BACK IN ERRINGTON FOR A WHILE AGAIN

We left Cluxewe Monday morning and drove down to Campbell River where we parked at Cousin Bill's again.  Tuesday morning, Aileen and Mitzy went to Courtenay for Mitzy's vet appointment while I drove straight down to Errrington with a stop to fill the propane tank.
Aileen and her friend Bev had hair cuts Tuesday afternoon so it was decided we would all go out for supper afterward.  Well, I suggested a restaurant we used to go to once in a while with no problems but something has changed.  Their menu now only lists one meal that is gluten free and that is ribs.  After Aileen telling the waitress about her gluten issue and carefully questioning the her and having her confer with the kitchen, or at least that was supposed to have been the case, it seems the meal was not gluten free after all.  Starting about 2:30 in the morning, Aileen was up being very ill.  The Shady Rest is now off limits for us.
I went off to the Escapees RV Club Chapter lunch by myself on Wednesday as Aileen was still ill and had gone back to bed.  She was considerably better this morning.  We have Richard and Georgia coming to visit tomorrow afternoon and they will stay over until Monday.  
Today was laundry catch up day for me and I did five loads in total.  I did some pruning and hauled and spread some bark mulch.  There is a big push on here to get the gardens looking nice for Logan's and Taryn's wedding reception in early July.  Aileen has been actively involved in gardening duty as well.  Our schedule seems to be filling up quite a bit, but we are still hoping to get over to Long Beach for a week or so in early June.

                                     

Our parking space at Cluxewe in the morning fog

Holland America's Noordam passing by our campsite one evening last week

This is the underside of a large fungus growing on the side of a tree, taken with my Canon SX50 using the flash.  This fungus is old and deteriorating.  Can you see the face on the left?

This is what a fresh fungus looks like

Thimbleberry flowers

GEOCACHING FRENZY

My brother in law John and I were geocaching every day for the past week and hauled in quite a number.  Two of the days saw us drive down past Sayward to spend time searching out caches. The first day was about twelve hours but the second was over fifteen hours arriving home just before midnight.  We drove about 375 kms each day.  We also did many trails in this area so my numbers grew quite a bit during the past week and a half.  Things will slow down now as John and Anne have gone off to a fifty year high school reunion and we are leaving here Monday morning.
We had a visit from my Aunt Nancy and Cousin Chris yesterday and and had a visit from Cousin Donna and Ken the other night.  We are getting together with Nancy, Chris, Donna and spouses on Sunday for supper.  This is turning out to be a pretty fast two weeks.
I was talking to the couple parked right across from us this morning and they saw a cougar walk down the walkway less than twenty feet from their motor home last night just before we got home shortly after nine.  The Marten whose photo is below was sitting very near where the cougar had walked down the path.

Remember to click on the photo to enlarge

The sacrifices one has to make to get a geocache.  This cache was on an island in the swamp and not having the option of waiting until summer and the water to dry up, I shed my boots, socks and jeans and went for it.

iPhone photos by BIL John.  I'm consulting my GPS trying to figure out where the cache is hidden.

On another caching day, Mitzy accompanied us and got too tired to walk the rest of the way so we put her in my backpack

These are iPhone photos too.  The rest below are from my Canon SX50

One day John and Anne took us out to their friend Jerry's property at Quatsino which is an inlet coming in from the west coast of Vancouver Island.  His aunt homesteaded this property many years ago.

A little cabin at Jerry's 

While I was looking for a geocache, I spotted this Merganser floating past me on the river.  Photography trumps geocaching so if I spot something of interest, forget the cache, fire up the camera!

Aileen and Anne spotted several of these Pinesaps on their morning walk and marked the area for me to find later

Some interesting rock formations down the beach from where we are parked

As the tide recedes, these mini rivulets are left behind in the sand.  I thought this looked like an angel with her wings above her head

With a different perspective, her womanly shape and toes are visible

This is the rootwad of a tree on the beach.  This is what the tree sits on when it is in the ground but of course the roots are mostly broken off now.

Barnacles and Mussels on a rock down on the beach

While we were sitting in the motor home this morning, BIL John spotted this Marten.  I shot this through the front windshield.

And just to make Maggie jealous, here's a shot of Aileen and Bryony, John and Anne's Border Collie/Australian Shepherd cross.

ENJOYING NORTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND

We've been keeping very busy up here at Cluxewe Campground near Port McNeill, BC.  My brother in law and I have been doing quite a bit of geocaching mostly on trails so getting lots of walking in.  We have been having roaring good campfires most nights enjoying sitting and visiting.  We had one day of rain earlier in the week and it is raining this afternoon again.  We had a nice sunny morning and it was hard to believe the weather forecast, but, as it turned out, the forecast was right on.  Hopefully the pure sunshine in the forecast for the next several days is also accurate.
John went out and caught four large crabs a couple mornings ago at low tide and we enjoyed really tasty crab salad for supper that evening.  He went and got four more this morning so that's our supper again tonight.
Today from 11-1 was John and Anne's local Harley Motorcycle club show and shine and while the weather was okay for the meet, some of the bikers will be riding home in the rain.  Some where along the way I have picked up a nasty little bug that has me coughing and feeling puny today.

Brother in law, John and I had gone geocaching out past here one evening and rather than take the difficult trail in near darkness, opted to walk back along the beach.  We had to climb up the back side of this rock bluff then came along the water's edge in the photo.  The Yellow Monkey flowers were looking great in the low light so I took a shot with a very slow shutter speed.  

