Colin projects

With a fair bit of planning, Colin arranged a term's leave from his Glebe Collegiate science teaching.  AND, Doco and I have had the great treat of having him with us in B.C. for a month, almost three weeks of that at New Denver.  In addition to the beginning-of-season setting up of the ranch house and environs, making many things work better, and making delicious suppers, he has had projects!

• Wandering the fields and forests of the ranch, usually with pruning saw and loppers to brush out trails.  Colin knew many parts of the upland forest from his wanders as a lad, but there seem always to be new ones to find.  Brushing "Pete's trail", heading down towards the highway from midway along the "far field" - there he came upon a mossy, bone-strewn, cougar or coyote's den (apparently long-abandoned!).  Clearing a path towards the creek, below the railing beside the "front lawn", mainly by chopping out 2-inch thick stems of a massive. thorny wild-rose.  Hiking with Rachel up the steep section of Harris Creek to the "big trees", over at least two more humps to the "Three Bumps", then back down the more sedate trail to the Porter's Lake "stump ranch" and home by the Bosun Lakes trail (all in time for Rachel to get to Castlegar for her plane home).   Prowling the high clear-cut, looking for seedlings, admiring seed trees.  (I tagged along whenever and wherever I could.) 

Ancestor tree at the top of the clearcut

• Scavenging firewood - chunks that had been cut by others and never gathered ... 

... or cutting rounds off ends of sawlogs at the Bosun Lake (with Norbert and Thomson)

• Finding cedar poles for fence posts in the forest, carrying them out, debarking them, replacing two rotten posts, then constructing a new gateway to Chris's garden.  Quite masterful!

• Making a start at sorting out Ralph's/John-and-Nancy's/Uncle-Sandy's domain as it passes into the hands of Colin and Douglas.  A good time for Colin to be here.

• ... and more???

• As a parting shot, moments before Colin drove off to Vancouver with Thomson, Amanda, and Annie, we bought our first ATV! (from Peter Radford, through Chris Fox).  Norbert brought it up to Sandy's on his (Rayan's) trailer.  Colin, as owner, drove it, with a quivering Doco on behind, to its present home in the squirrel barn.  No time for Colin to put it to use hauling logs and firewood on this visit, but in summer ...!

Yikes!

Budding foresters

Thomson and Amanda, both keen Forestry undergrads at UBC, had four days here this week and surely made the most of it.  So much to explore - forest "field work" beckoning:

• Tromping over the clearcut (2013) up above, seeing where and what young trees are taking hold (Douglas fir, white pine, hemlock, tamarack, birch, spruce, occasional cedar), where the ancestor seed-trees are still standing, where streams are still running, where water is collecting in swamps or disappearing underground.  

Colin and Thomson admire a huge, surviving and healthy white pine (on the left)

• Foraging for edibles - lady-fern "fiddleheads", fireweed shoots, morels (a few), nettles. 

On a forest walk with Julia, we found the skunk cabbage patch just coming into bloom ... 

... discovered by A&T to be a great spot for lady-fern fiddleheads

• Sawing and hauling downed logs - with Colin, Norbert and his "arch" - to Norbert's mill by the squirrel barn, for lumber and firewood (one log slated to become a 7th Avenue dining room table, with a bit of work by Doco - stay tuned). 

Chain-saw lesson from uncle Colin

Solo

Norbert's-truck magic to haul the log down from the forest

• And then A&T's two major projects:

1. Getting a map of the ranch from Google and using a software program to draw in the creeks, swampy areas, and rough roads.  Very useful!  (no photo yet)
2. Tackling a couple of patches of young hemlocks that had been identified by Herb Hammond three years ago as major fire-hazard growth - low and dense, with needles full of flammable resin.  Almost all the young trees A&T removed in this round were already dead.
Thank you Thomson and Amanda!

"Before" (actually an adjacent uncut patch)

"After" (can see through the forest)

 We had a massive bonfire!!  Still cool and wet enough, and little breeze.  Good roast potatoes!!  (Tonio's.  Had spent the winter in the reclaimed root cellar under the haybarn.)

