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?
