On Friday we got an unexpected snowfall. The temperatures were above freezing, and rain was in the forecast, but instead it snowed. This morning (Saturday) it was all very pretty.
The sun just coming up
It started out mostly cloudy
The sky was starting to break up to the south. Looking over our hay field to the neighbours.
To the east there was blue sky. This is our old riding ring and the horse shelter back there. Luna abandoned her ball and she and Jake took off on a hot scent.
Jake
More blue sky to the east, and Luna.
There's a trail through there somewhere.
We'll let the Yeti go first.
Loving that blue sky!
It froze overnight, so the snow was not heavy and wet.
Looking across the back hayfield. See the fog bank hanging back there. Glen Valley and the Fraser River are to the north of us. We get the fog rising up from there sometimes.
Makes me think of a Bev Doolittle painting.
And by the time we were done, the fog bank had rolled back over us. No more sunshine for us today.
I'd like to wish every one of my readers a very Merry Christmas. Thanks for hanging in there through the blogging dry times.
Well winter is still sticking with us. It has been quite cold, at least compared to our usual temperatures. Looks like next week we will get some more snow and then a warm spell and it will probably turn into an awful slushy mess.
Yesterday morning we were heading out for our bush walk. Jake looked really uncomfortable, like he was hurting. When he stopped his back legs were trembling. I had an idea, so ran back to the house and scrounged up a few booties. Calli used to use them on her back feet, which dragged a bit, when she was still able to get around on her own.
Hence the pink boots. Not that Jake cared, but they did the job. I had done a very good job of clipping all the extra hair from the bottom of his feet, because he is older now and 'worries' about the slippery laminate floor. The lack of hair helped him in the house, but made for cold feet outside.
This picture is on our afternoon walk, that we take most days.
A mile walk around the block that starts at the bottom of our driveway. It wasn't quite as dark as it looks here, but I wanted to get the pretty sky. It was downhill here and a bit icy. I think Larry is probably slipping a bit right in front of our eyes! And Luna, she is way off, that dark spot in the ditch, above and to the left of Jake.
This after noon we went down to the dyke. This is about 3:15, and the sun is just about to drop behind the hill. The days are depressingly short. That's Larry walking with the dogs on the lower trail. We had dropped down there to get past other people with dogs. A fellow stopped to warn us about a large dead smelly salmon further along, that a few dogs had already rolled in. Yuk! That is not a smell you want in your car.
Jake and Luna ran ahead to the swimming hole. They THINK they want to fetch something out of the water, but really they wouldn't. In the photo above where the creek is wider, you can see the ice on it.
The sun disappeared fast and it started to get cold very quickly. The scenery was lovely though. Looking across the blueberry field. Just after this photo, an eagle flew into one of those tall trees, to join another that was already there.
See those two black dots in the tree on the right?
We also saw a couple of herons, one flying and one standing in the water, brrr. There was a seagull on the creek that kept sticking it's head under and pulling pieces of dead salmon off the bottom. At least that is what I think it was doing. There were two coyotes on the other side of the creek further along. Last week I was walking down there with a friend, and saw one of those same coyotes. It was quite distinctive, being a darker colour and a good size (maybe a coydog?) and last week it did a lot of the classic coyote barking.
Last week.....Staring and barking back at the coyote....Luna, Breeze, Jake and Lexi.
We haven't had much of a winter for a few years. We usually get a few frozen spells, but it feels like it's been a while since we had much in the way of snow.
Our snow started on Monday of last week. Not much, but enough to make things interesting. Or maybe frustrating, in Luna's mind. How on earth is a girl supposed to play soccer with all that wet heavy white stuff sticking to the ball?
We had some cold sunny days, and then last weekend we got more snow. I think this was from Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon we had about 6 inches, and then it started to rain.
We got a bit of freezing rain, and there were quite a few smaller branches that came down. Thankfully on Sunday morning when we were heading to farmer's market, the weather was just cold and cloudy, and the roads were good.