What's missing?

What's missing in this photo?

On being the first people to arrive at the ranch house this spring (Colin, Doco, Meo), we found unusually few other inhabitants.  No signs of pack rats.  Only a few signs of mice.  And almost no STINK BUGS!  As the house warmed up, we expected the usual rain of stink bugs from ceiling cracks and window frames - dozens by the day - dropping on our faces in the night, appearing under the bed clothes ...  But, no.  Very few.  Lots of ladybugs, however, who apparently eat stink-bug larvae.  Reportedly, Ralph had obtained a quantity of ladybugs in the fall and put them in his house for the purpose.  Maybe he put some here too?  Whatever the reason, few-stink-bugs is much appreciated!

But, yes, there are a few hardy survivors ...

Doco's workbench

Here is Doco's finished workbench in the squirrel barn.  And is he ever pleased with it!  VERY solid and quite inviting  (see October 2018 blog post for the raw boards).

Doco worked hard on it last October, but it was not quite done.  There was a great flurry to try to get the mortice-and-tenoned legs into the top before we left for the Castlegar plane.  Norbert was determined to get at least one leg in - accomplished by him and Chris as we leapt into the car.

Sometime between then and now, some combination of Chris and Norbert finished it.  A workbench with a view!  Ready for creations ...

Eight new hens

For the family hen lovers.  Chris has just got eight new one-year-old laying hens from Joanne Hird near Lemon Creek (just south of Slocan).  Beautiful!  He says the black-and-rusty one with the largest red comb came as "Molly".  They have yet to be introduced to their elders.  This brings Chris' current hen count to 20 (plus one rather gorgeous rooster).

Coming to say hello

"Molly" on the left

Elk and mountain bluebirds

All the photos are Colin's

April 6th, Colin and Doco and I drove to New Denver (or rather, Colin drove) through delicious early spring along Highway 3, our favourite "southern route".  As we crested the hill on Harris Road, right beside us in the field were twenty-something elk (Cervus canadensis, wapiti in french).  They lifted their heads to look at us, then went back to eating.  I had never seen them close-up.  They're BIG!  Dark-brown head and shoulders, light-brown back, and large buff rump patch.  No one thought to take a photo.

Next morning, Colin went off early to do so, but they were more distant ...

Twenty-plus, at the top of the field

Then, at breakfast, as I was suggesting to Colin that his elk photos were rather like my mountain bluebird photos ("a reward if you can find the bird"), Doco looked up and said "there's a kingbird on the fencepost".  But, no, it's a mountain bluebird!!  One of my very favourites and rarely seen by us (last sighting is in my April 10, 2015 blog post).  Turns out there were five, catching flies from fencepost to fencepost.  Colin caught them through binoculars with his iPhone, all from inside the window.  After 20 minutes, they flew off into the forest.  

Two post-sitters, one near and one far

Two - one on a post, another on the 100-year-old apple tree

Three - two on branches, one investigating nesting possibilities in the cleft?

  Will they stay?  Or were they just passing through?

skiing by the Fraser River

So, Rowan has just arrived in Belgium for 3 months of field hockey and has reactivated her blog (rowanharris.blogspot.com), with a promise(?) of a weekly post.  Super plan, and I think I may try to match it.  Here is post #1 of the new regime?
...........................................

On February 12th we had a dump of snow (school "snow day").  Rather unusually for Vancouver, the snow was still there the next morning, even on all the trees and bushes, and Rowan hauled me down to Fraser River Park for a cross-country ski along the river trail in the sunshine.  Magical.

Someone had been there the day before and left a fellow on a park bench

No pleasure traffic on the river, but a fine tug and beachcomber chugged by

The tide was far in and there was enough snow to cover the boardwalk.
Skiing over the water!

This is one of Meo's "bird photos" (as in, can you spot the bird?)  Several kinds of ducks hunkered down in the snow, rousing and sploshing into the river as we passed by.  Behind us, the tree birds were singing their spring songs.

Thank you Rowan!