2021 June Blog

 

Get prepared for a good ride this month!  Lots of things happened…

When I try to set out the framework for the month’s highlights, sometimes I go in date order; other times I try to save the best parts for the last.  For this month both methods work to the same conclusion, so here we go.

May was still a cooler month than we had hoped for, with temperatures getting into the 20’s only a handful of times, with two of them being on the last two days of May.

On June 1, the temperature switch was activated by mother nature, and we hit 28.6 that day.  Now we were geared for summer!  On June 2, Osoyoos hit a new temperature record, with a high of 36.2 versus 35.0 in 1970.  Yes!

June 3:  Mom bear and her 2 juveniles came through the yard around 10:45 am, just checking things out again.

June 4:  I was visiting at neighbours, and Pat mentioned she had seen a chipmunk lying inside their swimming pool utility room, and the little beast didn’t look well.  I immediately asked her to show me, and ended up rescuing this cold little lump, near death, weighing only 24 grams.  For those of us who can’t think at that level, that is equal to 3 toonies and a penny.  We have Yellow Pine Chipmunks, which are smaller than some of their counterparts, especially the eastern ones.  My mammal book said they should weigh between 35 and 70 grams, so I figured this was a juvenile.

I took her home and warmed her up gradually, and then gave her some fluid and soft food to try out.  For a couple of days, she did little more than sleep and occasionally nibble something.  Pat had mentioned a chipmunk falling from the side of the house, and I suspect this was the one, and that it was probably suffering head trauma from the fall.

I didn’t take a picture, frankly, because she was in such bad shape and I didn’t want to remember her like that.  A couple of days more, and I tried to weigh her to see if she was gaining weight.  She obviously was now sensitive about her body image, and absolutely refused to be weighed.  We spent the next half hour playing “chase the chipmunk” in my workroom, with me stuffing towels under the door so she couldn’t slip through, and me moving every single piece of anything on the floor that provided shelter to her.  By now, even the most pessimistic rehabilitator could conclude that she had improved considerably.  By that time, it seemed appropriate to name her “Phoenix” since she had risen from the ashes.

A week from pickup date, we arranged to take her back to where she originated and release her.  I had checked her container in the morning, and everything was fine.  With Pat and Dennis peering over my shoulder, I gently tipped her container to the side, and started remove the 2” of pine needles I had given her for bedding.  To my chagrin, there were lots of pine needles and NO chipmunk.

I shamefacedly went back home and went through my workroom again thoroughly.  No luck.  Then I started searching the entire basement, searching every room from stem to stern (with a flashlight for every hard-to see corner).  No luck.  Finally, I started closing each room off after searching it again by closing the door and stuffing towels under the gap to prevent her from sneaking through.  After all, she still was very, very little…..

After an hour and a half, I went back to my workroom for one last time, and stacked everything on top of tables, chairs and shelves and voila!  A brief furry flash.  After another half hour, and another resounding game of “chase the chipmunk”, Phoenix was recaptured and put into a no-escape box with high walls.  This is the only picture I have of her.  She is sitting on a square of cardboard that is 3”X3” with lots of room to spare.  After a second and more joyous return to her surroundings, she was back where she belonged.  I don’t know how a 24 gram chipmunk could leave such a big empty hole in the house when she was gone.

June 7:  We woke up to SNOW on the ground.  Yes, SNOW.  The hummingbirds were desperate for food, and did not have the energy to fight for territory, so I have this unprecedented picture of five of them at once at a feeder (and another was hovering nearby).  The low that day was 0.5 Celsius.

June 8:  The Shaw television technician came out to adjust our satellite dish which is mounted on a tree; mother bear had probably rearranged it on her last visit.

June 15:  We got 5.4 mm rain today!!!!  This brings us to a total of 69 mm rain for this year to date.  For those still working in imperial, that translates to a total of 2 5/8” for six months.  Wow!

June 16:  Carmine, our local tiler and stone mason, started to tear down of our guest bathroom shower stall; we intend to have a steam room built in instead.

June 19:  I ramp up my annual weeding rampage.  One of my favourite hates is an invasive weed commonly called “Goat’s Beard” or “Salsify” around here.  The Latin name is Tragopogon dubius and my name is “F’y Tragy”.  They are starting to mature.

It has a fairly pretty yellow flower, and the seed heads are a beautiful golden gossamer globe that promptly sends these seeds all over by wind.  With nothing else to do, I started counting as I pulled them.  I picked 500 today.  I have also picked another 376 to the end of the month.  Had I spent more time weeding there would have been many, many more…..

