SPRING AND CRITTERS

As the weather starts to warm up, the hibernating or warm weather critters are appearing.  Now if we could just keep the wind at bay, the temperatures would be quite pleasant.  The darn wind keeps sweeping down off the snowy ridges.   We seem to be getting a lot more wind than we’ve experienced in previous visits to Penticton. 

Other than some necessary grocery shopping, I haven’t been in any stores.  We continue to walk but more and more people are getting out making it more difficult to keep the distance.  The other night after supper we went walking along the KVR railroad trail and saw one other person who went by us on his bike.

One day we went for a drive west of Penticton up into the hills.  We found a quiet place to have our lunch sitting beside the car and only two vehicles went by, it was very peaceful.  The bluebirds were serenading us for most of our stop.  We've managed to find a few more geocaches as well.

Quail puffed up to keep warm

Balsamroot behind Saskatoon flowers

Squirrel with a tasty mushroom

Another Squirrel

Looking over Trout Creek estuary from the KVR trail

The KVR trail

Ground Squirrel

Another Ground Squirrel just down the road a little further

Penticton Creek

Wild Clematis along Penticton Creek

STILL LAYING LOW IN PENTICTON

We’re still avoiding people as much as possible.  I do go for groceries as required but go mostly in the late evening when it is much quieter.  We also walk from here several times daily as we are going to keep getting lots of fresh air and exercise.  One evening after supper we drove up above Naramata and walked up a quiet section of the KVR railway trail.  Didn’t see anyone else the whole time and did get to find a couple of geocaches.  Another evening we drove to Summerland and walked another section of the KVR trail getting another five caches.  Again other than a group of walkers that we waited out of the way for, there were only a couple of others. 

We took our lunch one day and drove up a logging road above Okanagan Falls and picked up another six geocaches.  It was so nice to pull out the folding chairs and sit and have a peaceful lunch listening to the wind in the trees and the sounds of nature.

We walk up the trail along Penticton Creek most evenings and you’ll notice that is the source for most of my photos.  We don’t usually have trouble keeping our distance from other walkers.  We’ve had a couple of nice days and spring is starting to speed up the process.  We can see changes daily now.  However, our six day forecast has four days with showers so we are in for cooler temperatures again.

Soon after I posted my last blog, I found out that we don’t need to file our income taxes until June 1 so we are going to delay our move up to Salmon Arm to give things a little more time to shake out.   Our friends Richard and Judy are still in Caliente and sending me lots of great photos of all the flowers that are happening in Arizona.  The wild flowers should start blooming here soon.  There are a few so far but they need a few more days of good weather.

Thinking back over the years as our baby turned 48 today and her brother will be 50 in the fall.  The time has gone so quickly!

A rock cut along the KVR rail trail

Looking up the KVR trail

From the KVR trail looking down at wind patterns on Okanagan Lake

Mule Deer buck with his antlers just starting, shot out the motor home door, the trailer is next door.

A Quail shot from our doorway

And this Quail was shot through the side window.  We are so fortunate to be able to park here!

Common Mergansers courting ritual

Evening backlighting up the creek

Oregon Grape

Lots of Magnolia blooming here in Penticton

Penticton Creek

Mallard pair in Penticton Creek

OUT OF QUARANTINE AND SELF ISOLATING

Life hasn’t changed much since our quarantine period expired.  The only change is that I go and buy our own groceries.  We are still avoiding people and not getting together for any meals.   I have been going through my images that I have scanned over the years and editing and posting them on Facebook to entertain my family and friends.  Some of the photos are my own from slides, negatives and prints while others have come from family and friends.  My Uncle Guy, years ago, gave me a box of old family negatives dating back to about 1915.  Many of them are in poor condition with scratches, bends and holes and they take an incredible amount of time to get a useable image in post processing.  It isn’t unusual to spend half an hour on just one image.  Some of the more recent ones were taken under poor lighting conditions and even after extensive editing are poor photos but they still are entertaining so I post them.

We’ve gone geocaching a couple times in remote areas.  No worries about meeting other people as one set hadn’t had anybody find them since last fall and last night some I found hadn’t been seen since September 2018.   We took a long drive the other day down near Rock Creek which turned into a 235 km loop for us.  We were up around 4,000 feet elevation and there were some pretty big snow banks in places.   I managed to find one cache easily but it was encased in ice and in order to not damage it, I had to be careful how I extracted it.  Not having the proper tools, I used a little glovebox tool kit that had a tiny knife.  It took me ten minutes to get it free.  In spots that were free of snow it was very pretty and we will have to go back later to enjoy the scenery.  I got less than half the available caches since we were only able to commit just over three hours.

Not sure where we will go to from here but we do need to get to Salmon Arm in the next week or so to get our income tax done.   We have no appointments to worry about this time since everything is closed down.  I’m hoping that after our taxes are done we can find a place out in the boonies somewhere to hide for a while avoiding people.  We did go and dump tanks and fill with propane the other day and I went to a laundromat one day as well.  Only two other people came in the whole time.  You go in and put the clothes in the washer then sit out in the car until time to move it to the dryers.  I’m hoping it is a quiet next time.

1 PM April 3 and this was happening.  We got off lucky as some areas had a couple inches

Miles out on a muddy back road the other day we came on this.  When I looked inside, there were some great looking brown eggs so we bought two dozen.

Taken at a distance with my phone this is a high tech homeless man.  He has a little trailer hooked on behind a mobility scooter with a solar panel to charge the batteries.  The panel acts as the top of his trailer.

Here it is April and this guy hasn't dropped his antlers yet.  All the other bucks are starting their new growth already.

There are a lot of deer in this town and quite a few come by here to visit

Taken out the window this morning with my full frame DSLR and 100-400 lens

Osoyoos, BC

Highway 3 curling up to Anarchist Mountain from the Okanagan Valley and Osoyoos

These two images are from along the Bridesville-Rock Creek Road where we were geocaching the other day

Northern Flicker

A Wasp or Hornet nest that survived the winter

These two of Penticton Creek were taken from a pedestrian bridge looking upstream and down

A long shot of Balsamroot taken across the creek

A bit of yard art

Some type of Geese heading north last night

More yard art, wondered if it was kids art class since more were added since the first time we saw them