September 23 update

September 23 blog update

 

September 15 ; We spent the day at the Similkameen Sizzle Pepper Harvest Festival in Keremeos. The afternoon event was at Memorial Park. The day started at noon with a chili cook off. We had a sample of each of the 5 entries, then voted for best chili and best decorated booth. We watched a cooking demonstration by the executive chef of one of the more upscale restaurants in Penticton. After his cooking demonstration we ate a few large samples of his creation, a pasta, shrimp, and pepper dish. It was very good. We listened to a zydeco band for awhile, then joined some neighbours of ours from Riverside RV Park Resort for a beer at the legion. I don't know why they wanted to go to the local grungy legion when there was a beer garden set up in Memorial Park, with a zydeco band playing in the park. Oh, well.

In the evening we went to Victory Hall for the Similkameen Sizzle Dinner and Dance. Dinner was a pig roast buffet. The pig had been roasting on a barbecue in Memorial Park all afternoon. Obviously, I had to opt for the vegetarian chili alternative to the roast pig. I can't digest pork. Dinner was a bit pedestrian, but, hey ... this is Keremeos. After dinner the zydeco band that had played in the afternoon played in Victory Hall. It was terrible. Not the band's fault. Their "sound man" was an amateur, and an idiot. Despite numerous complaints, including two from me, he kept the sound at such a loud volume that not only was conversation impossible, the sounds from the different instruments and vocals just morphed into a lot of garbled noise. Before the end of the first of their three sets, about three quarters of the people had left. Us included !

Vicki is doing fine. She has rapidly evolved into a little baby princess cat. When we're in bed, she sleeps on Joanne's chest. When we're not in bed, she spends most of her time snuggled under the covers propped up against Joanne's pillows. Still no takers for adopting her. Wish us luck !

 

September 18 ; Say goodbye to Vicki. This morning we drove to Penticton and took Vicki to the B.C. SPCA animal shelter. I'm very ... disheartened, I guess. She really captured my heart. And for the first time in about 20 years, we were unsuccessful at finding a home for an animal that we rescued. I feel ... like a failure ... as regards Vicki. For the 14 years that we were in the pet foods and supplies business, it was relatively easy to find homes for rescued animals through our stores. And we even managed to find a home for Rain, the stray cat we rescued in Livingston, Texas a couple of years ago. But, alas, not for Vicki < huge, sad sigh >. Well, it's a small consolation that the brand new animal shelter of the Penticton branch of the B.C. SPCA is a very nice place. Whether she is adopted to a new home, or ultimately has to be euthanized there due to cat overpopulation in the shelter < another huge, sad sigh >, she will live happily while there, I'm sure. Their cat adoption facility is 2 large communal cat living "rooms", furnished with a bunch of over stuffed sofas and chairs, lots of tall scratching posts, lots of sunny windows with ledges, and an outdoor screened, shaded area, furnished the same as the indoor areas. The nicest cat adoption facility I've ever seen. I expected her to have to live in a cage, becoming increasingly more stressed until she becomes "cage crazy" and has to be euthanized because she becomes unadoptable. A common problem in cat shelters. But as nice as the facility was, it broke my heart a bit to have to leave here there. Goodbye and good luck, sweet little baby cat. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to do more for you. At least I prevented her from becoming a coyote snack.

We ran errands in Penticton, then I went flying while Joanne completed our shopping errands. I flew from Penticton to Oliver, landed, took off, and flew back to Penticton. Upon take off from Oliver, I had to climb at maximum rate of climb to 4000 feet to clear the mountains in front of me, to return to Penticton. Flying into and out of Oliver's short field, surrounded by mountains, is quite challenging. And the weather was deteriorating rapidly, so I had to do just a teensy bit of "scud running" in the mountains. WOO-HOO !

This evening our new Escapee friends from Colorado, Tom and Marion, came to visit us, and stay overnight. We had dinner with them in our trailer, then visited all evening. Our lot is big enough that there was no problem parking their 40 foot diesel pusher motorhome on our lot, still with plenty of room for our picnic table between our trailer and their motorhome, even with their living room slide extended. And still had room to park Lanoire.

 

September 19 ; This morning we loaded Tom and Marion into Lanoire and set off for a 4 wheel drive adventure driving up Nickel Plate Mine Road, up the back side of Apex Mountain. This is about the fourth time we've done that this summer. It's become my favourite local "thing to do" when we have visitors. The scenery is spectacular.

