Snow in the Lower Mainland

Ice along the shallow coast of Mud Bay.

Powdered fields of South Surrey.

The spots and shine on Pitt River.

The snow around Christmas time stuck around till the first week of January, occasionally refreshing itself in brief bouts here and there.  Though the region unused to such a meteorological phenomenon might curse the snow as a nuisance (especially on roadways), I took this rare opportunity to go up in a small plane and get some photos.  Who knows when we might get snow like this again?

Sharp light on measured grey tiles.

Two trips within the first week; the first on a loop south from Delta to White Rock, Langley, Pitt Meadows, Indian Arm, skirting the mountains and over Vancouver.  The second trip again from Delta to Langley, and stayed east onto Chilliwack where we stopped for pie at the Airport Coffee Shop that is famous for its pies.

The only bright color now.

As usual I prefer the natural landscapes, but even urban areas seemed calmed by the dusting of white.  The frozen colors were an interesting change in the palette of our usual blue, brown and green.  The diffused light of the gentle blue sky shot along the winding Serpentine and Nicomekl Rivers like a platinum snake, a slowly undulating highlight on the ice following alongside us as the plane moved.  The ice in the sea and large rivers looked like mottled marble stone.  Ponds were a milky green,  Marshy and solid parts of the same field were more distinct, whether the snow melted or 'stuck'.  The blueberry fields were a soft rosy pink from the once deep red of autumn.  Deciduous forests looks like black bristles on a boar's back.  Even the industrial land looked prettier when the mud brown was a clean white.

Year in review, and lack of bunnies??

The year is drawing to an end.  I haven't been posting as much this year, or at least nothing of substance.  Have I had an unsubstantial year? A friend browsed my scant blog post in November and inquired "Isn't there anything you want to remember?", and that has resounded with me since.  I had not considered this blog a way to jog my memory, I would instead invest the time to scroll through years of emails in my Sent folder directed at specific people, not an online global readership.  I use this blog to shine a light on undiscovered areas or endorse businesses or organizations etc.  I've used this blog as a way to chronicle my travels, and aside from the Sloquet and some of the Maritime trip most of where I've gone this year is a revisit of places I've been - beautiful delightful places I've enjoyed, but no need to repeat myself here.
Thus begins my usual restless stirrings for a new adventure.  Greener pastures, distant shores.  Maybe it's the typical grey weather of winter in Vancouver.  January will likely be a sluggish time begging for a break in the monotony (Robbie Burns Day!), but if I stay focused it will be a good time to plan and organize, gain money and information.

In the meantime here is the Christmas tree I decorated for my friends this year.  They received eight bright green bunny ornaments so of course I featured them along with brassy yellow gold and orange and lime and red, looking like a bright fruit salad.  I've kept an eye out for bunny-themed ornaments since fall and am quite surprised at the lack of them.  There will always be puppies and kittens for the pet lovers, and seem to be plenty of birds and squirrels and deer, and the _fashionable_ fad is owls and foxes.  No bunnies.  My mom suggested that they're too synonymous with Easter so people don't associate them with Christmas.
Christmas this year was steady and easy and sensible.  I suffered the mall downtown only once to hit one specific store, in fact all my shopping was very deliberate with no impulsive purchases.  Most of my gifts to others were homemade consumables.  My time was spread out with people throughout the month; the glitz of impersonal work parties earlier, then an elaborate yet intimate birthday party, then Christmas itself with my family and all the traditions of our childhood - crepes in the morning after opening gifts, and turkey in the evening with brussel sprouts, turnips, mashed potatoes, canned cranberry jelly.  I've had at least two weeks of wearing lazy slouchy pants with rum+egg nog.  My last year's new year's resolution of getting more exercise is, well, close enough.  I colored in my nephews' coloring books.  
We did a short afternoon search for a few geocaches and found all three we attempted, along the promenade along the river.  We lucked into a brief afternoon of sunshine on Christmas Day that was bookended by snow days before and after, made me more grateful that we got outside when we did.

post for Nov

Yup, this is a post for Nov.  :D
[edit later] Why does this have more views that posts that contain actual thoughtful content?!

October in Oliver

Well I didn't spend the entire October in Oliver, but had a nice long weekend there to visit my family for Thanksgiving.  Thanks to everyone's contributions to the meals!
The weather seemed threatening as the weekend approached but we had a beautiful Sunday of perfect hiking weather to hike to the top of MacIntyre Bluff - with 21 geocaches and a picnic, of course.  Great view of the town.  The subtle differences in natural color in the desert compared to Vancouver's temperate rainforest is refreshing, stirring yet satiating my travel bug (for now).  The bleached out grasses accentuate the red sumac and Oregon grape, green pines and bright blue sky.

