Creston - Bird Watching & Nurseries

We took part of the day off on Monday to make a quick trip to Creston, across the Lake and south about an hour.

Since we caught the 6:30 am ferry, we were there before most of the stores were open, so we spent nearly 2 hours wandering around the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area because it's a good place to see birds.

Among the birds we managed to see included a Yellow Warbler, Redstart, Bullock's Oriole, Song Sparrow, Common Yellowthroat, Ring-Necked Duck, Great Blue Heron, Osprey, Barn Swallow, Olive-Sided Flycatcher.

Creston has a good supply of plant nurseries, so we roamed around a couple of those, bought a few plants to fill in some holes in our perennial beds and headed home. Our late lunch was at the Sirdar Pub just up the lake from Creston. We've driven past it many, many times and never stopped but Monday we had the time. The beer and the food were both good so I'd be recommending it.

The Final Inspection

As of today, the house construction project is officially over. (I say officially because I suppose in some ways, you're never completely done...)

However, the Building Inspector visited today, the building permit is finished and the house is "officially" done. We (as in my contractor) started in the spring of 2004 with the foundation work. Framing, roof, windows and siding were done by later in the summer and I started on the inside that fall by myself. It took about another 3 years to finish everything. I've been a bit sidetracked for the past 2 years with rock walls, gardens, traveling and such, but I decided about 2 weeks ago that it was time to bring this project to a close. So today was the day.

It's been an interesting experience but I'm not sure if I'd want to do it again. I suppose the biggest issue was getting work done from 1300 km away, while we were still living on the Prairies. It was easier once we moved out here. That said, it's a nice space and we enjoy it very much.

I think I'm going to have a beer for lunch just to celebrate!

When You Can't Say (or Do) Anything Good....

I don't watch TV much, especially in summer, so I only recently had a chance to see the attack ads that the Federal Conservatives have been running against Iggy.



This seemed kinda dumb. I mean, it's not like everyone just spends their entire lives in the town they were born in these days, although maybe that's one of the "good 'ole values" the Conservatives often talk about....

So the Liberals respond:



Fair enough. Iggy doesn't really have to respond to such complete nonsense, and he is pretty mild (so far).

But then the humourists get their oar in (and here I'm assuming that this response wasn't written by the Liberals....).



So Mr Harper: doesn't your government have anyting "useful" to do? I'm thinking economic crisis, isotope meltdown, unemployment, voter cynicism, US protectionism... I dunno, there are just so many that come to mind. Unfortunately, I'm reading Obama's second book right now. I'm glad I'm Canadian, but I just long for some real leadership from our Federal government, not more of this tired, silly, crap. I guess when you don't have anything good to say or do, partisan nonsense is what the feeble minded always have to fall back on.

The Courtship Dive

The hummers have been back for a couple of weeks now. Most of the time it's been the Rufous Hummingbirds; just the other day we also had a Black-Chinned make an appearance. It's almost impossible to get a picture of these little guys, so I found one of a Rufous on World of Hummingbirds.com.

One of several interesting aspects of their behaviour is called the "courtship dive". The male will fly up about 60 feet or so and then plummit earthward, slamming on the air brakes at the bottom of the dive. There's a peculiar sound associated with the very end of the dive and, since they're traveling so fast, it's hard to tell exactly what's making it. It could be some type of vocalization or it could be from the feathers as they brake at the end of the dive. It sounds like a kind of chirpy squeak, kind of like the noise you'd get from a rubber duck toy that you might have used in the backtub (or perhaps still do). I've also seen the male flying rapidly back and forth in a horizontal line in front of a female sitting in a nearby tree.

I guess everyone has to make an impression somehow!

Free Range?

Catching up on some of CBC Radio's As It Happens podcasts in the middle of the night, I heard two stories related to modern-day child-rearing.

The first was an interview of a Mississippi mother who let her 10-year-old son walk to soccer practice (less than a mile through a residential area). Police arrived to chastize her after neighbours called 911 and reported the child alone walking on the sidewalk. To the credit of the town's police chief, the mother was reassured that it really was a safe neighbourhood (er... neighborhood).

The next was a repeat of a 2007 interview with a London-based researcher on what he called "Generational Roaming". He recounted how successive generations of one family had less and less opportunity to go anywhere, any distance, from their home, unless they were being driven or accompanied by an adult. This increasingly short leash is, in his opinion, doing harm to children and depriving them of learning opportunities.

These two stories reminded me of another interview I heard a few days ago on CBC Radio's The Point about "Free Range Kids". The mother being interviewed here was trying to allow her kids some of the freedom that modern-day kids are being deined.

Remember the days as a kid when you went out with your friends for the day and were told to be back for supper? Despite the increasingly irrational fear of everything that our society seems to be developing, it's good to see that at least some parents are bucking the trend.

You Know You're in BC...(part II)

When you can have a magnolia blooming in your front yard.

For those of you unfamiliar with this floral delight, it's a tree/large shrub with flowers somewhat reminiscent of tulips. In fact, I often call it the tulip tree. In any case, it's a Magnolia, and it's large blooms appear early in spring just before the leaves appear on the tree. This is our tree's first spring and it's showing us 5 large blooms.

I can happily report that it's been warmer lately and after the 1.5 inches of rain we a few days ago, things are growing very nicely. Catherine's flower beds are starting to look very attractive with more and more blooms on things I still don't recognize. Needless to say, I've been working on reinforcing the fence - the main line of defence between us, the flowers and the deer!

You Know You're in BC....

When part of the May Day Weekend is devoted to "Logger Sports".

I usually stay far away from weekends like this, but Catherine wanted to support the local volunteer fire department by buying me a burger and a beer for lunch. That made seeing some of the logger sports pretty much inevitable!

During our wait in the lineup for the burgers we were treated to tree climbing (y'know - spurs, rope, a tall pole...tree) and how fast contestants could cut off the end of a log with their chainsaw. I gather there were others - axe target throwing, tree felling, log carving, log rolling....

Yup - a very definite skill set needed when you live in the forests of BC....!