Wednesday, 1 June 2022

May 2022

 

Aha!  The arrival of May!  The arrival of……continuing cool temperatures.

In fact, we learned the new Anarchist Mountain Weather Prediction:  May be spring, May be summer, May be winter….

Let me show you an example of what we woke up to on May 13:





Wildflowers are blooming about 2 weeks later than normal, and the cherry growers are anxious about the slow ripening and potential losses from the cold weather this month.

Of course, our in-floor heating system failed on May 7 (inadvertently depressurized) to be recovered May 9.  Temperatures never got above 10C.  Might I suggest that it is quite unusual to be wearing long underwear in the Okanagan in early May?  Fortunately, we had some nice romantic fires around dinnertime to compensate for not being able to sit outside without a sleeping bag.

Wildlife

May featured our regular bears coming out of hibernation.  We had one at our bird feeders, but it turned out to be a different female than we had seen before.  This one, called “Cinnamon” was well-known several roads down the mountain from us.  She had ditched her two juveniles this spring after 2 years of heavy-duty parenting and was footloose and fancy free this year.  The two juveniles were photographed by friends of ours documenting them licking Gerry’s custom-made Muskoka chairs!  He had seasoned them with linseed oil, which made them irresistible.  So irresistible that one took a chomp out of one chair to get the added benefits of fiber.



On May 19, our neighbourhood was again invaded by US aliens—cattle!  They broke through the border at an unauthorized crossing, were not wearing masks, were not vaccinated (but probably had been given antibiotics), and just wantonly toured through several neighbourhoods before being rounded up to return home.  Illegal immigrants pose a big problem here,

The Meadowlark Nature Festival

After a 2-year hiatus due to Covid, the Meadowlark Nature Festival returned on the May long weekend to give us a cornucopia of walks, presentations and events featuring different natural highlights of the area.  At least 40 events were offered, and we took advantage of three of them.  Sorry, but I didn’t take any good pictures because a lot of the information was too subtle to benefit from my meagre photography skills.

In Osoyoos, at the Nk’Mip cultural centre, we attended a presentation on the seven snakes found in our region, with live demonstrations including the Western Rattlesnake.  With other walk-ins, including a number of children, the presenter did a fabulous job of imparting information, and ended with a contest of skill-testing questions between kids and adults.  The kids won, much to everyone’s pleasure.

Our second tour took us about 14 km up forestry roads away from a small town to view endangered William’s Sapsuckers.  Our guide had studied them for 27 years, and took us easily to a few sites just off-road where the birds were nesting. The terrain we were taken through is being actively forested by companies such as Weyrhauser, some of whom are more than willing to cooperate to leave minimum 100-acre stands for the sapsuckers.  Others are not willing when there is no money in it. 

It seems Wehrhauser is very concerned with worker safety, and had an impressive safety sign along their road to reinforce the message.



A final tour was in the next mountain valley over, conducted by a senior citizen who had lived there for decades.  Her local knowledge was impeccable, but regrettably the tour was a little slow given that she had just had knee replacement surgery in November and was dealing with a muscle injury that had set back her recovery.  The first clue was when she got out of her care, using a cane!  Having said that, we still had an insight into another ecosystem.

Weather Again

Gosh, the temperature hurtled up to 17.5C on May 25.  The highest this year!  Peel off the long underwear……

The Grand Finale

What was exciting for us was unfortunately a real loss for a couple of people we met on the 29th of May.  A friend of ours who is married to a firefighter called to say there was an RV fully engulfed in fire where our road intersects with Highway 3.

We walked up to find this view.

 


Although the fire department was responding at that point, there was nothing to do to help, and in fact the whole area was dangerous due to exploding tires, the fuel tank on each vehicle and propane tanks on the RV.  We met the owners who mentioned they had just filled the RV with 100 litres of diesel, and the propane tank on board carried 60 litres of propane.  The fire progressed quickly, with the black clouds of toxic smoke drawing many neighbours in to watch the spectacle..



We ended up taking the owners and their two little poodles back to our house to wait for the fire to die down and the RCMP to interview the owners.  Apparently, they had just bought the RV second hand, and were planning for a 5 week-trip through Alberta. Some truckers honking madly at them alerted them that there was a fire in back.  They were basically able to get out with their wallets and cell phones (and the dogs) and virtually nothing else.  The woman was wearing slippers. The RV cost them almost $300,000, their jeep was destroyed, and they had considerable belongings in the RV.  The shock must have been almost overwhelming as they watched it practically dissolve before their eyes.

 It was quickly enforced how isolated we were because we had to drive them to Penticton, 1 ¼ hours away for the closest possibility of obtaining a rental car to drive back home.  Even in Penticton nothing was available on that Sunday.  We subsequently learned they had to take a cab another ¾ hour to get to Kelowna so they could get a one-way rental.

 The smoking ruins were stark, and it wasn’t until this stage that the fire department could foam the remains and subsequently cool them down with water.

 


I was unaware how much aluminium is used in the construction of an RV, but you could see molten streams of it hardening on the pavement.



All around the site was debris that had been spread by explosions which were numerous and ongoing.  We even saw an airbag from the Jeep detonate and fly up in the air about 15 feet.


The pavement will also need to be cut out and replaced after the intense fire.

 


Such bad luck in a short period of time!  There but for the grace of God……we will try to feature something less catastrophic for June.

Thanks for visiting!

 

 

 

 

 

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