Spirit Animal

I was delighted to find two large toads in the well of our irrigation connections.

Then I proceeded to drown them out by turning on the sprinkler.  So I had to give them a hand to hop out.  Here's one:

And here's the other:

I hope they stick around and control my slug problem!

Another Bee

I think this is the brown-belted bumblebee (Bombus griseocollis) seen here getting up close and personal with a rock cress flower.

Blossom Time

My sour cherry trees are in bloom today.

I followed this bumble bee around for quite a while, trying to snap a picture before it moved on to another blossom:

Looks like this is probably the orange-rumped bumblebee (Bombus melanopygus). 

Inaugural Voyage

We finally put our new collapsible kayak in the water on Friday.  It took us an hour to assemble it (but this will get faster as we become more familiar with the process.  Above Leo installs the rudder.

We are pleased to say that it floats.

It's also quite nimble and fast.  But the seats are incredibly uncomfortable so we'll have to do something about that.

In other news, a great tailed grackle was spotted at a feeder near Scout Island.  A first sighting ever.  Let's hope it's not the first of a coming invasion.  These are the noisiest birds you can find, from Southern California down to Mexico. 

Sunny Days

Spring has finally come to Williams Lake.  Last week the ice finally came off the lake (for comparison, it came off a month earlier in 2017) and we took our kayaks  and paddled around Scout Island.

Today we strolled around the nature trails looking for birds.  The masses of waterfowl have headed north now, and the songbirds are coming in.  We heard a sora call and spotted our first Wilson's warbler today.

The turtles were out catching the rays. We counted 43 out sunning on the logs in Turtle Bay.

Some of the resident turtles

My compost box finally defrosted enough and I am now digging the vegetable garden for planting. 

Sun Run Weekend

We drove to Vancouver last weekend for the Sun Run 10 k.

It was a lovely sunny weekend.  We went out Friday night for our customary Giant Extremely Cheap Sushi feed in Richmond.

On Saturday Sue and I windowshopped on Main Street and checked out the second hand clothing stores.

For dinner we went for Indian buffet on Broadway.  Over 70 items! Are you detecting a preference for quantity over quality perhaps?  (Actually food ws yummy both nights).  This photo is of the vegetarian course:

Leo interrupted this weekend of overeating for a brief successful 10 k run with 41,000 of his closest friends:

We met Leo just after he crossed the Burrard Bridge.  So fast he's just a blur!

He came in third in his age class so he's still got it.  There was a good band playing so we spectators stuck around for another hour watching the hordes pass by.

Thank