Summer photos so far

Various mountain, river and work days

Spring on Bickford

Still in its infancy, the Chetwynd Outdoors Society is committed to continuing its restoration of a decommissioned fire tower on Bickford Mountain.  I hiked up on Saturday with four other members of the group to document how the tower fared in our brutal northern winter and begin planning a work bee later in the summer.

There was no shortage of lingering snow.  Nearly all were prepared with gaiters and waterproof hiking boots and layers for the wind and rain.  A tough slog up the melting trail and over a swollen creek was worth the view from the tower and summit.

May there be spring!

On a recent helicopter flight for work, our pilot commented that the Peace is two weeks behind his hometown Vernon.  The rivers here are filled with silt and not yet at their high water level for the year, snow still lingers in the bush and makes roads inaccessible, vegetation here is in various stages of leafing out while Vernon has had leaf out, flowers and is snow free!

We northerners cherish our summers.

It's rare for gardeners to plant before June due to lingering frost risk yet we're out on riverboats enjoying the snowcapped peaks and high water that makes areas inaccessible in warmer months.  Music festivals run into the never-dark night.  Black out shades sell out from the local hardware store a month before summer solstice as we attempt to adequately rest before launching ourselves into another high activity day of weeding, hiking, fishing, BBQs.  Even with our long days, it seems there's never enough time to fit it all in.

Foster cat update

Rarely am I involved in meeting adoption candidates for our foster animals.  Friday I had the pleasure of delivering Ella, a black beauty of a kitten, to good friends in Chetwynd.  They were looking for a companion for their male Pomerian and the male of the couple has always had cats around.  I did not hesitate for a second to recommend them as new owners to On Our Way Home's President.  

From the update I've received, she's settling well into her furever home and getting along with the dog while providing the humans hours of entertainment.  I'm glad she'll be close and we can monitor her maturing.  

Millie and Ella snuggling/battling

Millie and Ella again doing top kitty priorities

Carl joined us the same night we dropped off Ella.  Freshly neutered, he was still a bit dopey and sleepy from the drugs, so we set him up in the basement for a healing, restful night before introducing him to the house and Millie.  She's kind of a bully!  It takes her two to three days to welcome a kitten in and then they're fighting and chasing and having a grand kitty time.  She's still hissing at Carl.  They seemed to have worked out some sort of truce and he'll only be with us until we leave for holidays next Monday.  

Isn't he handsome?!?  I swear there's a storyteller trapped in his body as he's very vocal. 

Carl chilling in the sunshine

This handsome boy loves to snuggle and purrs like a chainsaw

Wilma, new foster kitten

Wilma joins us from a busy foster home in Fort St. John where there were three dogs and another cat.  In our comparatively quiet home, her and Millie are now mostly friends.  Mostly.

When not duking it out in the Kitty Battledome, they`re parkouring off the furniture and wrestling on top of our sleeping bodies.

They`re both total cuties and we`re still on the fence as to whether we`ll keep Millie or not.  Luckily we`ve been able to postpone that decision as no one has shown any interest in adopting her.

At the prompting of a well-connected woman, who is quickly becoming a favourite friend in Chetwynd, I attended a volunteer orientation at one of the primary schools at lunch.

Car free and usually care free, I debated the  merits of walking or cycling in a developing northern snow storm.

Both would get me out of the house. Pro.  I could get there faster cycling and read a novel longer.  Pro.  I was going to a school and they would have a bike rack.  HUGE Pro.  A book club mate and the inviter to the event had recently dislocated her shoulder from a cycling fall - on dry pavement - hmmm, possible con.

I cycled there.  It was chilly.  I felt hardcore.  The wind blew snow into my exposed face both ways.  Con, con, con.

There was delicious carrot soup waiting when I arrived at the school and two fun kitties when I returned home. Pro.  

Leveled up, first town snow and Millie has a twin

An overnight wet snow thwarted my cycling into my Occupational First Aid Level 3 practical exam.  I had been cycling in each morning the three-ish kilometers (uphill) from home and was annoyed I wouldn't be able to do it for the final day.  

Cycling clears my head, the gentle incline into town revs up my heart rate and the twelve minute ride allows me to ponder and prepare for my day ahead.  I courageously cycle on the right hand shoulder of the highway for a couple hundred meters where a recent construction project by the town has destroyed a once-perfectly-usable pedestrian path (in its place is an awkward switchback with deep gravel that even those walking in get bogged down).  

For the past two weeks, I have been at the (allegedly haunted) Northern Lights College completing OFA Level 3.  It's a course I have been encouraging employers to put me through - when I had employers - and decided to do it myself when I had the time.  

Struggling to find work in the environmental field, successfully completing this course will hopefully give me a few more options in town and outside when I move on from the Peace.   

Millie and Mabel photos

There's rumours brewing Mabel (Surerus) is being adopted on Thanksgiving weekend.  I snapped a few photos before we send her on her way to her furever home.

When we received Mabel (our name), she was barely off a bottle and in to wet and dry foods.  Now she's easily doubled in size and Millie has accepted her as a playmate and snuggle buddy.  I think Millie will miss her kitty girlfriend more than Dan and I will.