Nova Scotia/New Brunswick

Despite keeping busy this year with plenty of interesting and enjoyable outings, I've been remiss to report on them in a timely manner. [self-scolding].  So let's try to stay on top of my two week trip of Nova Scotia.  Some of you might have already visited my past reviews from previous years here and here,  I hereby present the 2016 installment of Nova Scotia.

Family+friends first
We arrived in the evening and were picked up from the airport and driven to the house in Middle Sackville that would be our primary base of operations during our stay.  We had a late snack of bagels+cream cheese+candied salmon+capers+onion, and thus began my loose goal of eating seafood everyday while I'm here.  In past years I've doggedly pursued the scallops and lobster that we can't get for a reasonable price on the west coast, but for ease of everyone around me I've broadened my parameters to just seafood.  I do loooove salmon!
Aside from jet lag the bed creaked and the streetlight shone brightly through the window and the crickets chirped all night (the latter a welcome change from living in a city), Sleep was fitful, and the next day we drove down to the cottage in Chester.  Here had no internet but did have some television, and more importantly a swimming pool and a warm glassed-in sun deck overlooking the cove.  Nice comfy bed too.  I slept well and woke to the stereo sound of a dove in the yard to my right and a loon on the water to my left, both eventually silenced by the crow which I swear has a different east coast accent than the crows we have back home.  We always have such beautiful skies here too, this time featuring bright pink clouds at sunset.
We visited Lunenburg in the afternoon briefly, and had lunch on the waterfront.  I had a lobster roll, yay!
After we went to a cabin in the woods (not to be confused with our usual cabin in the woods we'll visit later, although it is close by), and met up with a full house of relatives visiting from Lloydminster in the prairies.  That was a nice evening with friendly people and conversation, with homemade seafood chowder and delicious chocolate chip coffee cake for dessert.
Then back to the cottage overnight, then back to the house for what I thought would be overnight till we got an invite to a nearby friends' place with a nice gazebo in the backyard and enough drink+talk that we stayed in his trailer overnight instead.  We head back to the house for a quiet grey day of tea and phone/emails to organize the rest of our trip.
We enjoyed geocaching in Point Pleasant park on a beautiful sunny afternoon and had some high-end sushi (including scallops+lobster) on the Halifax waterfront with ever-popular Nova 7 wine, I'd note to grab a few bottles to take back west before we leave since it's unavailable in BC.

Far-flung fun
The timing of our visit to be on the east coast gave us the chance to attend a geocaching event in Kouchibouguac National park in New Brunswick.  It wasn't really 'near' us and not even the same province, but Atlantic provinces can be crossed in a few hours and was deemed doable with friends that facilitated our camping with them.  We arrived separately that weekend braving the torrential downpour that made driving a challenge, amidst our friends' urging to turn back we ploughed through.  The rain cleared as we got to the park, and we saw a short rainbow briefly in the grey.  These friends had loaned us their tent+mattress and even set it up for us with a tarp over top that we would be very glad for as the skies threw more rain that night, the sound keeping me awake but the comforter keeping me warm.  Mentally I yelled at the tent roof "I dare you to rain harder!", and indeed it did.
Meals were in their camper, it was great to have access to a kitchen and good company for morning coffee and our friend's mom who made the best homemade fishcakes I've ever had.  The next afternoon we explored the park with great admiration - the trails were well maintained, the footpaths we felt would be bike-worthy by BC standards and their bike paths able to support vehicles.  This is a large park and I thought of plenty of spots I could sneak my tent onto a fluffy patch of lush moss.  We found the geocaches from previous year's events which took us to some highlights of the park, the beaches and salt marshes that were nesting sites for the piping plovers and old areas that used to have Acadian villages.  That night we had a campfire, I was the last one to go to retire as I watched the embers die.  Here is a dark sky preserve so I saw many stars I hadn't seen in months, and if that wasn't enough I saw a single shooting star and felt that was my cue to bed.  Somehow it felt like the land and every instance there was tailored to me somehow with some of my favorite things, and I felt very blessed.
The last day was finding that year's released geocaches, revisiting spots yesterday and a few new ones.  The boardwalk on the eastern shore and the lookout tower in the bog were featured on our commemorative wooden geocoins.
We left the event and drove down with friends in two cars in search of a place for dinner, which seemed oddly challenging given that this was a scenic drive by Acadian neighbourhoods showcased by New Brunswick tourism.  I could not explain this dearth of restaurants - in tourist season nonetheless - only to suggest that everyone eats at home all the time? There were a few pizza joints, but I did not cross the country for common pizza... Our third attempt led us to a diner with an expressive and openly overworked waitress, and generous portions of seafood dinner.  After this we parted with our friends and had a long drive back to Sackville in the dark along a plain highway, I think I fell asleep in the car.

