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.
Wildfire Season
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.
