humour.
The best
part of the project was Bear. Bear is a
Pyrenees Mountain Dog and as a result is huge, gentle, and fully tolerant of
silly human foibles.
The two of
them are featured here. (Notice that Carmine is barely bigger than Bear….)
Carmine would
bring Bear to work, and Bear would sit quietly around, unless he had to go
visit the neighbour’s to visit their lab for play. He also loved chasing deer.
The end of
the day became moments of exquisite comedy for Brian and I. Carmine would start walking towards his truck
on the driveway, calling for Bear to come along. This came with a number of admonishments to
hurry along, and to not be as stupid as a dead horse. Bear was not impressed. He would lie down and look as if a nap was
the only thing to be contemplated by that time of day. Carmine would get to his truck, put away his
tools, and call for Bear. (We actually
watched Bear take a rest in a patio area not visible to Carmine.) Finally, Bear would condescend to start
w-a-l-k-i-n-g towards the truck. He had
slow motion down to an art! Finally he
would get in and after more admonishments from Carmine they would leave. PS
Dog had Human perfectly trained.
Critters
The
wildfires have disrupted a lot of animal behaviour this year, driving them out
of their normal ranges. Now that it is
fall, the bears are out trying to fatten up for the winter.
We have had
a number of clutches of game birds this year, and here are some of the two
dozen California Quail moving through our yard at regular intervals.
Our insect
observations include this colourful specimen.
Moisture
This year
has been a dry year, as per normal, but this season brought us into extreme
drought conditions by September. We have
had 93 mm of rain this year, with 10 of them falling in September. Our landscape is brown everywhere (this is
after the 10 mm of rain this month!)
This has
been very hard on the deer, who are trying, like the bears, to fatten up for
the winter. Very few plants have been
thriving, and those that have survived have been browsed to the utmost. Here is some sweet clover on the roadside.
And here
are Helen’s “Deer Resistant” Canna Lilies which are mere shadows of their
former self. Interpret the second
picture as follows: Approach planter and
pull out plants which might be tasty.
Spit them out because they are not tasty. Nosh the bejesus out of the Canna Lilies. Leave a scene of destruction in your wake.
Although this had not been BC's worst wildfire season to date in terms of hectares burned, this has the worst for our local fire area on record with 452 wildfires and almost 500,000 hectares burned.
Fall
Colours
After
living in Ontario, fall colours are so subtle to be almost indistinguishable. It’s the groundcover that performs.
Clouds
Once the
smoke dispersed, we have been treated to some spectacular displays of fall
clouds. With the mountains, we see all
kinds of cloud patterns that we might otherwise miss.
Here are
some altocumulus clouds.
This sunset
featured a good number of lenticular clouds, named by their shape, which are
characteristic of air moving over mountains.
Beauty
It sometimes
takes an artist to interpret shapes in a common medium that bring them to new
interest. A pair of our new neighbours
have been doing a lot of work building their own house, and have the living
room floor only covered with plywood so far.
Beryl, the artist, decided to paint what she saw. Andy, the husband, is now feeling guilty he
must cover it over with proper flooring.
Thanks for
visiting. We hope you have had a good
month and have stayed healthy.