That long weekend was followed by a leisurely Sunday drive around scenic Hants county back in Nova Scotia.  The roads wind gently over and around hills like a sea of green farms dotted with houses and rural towns, with fingers of red mud tidal rivers reaching in.  We visited a few spots on the coast; Burntcoat Head where we watched the highest tides in the world come in and cut off Flowerpot Island in a matter of minutes, a slight waterfall as Cobequid Bay closed in around it.  We scored some huge field cucumbers left at the end of a driveway with a sign saying "Free", so it's always nice to find unexpected treasure! Next was a little beach at Tennycook with fossilized sea/riverbed flaking off the cliffs.  No obvious dinosaur finds, but fossils are all over the Bay of Fundy shores once your eyes adjust to focus on the patterns and shapes of simple plants and animals of the Carboniferous Period.  We stopped at Walton which boasted a lighthouse and little else, then onward to Avondale Sky winery we'd visited before but thought we'd sample some since we're in the area.  From there we backtracked to promising dinner prospects only to be thwarted again, and just drove back to Sackville for whatever creative dinner we could compose from the fridge.

We rented a plane to take a flight around the Minas Basin to retrace from the air the places we'd visit by car.  My headphones didn't work so the pilot and I couldn't have a real conversation, so I sat there like a sack of potatos and looked out the window at the pretty land below.  Some areas were best viewed from the air, like Boot Island, and the sheer cliff of Cape Split which we could hike to the end of but not really view the sea stacks the same way from land.  On our way back we stopped off at Truro and I had delicious baja fish tacos at The Nook and Cranny on the patio.  Then was the drive across to visited our friend in Grand Pre again, it was great to see that family again and they had an energetic new young cat that the girls put on a leash to come geocaching with us.  The fantastic chef made moussaka and peach cobbler.
We stayed overnight and the next day drove out to Scots Bay and Blomedon, the former being the prettiest rock beach I've seen yet here with agates and jasper, and the latter being one of the most famous cliffs and sand all red.  An easy walk on beaches, I'd love to return there.  Later I would hear of Amethyst Cove where one can find amethyst straight on the beach, and I mentally filed that away on the To Do list next year.

Back with family
As our trip closed to an end was a few days of visiting more family; celebrating anniversaries and scattering ashes of the deceased (which culminated with dinner at the Blue Olive and my first saganaki).  We went for a drive+geocache around Lawrencetown beach and Musquodoboit Harbour, and some around Sackville.  We had one last overnight at the cottage with the half moon shining bright as a streetlight.  There was a hearty brunch in Maplewood that we've attended in past years put on by the community at the museum grounds and served by volunteers, featuring the German-immigrant delicacies of Lunenburg sausage and Tancook saurkraut, with blueberry grunt (a kind of bread pudding/dumpling) for dessert.  There was an overnight stay at the usual cabin in the woods; with no Internet or cell service or even running water it is a sort of imposed tranquility to immerse oneself.  We took the small kayaks for a gentle cruise along the dead calm lake.  We didn't bother with dinner at all and the children were fine with chips because it was a Saturday... We had a campfire with some novelty powder that turned the flames to greens and blues, and plenty of stars above, again I was the last one to sleep.
The next morning after the challenge of making kids eat their breakfast was a drive through the middle of the province south to a reunion with a friend from Yarmouth and one visiting from England, an easygoing afternoon in a backyard and I finally couldn't avoid eating the pizza they'd got for lunch, which was really good.  A few carried on to see a particular 'hidden gem' beach, with pale powder sand and generally quiet and overlooked, that on this day was foggy or misty and we could appreciate it without lingering long.  I don't mind the grey finding us here as we've been lucky with great weather for most of the trip and are just leaving now.

A post for August

This is a post for August, I can go back to and edit later.  August has been busy, I'll write more when I'm on a more reliable computer.

[edit: later.  Much later].
August was spent shopping or making gifts to send to two faraway fellas for their birthdays, both not till September but with a looming postal service strike and me leaving for Nova Scotia in the later weeks of August I was adamant that these be complete, packaged and sent before I left.  I like giving gifts more than getting them, and gift-wrapping is an artful activity in itself.  Selecting the right wrapping paper, the color and theme to match the contents or the recipient,  The beauty is in the details.  I know they were pleased to get an unexpected treat in the post (we avoided the postal strike).

