Category: The Natural World
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Five for five
FIona and I went geocaching today. Our family got into geocaching a year or two before she was born and kept at it periodically for a while afterwards. But for the last five years or so we’ve hardly logged a cache. We have one cache that we placed near our home which we maintain, but […]
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Big yellow bus
I should have a different photo here. A photo of Fiona in her shorts and current favourite T-shirt, a neat braid, her smiling face, with school lunch stuff in her bright-coloured backpack, hopping on the school bus. She was cute as a button. But I didn’t bring the camera. Instead I have this old photo […]
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Gravelling a trail
In a week Fiona, Sophie and I are running races in Kaslo at the first annual Sufferfest. Today we decided that our nature walk should be a run along the creekside trail that makes up parts of the kids’ race and the 25k trail run I’ll be doing. It was a trail we’d never done […]
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Old Cedars
Today we went off to do some rock-climbing and Goddess-Questing. First thing this morning Fiona and I met up with another family with young kids and did a few quick climbs at a rock face half an hour south of us. It was my first roped climbing in 17 years, I think! I did okay […]
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Taddies
On the way back from the third of today’s short hikes, we stopped at a lake at the summit to see if there were any tadpoles. We were in luck! We quickly scooped about a dozen out of the reedy shallows. We put them in a cup in one of the van’s cup-holders and drive […]
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Rainbow rocks
Just some ordinary rocks, each like hundreds and thousands of others on the beach. Amazing how the colours jump out at you when they’re arranged together. Another Goldsworthy-inspired diversion between swims at the lake today.
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Goodbye spring
Last weekend I did an evening run. It was chilly and damp. I wore shorts with a long-sleeved thermal shirt. It was just about right. I definitely needed the insulation. I came home, and shortly after that the power went out. We lit candles, including putting a tea-light in this thumbtack-pierced spritzer can that Sophie […]
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Family Trail Ride
It was Canada Day. Chuck and Erin and I were all off work so we took advantage of the day. No photos. Despite the awesome opportunities. What was I thinking? This morning I drove the truck out to the north end of the lake with my bike in the back, then rode back home. Got […]
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The Chinook
Erin’s new mountain bike. It’s already seen some hard riding through mud, up ramps, over rocks and roots. It has disc brakes and RockShox, a nice light aluminum frame, and they haven’t cut corners on the basic componentry. MEC has recently begun carrying bikes and they’ve clearly put a lot of thought into fleshing out […]
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Evening ride
Yesterday Noah, Sophie and Erin did their own ride along this trail while Fiona and I did some running and biking on the highway at a tamer pace. Today I offered to take Fiona and Sophie along the trail at a Fiona pace. The way we do this ride is that I drive to the […]
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Trail ride
Who needs a Van de Graaff generator? This is Erin’s hair after (a) a short hard mountain-bike ride (b) a shower and (c) lying about in the sun on the static-electricity-generating trampoline for 45 minutes. She’s an awesome mountain-biking buddy. Enjoys going fast on the narrow single-track we’ve got around here. Has lots of stamina. […]
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Summer beach day
Towels are drying on the line. Finally we had a summery day at the beach. It came after yesterday’s Corazon double-bill of final concerts in Nelson — fantastic and euphoric and tear-jerking all at once. One final recording session left and it’s all over for the season. Today I made good progress in the book-keeping […]
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Raptors
While in Duncan we visited a raptor centre a few minutes from the place we were staying. They had a few dozen birds, from baby eagles to falcons, hawks, owls and full-grown bald eagles. We were able to watch the flying demonstration, where they encouraged a few of the birds to fly in the open […]
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Silted up
I love our water system, I really do. Our supply is gravity fed, fresh mountain spring water and it’s free and plentiful and all ours. It comes from high up a mountain that has no human activity on it. It is to a certain extent surface water, though, so it does run the risk of […]
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A taste of summer
It was that kind of a day. A shorts and t-shirt kind of day. A barefoot kind of day. A kids on the dock kind of day. A watch the bottom of the lake kind of day. A dangle your feet in the water until they scream “bone pain!” from the cold kind of day. […]