Sunday night we got some more snow. So back up to 4 or 5 inches. Today the sky started to clear, and we had some lovely blue skies and sunshine. There are some pretty impressive icicles at the front of the house. Drifting snow filled the eaves troughs, and then the just above freezing temperatures and the warm air from the attic created by the heat from the chimney caused some melting.
Yesterday's walk through our bush was beautiful, but I hadn't taken a camera. It wasn't quite as pretty this morning as some of the snow had fallen off the branches, but still nice enough! There was a frozen crust under the surface of the snow, and I don't think Jake liked it because he stuck pretty close.
Lots of rabbit and bird tracks. Funny, I don't remember ever seeing any rabbits out there.
Jake has made his own route to get up the hill from the creek. The cattle in the Fall made a mess of the trail here.
Looking across our back hay field at the old horse shed. Look at that sky!!
Down through the old riding ring. Did I ever mention that at one time we had four horses?
Looking south across the other hayfield, and the our neighbour's pasture.
Some of the hens hanging out with Ramona in her leanto on the side of the chicken coop.
The hens aren't impressed with this weather, but they know how to warm up their feet.
Today was the annual 'Fishermen Helping Kids With Cancer' herring sale. Like last year I volunteered to help. Last year I spent most of my time opening the plastic bags that the herring were put into. This time when I got there I found out I was down for pushing wheelbarrows. Okay, I do lots of that at home, and could probably do it for a little while.....Anyway, another fellow came along and got a group of us organized, and in the end I was the next stop after people had paid and were wanting to collect their bags of fish. I took their tickets (one per bag) and got them connected with someone else that helped them get their herring. There was a whole bunch of people with wheel barrows and big cart things that would push your load of herring to your car. Some of those cars were parked a long way off.
I heard there were 65 tons of herring. That is a LOT of fish. People were lining up from 4:30 am. This is just some of the people lined up inside. There are actually pathways that snake back and forth across the building. It took at least a couple of hours (or more) to get from the start of the line to the end.
And the line went outside as well.
The bags were supposed to hold 20 lbs, and cost $15. One fellow bought 35 bags! Surely he wasn't using all those himself.
There were more volunteers than were needed. I was there at 8:30, and about 10:30 someone came along and asked if I needed a break. I didn't really, but decided to take one and go buy my own herring. The advantage of being a volunteer is that I could just skip the whole lineup. So a young woman wheeled the four bags to my car (three for me for dog food, and one for a friend who said she wants to make pickled herring). I weighed those bags when I got home, because I could tell some had more in that others. The lightest one was 16.5 lbs and the heaviest was 25 lbs. Oh well, all the money goes to a good cause! My friend is not getting the heaviest one, but I didn't give her the lightest one either ;-)
So now I was out of a job, so I wandered around to see if I could help anywhere else, but no one wanted a break. There were seagulls everywhere.
Look at the roof!
More seagulls!
I wandered over to the bagging shed, but the girl doing my job (haha!) didn't want a break either.
I spoke to my fisherman neighbour Bob, there on the right, tying up a bag. He said we should have carpooled (the drive was 50 minutes), but then he admitted that he had just got there, so that wouldn't have worked.
The herring are dumped on a conveyor, and then come down to the end and fill up a box. A door is opened and they fall in the bag underneath. A pretty good method but it does allow for some variation in how much goes into each bag. There is no way that they could weigh each bag, it would just take too long.
That background noise is the seagulls. We used to call them shit hawks when I was a kid living in White Rock.
I am feeling very pleased with myself that all my 60 pounds or so of herring got rebagged at home and into the freezer. ( I am very good at acquiring large quantities of things, and then procrastinating on processing them). These big square bags from Dollarama worked perfectly. A layer of herring, zip the bag mostly shut, put another bag on top, fill it with a layer of herring, and repeat. The top bag forced most of the air out of the bag underneath, which was then zipped closed. They were carried on the cookie sheet to the freezer, and it was easy to slide the whole lot off onto the top of the previous bags. This way it is easy to break them apart when I want to feed one to each dog. I just put them in a bit of warm water for a few minutes, and chomp chomp down they go.