When we came down off Nickel Plate Mine Road we headed for Forbidden Fruit Winery, on Hwy. 3 on the other side of Keremeos, just past Cawston. Forbidden Fruit Winery is a small "Mom & Pop" winery, as are most of the wineries in the Okanagan Similkameen region. They grow all their own organic fruits, and produce handcrafted fruit wines. Their wines are superb ! Especially their dessert ice wines ! We sampled some of their wines in their tasting room. Then we went over to their "shed" to see the plum pitting operation. They were pitting plums for their first attempt at making a plum wine. When we walked into the shed we were surprised to see that the plum pitting process was done by hand. Five people painstakingly pitting plums. It was going to be about 2 days of work for 5 people to pit enough plums to make their first batch of plum wine, about 1000 bottles.

We had a wonderful picnic lunch, prepared by Marion, sitting at a picnic table on the edge of the orchard, on the banks of the Similkameen River, on a sunny day, each of us with a chilled glass of Forbidden Fruit wine. Tom had a glass of CHERYSH, a blush cherry wine, Marion had a glass of ADAM'S APPLE, an off dry white apple wine, Joanne had a glass of PEARSUASION, a dry white pear wine, and I had my favourite, POMME DESIREE, "a delicate sweet iced wine made from fall apples with aromas and flavours of caramel, cotton candy, and lavender". Are you salivating yet ? A picnic at Forbidden Fruit Winery is now going to be added to my list of favourite local "things to do" when we have visitors.

After lunch, Tom and Marion bought a couple of bottles of Forbidden Fruit wines, we drove back to Riverside RV Park Resort, and they left, headed west for Hope then on to Vancouver before heading back to Colorado.

September 22 ; Well ... my sentiment for today was ... HUH ? ! ?

We spent the day at the annual open house of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory at White Lake, up in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, between Keremeos and Oliver. What an odd place for 50 scientists to be working. It was certainly an interesting day, although there wasn't much about the place that I comprehended. Our next door neighbour, Stu, came along with us.

DSK

September 14 update

September 14 blog update

 

On Friday, August 24 we went into Penticton in the evening for the Ironman Canada Triathlon Street Party. The Ironman Canada Triathlon is an annual event in Penticton. This year, the 25th anniversary of the event, on Sunday, August 26, about 2600 triathletes will swim 3.9 km. in Okanagan Lake, then cycle 180.2 km. from Penticton to Osoyoos to Keremeos to Penticton, then run a marathon, 42.2 km. from Penticton to Okanagan Falls and back to Penticton. SHEESH ! On Friday night, Penticton's downtown streets were closed to traffic for a big street party that stretched for about 4 blocks through the downtown area. There were 4 music bands playing on free stages set up about a block apart. There were demonstrations of belly dancing and fire dancing. There were clowns and magicians and all kinds of other entertainment. We wandered around for awhile, had a very nice dinner at a Greek pizza and spaghetti restaurant, then spent the evening wandering around, listening to bands, and watching exhibitions of belly dancing and fire dancing.

Our friends Cathy and Jan Emrick left here a few days ago, and went to an RV park in Surrey for a few days of sightseeing in Vancouver. Rather fortuitously, they did not choose the RV park in Surrey where a horribly gruesome accident took place a couple of days ago, while they were in Surrey. A hot air balloon caught fire on takeoff, rose into the air as it burned, then crashed down into a blazing inferno in an RV park. Three RV's were destroyed by fire. Two people in the balloon gondola died. The others in the balloon gondola survived with burns and injuries sustained from jumping out at the height of a 4 story building. YIKES !

Tonight ( Sunday, August 26 ) when I walked Bo about 11:00 P.M. there were coyotes just outside the front gate of our park, howling at the full moon. I wonder why coyotes howl at a full moon ?

This afternoon ( Monday, August 27 ) while were walking with Bo, we met our neighbours Gil and Maria, their little dog Buppy, and their visiting pair of 12 year old nieces. They were walking up from the riverbank, having spent some time panning for gold on the Similkameen River. I was surprised to see that the result of their efforts was a small amount of black sand all flecked with shiny gold dust. Cool ! Apparently the Similkameen has quite a bit of gold dust in it, washed down from the gold mines upstream.

September 3 ; this Labour Day long weekend we worked on our screen tent / gazebo, a mouse ate a 5 inch hole in the upholstered seat of our yard swing, and Joanne was stung by a yellow jacket wasp on the inside of her leg < sigh > ! We were very saddened to learn that our excavation contractor, neighbour, and new friend Ben Nendick died this weekend of cancer. Only 2 months ago he was working here in the park developing new lots. Farewell, Ben.

