State of the Garden 4

Maintaining 3 gardens is pretty time consuming and I've never taken a picture of the garden in Trail. We're harvesting pea pods and I think it will be a couple of more weeks before we can pick raspberries.  There's lots of them out there but they aren't very big or at all red.  You can see the corn on the right hand side of the picture.  There's actually a guy in Trail who has corn that is heading out at the moment.  Go figure.   I've had a couple of days here and it's been good to garden.  I'm not really ready to take a picture of the front yet - I'm doing a lot of what I had done in Saskatoon with a perennial border.  Here it's planned as an orchard on one side and a perennial border with pathways on the other.  Things just aren't grown up enough for a good picture.  One thing that I do love about Trail - the sandy soil is so easy to dig!  Too bad it has lead dust in it!  But the plants do seem to thrive on that combination.                                                                                                                                 

Nakusp: Could I Live There?

Since coming to Kaslo I realize that I live somewhat off the beaten track.  After getting a home in Trail, I realize that it is much easier to get places from Trail than it is in Kaslo.  We went to Nakusp for Campout 3 and it is even more remote.  Nakusp is located on Arrow Lake and is a 30 minute drive from a 30 minute ferry ride plus another 30 minute drive to Revelstoke.  OR it is a 2.5 hour drive to Nelson.  

Nakusp IS a lovely little town and the refurbishment of the water front is a total credit to the town and its designers.  The town really does have everything you need, including a bike and ski shop, a thrift store, a library, a burger joint and lots of reasonable restaurants.  The access to hiking, biking and skiing is outstanding.  I can tell that there's lots of people in Nakusp who like to garden and I could certainly be happy there.  But it is a bit far removed from other places.  If you live in Nakusp, I know my tendency would be to stay in Nakusp and I just don't know if it's my kind of town since I have never lived there.  I like its amenities and I don't need much beyond the great outdoors.  It's the access to other places and spaces that could become troublesome.  

Gardens along Nakusp waterfront

State of the Garden III

It's been a cool, late spring even here.  Our lilacs are actually still in bloom, although looking a little ragged now.  My 'June' daylily is glorious and pictured below.

I would have to say that second harvest occurred yesterday;  I picked dill that is now drying on newsprint in the greenhouse.   Next will be oregano - we have lots of it on this land and I never planted a bit of it.  The basil looks frightful - I put it out too early and it has shivered ever since.   Even the purchased plants from nurseries that fill several pots are not blooming with much encouragement.  The marigolds that I started from collected seed last fall are finally blooming - each plant has ONE open blossom.  We await the colour!  Greens are doing well, however, and yesterday I seeded some lettuce which I will call NDP lettuce, collected by our former MP, Wayne Stetski.  Carrots were also planted - plant late here to avoid carrot fly.                                                       

Mt. Abriel Biking Trails and Recreation Site

As part of Campout 3, Dave and I travelled over to Nakusp and area.  I did want to see the new bike trails that had been created and I'd only read about them in the paper.  Many of them are considered to be "adaptive" trails.  Others might use the words "all inclusive".   I am not much of a hardcore mountain biker and did find the trails a little challenging if they weren't labelled "green".  Most of the trails are really short (under 1 km) but they link together.  I did not try out anything on the "other side of the highway" which is what my daughter and her husband will bike this weekend.  

The recreation site is attractive even though it is pretty much on the edge of a clearcut.  Many of the sites are along the lake and these were all full the day we biked there - and the weather wasn't even great.  The sites are well-spaced and are pretty much all in forest.  Many of the trails connect via logging roads and there are developments continuing at the mountain.  Considering a lot of the work has been done by volunteers, it's an impressive operation.  

The strip of land that is allocated to Nakusp and Area Bikers Society (NABS) is a narrow one, between highway 6 and Arrow Lake,  10 km north of Nakusp.   The area had already been destroyed by logging and now the Society has created new trails adjacent to many of those roads.  For me, it was way easier to ride on the old logging roads.  But I'm not really trying to gain a new skill set on a bike.    It was good to see all the young families out there in a rather rainy June in the Koots.

Second Campout

I can't even provide a picture for this second campout of the summer.  I should have taken a picture when we stopped at Gilpin Grasslands Provincial Park near Grand Forks because that was the only sunshine we saw.  We decided not to take the camper van onto a rather rough road but we did stop and read the signs.  We were welcomed by several bighorn sheep.  We did discover another little provincial park across the highway - Bouswater/Okanogan Oxbow Park which is tiny,  but was full of bird life.  We saw turkey vultures very close to us.  The Kettle River was flowing quickly and we saw a lovely turtle on the road - most likely a Western Painted Turtle.  We spent our first night about 40 km north of Grand Forks at a Recreation Site on the Granby River and the next morning saw a moose cross the Granby on our way south.

I have always wanted to see Jewel Lake Provincial Park because I've been past the sign so many times - it's 15 km north of Highway 3.  The road is very driveable but I was disappointed that the campground isn't right on the lake.  Bird life there was very good, too, and we saw our first black-backed woodpecker.  If you don't fish, and it was too cold and buggy for swimming, I wouldn't recommend this park.  For a BC provincial park it was a little underwhelming.  I did discover an old Girl Guide Camp, Camp Bonnett, which was a very nice location, but I'm pretty sure has been abandoned.  It definitely had lots of damage done to the "lodge".  It was established in 1971 and I don't know how long its  managed to exist.  I know that GG and Brownies and Scouts, etc is kind of a bygone thing.  

We headed home via Trail and I had another reasonably good bird walk at Nancy Greene Lake.  The temperature was plus 5!

First Camp Out!

Yesterday, the BC provincial parks opened for residents of BC.  We'd been thinking of "camping close" to try out our new camper van that Dave constructed from a cargo van we purchased last September.  Things went pretty well with it  and we found it very comfortable to ride in.  One issue that needs to be addressed is the drawers sliding open on those sharp corners on BC roads!  We headed to Davis Creek campground on Kootenay lake, a 35 minute drive from our place.  The park was about half full and we enjoyed the beautiful evening and sunset last night.  Today, we walked into Lardeau to go birdwatching in that village - always a prime area for birds.   Didn't see much except a lot of tree swallows, a single merganser, and we could certainly hear hummingbirds and Stellar's jays.  Short but sweet, it was good to get out on the road again.  Many of us are "stuck at home" for the next while and it sure makes me glad that my home is British Columbia where my favourite parks have always existed.