Sunday, June 28, 2015

LONG HOT SUMMER?

Last Saturday while on our way to Victoria, we stopped at a little park near Cowichan Bay to walk Mitzy and noticed this Bald Eagle watching us

The last poppy in Neil and Carol's garden

While walking Mitzy along a forest trail, the sun was in just the right spot to illuminate this spider web.  When I checked on my way home, I had great difficulty finding the web as the sun wasn't hitting it anymore. 
Lots of wild bunnies in the Duncan area

Broadleaf Maple

Looking up under the forest canopy

This wild bunny was at Royal Roads near Victoria

Cowichan Valley Lavender Farm


These two are some of the floathouses at Genoa Bay near Duncan, BC


Hatley Castle, Royal Roads, Victoria.  This is now being used as a university. 

Aileen and I wandered along this stretch of ocean south of Parksville the other night.

Life keeps roaring along for us.  Our son bought a used Nissan Cube in Duncan so a week ago Saturday we drove down to Victoria and brought him and Georgia up to complete the deal.  They came and spent some time with us at the motor home before heading home in their new to them car. We go to see them again last Thursday as Richard had invited us to Georgia's end of school party that was held at a private residence.  It was interesting meeting Georgia's classmates and some of the parents, teachers and assistants.  There were only eight of them in the special class.  The hostess placed an amazing array of appetizers then great main dishes including chicken wings and pork ribs plus lots of other interesting items. An ice cream cake topped off the meal.  I think the ribs were the best I have ever eaten.
The one day we had planned to go out to the west coast at Port Renfrew, the weather forecast was 90% chance of rain so we scrubbed that.  We have been having very warm temperatures on the east coast of Vancouver Island as is the rest of BC.  With very little rain over the winter and spring and no snow pack, many areas are already facing severe water restrictions.  
We moved the motor home back up to Charlie and Sheila's on Friday.  At least here Aileen can run the air conditioning as needed.  Our calendar is starting to fill again.  We are attending the local Celiac group barbeque this afternoon.  We are also intending to attend the next Escapees rally August 10-14 which will be only twenty minutes north of here.  Then there are a couple party's planned for July that we've been invited to. 

Friday, June 19, 2015

WE ATTENDED OUR FIRST RV RALLY

I went on a 97 km ATV ride with the Alberni Valley Hillclimbers last Saturday and at one point we saw these twin fawns.


They were not very old and this little guy went up toward Ernie and it looked like he was asking "are you my daddy?"

We moved down to Chemainus Gardens RV Park on Monday this week to attend the Vancouver Island Chapter of Escapees RV Club's annual Spring Rally.  We had noticed this rally in the club magazine so we attended their monthly lunch in May to get all the details.  This flower was like a large poppy but it was something else.  I stuck my Canon SX50 camera lens right into the center of the flower to get this result.

This was a telephoto macro shot of a water lily 30 or more feet away in the pond taken with the Canon SX50 

On Wednesday, I took three chapter members for a walk around Stocking Creek Park.  Yesterday I went back with Aileen and Mitzy and took my Canon 6D to make these two shots.

Stocking Creek

I took this group photo at our wind up supper last night.

We were a little nervous about going to this rally not really knowing anyone but our fears were soon swept away by the friendliness of the whole group.  I was pleased to be able to share by photography skills by taking some photos of the changing executive and the group shot of those who participated and four who just made it for the evening.   I played cards on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights until late.  Every night was a new game that I hadn't played although one night was similar to a game I had played years ago.  I did really well on Tuesday, blowing away the competition but the other two nights I believe I was in last place.  Aileen was very happy as she got to sit around a campfire those nights.  On Wednesday, Aileen , new friend Pat and I went to the Chemanius Theater production, Twist and Shout which chronicled the British invasion begun by the Beatles.  the show was exceptionally well done with great singing and music and there were some really good comedy skits slipped in here and there.  We are looking forward to their next rally that begins August 10.
This morning after saying goodbye to all our new friends at the rally, we moved a few more miles down the road to my Cousin Neil's (and Carol's) where will moochdock for the next few days.

Friday, June 12, 2015

WE HAD A PROJECT THIS WEEK

This Fir hedge is right alongside our friend Bev D's garage and it was found that some of the local undesirables have been using it as a smoking room and who knows what else.  Rather than Bev hiring someone to take care of it, Aileen and I volunteered.

They had made an access at the corner nearest the garage

Here's how we solved the problem


All loaded up, that's Aileen and Bev resting in the background


Still looks good but not a hidey hole anymore

Canada Geese family eating eel grass at Qualicum Beach

Bald Eagle cruising over the beach 
A Belted Kingfisher looking for supper

This Belted Kingfisher is hovering above the water, when he spots a fish he dives straight down to grab it

This Bald Eagle was in a tree behind the motor home and house

Looking across to Chrome Island Light Station from the beach at Bowser

I think this is a young House Sparrow

Haying at Charlie and Sheila's.  Aileen is driving and her sister Anne who was pitching bales is passenger, Sheila far right and Charlie on the baler.   Anne's husband John and a couple of helpers are at the barn

The sun is dropping at Qualicum Beach

We've had lots of wind the past few days giving us some nice waves at the ocean

We have Richard and Georgia coming tomorrow for an overnight visit then on Monday we will move the motor home down Island to Chemainus Gardens RV Park for an Escapees rally with the local chapter.  When that ends on Friday morning, we haven't decided whether to came back here or go wandering a bit.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

ANOTHER WEEK OF PHOTOS

Charlie and I went for a ride on our ATVs on Sunday.  This is looking down into Marshall Lake from the northwest

And this is Marshall Lake looking down from the southeast

We drove through quite a bit of active logging and this is an area that was hand felled by using a chainsaw.  The trees end up crisscrossing each other often causing breakage and it is harder to skid them.

Machine falling is gaining in use in this area and you can see that it is much neater

This is the machine being used here

The top part supports the tree, the middle part grabs it securely while the bottom is the part that does the actual cutting

This is the cutting head

We spent some time admiring the Middle Fork of Englishman River, if you look closely, you can see Charlie

Our daughter Bev and her business partner Karen, came for the weekend to attend a grooming conference in Courtenay.  We took them to Englishman River Falls Park after supper on Sunday.   This is the main Upper Falls.

The Upper Falls from the other side

I wanted to get a photo of Bev and the big fir trees.  Since the light was getting dim, I decided to do a triple exposure HDR exposure.  This was my third shot that happened to catch Bev's flash as she fired it for a photo of us.

This was the final result after I blended all three shots into one in the computer

This is also an HDR shot of Karen, on the left, and Bev

On a recent geocaching outing, I took a couple shots of the waterfalls on Nile Creek

This is a closeup of the upper falls in the above photo

And finally, this was taken last night in the pond behind the house and our motor home.  The sun was sneaking into the foreground while there were some very dark clouds in the background