October 20 update

October 20 update

 

Tonight we attended Taste Of Our Valley at Victory Hall in Keremeos with our new neighbours Terry and Marlene. Taste Of Our Valley is the annual fall harvest celebration in our region. All around the perimeter of Victory Hall were tables set up for the local wineries, restaurants, and fruit stands / orchards. In the centre of the hall were tables and chairs. We spent the evening wandering around, visiting each merchant's table, "grazing" on samples of the local restaurants' specialties, sipping wines and hot apple ciders, munching on many varieties of locally grown apples, and eating baking, while chatting with Terry and Marlene. There was a silent auction table set up with goods and services provided by local merchants. There was an astounding fall display of produce and flowers set up at the back of the hall. Fall displays of local produce and flowers are a bit of a specialty of all the fruit stands around Keremeos.

This was the last local event of the fall season. Time for us "Snowbirds" to head south soon. Joanne and I will be leaving here November 1. I'll probably resume a ( "more or less" ) daily journal once we start travelling.

DSK

October 12 update

October 12 blog update

 

October 8 ; Happy ( Canadian )Thanksgiving

A few years ago we celebrated ( American ) Thanksgiving while we were WorkCamping at Trout Lodge in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri. Around the dinner table I commented how privileged we felt, as Canadian "Snowbirds" / RV'ers, to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving twice a year ; in Canada in October and again in the United States in November. An American did not know that Canada and the United States celebrate Thanksgiving on different dates. He asked if Canada celebrates Christmas on the same date as the United States ? I’ll pause for a moment to let the impact of that sink in ... HA HA HA ! My very sarcastic response was ; “No ... Canadian Jesus Christ was born on a different day than American Jesus Christ”. SHEESH ... some of those “mountain folk” need to get out of the house more !

Tonight we had Thanksgiving dinner 3 of 3 with neighbours Dorothy, Mike, and Stu, at Dorothy's and Mike's home. We contributed dessert. Joanne contributed a freshly baked apple pie. I contributed a bottle of Inniskillin Okanagan Vidal Icewine, along with Blue Cheese and crackers. Joanne made an apple pie for tonight's Thanksgiving dinner 3 of 3, and she also made one for Thanksgiving dinner 1 of 3 with Dwight and Jennifer a couple of days ago. Neither pie turned out very well, which is surprising. Joanne usually makes excellent apple pie, a talent she must have inherited from her mother, who made the best apple pies I've ever tasted.

The "thanks" that I "give" on Thanksgiving is to be grateful that Joanne has survived cancer. Well, most of her survived. A few parts had to be removed. HA HA HA !

 

October 9 ; Today I flew over Riverside RV Park Resort, to see it from the air. I took off from Penticton and flew south to Kaleden, climbing to 6500 feet. At Kaleden I turned southwest into the Keremeos Creek Valley, following Hwy. 3A. EUUUWWW ... too low ! I climbed to 9000 feet. At Keremeos, I turned west into the Similkameen River Valley, following Hwy. 3 and the Similkameen River. Halfway from Keremeos to Riverside RV Park Resort, I passed the Ashnola River Valley, where the Ashnola River meets the Similkameen River. EUUUWWW ... too low ! The mountains got even higher, and the Similkameen Valley got even narrower. I climbed to 10,000 feet. At 10,000 feet and above, a pilot can only fly for 30 minutes without supplementary oxygen. When I saw the bridge where Hwy. 3 crosses from the north side of the Similkameen River to the south side, at Hedley, I realized that I had missed seeing Riverside RV Park Resort and had flown too far. Darn ! I had been occupied with trying not to fly myself into a mountain ! I turned around and started flying back. I saw Riverside RV Park Resort on the way back. When I got to Keremeos, and turned north towards Penticton, I encountered quite a bit of turbulence. EUUUWWW ... too low ! I climbed to 10,500 feet. Halfway back to Penticton, I realized I would have to take a shortcut, or be in violation of the supplementary oxygen regulation. I turned east to fly over the mountains, expecting to find the Okanagan Valley on the other side of the mountains, somewhere between Oliver and Okanagan Falls. Sure enough, when I crossed over the mountains, I was near Okanagan Falls, and could even see the Penticton airport runway from that altitude. I began to descend over Skaha Lake towards Penticton. Darn ... by the time I reached Penticton, I was still too high to make a landing. I had to fly across Penticton, from Skaha Lake on the south side to Okanagan Lake on the north side, to descend to "circuit height" for landing.

I was surprised to see that all the mountains north of Keremeos and the Similkameen River, all the way to Penticton, are still free of snow, but south of Keremeos and the Similkameen River, all the way as far as I could see into the state of Washington, the mountain tops are covered in a lot of snow already.

 

October 10 ; Happy 53rd Birthday to me

After we ran some errands in Keremeos, I took a back roads drive to Princeton, along Old Hedley Road, just to explore, reflect upon life, etc..

 

October 11 ; HMPH ... found 2 dead Gopher Snakes today on the roads in the park. Squished by vehicles. Maybe they shouldn't sun themselves on the warm asphalt.

 

October 12 ; Happy 33rd Anniversary to us

This afternoon I wrote an article on dog training, and submitted it for publication in our RV park's monthly newsletter. I've decided to write a monthly article on dogs, and dog training issues. In addition to our park's newsletter, maybe I'll submit them to the Escapees magazine.

Tonight we went for dinner to the Branding Iron Steak House in Keremeos, a local restaurant owned by a German immigrant family. Despite being called a "steak house", their specialty is Schnitzel. Joanne had a Pork Schnitzel, and I had a Wiener ( Veal ) Schnitzel. It was a very nice dinner, although a little expensive.

