Shuswap Lakes, British Columbia - Part 1

Have been on me holibobs!

We spent a week in a holiday home in a tiny lakeside bay not far from Salmon Arm in British Columbia, which is a small town (pop. 16,000) set on the banks of the Shuswap Lake(s). I say Lake(s) because there are about 1000km of shorelines among several inter-connected lakes. They are situated north of Kelowna, and between Kamloops and Revelstoke - and truly beautiful it is too. But all those bloody tourists, eh?!

I'm sure I could bore you rigid with 200 photos of my kids in various poses in, on or about to leap into the water, but thought I'd share this day out with you instead.

See - isn't it just so gorgeous? I've got first dibs on that hidden home in the centre.

So one afternoon, we took a wee detour up a twisty road to White Lake. This is a small individual wetlands area. To be honest, I just saw another patch of water marked on the map and wanted to go and be nosey. I do that a lot. As we drove a couple of miles, passing a few residences, we kept seeing home-made signs by each gateway, telling motorists to slow down .... demanding it, in fact.

and this was why.

Other than the "Why did the turtle cross the road?" jokes, I had nightmares of crunching tyres in case we inadvertently caused a massacre of hard-shelled creatures, valiantly making their way to the waters edge.

So we drove at a snails pace, keeping our beady eyes open for any scurrying turtles, but sadly, we had no such luck in spying the Western Painted Turtle.

So I cheat now, and offer you an internet-provided image from the mri.usd.edu website (thank you). Kinda cute in a wrinkled, leathery sorta way - perhaps the Mick Jagger of the Turtle world.

But look at this ....

... amazing colouring - now that is some fab tummy art. That could keep a tattooist busy for hours.

OK - here's the science part - Western Painted turtles are the most widespread turtles found across North America and grow between 4 and 10 inches long. Favourite habitats are slow moving waters with muddy bottoms (say nothing), and my question was how on earth do they survive the winter here?

Apparently, they put on weight and fatten up for the winter - I can identify with that - then burrow down into the mud and hibernate. They mate from May to July, and lay 1 to 2 clutches of 5 to 15 eggs per year. Once hatched, baby turtles are very vulnerable to predators (or fast moving vehicles); however there is a good chance they will survive if they reach water. Hence widespread signage to the dumb interlopers.

Male painted turtles reach maturity in 2 to 5 years and the females in 4 to 8 years, and may have an overall lifespan of more than 20 years. Phew! There will be a test later.

The turtles were probably having a shy day - sick and tired of summer tourists staring at them, no doubt...

and another thing that was in hiding that day was another geocache. Couldn't find this one at all - boo, hiss.

But I have just fallen in love with this part of the country.

Taking to the skies

My husband started to learn how to paraglide last year. He did a beginner's course through the University of Calgary and caught the bug.

We live in Cochrane, Alberta. There is a big hill in Cochrane - it's called Big Hill (!) - on top of which is Muller Windsports, the largest paragliding school in Alberta (and probably Canada?) and it is about 3km from our house. Result!

This is where you start the intermediate level which consists of throwing yourself off the hill, attempting to master inflation techniques, and take off. So after about about 20 seconds, or a minute or two in the air, you land at the bottom of the hill, and then walk all the way back up to the top again (no mean feat) to once again launch yourself.

After you have done this about 20 times, and lost the will to live and sweated off about 4lbs, eventually you just "get it" and you're flying properly.

This is my very technical take on things anyway. I don't have the correct vocabulary, I am sure, but this stage would have put me off the whole thing, and no mistake. Far too much hard work for such little reward (plus I'm not fit so it would have killed me to walk up the hill hauling my glider!).

But eventually, after an accumulation of lots of minutes in the air and lots of work on your technique, you get to go on a "High Flight" course. Yay! Reward at last.

So last weekend, hubby headed off to Golden on the British Columbia side of the Rockies and joined some other nutters, sorry, enthusiasts as they prepared to jump off a mountain. For some, like my husband, this would be a first.

Signal on cellphone - check.

Paraglider and reserve chute packed correctly - check.

Life insurance up to date - check.

This is a large mountain. Mount 7, some 3,800 ft high, overlooking the town of Golden along the river valley. Those clouds were cause for some concern for a while, but eventually they got the green light.

With great excitement, and only a little trepidation, he gets ready to launch.

A couple more steps, the glider is fully inflated and his feet leave the safety of the hillside.

Settle down into the harness ....

... take a good look down the mountain side and ...

... fly !

Disclaimer (and thanks): most of these photos are not my own, so thank you to Vincene at Muller Windsports for providing some great shots of all our nutters as they took to the air!

SkyWatch Friday - A week of loveliness

We've had some truly lovely skies this week -

mostly during the late evenings,

as the sun is heading off to warm someone else's day ....

and mostly, involving splotches of clouds breezing on by ...

or some feathery streaks of a watercolour paintbrush.

Colours have been rich and fiery ...

... and with remnants of a pink setting-sun sky in the background, the moon was been a bright, sparkling ball hovering on a piece of invisible twine over the golf course.

To see more pictures from around the world, click here:

Happy SkyWatch Friday!

One year old ...

It's my one year Blogoversary this week. (This is how it all started.)

I've had such fun writing down some of my inane ramblings and comments - blogging is, afterall, a compelling but polite way of waving at the world and shouting "Look at me, look what I saw today, what do you think of this?" We share our world with others. We share where we live, what we do, what we can accomplish.

I've loved linking up with people new and old (well, kinda old - in the nicest sense of the word of course), and I am in awe of all the natural, talented writers and photographers out there in Blogland who make me feel humble, pointless and galvanised on a daily basis!