Dan and Mabel shortly after we agreed to foster her

Millie found Dan's headband

Mabel after morning kitty cuddle time

How to beet it?

Squash are the rabbits/mice/cats of the garden in that they produce like mad!  Most recipients of please-just-take-it squash are grateful for the gift and usually have uses in mind for it - chocolate zucchini loaves, muffins, cookies, spaghetti squash pizza crust or simply covered in fresh pasta sauces, acorn or butternut soups.

If not for my mother giving me my weight in green and yellow zucchini on a recent visit, I would have been relegated to buying it from local farmer's markets (good) or the oddly stocked local stores (bad).  

Zucchini is a vegetable that most people know what to do with it when your coworker/neighbor/family member downloads their overharvest.  

My squash plants this year grew great big leaves, curly cue climbers and had delightful flowers but no vegetables came from them.  I accidentally weeded leeks and garlic.  Carrots did well, spinach bolted and the brassica bug annihilated my late season kale.  Beets also flourished.  

Still in the ground, I don't know what to do with them.  There's only so much glory bowl in which I can grate fresh beets.  Borscht, maybe I'll give that a go.  Someone said roast them.  Another to make beet burgers.  If this autumnal rain stops, I'll slog out to the soil one last time for the last of this year's fresh northern veg.  

Wow weekend!

This past weekend has been one of those rare ones where I see the majority of my friends in Chetwynd, rest up and recharge for the week ahead and have a clean(er) house.

Another girlfriend has left town for a promising work opportunity and she called together her town friends and coworkers from the last two years for one last bash on Friday.  Pub-filling laughter bounced off the wooded walls before we spilled into the Indian summer night and wished each other well with intentions of staying in touch.

Happy and (mildy) hungover the next morning, Dan and I set out on bicycles to meet friends for breakfast at the pub we had left mere hours before.  In small-town style, we saw nearly all our friends that morning.  At the post office, thrift store, library, in their yard, ahh.

Mild house and yard work filled the time until we popped out to friends house outside town for dinner.  A stellar meal was in the making - roast moose and garden spuds, carrots, onion.

We resigned ourselves to a sleepover, made arrangements for a friend to come to the house and feed our foster kitties when another friend dropped in after (unsuccessfully) hunting the same animal we had just eaten.  Conversation flowed, laughter filled the vaulted ceilings and we bummed a ride back into town for the night.

A delightfully leisurely day followed with light walks, board games, BBQs and kitty cuddle time.  

It's beginning to end

As a Swedish girlfriend (working in Norway) is lamenting summer's end and equally anticipating fall's transition, I too am noticing:

The dawn and dusk chill that comes too soon to the north.  

Days are noticeably shorter and August is not yet out.  

Leaves are turning.  

My vegetable garden is getting harvest-ready.  

It's difficult for me to process that summer is winding down when I feel I've had so little of it.  Cheated out of a "normal bush season" by a lay off and subsequent scramble for employment I have not spent nearly as much time in the woods as I usually do.  

While I have caught some of the seasonal boreal changes on day hikes and dog walks, truly I have missed the full season experience of looking for my favourite boreal gems and tracking their progress from leaf out to flowering to seed/berries! to die back.  

Fall is approaching and so is a time for contemplation, dream time and mentally, physically and emotionally regrouping.  

Millie Vanillie

Millie Vanillie is our newest foster cat from On Our Way Home Animal Rescue.  She's a black and white short hair kitten (three to five months?) and has been with us for just a half week.  She's a total cutie pot pie that likes window sills, snuggles, hunt-the-feet-in-the-bed game.  Millie is off for her spay surgery on the 25th and she'll be available for adoption a week later.  

Happy solstice, puppy sitting and work pics

Behind us is the year's climax: summer solstice.  A girlfriend recently sold her house and keenly hosted a joint Solstice and Hurray-I-Sold-My-House party.  The grill fired up, friends popping by during the evening, morning, the shots flowing as she doesn't want to move more booze than necessary, new faces mingled amongst new and dear friends, ahhh, another successful small town bash.  The best part: she is moving in with Dan and I mid July.  

Our two fosters kitties have an interested woman and if that's successful then On Our Way Home has more cutie pot pie kittens in need of temporary homes.  So, I hope there's enough for one for me, one for Dan and one for the new roomie.  

How it's nearly July is still a great mystery to me.  Work's been a slow-medium pace with several early days this week which suits me fine.  Some forestry work doing streams, veg stuff and soil pits and some enviro in the mix including leachate, water and air (yes, air) sampling for a proposed coal mine south west of Chetwynd.  

Friends who recently build a house out of town are off in Ontario for another week and willingly entrusted Dan and I with their home and new puppy.  It's been very refreshing sitting on the deck looking out at the hills and aspen trees while an adorable puppy plays and falls over underfoot.  

Dan with our most recent dog sitting charge, Renfrew.  She's a three-month-old lab shepard cross and is a mega cutie pot pie.

A recent crossing to plant a reclaimed lease site between Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge

Yup, hip waders are now a part of my work wardrobe 

Fly in day

The Pine River west of Chetwynd