Sep 01, 2020
…Mother Nature graced us with a visit.
I was opening the blinds as the sun was setting and saw that we had a heron on our beach.
All the heron photos were taken by me through a window and ever so slowly so as to not frighten the bird away.
Shortly thereafter I spotted this glorious sunset. I sent Colin down to the beach to take these for me. What you see is exactly as Mother Nature meant it to be seen. No photoshop here at all.
Aug 31, 2020
I had been to Greece before but this was Colin’s first time. The bottom three photos were from our Greek island cruise with the bottom right a lovely memento of my birthday onboard. So fortunate that we had those wonderful six weeks in Europe last year.
Aug 27, 2020
For the first time since we left for Mexico last October Colin did a photo shoot on Tuesday and he is doing yet another tonight. This is excellent news for us. Hopefully we can get our own small economy moving again. We do have bills to pay. So I say that life is good again.
Mother Nature certainly blessed us with a show last night.
If Colin were here I would have asked him to do a panorama for me. This was taken to the right of the previous photo.
And this is the last in the series – more to the north west.
Just a miscellaneous shot a bit later.
It is not the Isla but it is still very beautiful.
I took this just now. Jupiter to the left of the moon and its two reflections on the lake. Pretty good if I say so myself, considering this was hand held with a point and shoot camera.
And now a bit of humour…..
Aug 23, 2020
First off, just wanted to let you know that the fire is still not under control and that those that were evacuated remain that way and the 3,700 homes under evacuation alert continue to remain on alert.
BC Wildfire Service says 170 crew members, 16 helicopters and eight pieces of heavy equipment are fighting the Christie Mountain wildfire Sunday.
“Fire behaviour has somewhat increased, but they continue to make great progress,” reads an update.
The estimated size is still at 2,035 hectares.
We are dealing with some smoke but that is nothing compared to those living in the Penticton area.
A neighbour and his friend cooling off when we had our high 90’s temps. First time in the 17 years that we have lived here that I have seen someone on a float on the lake. The lake is not great for swimming but it is has improved in the past 19 months what with clearing the beaver dam at the far end of the lake and improving the inflow at the other end. Who knows, perhaps in a few years we might be able to swim out there.
Our life continues to revolve around medical appointments, a bit of grocery shopping and working in our garden with a daily walk. The garden is doing great and we are trying to preserve as many vegetables as possible. In the past week we had our massages again although she was too aggressive with Colin’s neck which resulted in a few problems. Two steps ahead and fours steps back. Tuesday I had my veins done on my left leg. I need to do a thirty minute walk after the vein treatment and we ended up doing that at Costco as it was 99F outside and way too hot to walk with a heavy compression stocking on. Quite painful this time and I will spare you the photos of all the bruising I am enduring. We did some local Lake Country errands on Thursday including my first time stepping inside a bank now that they are open. There was no one else there and with my mask I felt quite safe. Friday meant chiropractor appointments and a good shop at Superstore. We are now good for a week or more grocery wise. We have been looking for Clorox wipes for a month now and they are nowhere to be found, not even online. Any suggestions?
Colin continues to make the best banana bread ever. Look how fat this loaf is – pushing out the sides of the new silicone loaf pan.
We watched a very good action/thriller movie the other evening called “San Andreas” based on the plate shifting and creating massive earthquakes. It was well done and obviously a huge production with a budget of 101 million. It was released in 2015. Yesterday I finished the novel “Treasures from the Attic – The Extraordinary Story of Anne Frank’s Family” by Mirjam Pressler. The book was written based on thousands of letters written among the family over the years. It is a great read if you are a fan of Anne Frank and truly fills in the blanks. Now I need to reread the diary itself and perhaps try and find the movie online.
Our tomatoes are finally turning red. The glass on the sill is from Murano / Venice and the wine glass is from Guadalajara.
Our second zucchini boat meal but this this time we used canned tuna mixed with pesto and other yummy things. Another great success.
I am still simply drifting through the days. Not sure how I am going to get myself motivated. On the one hand I say why bother – especially if we are going be here this winter. I am not a fan of cold and snow and ice and suspect that the worst is still to come. My main inspiration these days is the garden but I won’t have that in the winter. We love our home and I know that I will he happy here if I am forced to stay. Colin has an idea that might make our home warmer over the winter but our carpenter is not being receptive to our phone calls nor texts. We have heard that all the RV rental sites in our park have been rented for the winter and that all the RV parks south of here to the US border are full as well. I guess the prairie snowbirds are coming west where it is warmer with a less severe winter. On a positive note I still have all of our cupboards to go through and clean out, that should keep me occupied for a month or two. We have had Christmas on the road in the RV now for twenty years so if we are here this will be a novelty.
Thanks to a blog reader, Kay and her advice, we decided go buy a vacuum food sealer to help preserve our abundance of vegetables.
I already had a spiralizer that I had purchased perhaps 4 or 5 years ago but had never used. This is its inaugural use. We were grating zucchini. Next time we will try zoodles.
What a great little machine. I have zucchini chopped for additions to soup or a stir fry in the future and some grated zucchini for a loaf.
I had already frozen some green beans using a ziplock bag. The package is already getting some ice crystals in it. The vacuum sealed beans look much better.
Meanwhile Mother Nature does pay us a visit every now and then.
Aug 19, 2020
Sadly we have a wildfire burning about 43 miles south of us. The fire appears to caused by a lightening strike and aggravated by the extreme hot temps that we are enduring along with winds to create a firestorm. The fire is out of control at this point. We are not in any danger but many others are. 319 homes have been evacuated and sadly one was lost today. Another 3,700 homes are on evacuation alert. At this moment the fire is only 1 km or .6 of a mile away from the vineyards of Painted Rock Estate Winery. Animals, large and small are being evacuated right now. The fire is estimated at 1400 hectares/ 3500 acres.
Sadly, nothing left of this home.
All we can do is pray for the winds to calm and the temps to drop and for the firefighters to stay safe. We have had the lowest fire season in over a decade and now this.