5C's Que Pasa

Colin left early this morning for an all day photo session.  So the responsibility for the weiners fell totally on my shoulders.  Yes the sun was shinning this morning but it did not last all day.  I called Colin, late afternoon, who was at the other end of town to let him know of the oncoming rain storm so he could prepare.

Meanwhile I walked the girls about 10AM and by the time we got back they were panting, so was I  🙄  Later in the afternoon because of the heat I took them for a ride in the golf cart.  First we visited the dog park where they did their thing, then we just wandered a bit.

I had seen this clematis on our morning walk and went back to take this shot. It would have been a better photo had I taken it in the morning with the sun shining on the plant. But still you do get the idea of what a lovely plant this is. I love the two colors.

They love being driven around in the coche as we call it ( in Spanish it means car ) . The girls know what 'coche' means and head over to the golf cart when I say, " Let's go for a ride in the coche ". We do indulge them in the heat of the summer at midday. They still get walks AM and PM when it is cooler. Today we were taking out the recycle and picking up the mail. No cheques, grrr! By the way we call a car "carro", we picked that up in Acapulco, but both coche & carro are correct, we just chose to use one for the car and the other for the golf cart.

Oh yes, the kids.  Well the park seems full of them  Why are they here?  It’s a Wednesday, mid June and they should be in school.  Suddenly a light bulb goes on in my mind!  All the teachers in the Province of B.C. are on strike as of yesterday.  It is very unlikely that school will resume before September, if it even does then.  Hence all the munchkins are running around, riding their bikes, splashing in the pools and just having a good time as most kids do, screaming.  Good for the parents who were able to take extra time off to come camping and enjoy quality time with their children.  We who live here in this RV Park are use to kids from the end of June to the third week of August.  I guess we get to ‘enjoy’ them for a few extra weeks this year.  We truly love living here and have come to accept that for eight to nine weeks of the summer the roads are full of bikes, scooters and extra vehicles and there is an abundance of noise.  We tolerate it because we know that soon things will settle down once again.  Fortunately where we live, on the lake, we are not affected all day, mostly when trying to walk the girls and when someone walks past yelling and having a good time.  Life is change, if it were the same day after day, it would become boring and one would become stuck in a rut.

When the rain storm came through Carmeh hid in her favorite place, as close as she can get behind the toilet. She does the same thing in the RV. I always feel so bad for her. Fortunately the storm passed quickly and the sun came out. Yeah, that means that Colin will be able to finish his job.

I went to the eye doctor today as my left eye has been burning and is constantly irritated when at my desk, on the computer and in the sun.  I have been using those Artificial Tears by Refresh.  I can add drops every 30 minutes and still no relief.  I had this problem last fall in September and October in mostly my left eye with a bit here and there in my right eye.  While we were on the Isla all winter, I had no problems at all.  Shortly after returning home I started getting the odd twinge in just the left eye.  The past two weeks have been miserable.  Working at my desk and the computer seems to be the trigger.  I decided to check it out and was fortunate to snag an appointment this afternoon due to a cancellation.  She checked my RX and all was well, redid a vision test and again I was alright.  On checking my eyes with intense magnification she spotted a layer of dry cells near the bottom of my left eye.  Possibly caused by the dryness here in Kelowna as opposed to Mazatlan where it is very humid or by not blinking enough.  Apparently many people don’t fully blink or blink often enough when on the computer.

The good news is that it can be repaired.  I just have to give my cornea a chance to rebuild new cells that won’t be wiped away like a wiper blade on a car windshield.  I am now using eye drops ( that you can get over the counter ) 3 times a day but they are thick and oily and create blurriness for the first little while.  At night, just before I go to sleep, I will have to get Colin to apply a gel like ointment that will keep my eyes lubricated as I sleep.  That will only last until the first time I have to get up to go to the bathroom  🙁  Nothing I can do about that.  Anyway in two to three weeks I should be better.  If not I will return for some heavy duty anti-inflammatory eyedrops.

A few weeks ago we started to hear a lovely  bird melody.  I don’t recall hearing it before.  Finally we got a glimpse of orange.  This bird never sat still for a minute.  After repeated sightings and observing and noting down the colors, the size, where there was a slash of orange or white on the body, we were able to identify our visitor.

It is a Bullock Oriole.

It never stayed in one place long enough to get a good photo.  It did sit on our tree for a bit and seemed to prefer the cedar hedge.  It came early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

These photos came from the internet but there was no name to give credit to.

The red on the map is their summer breeding area.

We are just on the edge of the red at the top left.  We so enjoyed these visitors but sadly they have moved on. We do get orioles on the Isla but I have never identified them.  I will make an effort this winter as the map shows their winter area ( in blue ), exactly where we are.  Always nice to have visitors, both here and in Mexico.

If the weather doesn’t pick up soon I may have to resort to antidepressants  🙁  We live in the sunny Okanagan, this is one of the tourist hot spots in Canada.  This year the sun is missing.  In fact it’s cold more than warm, never mind hot.  We had to wear jackets yesterday to walk the dogs.

Colin had to wear a jacket to BBQ. He actually never ever wears a jacket from May on.

The wind is so string that the trees are bending over.

Having said that we actually did have 2 hours of sun yesterday afternoon with almost enough heat for me to put a sundress on but not quite warm enough to sit outside unless it was a protected area.

This couple are tourists and just had to get out on the lake. Loved their dog on the bow. It's like us when we go to Mexico in the winter, we are dressed in shorts and sundresses while the locals are wearing long pants and jackets. When you are vacation the temperature doesn't seem to matter. They were have a good time.

