My Bags Are Packed .... And I've Left

We left on our big adventure to the great world of the southern hemisphere. A lovely drive over here and I got to visit libraries in Grand Forks, Greenwood and Midway. We had a visit with friends in Castlegar and a family supper with my sister and her son and his family here in Summerland. We even found time to walk half way up the Sleeping Giant that overlooks Okanogan Lake. About 48 hours until real departure time!

Our Girl: #376

To triathelete fans, our girl, Andrea competed in the World Xterra Triathalon in Maui yesterday. She did really well and said it was way harder than Iron Man Canada. She finished 8th in her age group and 62nd overall for the women. She loved her swim, the bike ride was gruelling and the run was hot and humid. The swim is 1.5 km, the bike is a mountain bike course of 30 km and the run is a trail run of 11 km - some of it was in deep sand on a Maui beach. She did her parents and Canada proud once again! Way to go Andrea!

Demitri, Andrea's husband, ran a 10km run on Saturday in Maui and he placed 4th in his age group and 23rd overall. It's great to see Rossland, Canada in the list of top finishers! Congratulations to both Andrea and Demitri, impressing the world field from small town Canada.

Eagle Eyes on the Lardeau

Monday I took the time to head off with the Kaslo and Area Birders. We travelled up good old highway 31 (mostly gravel) along the Lardeau River. It was a much nicer day than this picture illustrates and we had a great day for birding. Mature bald eagles 44; immatures 14. We also saw a great blue heron, a Clark's Nutcracker, several dippers, tons of common mergansers - many of them males, changing into adult plumage - and two cattle egrets in a field full of gulls at Meadow Creek.

Stuffed Jars

As I write this post, the canner is heating a load of tomatoes. I have actually stuffed every large jar that I own. It's been a bountiful year here in the Koots. Most of my tomatoes are going to be frozen this year - I hope the last couple of boxes will ripen during this next week before we head to NZ. Dave got really enthusiastic about making plum jam and applesauce and he's done his share in making us use our jars. Pictured here are apricots (purchased from a fruit stand, alas), Damson plums from my bridge partner in Beasley, and bread and butter pickles made with our own cukes and onions while Andrea and Demitri provided the peppers. I'm giving thanks for another wonderful, bountiful harvest.

Rob, The Giant Killer

We've had a very tall tree behind our house which has worried me ever since we moved here. It didn't look truly healthy right from our move in 2006, but it was partly green and seemed to not sway too much in some of our heavy winds. Last summer it died. It's a little unfair to local faller, Rob, to say that he killed the tree. He did bring it down on Friday. It took him about 30 minutes from start to finish - this picture shows him after he shimmied up the tree, tied on a rope, took himself down and started to pull the tree to the empty spot we wanted. A bad fall would have this tree hit the house. He didn't spend more than a couple of minutes with the chainsaw but he brought it down exactly where we wanted and our view to the nw looks a whole lot better. Thank you, Rob!

September Hiking

So many hikes and such a perfect September! Monday, Dave and I hiked to Woodbury Glacier - it's featured in this post's photo. We'd felt a little discouraged about doing this hike by our hiking book, Don't Waste Your Time in the Kootenays. However, that was completely misleading. The great thing about having had a fire run through the area a few years ago (2003, I think) is that now the views have opened up so much - it's gorgeous looking ahead - you can actually see where you're heading and it makes it good for spotting bears. We didn't see any. Also managed to pick a couple of cups of huckleberries which means I picked huckleberries this year from June 30 - Sept. 28th. All that is required to find the berries is a change in elevation. This hike was super - not very steep, a welcome relief after my 60 km bike ride the day before! September really has been the very best hiking month this year. Today, I see, there's been snowfall on the peaks all around here.

Walk 'em Cowgirl!

This is the Kootenay version of Saddle Mountain, located near Nakusp. The picture is the back end of the saddle. We hiked here two weeks ago - the hiking weather this September was been absolutely perfect. The approach to this hike is rather long for us to do on a day trip so we headed over to Nakusp on Sunday night, had a very long wait for supper service at the local hotel, and then crossed the Arrow Lake on the Arrow Lake Ferry. Sleeping in the back of the truck was remarkably comfortable. The hike up to Saddle Mtn. didn't take too long - about 2 hours to the top - the descent would have been faster but we found about the best bunch of huckleberries we'd seen all summer so filled up our lunch containers with more berries. For some reason the Arrow Lake Ferry doesn't run for two hours in the middle of the day (siesta time, I guess) but on this particular Monday whoever was supposed to operate it simply didn't come back to work. About an hour after things were supposed to get going, a replacement worker showed up. Ah, Kootenay Time! Ice cream at The Hut in Nakusp is still a very good deal.