Morel bell for old ranch house

Now I can really ring a bell for lunch.  It even brings Doco (usually) from the squirrel barn workshop.  And it sounds beautiful (if a bit loud right in your ear).

Carl Schlichting bell and Rabi'a banner

a swing in the willow

Just before suppertime on her last day of almost two months at New Denver, with the help of assorted parents and third cousin Samuel, and last-minute drilling of rope-holes with Doco, Ellen had a swing in the willow tree.  Lovely!  Alice and Lily had left three weeks ago - it'll be waiting for you next summer.

With a newly-cut cedar plank as the bridge across the brook, with many armloads of dead twiggy willow branches hauled to the burning pile by Ellen and Alice earlier in the summer, and with the continuing rapid growth of a happy willow with its feet in the marsh, the 'secret place' gets more and more inviting.  On this special occasion, we grownups were given fern-frond tickets to enter to view the swing and even try it - but, alas, the space between the ropes favours those less broad of beam.

woodpecker workings

For the last many springs we have arrived to find signs that a flicker had taken refuge for a time on the rafters of the cathedral.  A certain predictable spring-cleaning.  Ever since one or two of the 52 elderly Japanese men who were spending WWII in the old ranch house made a chilly but presumably more private home in the cathedral loft, there has been a round hole in the east-side wall for their wood-stove pipe.  An easy doorway for the flicker.

However, for the first time, this spring when we opened the door we found the floor strewn with shards of wood ...

... and way up at the top of the west-side wall, a good-sized new hole had been carved (where the light's shining in).  Rumour has it that a large(!) pileated woodpecker was in residence this winter - and must have made himself a front door opposite his stove-pipe-hole back door.

Hardly a problem for us summer residents, as there are already lots of other places that the air gets in!

Fifty-two years!

Two idyllic settings (and one historic site) on opposite corners of our 'new' land.  First a Meo-and-Doco wedding anniversary walk up to the dam and beyond to the cedar swamp - damaged by the logging, but not ruined.  This part of the stream (Harris Creek) is my small-childhood ideal of a creek running through.  A lot of clear water rushing between the low mossy banks.

The 'historic site' is on the ridge above the cedar swamp to the south.  A 20-foot cedar snag, seriously burnt.  Cole figures it is one of the few remains of a spotty forest fire that must have burned through the ranch in about 1850-1860.

Then, idyll #2, at the eastern end of the Bosun Lake, the north-eastern tip of parcel 2411, the Fidelity Mine property that came to us in our ranch-land purchase last September.  At 4pm on a sunny June afternoon, after rain, it couldn't have been lovelier.  Doco and I have had some good 52nd anniversary explores.

P.S. As Teagan said at about age 7, "Doco, what's it like being married to Meo for all these years?"

Ready

Well, not totally.  Haven't swept the pileated woodpecker's wall-shavings out of the cathedral, nor assembled the bedding in the clay house, but doing better on the outside ...

Slocan Lake from Doco's 'orchard'

the 'Old Ranch House'

the hay barn, 'clay house', 'squirrel barn', chicken coop

the 'cathedral' and 'the secret place'

Doco's wee strawberry patch.  Can you spot the initial row?  Blueberries and grape-vines are surrounded. 

The weeding - a mammoth task.   Making place for transplanting some dozens of Chris' young lettuces.

My main garden task - Dianne Carter's raspberry jungle.  Doing well!  I am to try to tame them so that we can pick them.  Photo taken in the rain through the fence, but with a bit of a squint I think you can see red.  Quite delicious.  And one chicken looking for playmates (or maybe raspberries!).

RAIN

After a sweltering first three days that Cole and I were here (June 4-6), the rain came.  Two warm(!) Slocan-Lake swims - like mid-summer - then one frigid dip, and I've not been tempted since.   It rained and it rained and it rained.  A lot.  Cole says at least 6 inches.  

From the old ranch house we could see the rain storms coming up the lake - one after another.

More on the next day ...

And the next ...

The fields and the forests are sopping, but no one is complaining.  It's a great relief - however long - from forest-fire edginess.  As long as July 4th is fine for Doco's 80th birthday!

Thomson second in 1500m

 9am on a sunny May 12th morning at the UBC track for the Vancouver High School track meet.  With Douglas playing field hockey in Bordeaux France and Candy helping deliver babies, Doco and I were the family Thomson-rooters.  Thomson, having trained hard for field hockey but not track this year, pulled off a tremendous second-place in the senior boys' 1500m final.  A personal best by 4 seconds, 4:06.

admiring fans before the race

lap #1, Thomson in 3rd place

lap #2, Thomson still in 3rd

Coming up to the bell lap - Thomson passing Kieran (hidden), leader out of sight

winner (Thomas) just in, Thomson in sight

Thomson at the finish (across the line, he folded)

some admiring fans after the race

"Oh oh, meo's got me"