drove out to Dugald on Thursday to pick up some roasting chickens from a new place – Hoogies Ranch…
it was a lovely drive and the weather vacillated between sun and cloud…
besides two dogs wandering the yard, these cute barn cats were very friendly…
so far, we’ve had one of the chickens and it was delicious… there was lots for supper, a chicken salad is in my future, and chicken vegetable soup with dumplings has been requested;-)…
this picture came up on my Facebook memories recently…
I can still remember that day… we were in Courtenay and drove up Mount Washington… there was no one else around as it was summer… we sat at the bottom of the ski hill for a very long time as we were both afraid of heights…
but we decided to go for it…
we got on the chairlift but the person didn’t put the safety bar down… we realized this as we were moving upwards… I think that the bars along the back and beside me, that I was holding onto for dear life, probably had dents from the grip I had on them😳…
there are no pictures because of the death grip… we were both terrified…
when we arrived at the top the staff person didn’t seem that worried about it, but did say they would ensure that the bar was put in the correct position when we descended…
there was still snow on the ground and the views were beautiful, but I was still nervous about going back down…
of course, we had no choice about going down… after being safely secured correctly, we made the trip down and I even enjoyed some of the views, lol…
but, once we made it back to town, we stopped and sat in a coffee shop for quite a while to let our nerves settle;-)…
as I was sitting in the hot tub on Saturday night and watching the few stars that I am able to see from there, I was reminded of a Saturday night we spent at the lake…
we went out, with blankets and warm clothes, and laid on the couch on the cliff deck and watched the stars through the tree canopy…
it was a beautiful night with few bugs and the sky was spectacular…
we saw satellites, constellations, and shooting stars… even some fireflies;-)…
on Friday, before my daughter left to return home to Ottawa, we went one last time to The Leaf…
we walked through the Diversity Gardens in the daylight and were happy we went early, because the temperature was rising quickly…
we checked out the Water area and were thrilled to discover water lily blooms…
then it was on to the Tropical Biome to visit the cacao trees… while there, she provided a little education for a few visitors;-)…
some of us stayed in that spot, and the rest of us checked out the other areas… we weren’t able to see the Butterfly Garden or walk on the skywalk as they were closed for the day, but it was fun to check out both biomes…
we had an early lunch at Gather, one last visit to the cacao trees and then home to nap and finish packing for the flight…
we had a wonderful time away, but it is always lovely to return home;-)…
after everything was unloaded, the first thing I did was check out the garden… it looked good, other than the veggie patch in the side garden… it may have got missed in the watering schedule, lol… both of the tomato plants looked dead…
got out the hose and gave everything a good drink, and then I sat on the deck with a cold drink and my book… sigh…
although the tomatoes looked dead, the water revived them and they look 100% better…
had a hot tub and sat outside reading until it was too dark to see;-)…
during our last day at the cottage, we spent time on the cliff deck watching the waves and the pelicans…
we have enjoyed the pelicans since we arrived and early on we would get very excited every time we spotted one flying over the cottage, in the water close to the beach, taking off and landing in the water, and all the times they spent with the fisher…
over the last day or so, while we were there, it seemed a bit ho hum, lol…
what we never managed to see was them catching fish… it was clear that they got something from the fisher after they brought up the final piece of the net…
we did discover that a group of them could be called a number of things, but we liked pod and squadron best;-)…
took a while, but I made it all the way into the water…
Sunday we spent a short time at Albert Beach where I went in up to my knees for just a few minutes… while there we spotted a pair of eagles flying over, although I was only able to get a photo of one…
late in the afternoon we went down to our beach and went into the water… it was rocky at the edge but we got through, found the sand and stayed in for quite a while… it was lovely although I had a little spill coming out of the water, lol… lots of rocks, but there were no injuries…
there were so many birds at the cottage we stayed at…
after hearing them on the Merlin sound app, I decided not to worry about getting photos of them… my goal was to spot as many as I could while we were there…
I think I saw most of them, except the black and white warbler…
we also saw many pelicans, gulls, eagles, hummingbirds, and at least one heron;-)…