September 5 ; we received an e-mail from our Escapee friend Julie in Pennsylvania. Her little dog Tansy has died. We send our condolences to Julie on the loss of her beloved pet.

September 6 ; HEY ... I just got stung by a yellow jacket wasp ! Second time this summer for me, and once for Joanne ! ****ing little buggers !

September 7, 8, & 9 ; This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we attended the Pentastic Jazz Festival in Penticton. We drove there and back each day. We had initially planned to take the trailer to Penticton for the weekend, then continue from Penticton on Monday to the Escapees B.C. Okanagan Chapter 33 Fall Rally at Fintry Provincial Park, but we couldn't find a satisfactory campground in or near Penticton. The Pentastic Jazz festival was really a lot more than just traditional jazz. Blues, zydeco, a bit of rock and roll, lots of big band, Dixieland jazz, swing, jump and jive. There were about a dozen different groups playing in 5 venues, continuously rotating. Each set in each venue was about 75 minutes, then a 15 minute break until the next group. One could stay at a particular venue all day, or move around between the venues on the festival's shuttle vans. We did a bit of both. We saw about 10 performances, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies, which were also performances featuring most of the musicians. Near the end of the festival on Sunday afternoon, we met and sat with a couple of our Escapee B.C. Okanagan Chapter 33 friends.

September 10, 11, 12 & 13 ; We've spent the last few days at the Escapees B.C. Okanagan Chapter 33 Fall Rally at Fintry Provincial Park northwest of Kelowna. We had a very good time with the local SKP chapter members, most of whom we had already met at the spring rally. We made friends with an Escapee couple from Colorado who joined our chapter's rally as guests, as they drove through the area on their way back to Colorado from Alaska. Fintry is a very nice provincial park. It has inspired Joanne and me to contemplate some B.C. camping trips next summer.

One of the activities during the rally was a hike to view a waterfall in the park. We hiked a short distance, then climbed 391 steps up to view the waterfall. One of our group's members was lagging during the hike and climb. I volunteered to "hang back" as a "tail gunner" to ensure that she didn't get left behind, alone, in an area with a bit of a bear risk. Mary was slow, but managed to complete the hike, the climb up 391 stairs to the waterfall viewing area, and then a long, circuitous hike back down bypassing the 391 stairs. I was impressed with her determination. I was more than impressed when I found out later that she's ... wait for it ... 80 years old !

September 14 ; Say hello to Vicki ! Last night I was having difficulty falling asleep. Around 1:00 A.M. I went outside for a smoke. I sat at our park bench, staring up at the Milky Way. When I looked down, a small animal ran across the road and stopped at my feet. YIKES ! Was I ever startled before I realized it was a kitten. What's a kitten doing running around our park in the dark at 1:00 A.M.? It took me half an hour to catch her. She was obviously terrified of being outside, alone in the dark, but was also terrified of being caught by a stranger. When I finally caught her, it took me another half an hour to calm her down. And my hands were severely scratched and bit. I'm a bit paranoid about cat bites ever since a bite by our previous cat Toby put me in the hospital for 2 days with a severe infection.

When I finally had her calmed down, I was at a loss as to what to do next. I contemplated putting her in our storage shed. I went inside, woke up Joanne, and explained. I gave the kitten to Joanne while I went to do first aid on my shredded hands. By the time I was finished, both Joanne and the kitten were fast asleep under the covers. The kitten remained asleep under the covers, snuggled against Joanne for the rest of the night.

This morning we examined her closely. She's only about 4 months old. I determined that she was probably born around Victoria Day, so I named her Vicki. She seems in good health. Clean ears, no mites. She spent most of the day lounging around on our bed. She seems desperate for safety and security. Poor baby ! We found out from other residents in the park that she has been roaming around our park for the last week. I'm surprised she didn't become a snack for the coyotes ! We haven't been around for the last week, so hadn't seen her. Other park residents tried to catch her, but were unsuccessful. We took her along with us when we took Bo for a walk this afternoon, to see if any neighbours would be interested in adopting her. No luck so far. She's not afraid of Bo. Teddy ignores her for the most part. She's very cuddly. What a sweet little baby cat ! Reminds us very much of Teddy when we got him 15 years ago as a kitten.

My conclusion is that she was "dumped" at the gate to our park. She's healthy and well fed. She's obviously fond of affection. She's obviously fond of sleeping under the covers. She's obviously neither feral, nor a "barn" cat. There's no homes nearby. There's no farms or ranches nearby. The only way she got to our park was to be brought here ! "Hey, let's get rid of that damn kitten by dropping it off outside the gate of that new "old folks" RV park."

DSK