How time flies

The snow is here to stay now. Since last week we've had about 18 inches of lovely white stuff. I really do love fresh fallen snow. The sound of peace to me. The world gets quiet you can hear everything because the noisy rushing of cars is dulled by the insualtion of the snow. Chris and I skiied around the Millenium trail which starts at the bottom of our streets and runs a loop around the edges of the Yukon River. To make it more fun we skiied a couple more kilometers into downtown and had coffee and a muffin at a lovely shop called Baked. Then we skiied back home. Right to our door. I had been meaning to ski to work for many years. yes years. I finally did so on Monday. Sadly, by then, everyone had shoveled and ploughed, erasing our lovely and hard made tracks from the day before. It would probably have been faster to walk. Tomorrow I'll try a slightly different route and see if it works out better.

Snow!

I was planning to bicycle to work until the 1st of October. Yesterday the snow was still on the ground as I made my way to work, but not falling. Today it is a blizzard out there! Very nasty wet stuff. The garden survived yesterday's dump, but not sure if it will survive today's. We've had a good run of it this year with 6 millimeter plastic.

Out Buildings

It has always been my thesis that one cannot have too many out buildings. They keep the house tidy, while being a haven for things that a dedicated pack-rat simply cannot throw out. We are now the proud posessors of 1 finished shed, two enormous wood sheds and the foundation for what we are calling a 'shack'. The shack will be all weather with the possiblity of heat and electricity depending on a variety of factors including the zoning, building code and easement owner (our local utility company).
This state of affiars is a vast improvement over the former site of trench warfare that was what the backyard looked like. It was a lesson to us all, do not allow a boy in the backyard with a digging machine. The idea of digging holes overwhelms whatever good sense said boy may posesses and the concept that you need to put the detritious dug from the hole somewhere never occurs.

Fall is here

Yes, it is officially fall here in the Yukon. I had to turn the furnace on last night! It has been rainy and rotten since Tuesday. I was almost lulled into believing that fall would arrive late when our weekend weather was smoking hot. Not so.

Tough Spring

It has been a crummy month, hence no blogs. On the happy side I hat a few days of lovely cycling in Vancouver and environs. The cherry blossoms in Vancouver at this time of year are worth a visit.

Gardens, flowers and seeds

The seed catalogue owners are getting smart, this year they sent some catalogues out before Christmas. It was fun to start speculating about what I'd like to grow as the new year started. I still haven't decided, I'm always a bit of an optimist, hoping that flowers I love will grow here. Each year I try a few different things, some are grand successes, others (more of them) dismal failures. I am particularly excited this year because I have new scope for my endeavours. The back yard is finally land scaped giving me (us) 3 built and soil filled raised beds. The local agriculture branch even tested the soil for us. It is a good growing medium, it just needs to be beefed up with 20-20-20 (or the organic equivilant of blood meal and bone meal).

What should I take a chance on?

White Knuckle Drive

So far we'd avoided nasty road conditions pretty much. There were a few washouts, but nothing insurmountable until today. Holy @#$@#!

Anza Borrego

The rain just didn't stop. I don't know what to say. The lack of sun was really sad. So, after sending the camping stuff we never used it. When i say rain, I mean biblical, torrential, 30 days and 30 nights kinda stuff. Stepping outside was like stepping into a high end shower. There is nothing to do indoors in Borrego Springs. Sigh.

More Desert Rain

So the question now is; 'where do we go'. The entire southwest of California, parts of Arizona and on east are socked in, subject to extreme rain. Or as they put it in the desert; 'an 80% chance of measurable rain'. That @#$@# is supposed to go on until we fly back to Whitehorse. Don't get me wrong, I'm no shrinking violet. A little rain won't deter me. However, when it rains in the desert, it pours. There is so much rain just stepping outside is litle stepping into a shower. Stay tuned gentle readers... who knows where we'll end up...