Salal flowers

A nest of frog's eggs in a pond.  It looks like the tadpoles are starting to mature and will soon be hatching out.

There was a geocache near this big old Western Red Cedar and quite a large opening inside that John is standing in.

This little Hummingbird stopped to rest a while on my bike carrier at our campsite

I got this Bald Eagle closeup as he was eyeing Mitzy on our morning walk

We had a couple of very windy days with big waves.
Rather than the usual wave photos, I played around with long exposure settings to obtain some unusual effects

I took this shot at nearly dark using a 25 second long exposure and the big waves have been flattened out

Yesterday, Aileen and I took her sister Anne and John over to Malcolm Island and the village of Sointula.  This is the Quadra Queen II that we went over on and Sointula is visible in the background.

Here we are leaving Port McNeill

Sointula boat harbour

Looking along the waterfront in Sointula, BC

As you can see, Sointula has long been a fishing village

Looking along the main street in Sointula.  The stop light is for controlling access to the ferry.

A long abandoned boat works on the beach in Sointula.  For an interesting read, google Sointula.  It was settled by Finnish people looking for Utopia.

CLUXEWE RE-VISITED

We had a few busy days what with working around the place gardening, field work and firewood hauling.   When looking at the calendar where Aileen marks down appointments etc., I realized we only had two openings to spend a couple of weeks on the north Island.  We quickly made the decision to go the first two weeks of May as who knows what would come along to block the first two weeks of June which was our other option.  Since we hadn't been for two years, we wanted to go to Cluxewe before it got busy as it is a zoo during July and August.   Usually you have to move sites if staying very long, known as the Cluxewe Shuffle.  I have us booked into site 120 for the full two weeks this time.

The weather will likely be cooler than where we came from but that's the breaks.  I hope to get out ATVing since I towed it behind the motor home and Aileen drove the car.  Before we left on Saturday, we met Richard, Robin and Georgia in Nanaimo.  We got takeout lunch and sat on the grass in the mall parking lot to eat and visit.  Later, while R&R went to look at a couple of cars, we took Georgia for a walk on a pathway adjoining the mall.  After that we took her to the Dairy Queen where she and I had sundaes.  Sufficiently sugared up, we returned her to her parents.  After leaving them, we returned to the motor home in Errington and prepared to depart.  We drove up to Campbell River and parked in Cousin Bill's driveway for two nights.   We drove up to Cluxewe Campsite just north of Port MacNeill today which took us nearly four hours. 

I floated the field with a pallet behind my ATV to knock off the humps and fill the hollows to make it smooth

My brother Charlie using an old hand crank seeder to plant the approximately three acres.  I was using a similar seeder except mine had a metal tank to hold the seed instead of the cloth sack shown.

After the seeding, he rolled it really smooth

Aileen and I went for a stroll along the sea walk south of Campbell River last night.  This is looking across the strait to Quadra Island.  The BC Mainland mountains are in the distance with many scattered islands in between.

Some of the fishing boats in the marina at Campbell River

We visited Cousin Tony yesterday morning and if you look closely, you will see a baby Martin or Swallow in the mouth of this ornament in the gable end of the house.

The baby waiting for more food to be delivered

Just so you know, Bald Eagles like to have some salad along with their fresh fish.  This eagle was feasting on the seaweed.

Oops, caught in the act!

This is the National Geographic ship Seabird cruising north past the Cape Mudge Lighthouse on Quadra Island.  Prior to seeing this and Aileen googling it, I didn't know that NatGeo did cruises.  They appear to be rather pricey. 

A NICE EVENING AT THE OCEAN

Aileen and I are keeping busy around the place here.  Aileen has been doing some gardening while I have been picking rocks, hauling firewood and playing with the backhoe.  Charlie has part of his field worked up to seed but just as we were about to start seeding, the rains came and the field became impassable.  It is getting close to dry, so if we don't get anymore rain tomorrow, we should get it planted over the weekend.
Sheila's youngest brother, Terry, had a birthday so we had a supper to honour him.  Aileen whipped up a gluten free cheesecake and a salad and Sheila provided the rest for a tasty meal.  Two of C&S' boys and their girls joined us.
Mitzy has been having some issues for the past week and has probably lost a quarter of her body weight.  She started having some type of choking spells last Friday and we took her to a vet in Nanaimo who diagnosed Reverse Sneezing and gave a mild prescription.  She has mostly been off her food since then.  Today when she seemed to be getting worse, Aileen made an appointment at the vet clinic in Courtenay, that she prefers, for tomorrow morning.  Late this afternoon, Mitzy regained her appetite and was ravenous.  She is still having some of her episodes so we will maintain the appointment.  The thought is that she has something stuck in her throat/nasal passage or some type of growth there.  We hope to have a good resolution tomorrow.

Since we had such a nice evening last night, we picked up Bev D and went for a drive to view the ocean from several spots.  First stop was the local boat harbour, French Creek.

We wrapped up the evening catching the sunset from Parksville Beach.  I thought this stump resembled a Seahorse.

As I was driving south of Parksville yesterday, heading out to do some geocaching, I spotted this roadside in pink.

I believe this is a Sabine's Gull.  They summer in the high Arctic and winter in South America so I presume this guy is just resting up before continuing his northward journey. 

This lady was admiring the view at Qualicum Beach

Charlie spotted his heifer lying in the field when he came home from work this evening and went to investigate.  Just as he got there, a little bull calf popped out.  This is her first calf and she knew exactly what to do.  She paused in her licking to show us how proud she was.  The calf at this point hadn't made it to his feet.  Shortly after he was up and nursing so that is a good sign.