I hope to continue for as long as nature gives me a hearty poke in the eye, or random cluttered cupboards, garden renovations, lunatic dogs and bra-shopping inspire me. It's fair to say, however, that going out to earn a living now puts a slight damper on my ability to photograph pretty things so often, or come up with intelligent conversation half the time (only half?!). I think the contents of my office might only hold your attention for, ooh, say about 4 nano-seoconds. And on some days, the contents of my brain are not much more motivating!

Thank you for sharing my blog. Love and girly hugs, and a sloppy lick from my co-writer, Smudge. (And Honey says "huh?")

Now then, I think a large slice of celebratory cake is calling. Do you want some?

Scenic Sunday - Contrasts

Remember this picture from March? Overlooking downtown Calgary ...

Bleak, grey, colourless.

Look at it now ....

Hurray!

One more - the "Before" shot - bleached of life ...

And the "After" photo - born again!

Calgary has been rained upon for nearly three weeks solid - it is lush and green, vibrant and gorgeous.

But the rivers are really high, and fast flowing, and when the dogs go down to paddle, I nearly have a panic attack - 'cos I sure ain't jumping in to rescue them!

Have a great and super Scenic Sunday.

Mini rant for the week

It's been raining here for quite a few days - pouring with rain actually. It is, afterall, June in Alberta - the heavens open and begin to empty all over us.

And the reason for a mini-rant post this week is because I don't feel inclined or able to produce a nice, pretty SkyWatch Friday post - there's nowt out there but grey soggyness! My camera lens protesteth too much.

But the rain is not the cause of my mini rant. I don't mind it really - the garden needs it, the landscape needs it, the low-level rivers need it and how can we go white-water rafting later in the year, if the snow and rain don't all culminate downriver in July?!

And my local water supply needs it. So rain clouds - you have my gracious permission to fall for a few more days, then you must head off back to the UK or Vancouver or Seattle because they will be missing you by now.

I live in an area that is naturally pretty dry - sure we get some snow - but hardly any rain. Maybe a few days in October and then June is usually pretty soggy.

So why has my neighbour got her bloody irrigation system going morning and evening?! Ooh, it makes me cross!

I assume she has set it with a timer - I am unimpressed each morning as I take the dogs around the block, dodging rain clouds and puddles, to see her front and back lawns receiving another 20 mins of clean, fresh water taken from our precious supplies. Aaaghhh!

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a lush and spongy manicured lawn as well as the next person

In fact, I find my own lawn-care skills severely lacking and the dandelions are currently having an orgy in my back garden. It's disgraceful how quickly they can reproduce. Neighbours and bylaw-officers complain quickly if it gets out of hand - otherwise I kinda like their prolific bursts of yellow.

But the main reason I will never win the "poshest lawn in the street" award is that I don't really agree with irrigation systems blasting our precious resources all over the place, in pursuit of healthy blades of green-ness.

I'm happy to give my perennials a quick soak, or water my veggies and hanging baskets - but if you live in a place that is loathe to naturally water your garden for you, then I think you ought to try and work with what you've got.

So capture some water off your roof, divert your guttering to do the watering for you, plant some native stuff that happily grows where you live - and look up Xeriscaping on the internet.

Rain collectors, rain barrels, water butts - whatever you call them - come in all shapes and sizes now - I don't figure they will ever look truly attractive - how about one with a planter on the top?

DIY - paint your wagon?

Now this one is just butt ugly (geddit?) - but maybe you just go with a "needs must" approach (but does it have to be turquoise? subtle it ain't.)

My favourite, of course is this wee treasure - a simple water butt.

Mini rant over.

Dances with Humans - Dogs and Porcupines

Smudge here - how are you good folks doing?

Thought I'd tell you about my daft friend Honey, and what happens when she ignores my good advice. You can lead a dog to water, and all that .....

(I'm the tall, dark and handsome one.)

You remember Honey right, the stoopid one?

Cute as a button but, oh boy, not bright. At all.

So The Boss took us for one of our favourite walks by the Ranch House this week. It was a drizzly, cold day and though I hate to admit it, I was a soggy, shivering wreck at the end, let me tell you. Dignity goes out of the window when you've been rained on for an hour.

Old Honey-chops over there only went and stuck her nose into a dead porcupine. I told her to leave it alone, but does she listen? Nope.

And because she is so dumb, she didn't yelp or cry out at all, so neither The Boss nor The Reluctant Dog Owner had a clue she had done this, and to be honest I was so wrapped up in my own shivering misery, I was too busy looking for a good towel rub-down and a nice warm blanket. Call me selfish.

So it wasn't 'till the end of the day that The Reluctant Dog Owner finally found the porcupine spines sticking out of Honey's head - she had four in her chin, one on the end of her ear, one on her back and another poking out of the top of her head.

To be honest, I couldn't see them at all 'cos the spines were the same colour as her fur, and they were all small, broken ones anyway.

So, The Boss and The Reluctant Dog Owner get into a big conversation about what to do, how to get them out of her skin and how much it would all cost. There is no fee too high to take care of and pamper us, no?

And Ol' Honey-features just looked on blankly - completely unaware and well, just daft really. Totally not bothered that she looked like a walking pin-cushion. So they saved on vets bills and waited 'till the following day.

The next morning The Boss took her off for an hour - didn't invite me along - typical! I miss out on all the fun.

And then they came home again and Honey looked totally pissed. Like really drunk man, it was so funny. I sniffed her, I tried to mount her, tried to get her to play ball. Nada!

Her front legs couldn't hold her up (she is a wee bit on the heavy-side, it must be said), her back legs were really wobbly and she was just no fun at all - she just slept all evening, and snoring like you wouldn't believe. After laughing my ass off, I finally gave up and snoozed on the sofa.

Something about sedation, I think they called it.

But you know what, if we see that smelly old dead porcupine again, I bet she'll still go up to check it out. See what I mean .... D-U-M-B-O !