Thursday, August 20, 2015

Swimming

Last week we took a trip to Oliver.  We got there after dark on Monday evening, and left on Friday afternoon.  It was a hot week, hitting temperatures between 35 and 39C (95-102F).  Toasty alright, but not humid, but I've got to say, thank goodness for air conditioning.  The dogs got lots of swimming in.  A couple of days, Jake and Luna swam twice.  I got up before Larry and walked them the few blocks down the hill to the river, just by the Tourist Info.  There was a nice place there down the bank that they could swim.  Then we walked along the path a ways, cut back through the park, and up the hill and home for breakfast.  Doesn't matter that they had had a decent amount of exercise already, the 'norm' is that we go for a walk after breakfast, and Calli also knows that is the routine.  Everytime one of us would get up, they'd think it was time to go, and eventually it got annoying enough that we actually would.  We've figured out a good place to walk when it's hot.  This stretch along the river is mostly shaded, so we aren't frying out in the sun, and at the end where the road on top of the dyke leaves the river and joins into another road, there was this great swimming spot.


The river is really clear and moving along at a good clip, hence Calli wore a life jacket and was clipped to a leash, just in case she swam too far out trying to grab her ball.  She's also deaf as a post so we couldn't even call her.  You can see in the back ground one of the weirs or Vertical Descent Systems.  There is a big skull and crossbones symbol on it, because if you get swept over it there is a good chance you will get caught up in descending water and tumbled around and around and won't be able to surface.  


We always threw Jake and Luna's toys upstream, and if I got a bit over enthusiastic and threw Luna's out too far, she drifted past us before her angling across the current would bring her back to shore.  The temperature of the water was great.  The first day I went in for a dip in my clothes.  The next time I made sure I had a bathing suit.  On Friday we stopped here on our way home to tire the dogs out, and have them wet so that they would be cooler in the car on the way home.  I would have loved to get wet then, but hadn't brought my bathing suit and didn't have a change of clothes, so just waded out as far as I could.


On the second day there, all of a sudden there were four.


That particular day we parked at the swimming spot, and then walked farther south, before coming back for a swim.  We managed to acquire this dog along the way.  Luna had a few snarky moments with her, but the dog had the sense to leave Luna alone, and after that she was okay.  Luckily we had an extra ball, so 'Chico' played fetch too.  She did keep trying to steal Jake's toy, which was p*ssing him off, and I didn't like her charging out and bugging him while he was swimming, since she was about 100 lbs and he is only 40, so I ended hanging onto her collar some of the time.  Since we hadn't walked that far down the dyke, maybe half a mile, we figured when we drove off down the gravel road, she would head back home.  No such luck.  There we are, bouncing along, trying to miss the potholes in the gravel road on the top of the dyke, and there is Chico behind us, running her heart out trying to keep up. I had already seen that there was a phone number and address on Chico's tag. Since we were leading her farther away from home, we decided we'd better stop.  We were in the little car, so we take Luna from the back seat and put her on the floorboards in the front.  There was just room for Chico to sit in the back.  Calli was the next dog to her, and she actually growled at her.  Luna is giving her the hairy eyeball from the front seat, and understandingly Chico doesn't want to get in.  So I'm pulling on her collar and Larry said he'll heave the back end in and hope he doesn't get bit, which he didn't.   Chico had the sense to just sit there in that spot (I had visions of her bouncing around in the backseat and planting her 100 lbs all over Jake and Calli) and we drove up the hill and found where she lived.  Down a long driveway past greenhouses and we figured out which looked like the main house and I knocked on the door and thank goodness someone was home.  She thanked me profusely and said for some reason Chico is wandering off just lately and she didn't know why.  I asked her if she was spayed, she said no, and I said that I thought Chico was in heat (she was doing a lot of peeing and her lady parts were more obvious).  I should have stayed and given her a lecture on allowing her dog to wander etc, but it was hot and our dogs were waiting in the car in the sun, so I just wanted to get out of there.





On the way home we ran into some wild and crazy weather near Keremeos, which is 45 minutes from Oliver.   Extremely high winds, blowing dust storms, then into dark skies and some rain and thunder and lightening flashing over the mountain peaks. The meteorologists had warned us about some severe storm cells moving up from Washington state. Two hours after we left Oliver, two wild fires broke out on the mountains to the west of town.  The row of houses three blocks from Wyndson Cottage, at the base of the mountain, was evacuated.  To cut a long story short, the fire closest to town is now 100% under control, and the bigger fire south of town is 70%.  The crazy high winds dropped, and the fuel on those mountains consists of sparse tree cover and mostly grass and shrubs, with a lot of rock.  In some spots the fire burned down to inhabited, irrigated areas (houses, orchards and vineyards) and fizzled out at that point.
The hot dry summer continues on.


4 comments:

  1. Shade and the river! So nice and refreshing
    Lily & Edward

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  2. The water is so clean and clear! Calli got some great exercise ! I hope all the fires are out by now, seems there is getting to be more smoke here coming from the far west. I giggled, yes you should have said that there are too many dogs already in this world...who lets their dog wander anyway. :(

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  3. I've been wondering if the wildfires near Oliver would be a threat to the town ( and to your cottage). I'm glad the fires are under control.
    It was kind of you to take "Chico" home. Luckily chaos did not break out in the car as you were driving. Can't really understand people having dogs running loose and also unspayed.

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