Elk in the field

Last night at supper with Chris at the clay house, we saw at least 12 elk emerge onto the field from the logging swath.  They came right up to the fence, but they are timid creatures and my camera was back at the ranch house.  I crept out the back door and quietly down the road, but they were spooked.  By the time I was back they were well up the field, so my photos are in dim light at maximum zoom.  These creatures are big!  At close to dark, three were well on their way along the ridge toward the hay barn (which Chris says they broke into in winter).

seen from upstairs in the clay house, 7pm

also from the clay house, 8pm, getting dusky … with two white-tailed deer for scale

New kids

A visit last evening to Vicky's 4-day-old triplets, two girls and one boy.  The "Z" family.  How marvellous.  All three have variations of their mother's colouring.  They have been handled by all the Duerichens from birth and are very calm.  Doco says I need to choose three photos, but how?  Here are seven.

Rayan with kid#1

As Norbert says, they all have such a drive to be "king-of-the-castle" - at 4 days old!

… kid #2 is "king" for a moment ...

… I forget if this "king" is kid #2 or #3.  Can you tell?

… "my turn next" ...

… "well, maybe we can all have a go"

meanwhile, mama gets her supper

Mountain bluebirds

A treat this afternoon.  Doco and I were walking home across the field below Aunt Heather's tree and I caught a flash of blue.  A pair of "mountain bluebirds" - birds neither of us has seen on the ranch for some decades, and maybe my favourites (next to chickadees).  Out with my camera.  Bluebirds are flycatchers, so sit obligingly on fence posts.  These photos are nothing like those on Alistair Fraser's Kootenay Lake blog, but I am thrilled with them.  And I dare you to say "mum, where is the bird?"

blue on blue - Slocan Lake behind

this photo composed itself ...

… and this one, as if he is posed against the maple just coming into leaf

The female is hardly blue at all, so didn't get her picture taken.  Hmm …

Hay barn ready

Since Doco and I left New Denver last October, Norbert and Rayan have finished the shed-roof on the hay barn.  It looks splendid.  From inside one can still see daylight, but hopefully we can see around corners better than the raindrops can.  So, we presume it is once more out of the weather and ready for sleepers, card-players, readers, spies? - a lovely spot.  Likely to be much contested!  But I think that Rachel, as creator and inhabitant of this living space for many summers (until there were TWO cherubs and the drips won out), gets first pick.

Doco removing the last of the roofing rubble ...

… and pleased with the result

Next project - a new shake roof on the south-side shed.  Rayan and his pal Viktors are well along with the shake-splitting for that job.  Then there's the steep bit!  Who did it the last time?  Not still around, or over 70, I guess?  Any takers?

more of a "controlled burn"

Lesson learned.  Well, maybe?

well-watched, hose in hand

Norbert's approach - to attack with a blow-torch … yikes!

No problem here, but in the next episode, by Doco's one-match method, the hay-barn had a bit of a close call.  I missed that one!

The bonfire that nearly got away

So you see, even grandparents can be a bit dopey.  A great pile of stuff to be burnt had collected over the winter in the usual burning pile across the creek.  "Too wet to burn yet", said Chris.  "Oh no", said Doco, "I can get it going".  Well he certainly did!  I played my harp for a bit (too cold for the fingers, and the strings, this morning), then headed out to join the burning fun.

I glanced up the hill and saw that Doco had decided to burn last year's dry grass too.  But "oh-oh", maybe not.  If so, it had got away from him and was licking up the bank and down the road in all directions, helped by a gusty wind from the north.  Not a planned burn at all.  It had just got into the dry grass next the pile and off it went.  Doco had a rake, I was sent for a spade, and we had a busy ten minutes raking the burn back down the hill and stomping it out.  A very good hosing down finished the job.  The much-diminished burn pile was now the only site of flames or embers.  Phew!

Everything was restored to its accustomed peace - the brook running by the budding willow, the varied thrush whistling up in the forest, the winter wren trilling down in the ravine, and the fire-tender resting on his rake.

baby chicks grown up

For those who were attached to Chris's baby chicks in 2014, here are three of them (all hens) in 2015.  The one rooster got given to Will because he was making trouble with Red.  So here are the beauties (Chris's names, and I forget who the mother hen was - Chris calls her "mama"):

#1. "Rusty".  Turns out to be partly Arcana, by her tiny red comb on top, her bushy longish tail, and her green eggs (I need to get out with my camera when Chris collects eggs tomorrow).  Also, Chris says, the friendliest and easiest to handle (hence she gets the most photos).

#2. "Blondie" - goes her own way.

#3. "Freckles" - not to be confused with her aunt.

And then the whole bunch.  Hopefully, all will be waiting for you all when you get here in summer.

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P.S. Norbert and Julia told us today that Vicky (goat) had triplets on Monday.  All fine.  And Xiaou-Xiaou is due any day.
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P.P.S. April 12th.  One of Rusty's green eggs.  I still need a photo of its green insides.

P.P.P.S.  Later in April.  Same egg on the inside - opened and eaten in Vancouver.  Not exactly a vivid green, but …

(I should have had a matched non-green egg beside.  Oh well.  Maybe on the next one.)