chickadee munching on sunflower

Another of meo's bird photos.  Anyone who can spot the bird wins two jelly bears on next meeting.  I can actually see a chickadee in both!

There is also a pileated woodpecker attacking the ranch house in search of stink bugs.  But, as I am on the inside when he is on the outside, he's harder to photograph.

fingerless glove magic

Forgetting that October mornings would be chilly in the ranch house, I never thought to bring my one fingerless glove for first-thing-in-the-morning harp playing (the other glove went missing at the last Saint Patrick's Day parade three years ago).  Cold fingers!!  I do light the cookstove first, but it takes a good hour to get any room warmth.

But … in the Raven's Nest on Saturday to get a copy of Eloise Charest's "Never Without Our Children", I asked Ule, "Do you happen to have fingerless gloves?"  "No, but I'll call Nancy on Red Mountain Road, our knitter, to see if she has any to bring in."  She did, and I went back Tuesday and bought TWO pairs.  Perfect ...

… and they work!  The rest of me may still be chilly, but my fingers can move.  Can you hear "The South Wind"?

October 2018 in New Denver

October 10
Doco and I are back at the ranch.  We arrived after dark and woke up to this our first morning.  Mountains, lake, October colours, and no smoke!  How lucky we are.

October 12

A short story, with no photos, but sequels ...

Mouse adventures last night.  Three "Better Mouse Traps" set.  Mousetrap#1 went off soon and was left to be dealt with in the morning.  Just into bed when mousetrap #2 went off, but, unusually, caught the mouse by only a foot (I figured).  After some minutes of hearing it scuttle about the floor, I decided morning was a long way off, climbed into the necessary clothes, and went below to free it - outside.  BUT … come morning, there was more scuttling of mousetrap across the floor.  Up, dressed, and down, to find a least weasel(!) dragging mousetrap#1 (with dead mouse) at high speed along the walls, from one hiding place to another - I guess looking for a quiet spot to have its breakfast.  It eventually got under the telephone bureau and that was the last we heard.  Doco and I have plans to haul out the bureau and look for a weasel-plus-mousetrap-sized hole ...

Sequel #1.  Next day we hauled out the bureau and found … NO hole, NO mousetrap.  So … ?

Sequel #2.  Then, Doco was napping upstairs and again heard the mousetrap being rattled around downstairs.  Weasel back for the remains of its mouse meal?  By the time I came in, all was quiet and has been ever since (3 days).

So, what's going on?  Doco says a least weasel can get into the house anywhere a mouse can (they're tiny, long, low and tawny - sort of like a Corgi mouse with a long tail), but probably can't get out pulling a mousetrap.  And then, if we do find a hole, what to do about it?  Diana suggests that maybe the weasel is performing cat duties when we're not here and we should encourage it?  I suspect we'll remain none-the-wiser and the ranch house interior wildlife will do whatever … ???

Sequel #3.  October 20.  No action for several nights.  A couple of mice caught, but no weasel.  Then last night, nothing heard, but when I came to light the cookstove in the morning, there was one mouse in a trap - quite dead.  I decided a little harping could fit before dealing with it.  As I was tuning, I heard a suspicious rattle from the stove direction.  But the mouse was dead??  Investigating, I saw that the trap had moved a bit and then - whisk! - a tail tip, a flick of undulating body, and a peep of head under the tile wall behind the cookstove.  The least weasel!  Having learned one lesson, I snatched the mouse-trap-with-mouse before he did.  Back to my harp.  Moments later, the weasel appeared under the settle beside me, poked his head around my basket of harp music, then vanished.  Seems we shall leave the mouse population in good hands when we go.

October 14
Water works.  Frank Barnes, with help from Mick, has got the ranch irrigation system mostly figured out and working!  He retrieved about 650 feet of aluminum irrigation pipe - not used here for some decades I think - and found the sprinkler fittings.  Sunday morning, he and Mick set up about 300 feet of aluminum pipe in the field by the hay barn (the field containing the yellow transparent tree), attached 14 sprinkler units to the one "new" valve furthest north, and set them all to sprinkle.  Quite a sight1  Two weeks ago, Norbert had harrowed this field and planted alfalfa and timothy.  First steps in bringing the field back to life.

Lots else going on that day too:

• Chris' assorted chickens enjoying bits of rotten pear.  New stock from eggs of Morgen's - black ones and white-and-grey ones.

• same chickens wallowing in the dirt disturbed by my digging in the "raspberry jungle".  They surround me as I chop out old canes and wimpy new ones and dig out massive grassy weeds.  I guess they're hoping for bugs and occasional berries.  Chris has very friendly chickens (at least to gardeners). 

• Julia tackling the strawberry bed - also a jungle in need of taming, but very productive.  Still occasional berries.  Yum.

• Doco and Norbert at work in the squirrel barn wood-working shop, assembling components for a workbench from massive birch boards made-to-order by Norbert in his mill behind the barn (second photo).

• and, in time for a roast-wiener supper, a giant bonfire.  One of the great treats of being here in burning season.  Different smoke than what enveloped us for some weeks in the summer!  

October 15
Freed from the ancient lilac boughs by Rayan and Doco on burning day, Douglas and Candy's english chestnut has become a tree!  It's the same age as the willow (and Thomson), but has had to survive eatings by goats (Milky Way), deer, elk ...