 

June 21:  Highway 3 between us and Osoyoos was closed for hours due to a dump truck hauling a trailer of tar that lost control on one of our hairpin turns, spilling somewhere between 2000 and 3000 gallons of tar/road sealant.  The road still is undergoing work because of necessary recovery efforts to get rid of tar contamination.  Road crews have put sand everyone, but the road surface still has a lot of tar on it as you can see from the photo.  In the meantime, the driver is probably in deep do-do because he had no manifest describing the nature of the load, and there was no indication it might be considered hazardous material.

 

Here’s a link to a news report which was the source of the photo.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7968643/tar-spill-closes-highway-3-east-of-osoyoos/

One of the benefits of having a xeriscape garden is that your cacti come into bloom at this time.  It never ceases to amaze me what delicate flowers adorn these burly spiny plants.  The cacti are well established now, and I counted over 72 flower buds on one plant alone.  They don’t all come out at once, so we have had a number of days of spectacular flowers.

June 25:  The weather forecasters are predicting extremely high temperatures for the next few days.  It was 29.7 here today, with a low of 16.2.  That was quite comfortable, and we have the benefit on the mountain of being 5-6 degrees lower than Osoyoos, and we always get afternoon/evening breezes to help clear things out.

June 26:  Record high in Osoyoos at 40.1 C.  At our place, the high was 33.6, but the low was 19.9.

June 27:  Record high in Osoyoos at 42.0.  Lytton BC breaks all-time national hot temperature record at 46.1 C.  (The previous record was 45.0 on July 5, 1937.)  At our place, the high was 35.7 and the low was 23.2.  However, the interior of the house is heating up and ranged from 26.1 to 31.6 degrees.  There were no breezes.  I am now sleeping in the basement which is at least a little cooler.

Highway 3 is closed between our place and Osoyoos because of a semi-trailer flipping on its side exactly where there was the tar spill.  The driver was apparently going at a good clip (not good), but the fire department members responding figured that when he put on his brakes he just slid through until coming to a stop at a rock face.  A local resident (Cody Haller) was first on scene and this is his picture posted on Facebook.

 

June 28:  Record high in Osoyoos at 42.7.  Lytton breaks yesterday’s record at 47.9.  We experience a high of 36.5 and a low of 26.0 (inside the house it was 33.3 to 27.6.)  There were no breezes.  It is just plain hot hot hot.

June 29:  Record high in Osoyoos at 45.0.  Lytton breaks yesterday’s record at 49.6. (It got to 34.3 inside the house.)  We both sleep downstairs.  A big highlight was driving to town for groceries in an air-conditioned car……  We were essentially useless for most of the day.

June 30:  Record high in Osoyoos at 43.0.  We experience a high of 38.1 and a low of 27.1 (inside the house it was 34.8 to 29.8 .)  Tragically, Lytton was evacuated around 6 pm because of a nearby wildfire and subsequently suffered a loss of at least 90% of their structures almost within minutes.

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/338729/It-s-unclear-how-much-of-Lytton-B-C-is-still-standing#338729

Carmine has completed the cement board and drywall portions of the work and is starting the mud the drywall.

Now, the grand ending for the month:

A Lemonade Stand

              Neighbours below us have their daughter and son-in-law and their two daughters living with them while the family looks to move into a home in BC.  We got a neighbourhood announcement this morning that Liley, the elder granddaughter, was planning to run a lemonade stand starting at 10:00 am, with the proceeds going to the local Search and Rescue unit.  We didn’t make it there until 11:30, near closing time, but Liley and her little sister Evelyn had been going gangbusters. They provided lemonade and cookies with considerable aplomb.   When they counted the proceeds up, they had earned $285!  (Lemonade can be expensive on Anarchist Mountain.)  With both the parents and the grandparents committed to matching donations, the SAR unit will do well.

The US invades BC and the Cattle Rustlers are out…..

              Now honestly, I can’t make these things up.  While the lemonade stand is in business, who do the homeowners see coming up their driveway, but:

 

Yup.  Two cowboys.

Apparently, some rogue cattle have broken out of their US pasture and have invaded Canada.  This morning the cattle were walking through the neighborhood of million-dollar homes.  Two cowboys from Omak, Washington, got involved to try and round the critters up.  (I am not quite sure how they crossed the border…)  They had found 17 cattle, and determined another 5 illegal immigrants were making their way south-east just below our home (I did not have the game camera properly positioned), and the cowboys went off in hot pursuit (no pun intended).

The Federal Government has been silent so far on this egregious intrusion, perhaps trying to keep things silent in advance of Canada Day. Fortunately, anyone with a vegetable garden is safe because anything like that has been fenced off to keep deer away.

Boredom is not possible here!

Have a wonderful Canada Day, and a good July.

Thanks for visiting.