Joshua Tree

We had a restful night at the 29 Palms Inn. The coyotes here are lippy buggers though. They were having some sort of hootenanny last night. You just had to know their celebration was bad news for someone else.

We we woken with the desert dawn by a huge flock of California Quails (also called Gambrel's Quail I believe). They were amazingly cute with little dangling feathers on their heads running around, bobbing, weaving and generally making a racket. we figured since we were up, we might as well get going, seeing as the sun was actually shining. We ate and drove into Joshua Tree National Park looking for a hike. Yesterday I bought a Joshua Tree hiking map and today it paid for itself. It's funny, there are lots of hiking trails on the map, but none of them seem to be sign posted at the road. We had a fabulous hike. We just walked up a wash into the mountains, looking for the mine that was the genesis of the hike. We never did find the mine site, but we had a fabulous hike. We even saw a Bobcat. My first ever Bobcat sighting. I also saw a Jackrabbit and a few Antelope Ground Squirrels.

By the time we turned around an headed back we we kind of amazed at how far we went and how long we were gone. It was just so pleasant hiking along the wash looking at the flora and trying to see the fauna. Keep in mind the whole time there is spotty sunshine. Not too bad we thought. We drove through part of the park between 29 Palms and Joshua Tree (the town, not the park). There were fields of Joshua Trees some of which actually looked like trees once they got big enough. We also did a short interpreted trail that disclosed the existence of a desert oak and the pine tree from whence pine nuts fall. The landscape here is beautiful and surreal. My DH and I find we actually like it, unlike our previous desert experience which was Mojave/ Chihuahua in Texas.

29 Palms

If you read the last post you know we got rained on. We are hard core, but didn't bring camping gear suitable for the rain. Thinking; 'we are going to the desert, it won't rain there'. We stayed at a nice place and had some good times.

Rain in the Desert

We arrived in Palm Springs, actually Thousand Palms at a friend's place just after dark and just as the rain started. We arrived back from our cruise to news of a week of rain predicted for the entire south of the USA. We hoped for the best. This morning we had cloudy breaks and a little rain. We drove into Joshua Tree National Park and checked out all the camp sites at Indian Cove. If you are ever in the neighbourhood you should check it out. You might want to reseve a site as it is obviously popular despite having no water and only pit toilets. Anway, we headed out into Rattlesnake Canyon for a hike. About 20 minutes into the scramble the heavens opened. We futzed along a bit longer trying to decide if we should turn back. We did turn back and are happy we did. The rain made the rocks very slick. There were torrents of water sliding down the rocks. Chris took a photo of me taste testing the desert rain. It was amazing.

When we later stopped in at the Visitor Reception Centre it was confirmed that we were wise to turn back as those types of washes are very dangerous in this amount of rain.

San Diego - Farmer's Market & Balboa Park

Today, Saturday is the Little Italy Farmer's Market. Fabulous food, I can't even say how awesome the food was. Then we took our lovely repast out to Balboa Park. We rented a surrey (4 wheeled, 6 seater bike) and pedaled around. Good times were had by all.

The Cruise

Our first cruise was really fun. If only the sun had come out more it would have been perfect. We were upgraded because my inlaws had cruised with Carnival before. That was nice because we got a window. day one we sat out at sea. Kinda weird, but fine for relaxing. Day 2 we went to Catalina island. I'd go back there. I love little islands. it was mountainous and totally beautiful. We did a very entertaining kayak. Day 3 was Ensenada Mexico. We did a really enjoyable wine tour. Who knew Mexico had wineries? we caught an organic place and an industrial place. Both enjoyable. Then Day 4 back in San Diego. Nice.

San Diego Little Italy

When we first arrived in San Diego (after what was my first pleasant experience with Air Canada in many weeks) we had no idea how close the airport is to town. Not only is it close, but the planes practically touch the top of the homes at one end of Little Italy, where we were staying. We loved Little Italy here in San Diego. There are chairs and tables for sitting everywhere, on all the street corner enticing you to stay and enjoy the sun.