IT’S FALL

 

This has been a long dry spell for this blog.  We’re in the season that’s in between for photography so I haven’t been taking any.  The past few days the fall colour is coming on nicely.  We continue to wait on house progress which is proving to be frustrating.  The house can’t get in the que to be built until the plan has been finalized.  It is nearly two weeks since the last plan revision and we are still waiting to see the next version.

Aileen and I took the RZR for a ride in the mountains this past Monday.  We had a great ride following my nose and we managed to end up at the Keremeos viewpoint I went to in July with Al and Ernie.  I was able to follow the same route home that we did in July.

Today, our 53^rd anniversary, we took the RZR and went for a ride up the old KVR Railway trail west of Summerland.  ATVs are permitted along this section.  We saw two cyclists and one other ATV so we enjoyed the solitude.  It was a gorgeous fall day!

We think we have moved most of our possessions from our Salmon Arm storage to our container here.  We may bring a few more things but nothing pressing.   The weather forecast is predicting much cooler temperatures starting this weekend.  We will soon have to think about moving in to warmer quarters.  More on that in future blogs.

Cutting corn for silage

Milkweed

One of Karen's orchids

Fall Crocus we drove past the other day

High country colour

One of the Twin Lakes

Looking across the lake

Our anniversary lunch today

Along the KVR railway trail

Trout Creek alongside the KVR trail

PICKING UP THE PACE

Yes, things are starting to pick up a little here.  We have hauled two loads from our Salmon Arm storage down to our shipping container we have rented and parked in Karen’s yard.  We are trying to bring anything we want to have in the new home when it is delivered and ready to occupy.  Since we can’t get the car up into Bev and Kev’s backyard when it is wet, this seemed to be the best solution.  We don’t have a lot of furniture in storage but what we do have we’d like to have right away.  We have been sorting heavily as well so lots of stuff that has been in storage for twelve years won’t be making it into our new house.

We took a drive over to Keremeos where there are many fruit stands when we decided to buy pears for canning.  We visited several before we found nice pears.  In fact, it was the same little stand that Richard bought his peaches from and where we bought ours.  Their quality seems to be just a little better and the prices are pretty close to the lower end.  Some of the stands had very high prices and the quality wasn’t there.  Aileen and Karen made plum jam this morning.  The pears will be ready in a few days then we’ll see how many jars we get from 84 pounds.

All photo today were taken with the iPhone

This guy is about five feet from me

Two point and three point bucks

A fawn approaching the bucks

These deer shots are all in Karen's yard

One of the fruit stands had a nice display of old cars and tractors

Their fruit and vegetable displays were very nice, too.

As we were driving north yesterday about 8 am a few kms north of Penticton I managed to get this shot across Okanagan Lake.  Aileen was driving at 100 kmph which is about 60 mph for those south of the line.

Our first load brought from Salmon Arm

 

MARKING TIME

It feels like we are mostly just spending our time waiting.  We have very heavy smoke in all of southern BC so there is no sunshine.  The coastal areas have some rain forecast today but none in our forecast until perhaps Friday where I see the possibility of a thunderstorm.  The smoke makes the idea of pleasure travel or outings unpleasant so we are mostly sitting still.  Road trips or RV travel are on hold.

Things are progressing at a snail’s pace on our house.  We do have the basis of a successful house plan but it still needs tweaking.  Since the builder is very busy, it takes time to make changes on the plan.  We are trying to remain patient.  When the weather turns colder we will be winterizing the motorhome and moving into our friend Bev M’s apartment while she moves in with Karen.  Bev and Karen have lived together off and on over the last few years and travel together so they are looking forward to the arrangement.  Not so sure about Aileen and myself as neither of us have ever lived in an apartment, but at least we will be warmer.

We are renting a portable storage container which we will place here at Karen’s.  This will allow us to get some of our belongings from our storage shed at Bev and Kev’s before the fall rains make it too difficult to access.  Our shed is up a hill behind their house and it gets very muddy in the rain.  This should be quite exciting as most of the storage items in boxes, at least, we haven’t seen in twelve years.  I’m sure there will be lots to dispose of since our lives have changed so much in that time.  I certainly won’t be using all my backpacking equipment as that is not on my horizon.  That ship has sailed.  It will be an experience, I’m sure!

Aileen and Karen are continuing to can with peach jam and pickled beets being the most recent.  Pears will be next and then we should be out of jars and that will be the end of this year’s canning.

The water lily under the sprinkler

Fall Mums

Egg Plant

Roses 

More roses

Lady Bug on Milkweed

Dipping water from Skaha Lake for fire fighting

Going over me but I didn't get wet!

 

JUST A FEW PHOTOS TODAY

 September already!  This has been the year that wasn't for me.  Still hunkered down trying to stay out of trouble.

On our many trips past Kelowna this year we've been looking at this large field of flowers wondering what they could be.  With high speed traffic and no shoulder to pull off on, we decided to plan ahead.  We found a spot to pull over and I walked up to a vantage point and  used my super zoom camera to check it out.

It turned out to be Echinacea 

On this day, we did 99 pints of peaches and three batches of peach jam.  Karen's kitchen was great to work in.

Fall Mums

Sidney helping Karen separate leeks prior to planting

Eggplant is hard to photograph so I used the selfie feature on my phone

A frame from a video I shot from across the lake from the fire, several miles away.

DECISION MADE!

 

After thinking for several years but not finding the right place, we have decided to buy another house.  We are currently in the design process and hope to move into our sectional home by mid-December.  It is located in a 55+ park just north of Oliver, BC and is about half an hour north of the US/Canada border.  Lots of details to be finalized still but we are making progress.  Needing suitable winter accommodation since we won’t be heading south this winter helped us make this decision.  We intend to resume our snowbirding when conditions allow and we are really going to miss all our southern friends this winter.

In other news, we went to Salmon Arm yesterday and as we were driving home we noticed a large plume of smoke to the south.  It turned out that a fire had started around 2 in the afternoon and within a couple hours it had really taken off.  So far no structures are affected but over 300 properties have been evacuated with another 3300 on alert.  Even though I was very tired last night, I drove down the highway to grab some shots of the fire.

We’ve been experiencing record breaking temperatures the last few days so not nearly as much happening for us.  Aileen still walks in the early morning but that’s it for the day.  We are still doing some minor gardening and lots of sprinkler duty. 

We went down to our home site a couple of nights to walk around getting a feel for it and to do some measuring.  The lot is pie shaped tapering to just over 20 wide at the back so it is a bit of a challenge deciding just what we can fit on it.  It was hard to get things done quickly as the neighbours are all very friendly.  There are 102 lots with just one left to sell.  It probably won’t last long since several people have been looking at it.  We are looking forward to this new phase of our journey.

What we saw as we approached Penticton

Later in the evening

The top flame is a tree candling

Karen's yard this morning, our motor home is on the left

Sunflower around the corner on another street