Sorry for
the delay, but October has featured a very busy start.
Brian’s
progress
Ay the end
of September, Brian was starting his 6th week of recovery from his
fall. It has been tough for him, and
September has been a quiet month for the most part until he started riding his
bike again about a week ago. Talk about
a morale booster! He had a follow-up
X-ray the last week of September and the news is good—he is healing
normally. The news is bad—he is healing
normally. When the nurse-practitioner
went over the results with him, her summary was: if it hurts, don’t do it. He came home extremely indignant. What can I say?! Oh, by the way, the guidance has been all along for a 6-8 week recovery period....
Campbell
River Highlights
Last
month’s summary did not include the good things that had happened in Campbell
River. One of the town’s many highlights
was that they had a chain-saw carving contest each year. The winning entries were sold off with the
proceeds going to local charities. The
carvings were fascinating.
Some of
this year’s finalists included the following:
Previous
year’s winners were bought and displayed locally, including some at local
hotels and the sea walk.
Campbell
River Sea Walk
The Sea
Walk was a Rotary Project 8 km trail that extended on one side of the river outlet into
the ocean, and featured beautiful natural stretches with sea features, sunsets
and bird groupings along one side of the delta.
It was well-appreciated by walkers, cyclers, roller-skaters, boarders at
almost any time of day. It was safe and
visitor friendly and a welcome respite from some of the days Brian spent in
hospital.
On the
home front……
The Bird
Bath
The fall
has been dry, and I ended up buying a bird-bath to support birds further to my
feeders. It has been an unmitigated success. I did have pictures from the game camera
featuring Stellar Jays, Cassin’s Finches and juvenile Clarke’s Nutcrackers, but
heaven knows what I did with them.
However, I started noticing the bird bath was dry when I put up the feeders
again next morning.
Hmm, the
game camera provided the answer. The
nocturnal birds were also taking advantage of the water.
Weather
As per the
local media, summer conditions in British Columbia have prompted a warning that
this year's "very unique fire season" in the province is not yet
over.
A cool spring
of 2022 meant a slow start to the fire season.
“Our first
wildfire of note this season was the Nohomin Creek wildfire located west of
Lytton, which started on July 14. Compare that to last year, we were seeing
wildfires of note pop up as early as mid to late-June. So, a different start to
the season, for sure,” said wildfire information officer Aydan Coray.
One of the
larger fires in the region was the Keremeos Creek wildfire. At its peak, it
covered 7,000 hectares and prompted a weeks-long evacuation of both Olalla and
Apex Mountain Resort. It also destroyed one home.
Human-caused
fires across BC were at their lowest since the 1950s. Lightning, however, was a
more of a challenge.
“Through
June, July and August, though, we did see a cumulative 24,600 lightning strikes
in the Kamloops Fire Centre region alone,” explained Coray.
Our Rain
This has
been a bit of a normal year for us. Our last rain on July 4 produced 13.8 mm of
precipitation for a total of 124.4 for the year. In September, we have had 1 mm rain over 2
days. We are now in a level 4 drought
condition.
Rock Creek Fall Fair
A local favourite is the Rock Creek Fall Fair. We missed it in 2018 due to my broken ankle, 2019 because we were away, and 2020 and 2021 due to Covid restrictions. This year we finally made it!. A fall fair is so much fun for us because it takes us to the simplicity of rural communities that celebrate so many things. Of course there were carnival type attractions and face-painting for the kids.
Highlights for us included animal displays from the local 4H clubs. The poultry displays are always impressive with some bizarre-looking birds. I found it extremely difficult to get a picture of them, but finally nailed a shot of this impressive-looking rooster,
On a much higher level, the cattle displays were amazing. Look at this lovely family grouping:
There is a lot more work-up to this than us city slickers imagine.
First of all, display cattle are taken to the cow-wash.
Next station: the dryer.
Young women (again) go over the cattle thoroughly with vacuum blower hoses to fluff them up to perfection. (These beasts look really good when they are done...)
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Various and
Sundry
With the
dryness in September, everyone has been plagued by wasps looking for
water. Many of our neighbours have
bought new wasp traps featuring phenomes that attract the wasps—all of them
have been full to the brim.
We are also
experiencing an influx of Western Conifer Seed Beetles. These relatively harmless guys are looking
for winter housing, to the horror of bug-haters in the area. We merely send them outside again.
Fall
Weather
We are
enjoying temperatures as much as 8 degrees above normal, and wake up to
cloudless blue skies. Pre-dinner drinks
are still held outside and the occasional morning coffee as well. Our friends in the Maritimes have not fared as
well, and hopefully we can share our good weather with them in the future. The only thing we have that they don’t are
day after day of smoke. For a while, it
was difficult to tell in the morning if the sky was cloudy or smoky, with the
second answer being the most common one. This picture was that of a smoky sky with no clouds.
.JPG)
So, all in all, we are doing well and improving and October looks good.
Thanks for
visiting!
