January - Happy New Year!

 this is a photo of the Fraser River, at a photostop over looking this great deep chasm.  We stopped here, just before Lilloet, on our way home from Barkersville last August.  We took the Duffy Lake Road back.  It is a very challenging drive, with many switch backs with 20 km hairpin turns and very steep grades.  Our brakes were smokin'. 

 this is something from 2006, shot with my Canon S3IS at the Tillamook Aviation Museum. 

 This is a shot from our moving Bentley, on the New Year's day run with the VCCC.  I was using my little Sony and laughed to see it capture this wonderful flare on a random shot out of the car window.  This photo lead me to an enjoyable couple of hours reading about auras.  I checked out the color of my aura  and think it was blue... the first time.  :-))  Now this lady seems to have violet and even a few sprinkles of silver (which seems to be the major fairy dust)  I have to work on getting some of that stuff!  I probably should be adding hot links ... but .... hey... who has the time to follow them?

these wild flower shots were taken at the tourist information building at Wells, B.C., just before our visit to Barkerville, B.C. in August.  I was moved to look them up because I was pursuing an idea of making the front grass strip of my garden into a wild flower meadow.  This strip of grass is now called the crocus field and has crocus bulbs blooming in the Spring.  Imagine, if, in August, it could look like this.  And so, I went to find some wild flower seeds that I might use to over seed this grass.  I found a very interesting site ... that I actually have been aware of for some time... West Coast Seeds  And then, while looking at the wild flower blends, I came upon a Butterfly Garden blend.  One thing lead to another, of course, and hours later I was prompted by Pat, that it might be time to make the supper.    On the topic of the butterfly garden... I had saved a pod of seeds from the milkweed which is the flower that the monarch butterfly larvae feed.  I have planted the seeds.  I hope they grow.  But, the plants are available from nurseries, too.  The monarch butterflies recently suffered a reduction in numbers when there was a killing frost in their Mexican over wintering home.  There is someone on our Island who breeds Monarchs and releases them.  I am not seeing them ... I guess I don't have any milkweed plants for them. 
As you can see, over the past week, I have been all over the map, with my hobbies and interests.  In addition to the above I now have my copy of the Amen Solution.  My brother, Dan, mentioned this book to me, with regard to weight loss.  I was down to Russel books to pick  it up, after they had ordered the paperback version in for me.  The on-line only had the expensive hard cover copy.  Its an interesting book.  Dr. Amen is probably making a fortune on his books and solutions for weight loss.  I won't link it.  If you want it, you will find it.  One of the foods mentioned in the book... after a very quick scan ... was stevia.  I googled this and find that it is a herb, called sweet leaf.  The seeds are available but hard to germinate, and it is annual.  The made up portions are actually less expensive than the seeds.  This is a herb that the Japanese and South Americans have used for years.  I believe a derivative of it is used by the Coca Cola company in a specific brand of their sodas now.... but I could not be bothered to follow up on that, as all Cola products and Pepsi taste like dirt, to me.  I seldom drink pop or soda or soft drinks of any kind.  Was interesting to see them using stevia as a sweete4ner, though.
On a completely different tangent, as I returned home from my walk today, I noticed an empty beer can thrown on my front garden.  As I picked it up, I noticed a snowdrop in bud in the front garden!  This is January? right? 

Some September Harvest

We have been eating yellow Plums for desert for the last 3 weeks.  They are especially good with mango swirl frozen yogurt and a touch of marsala.  I cannot reach very many more of them with the plum plucker.  This plum plucker is a small plastic container duct taped to an old broom handle.  The plums are nearly finished their season.  The figs, on the other hand, are very slowly ripening.  As usual the 'second crop' of small figs is abundant, while the larger older ones nuimber about 12.  The last week of hot weather should have hurried them along a bit. 
The weather was very hot and then just today the mercury plummeted very quickly.  I even turned up the thermostat as I was chilled. 
We have been away to the Island Challenge car event and just got back on Monday.  pictures to follow, perhaps.  Aside from cleaning up about 5 more feet of the path in the back garden, pruning and dead heading perennials and shrubs, and watering, I have not got very much gardening done. 

When we were on our 10 day trip to Barkerville, there were many wild flowers that needed to be photographed.  It was a wonderfully adventurous trip.  More photos later, perhaps.

I have been doing a bit of photo sorting for my web page, and updating the travel lists.  As usual, I wish I had at least two lives to do all the things I want to get done.  I see I can watch TV news and some programs on my computer.  I know I can watch movies in parts from on you tube.  Ken Anderson has given me some information on using Netfix to watch movies and tv.  I don't think I will get much time to do all of this, though.  I will want Trevor to hook up my hd screen and the headphones so I can watch and listen to this stuff late at nite, when everyone else in the house is sleeping.

Wild flowers

I am still posting photos from July 19 when we are on the way to Edmonton from Valemont. These wild flowers were along the road into a capped oil or gas well. This is our coffee stop about an hour out of Hinton and just past Edson. This is the best collection of wild flowers I have seen on the whole trip. There are wood lilies, Indian paintbrush, daisies, red, purple, white and yellow clovers all in bloom here. There is water in the ditches.
On to John and Colleen's house arriving late afternoon. We have a yummy pork chop casserole for dinner. Colleen shows me around their home, where they have finished the renovations. We hear about the horrendous wind storm that Edmonton suffered yesterday and last night. There was quite a bit of property damage, but no injuries, as far as I know. We are off to our 'room' by about 11:00.

At home today, it is realy quite cool -- 16 and light rain. It seems I haven't accomplished much today, but have enjoyed the lazy day. I am having trouble getting more videos loaded to youtube and have no idea why. I especially want to load the one of Colleen and the Japanese bell from the next day's adventure in our trip.

Wild flowers

Not a flower but a lichen. They are always nice to have in the rock garden, though.
I do not know what this one is, but I believe it is one of our own indigenous rock plants.
These are a familiar site all year. I would like to get some of them growing in the grass strip along the front of my garden, where the crocuses grow. These could be blooming while the crocus leaves ripen to feed the bulbs. I cannot mow this area until the crocuses go dormant. Perhaps a few violets might look nice in here also.

These are a few of the plants found on the rocks and grass along the seawalk through Songhees. I was shooting for the Victoria Grid Project - a Flickr group. It was a very bright and sunny day. Since I was along the waterfront, I used my ND grad. filter to cut down the glare. I love that filter. It does wonders in keeping my photos from just washing out in all the light.

Friday - I felt like I accomplished a few things this day. I made a rhubarb and strawberry pie. Last year's rhubarb that I had frozen, and frozen strawberries. The pie is delicious. Pat rescued it from being incinerated as I had my head buried in my tax forms. Well, that wretched task is finished also. I really wish these tax forms were not so very convoluted. They are getting worse every year, it seems. We now have forms to attach to schedules that attach to the the main form.