Loving my new pjs!

January 6, 2023January 5, 2023 / edebock / 2 Comments

I’ve never been a person who spends all day in pyjamas and I certainly don’t wear them in public, but after opening a Christmas gift from our daughter, I could be tempted to change my ways! They are so beautiful and also very comfortable!

The handwritten gift tag included a note that said, “Special Delivery! Product of a local vendor in Bogota, Columbia!” She knew how much something like that would appeal to me! Our daughter is not a traveler (she seems to have missed out on that gene) but she has a close friend who’s husband is Columbian, so I’m guessing that they had a part in helping with her Christmas shopping.

Always curious, I decided to search for the vendor online and quickly found her Facebook page. My pyjamas are even pictured there!

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I love the rich, vibrant colours and I’m learning to identify some of the South American birds. I recognized the toucans and hummingbirds, but according to illustrations on the Facebook page, there are also Mountain Carriqui, Quetzal, Guacamaya (macaws), and Carpintero (woodpeckers).

The pjs are made of a lightweight satiny polyester with a touch of spandex. My newly acquired Spanish vocabulary has been very helpful in reading the fabric care label. Lavar a mano = wash by hand. Secar en interior = dry inside. No planchar = don’t iron.

So, will I wear them in public? Probably not, but if I did, I’m sure I’d look at least as good as the woman we once saw walking through the Louvre in Paris in pink pjs! 🤣

Sharing spaces

June 24, 2020June 24, 2020 / edebock / 5 Comments

Big Knife Provincial park, less than an hour from home, has become one of our favourite places to get away from the busyness of life. We’re just back from enjoying three days of peace and quiet there. 72 hours without cell phone or internet. No news. No politics. Just us and nature!

We certainly weren’t alone, however. We shared our camp spot with a very busy pair of yellow-bellied sapsuckers. I’m not an avid bird watcher, but these two piqued my curiosity and I had to do a bit of research as soon as we got home. Here’s what I learned.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is a medium-sized woodpecker that breeds in Canada and the north-northeastern United States. It makes two kinds of holes in trees to harvest sap. Round holes extend deep in the tree and are not enlarged. The sapsucker inserts its bill into the hole to probe for sap. Rectangular holes are shallower, and must be maintained continually for the sap to flow. The sapsucker laps up the leaking sap and any trapped insects with its specialized, brush-tipped tongue, and eats the cambium of the tree too. New holes usually are made in a line with old holes, or in a new line above the old.

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That’s Mr Sapsucker in my photo. His Missus looks almost the same except her bib is grey instead of red. With thousands of trees in the area, why they chose one in the middle of the campground, I’ll never know, but they were clearly quite comfortable sharing space with us. Apparently, our trailer was in their flight path between this tree and the woods surrounding the campsite, but Mr quickly took to flying directly under our awning even when we were sitting there! Thankfully, there were no collisions as he went back and forth all day long!

We also shared our space with chipmunks and squirrels who checked the site from time to time to see if we’d left anything edible lying around, and a couple of rabbits who just passed on through.

One of the things that we love to do at Big Knife is kayak on the Battle River. Yesterday, we discovered the spot where Big Knife Creek feeds into the river, so of course we had to explore it. The slow moving creek was shallow in spots, but navigable. We went as far as we could (up the creek with a paddle!) until a huge fallen tree blocked our pathway and we had to turn around.

Pristine, untouched wilderness!

We quickly discovered that even here we weren’t alone. This time we were sharing space with beaver. Lots of beaver! They obviously weren’t as comfortable as the sapsuckers were with the idea of sharing space with us though. As soon as we got anywhere close, tails hit the water with thundering splashes and they disappeared below the surface. I managed to get a picture of this one just before he gave his warning shot and disappeared from sight.

On Sedgewick pond

May 22, 2017May 22, 2017 / edebock / 3 Comments

Weather-wise, this might have been the nicest May long weekend in almost forever. The weekend, a Canadian holiday in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday, is the unofficial start of camping season. It’s often cold and rainy, but not this year. After playing a round of golf this afternoon, Richard and I headed out to Sedgewick Lake to try out the little kayak that we’re borrowing from our youngest son.

We used to own a canoe; a big, cumbersome and heavy canoe. A canoe that was perfect for a growing young family, but not for an older retired couple. It went to Vancouver with us last September when we took the Beatrice home and it now resides with our older son and his family. We want to replace it with a kayak, or maybe two. That’s why we’ve borrowed Nate’s little Escapade, to help us decide what we want before we go shopping.

Sedgewick Lake, just 2 km north of our wee Alberta town, isn’t much more than a big pond, but it was an easy spot to get out on the water and take the kayak for a spin. The immediate and obvious advantage over our old canoe was the ease with which we could load it onto our SUV. In fact, Richard could easily do it by himself. Carrying the kayak from the parking lot down to the water was also simple. Again, Richard could have carried it by himself and, in fact, I might also be able to, but it was much easier for the two of us to simply grab the toggles on each end and carry it between us.

Since Nate’s is a single person kayak, we had to take turns today, but we love being out on the water together so our big decision is whether to buy two small kayaks or a tandem one that will carry both of us.

We are not, and will never be, whitewater kayakers. I love peacefully gliding over quiet waters. Today, I as I paddled through the reeds near the water’s edge I watched red-winged blackbirds and stirred up a pair of Canada geese who seemed to think that they owned the lake. Protesting my presence, they flew out to the middle of the lake where they continued to honk their displeasure at being disturbed. They didn’t let me get anywhere near them, but I was able to paddle closer to the loons before they dipped below the water and came up somewhere else. Unfortunately, I haven’t perfected the art of keeping the kayak still enough to take good photos with the zoom lens. My bird photos all turned out blurry, but that’s okay. If the good weather holds, we’re probably going to go out again tomorrow! Maybe I’ll have better luck then.

October!

October 1, 2015 / edebock / 10 Comments

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

October is my favourite month; a bittersweet interlude between summer and winter. Here in Alberta, it arrives amidst a blaze of colour, but by the end of the month, there will likely be snow on the ground. Each golden day is a treasure.

The tiny hamlet of Gwynne, located midway between Camrose and Wetaskiwin, is nestled in a valley that is absolutely gorgeous in the fall. We often take that route on our way to Edmonton, but until today we’d never stopped to explore the area. I recently learned of two hiking trails in the valley, however, and they were today’s destination.

The first, officially called the CPR Canyon Hiking Trail, is a relatively easy 4 km walk along a creek. The name seems apt as the railway follows the creek on the opposite bank and three trains rumbled by while we were hiking. It’s known locally, however, as Chickadee Trail and we soon found out why!

The inquisitive little critters were landing on my outstretched hand before we even took any food out of the pack on Richard’s back. Soon we were sharing lunch!

There were six geocaches hidden along the trail which added to our fun.

The second trail circled through Pipestone Creek Conservation Lands where we searched out three more geocaches and enjoyed some spectacular views including an oxbow lake.

There are clearly many more trails criss-crossing the conservation area and we found a lovely little campground close by, so I suspect that we’ll be spending more time there in the future.