So when that lady comes to the market tomorrow, oops, which is now today, and she's upset because I didn't get the Mango Chutney made, I 'll tell her what I did instead.
Lousy excuse, oh well, I am so ready to be done with the jam making for a while.
I'd better get to bed, the alarm is going off in 5 and a half hours.
On Sunday at the farmer's market, one of my customers commented on the lack of blog updates. I told her she probably gave me the kick in the backside I needed. So this is for you Bev!
We have had an incredibly wet October and November. Depressingly wet. Only 5 days in those two months without some sort of rain. We've had nearly 12 inches of rain this month, and 9+ inches last month. And blue sky, well that has been in very short supply too. Oh we'd see bits of blue now and again, but I don't remember the last time we had a whole day of blue sky and sunshine here in Abbotsford. So even though these photos are a month old, I'm going to share them with you.
This was our last trip to Oliver at the beginning of the month. The first day we were there was a bit rainy. Actually, it makes me laugh to say that. Most of the time rain there is fleeting, and light, and generally does not seem anywhere near as bad as it is here. On average, Oliver gets 1/5 of the rain of Abbotsford. That day, by the time we got down the dyke for a walk, the rain had stopped. The next day was lovely. Blue skies and white puffy clouds all day.
This stretch along the river is one of our favourite summer walks. On a hot day it is mostly shaded, and there is a great dog swimming spot along there. You've see the pictures of that! This day it was very pretty. Enough yellow leaves left on the tree to glow in the sunshine.
Some really cool beaver art!
The Thorp Rd. bridge and weir. Or Vertical Descent Systems as there are called there.
Two photographers at work here.
Late afternoon we took the dogs for walk along another stretch of the river, north of town.
The Okanagan river has been channeled, but there is work being done to restore the ecosystems around some of the oxbows of the original path of the river. This bridge is over a little offshoot that runs through one of the oxbows and returns back to the river channel a bit further downstream.
A bit if a wind making Jake's ears stand up. He turned 12 this past summer. He has lots of grey on his face now.
They have gone home now, but for 4 1/2 weeks we had these five staying at our place. Two cow and calf pairs, and that sort of lonely black and white heifer in the middle. She didn't know the other four when she first arrived, and the cows weren't too friendly to her, but things got better as time passed.
Cows laying down and chewing their cud....kind of relaxing looking don't you think?
After they had been in the front hayfield for a bit, and it was mostly eaten down, we let them out and they headed to the back field.
We had a bit of fun. David's landrover needed some exercise, since he is in England. The fence in the back field had a spot that needed a bit of fixing. And because we are the way we are, we didn't fix the fence before the cows went back there. I mean, why be prepared ahead of time, haha!? So we threw a roll of fencing in the tiny box on the back of the landrover, as well as some metal t-posts, a sledge hammer, and a little step ladder to stand on while applying the hammer to the t-posts. There was no room for the dogs, so they had to ride shotgun with Larry.
Jake said he'd work the stick shift.
I rode in the back, I had to stand up and peered over the roof of the cab and pretended I was on safari and those were wild wildebeast gambolling along in front of me. I took some video of the cows cavorting in the new field, and it was quite funny to see those two big cows bouncing around. It was on my phone, as was the cud chewing video, but for some reason the computer didn't like the longer video of cavorting cows, so you'll just have to imagine those cows kicking up their heels. On the way back the dogs rode in the box with me. I don't think either of them were thrilled, and I felt like I needed to hang on to them in case they decided they needed to bail over the side. They aren't used to doing that sort of thing.
Luna got a bit of enjoyment from the cows, and would always run ahead in the morning when we headed out on our walk, and find them for us.
Jake had no interest in the cows at all. But don't let them too close..... A calf tried to get too up close and personal as Jake walked by. He stopped, turned, showed his teeth and gave a couple of snaps at the calf's nose. Mind your manners he said.
