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