Farm cycle tour in Agassiz.

Several agricultural districts of the Lower Mainland endorse farming businesses with a self-guided Circle Farm Tour, formerly recognized as Slow Food Tours, promoting where our food comes from and locavore alternatives to fast food.
I've been meaning to cycle the Circle Farm Tour of Agassiz for a few years now, but other conflicting events have always blocked that date on my schedule.  Now this weekend as a focus of my July I made it a point to attend! I was fortunate to have a partner with a car to get us out there - or else it's $50+ for a Greyhound bus (one way) for myself which would still drop me a fair distance away, yikes - and two small folding bikes.  We cross-referenced their provided map of participating farms and our planned map of geocaches in the area,  It would make for a long full day of varied activity, topped with an indulgent treat of soaking in therapeutic mineral water, dinner of nice German cuisine and a concert of one of my favorite bands that I just lucked into being on the same day in the neighbouring town of Harrison Hot Springs.  Onward!
Morning started with quickie-breakfast en route from Timmy Ho's, as per our usual convenience and incentive to get up early and not dawdle.  Then was a drive out to Agassiz, noting the layers of grey cloud.  Up the Fraser Valley the humped hills lost their tops in the cloud.  We saddled up our bikes and left the registration point ($10 per person) at roughly 10am, found a geocache close by, then cycled away from the highway following the steady stream of other cyclists - while these tours are for cars or bikes throughout the season, this was an especially designated day for cyclists, with directional signs taped to posts and flaggers helping us cross the highways.  As if cycling wasn't enough exercise we stopped for a geocache that had us huffing up a steep path of an old cemetery.
Then onto a dairy with a half-million dollar milking machine, with farmers on hand to answer all sorts of questions about their practices and the industry and the cows two at a time eager waiting to be milked so they can get their grain treat.  Both cows and farmers seemed healthy and happy.
Then onto a family's mostly-berry farm, with the local kids brightly calling out their wares at the mini-market, vegetables and even young chickens.  Though primarily retail they offered barbecued burgers and some light fare just for the day, we had a nice lemon+blueberry coffee cake and real raspberry juice that was quite kicky.  They had free u-pick raspberries and blueberries I would've taken advantage of had we had more time in the afternoon and not have had to balance everything on bikes.  After that was a small nursery selling plants we couldn't carry with us either, but we did pick up the largest zucchini I'd ever seen for just a dollar.
Then was a cheese making farm.  Plenty of goats to pet, and one had apparently just had a kid not six hours earlier.  A few young calves with long dry tongues that eagerly licked petting hands, perhaps searching for their mother's teat instead.  We got a small plate to eat atop a haybale with natural sourdough multigrain bread, farm-made chutney and three nice cheeses and their drinkable yogurt.  The sun emerged and we were getting hot from such a rich creamy diet.
Then we cycled onto a fish farm, growing Coho salmon in tanks.  The fish were raised in fresh water like populations in interior landlocked lakes, and they had large pumps and filters to filter and re-oxygenate the water to limit waste.  There was a friendly and generous fella there grilling barbecued salmon, and would keep handing us limitless samples for as long as we stood there.  I'm a great salmon-eater and that was delicious.
The last stop on tour as the day's events closed between 4-5pm was the UBC agricultural research center there.  We just managed to squeak in the last 15 minutes, greeted with a bowl of blueberries and "Moose Tracks" ice cream.  Too late for any lectures but admittedly I would've just spend all day there and not seen any other spots.  We saw a man carrying a  dwarf bunny in a basket, says it accompanies him everywhere or else people wouldn't recognize him without it.  Rupert the bunny was very well behaved in his basket and fine with strangers petting him.  We browsed through several research displays and ate more blueberries that someone had bred, and they closed up shop around us as we left.
We found a few more geocaches around town and left satisfied, heading north to Harrison Hot Springs.  Budgeting out time we only had about a half hour to soak in the public pool of piped-in hot spring water, but it was a relaxing reward to our cycling and geocaching among blackberry thorns.
We had dinner at the Black Forest Steak and Schnitzel House, an attractive building that does a fine job; the food was plenty and delicious, service was prompt and helpful.  I think they were especially polished given that the town was wrapping up their folk festival which drew a crowd to the otherwise dead-end road and small town.  We were there to catch one of the last headlining acts at the community hall, The Paperboys.  That was a fantastic time with the front ten feet of the floor filled with 40-somethings all dancing from start to finish.  The band gave a great performance, smooth and precise delivery but personable and casual atmosphere.  Great end to the day.