Just at dusk the small black bear made his second appearance between the gate posts.  I yelled at him before thinking I might like to take his picture, so he's already on his way.  Next time ...

October 16
A walk to and around the Bosun Lake with Kay and 3-month-old Lanka, a sweet mix of Blue-Heeler and King Charles spaniel and ???  Her longest walk, with a short snooze at the half-way point.

a memory of Rachel's August dance

An October photo from the century-old trail from Silverton to New Denver, at one of the "stations" of Rachel's ranch dance on a smoky August evening.

last to leave

Aug 25.  Candy, Douglas, Molly, Ellen, Annie (dog) and Muffit (cat) were the last of the family to leave.  A whole month of children and grandchildren.  How lucky we are!

There was some question as to whether Ellen would be found in time to go.  The smoke didn't help, but there were some sound clues - not bird.

Two days later, we woke to suddenly-clear sky and sharp shadows.   The reprieve from smoke was only temporary, though the air was never really thick again.

Harvest.  So much fruit.  Pears (Duerichens'); ours only a few days away, to be picked by Mick and Chris.  Italian prune plums - the smaller tree totally picked (no grizzly-bear contender this year), the larger a few days from ready.  Crab apples - boxes to Kay and Koko, Chris to find homes for the rest?  Strawberries - still going strong after their midsummer pause.  Grapes - yummy.  And Doco and I were flying back so could bring only a taste - plus a jar of huckleberry jam!  The rowan-berry harvest (below) is left for the drunken robins (and hopefully not the bear).

Sept.12.  The view from the ranch house as we were about to close it up, alas, at the end of summer.  A day of many squalls, but the plane flew.  Doco and I really were the last to leave, but we have designs on coming back up SOON.  Here's hoping.

cousin power

Here is a somewhat random set of 'cousin' photos from August, 2015(!) at New Denver.  I just like them.

A cousin pile

"Racing Demon", if you dare

Not exactly cousins.  Son and father heading for the road 

Bosun mine

Galena ore.  Silver, lead, and zinc.  A rich vein was discovered on the ranch by JC Harris in 1898 and immediately sold to an English company who created the Bosun Mine (named after his companion and farm helper, "the Bosun").

The vein ran from the lake, pretty much straight up the mountain.  Counting from the top, the mine had 6 tunnels into the mountain.  Nearest the lake, tunnel #6 is just off the track down to our beach from the Lovicks'.

Below the dump from Tunnel #6 - just after sunset and just before a storm

Tunnel #5 is below Harris Road just after it leaves the highway.  Tunnel #4 is just above the road to the Bosun Lake.  Tunnel #3, #2, and #1 are up the mountainside into the forest.

I thought all the tunnels were filled in by the government 20 years ago.  Certainly the lower three were, but the fillers seem to have missed the collapsed upper tunnels.  There are still openings to be found, and kept from falling into!  In the photos below, in March 2012, Cole and I were on a spring scramble up the vein from Tunnel #4 with Stephen Hornsby and Anne Knowles - discovering holes.

Tunnel #3?

Tunnel #2?

Top tunnel - #1?

Then, in about 2016, in the depths of Nancy and John's house, Ralph discovered this sagittal-section map of the diggings.  Too small to see much here, except where the six tunnels go into the mountain and the huge gaps in land underground.  There's now a copy on a cupboard door in the ranch house.  It's a wonder there's any ground left at all in parts of the hillside.  

Geological Survey of Canada, about 1930

Colin's table

As promised, here is Colin's table for the summer kitchen in back of the ranch house.  The former table (now kindling for the cook stove) predated Thomas Wright's work on the restoring of the log core of the ranch house in the early 1970's.  The old table was wobbly and in shreds, though still in use by Eric to produce delicious suppers in late July.

Solid, handsome, and immensely useful.  All cedar, and all from pieces milled by Norbert from ranch trees.   In addition to daily suppers, the new table has already supported the making of something like 30 jars of yellow-plum jam (Douglas and Colin as jam chefs), a dozen(?) of huckleberry jam, and 21 jars of canned pears (Julia and Meo).  Doco has hugely enjoyed working alongside Colin in the barn workshop, Colin on his table, Doco on his bookshelf, with the sometime help of Griffin and Alice.  Quite astonishing altogether.

Doco's bookcase

A landmark day, September 1, 2018.
Doco is delighted to have made his bookcase, and it's lovely.  The design inspired by a Japanese cabinet in "Fine Woodworking" - note the birch legs.  The top is beautiful old-grain cedar.  It's the second product, after Colin's splendid outdoor-cooking table for the ranch house summer kitchen (see, hopefully, next blog post), of Doco's cleaned-up wood-working shop in the squirrel-barn.

Doco now says the bookshelf, designed to fit against the stair wall in the upstairs of the clay house, is not what he intended to make.  It was planned to be a long-wall-length shelf for ancient family collections of Dickens, Scott, Stevenson, Kipling, Thackeray …  This made bookshelf is much too useful for ancient books, and is now stocked with more current books from the ranch house on all sorts of topics for browsers of assorted ages.  So, back to the shop … maybe even later this fall?