The weather is seriously affecting our business.  We have many jobs all awaiting sun.  When is does shine, I just know the phone will be ringing and the questions will be “when can I get my photos” ?  Sadly we can only do so much in a single day.  Then there is still that huge aerial shoot to be done in Vancouver and now we have one also here in Kelowna as well as other outdoor work.

This morning we resorted to turning on the fireplace.  The furnace has also gone on the last three mornings, it is automatically set to turn on at a certain temperature.  It is depressing!

The girls doing what they do best, Caeli sleeping and Carmeh playing.

Meanwhile I have managed to fix an ongoing problem related to the computer.  I seem to spend more time on it than I should and that has resulted in a sore neck.

Over the past few years Colin had kept telling me to point my nose down. It is creating stress along my neck & shoulder muscles. Well I can't see what is on the screen if I don't look up. It's all related to my bifocals, I have to tilt my head up to read what's there.

About six weeks ago I went to our eye glass place and spoke with the manager.  She suggested glasses to use with just the computer.  I already have desk/computer glasses but I still tilt my head up  with those.  They are great for desk work but not so much the computer as they still have a bifocal in them requiring me to tilt my head.  These computer only glasses are created for just using the computer.  You have to measure the distance you normally sit away from the computer and then a formula is worked out by the eye doctor based on your prescription, I think the term is single vision.

I love them. I no longer tilt my head and I can see the screen much clearer. The only drawback is having to change glasses back and forth. I've noticed that the computer is almost blurry with my regular eyeglasses. These new computer glasses are the the best $120.00 I have spent.

For over a week now I am being awoken just after dawn.  Later in the day it’s the same repetitive noise, over and over.  Sometimes it’s enough to give me a headache.  It’s difficult to concentrate on what I am doing but the worst is not being able to get back to sleep in the morning.

Rat – a tat, rat -a – tat, rat – a- tat and over and over and over again.  I read that the constant pecking is a mating call.  Well I sure hope this guy finds a gal real soon.

Finally after much searching by listening for the pecking sound, he was spotted. It is an electrical wood pole that was very recently put up.

But he is a good distance from us. The red shows where he hangs out pecking the pole all day. This shot was taken from my front porch.

Can you imaging the racket if you lived right next to the pole.  Hopefully those folks are hard of hearing.

I think that I am wearing out my desk chair which also serves as my computer chair.  I just swivel from one to the other. I’m down to 2 meals a day as I’m so busy in my little corner.

Each one of those pieces of paper had a list of questions for me to discus with Dad's bank. I was on the phone for a very long time but I got the answers I needed.

It seems that I have spent the majority of the past week working on Dad’s things and today I feel that I have a handle on it.  Don’t get me wrong, Dad has done a fabulous job keeping his affairs in order but with him being in hospital I had to complete some transactions for him.  It was more difficult because I wasn’t able to speak to him when I wanted to.  My brother visited and used his cell phone to have Dad call me to check in, but 5 minutes here and there was not enough.  I got done what needed to be done but decided to look into all of his bank accounts.  Good thing, as I found close to $3,500.00 sitting in Mom’s chequing account.  It has been sitting there since last May.  You would think that the bank would have transferred that to Dad after Mom passed away early last July.  I also discovered that despite having a notarized copy of me being Dad’s Power of Attorney, that the bank can make it’s own rules and not let me do things for my Dad.  Not good.

It was a long week but I got through it, plus I had several appointments out of the house.  Finally today I have managed to get  my desk organized and functioning once again.  By the way I managed to stop in at Weight Watchers for a quick weigh in to discover I had lost 1.4 of a lb.  Wish I had had time to stay for the meeting as it would have helped me say no to the pizza Colin brought home for dinner last night  😥

We have had more rain, showers, wind and thunderstorms that normal.  Actually I believe that we might have had only 1 1/2 days of sunshine this week.

The girls are not amused. Because they are so low to the ground they come home from a walk wet with dirty bellies. Plus they just hate the thunder. Yesterday's storm even had me quaking for a while.

Taken on our one perfect day. That was the day Colin left at 4AM and worked until 7PM. He still hasn't gone to Vancouver for those aerials yet. We are hoping for sun and blue sky next week.

Meanwhile we are being eaten alive by mosquitoes.  Doesn’t matter the time of day or where you are, you will get bit as will the dogs.  I complained to the park and they actually had someone come out to the Park to check.  They said it was too late to spray this year but they will next year and for now they have put up two huge mosquito traps.  So far we haven’t noticed a difference.  I am impressed that they actually acted on my request.

Saw our first duck family this season.

They sure are cute. We have seen a second family but that is it. We used to have the lake covered with duck and geese babies.

I almost forgot to mention this, good thing we take photos. We are finally getting the final to dos done since we moved in. We had this crack and one other 3 inch crack repaired. They happened when the house was put in place but we waited until now to see if anymore developed but they didn't. Nice to get these things off the list.

Surprise, just got a call from Dad.  He is going home tonight at 6:00PM.  Funny time to discharge someone from hospital.  It has been a long 5 weeks for him.  I wasn’t aware that he was well enough to go home.  Apparently the heavy duty antibiotics took care of his lung problems and they told him today that there was nothing more they could help him with.  Hopefully he has learned new skills and will be better abbe to manage on his own.  I’m so happy that he will be home for Fathers’s Day.  I know he is going to be happy to be in his own bed tonight.

A quick update on the whale. They claim that it died of natural causes and it has been buried.