DSK

October 7 update

October 7 blog update

 

September 24 ; This afternoon we took Bo for a long walk, as we do every day. As he was squatting, doing his business, a snake ( probably a Western Yellow-bellied Racer ) slithered underneath him. YIKES ! I jumped, Joanne shrieked, Bo was oblivious. HA HA HA ... just about got bit in the butt there, Bo.

September 30 ; Today was cold, windy, and raining lightly. Too bad. Today was the Festival Of The Grape in Oliver. With disappointment we didn't go, thinking that attending an outdoor event on a day like today would be pretty miserable. Last year we attended Festival Of The Grape, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Yesterday we attended the Celebration Of Life memorial service for our excavation contractor, neighbour and new friend Ben Nendick, who died a few weeks ago of cancer.

October 4 ; This week was the Okanagan Wine Festival, with special events all week all around the Okanagan Valley region. We were very disappointed to be unable to attend the Festival Of The Grape in Oliver last weekend, but today we went to Oliver to attend an Ice Wine Discovery tour at Inniskillin Okanagan Winery. A tour guide walked us up to the Dark Horse Vineyard owned by Inniskillin, where they grow the Vidal and Riesling grapes for ice wines. While she explained the ice wine making process, I threw rocks for the vineyard's resident Border Collie, Boonjie, to retrieve. Whenever I would divert my attention to the tour guide, Boonjie would place her "retrieve rock" on top of my shoe. HA HA HA !

From the vineyard we walked over to a building filled with barrels of fermenting, aging wine, for tastings of Inniskillin’s white wines, red wines, and ice wines. I was surprised to learn that the toasted oak barrels that the wineries use to store wine during fermentation cost the wineries $800 to $1000. I was surprised because we regularly see local ads for the sale of barrels or barrel halves for use as planters. After a few uses, the wineries sell their used oak barrels for ... $30 ! Wow ... talk about depreciation ! We tasted Inniskillin's Vidal and Riesling ice wines, being taught by the tour guide the "correct" ways to drink ice wines, sampling them with some ideal food pairings. Again I was surprised, to discover that ice wines pair perfectly with Blue Cheese. We had Blue Cheese on crackers with Vidal Ice Wine. Perfect ! I don't like Blue Cheese, but when "washed down" with ice wine, the taste is superb ! We bought 2 bottles of Inniskillin Vidal Ice Wine. We'll serve one of the bottles with Blue Cheese and Joanne's freshly baked apple pie, as dessert on Monday when we have ( our third ! ) Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbours.

Between Oliver and Osoyoos we stopped at a fruit stand to buy some of Joanne's favourite apples, Aurora Golden Gala, grown only in the Oliver area. My favourite apples are the Ambrosia, developed and grown only in the Keremeos area. Between Osoyoos and Cawston we stopped at Forbidden Fruit Winery to buy a bottle of my favourite ice wine, Pomme Desiree ( French for Desired Apple ). It's for a special celebration when we reach Land's End at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico next March.

October 5 ; Today while walking with Bo, we found a dead snake on the road. I picked it up to bring it home to discard it in the garbage. It had obviously died from a bite behind the head. I wonder what bit and killed it ? None of the little dogs in the park, except for Bo and maybe Spencer would be bold enough to bite a snake. And since we were walking with Betty and Spencer at the time, we knew it couldn't have been either Bo or Spencer. Maybe a squirrel ? Or a marmot ? I went onto the "snakes in B.C." website to be identify the snake with certainty. It was a Gopher Snake, commonly referred to by the locals as a "Bull Snake". Gopher Snakes are constrictors that resemble rattlesnakes, but obviously without the rattles.

October 6 ; Today our friends from Vancouver, Dwight & Jennifer, drove out to spend the afternoon with us, and have Thanksgiving dinner. We walked around the park and chatted for awhile, then drove into Keremeos so that Jennifer could buy some fresh apples. We drove around the village a bit, showing them the local orchards and vineyards, and stopping occasionally so that Jennifer could take pictures.

Back at the trailer, we chatted, and had an early Thanksgiving dinner, before they left for the 4½ hour drive back to Vancouver. Thank you, Dwight and Jennifer, for driving all the way out here to visit with us.

I learned from our neighbour Stu today that the fatal bite wound on the dead Gopher Snake we found yesterday was probably inflicted by a Rattlesnake. Apparently Gopher Snakes and Rattlesnakes don't get along well, especially when "arguing" about the occupancy of a wintering den location. Gopher Snakes can kill Rattlesnakesby constricting them to death. Rattlesnakes can kill Gopher Snakes with a poisonous venom bite. Guess the Rattlesnake won that one !

Bo "escaped" today and ran over to visit with a couple who were looking at a nearby lot, contemplating purchasing it. As he ran over to meet and greet them and their Jack Russell Terrier, the other dog attacked Bo, not surprising behaviour for a startled Jack Russell. When faced with "fight or flee", a Jack Russell would choose "fight". Bo, of course, was more than willing to go a round or two with a "Jack". Stupid, ****ing Terriers, both of them ! The short fracas left Bo with a broken harness.

October 7 ; Tonight we attended a potluck Thanksgiving dinner for all the residents of Riverside RV Park Resort. A couple of the park's residents provided turkeys, and everybody else contributed Thanksgiving dinner fixings. Joanne made a wonderful wild rice casserole side dish, one of my favourite recipes of hers. We shared a small table with new lot owners in the park who got married a few weeks ago and have just returned from their honeymoon in Las Vegas. Chatting with them during the evening made us realize that some of us are Riverside RV Park / Similkameen Valley kind of people, ... and some aren’t !

DSK