September 2021

 

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.