Valley of Heaven

There are lots of wild mushrooms here, of various kinds. I know nothing about mushrooms and wouldn't presume to eat any I'd found growing wild, but they are interesting, and some are beautiful. Yesterday morning I took the camera along on the walk with Red Chief and while he read the news I took mushroom pictures. Don't know what any of them are, but thought I'd share their pictures anyway.

The cluster of orange-speckled ones are growing at the base of a tree in the site across from us. There's another mushroom on the other side of this tree. It may be the same type, just further along in its life cycle.

In the orchard across the road there are numerous examples of these round, dry mushrooms. Some are the size of baseball, a couple even larger. These don't appear to have a stem, one had been kicked loose and had no "foot" or stem. There was a larger one (about 6 inches across) of the same colour and texture, but it was flat. Again, I'm not sure if this is the same kind of 'shroom as the round ones farther ahead in its cycle or not. I'm gonna keep my eye on them and see.

The last ones are tiny, the size of the fingernail on my pinkie finger. They grow in clusters at the base of the cherry trees and look like brownish-grey pebbles. They are easily overlooked as they are only about 1/2 inch high.

The day dawned clear and quite cool (6 degrees C or about 40 degrees F) with a brisk "Nordic" wind. I bought a digital thermometer at the hardware store yesterday. It has a remote sensor so we can take the temperature in two spots. We placed the main unit at the foot of my bunk, and the secondary sensor in the kitchen. When we got up at 8:00 am, the temperature was 66.9 F at the foot of my bunk. Perfect for sleeping in our new Mountain Equipment Coop sleeping bags which arrived yesterday.

There's a Farmer's Market down by the river every Saturday morning spring through fall. We went down and while there were very few booths, we got something from almost all of them, organic tomatoes, red and green peppers, basil, cucumbers, a jar of apple butter, and one of Dave and Pat Whalley's fabulous pies. The rhubarb and raspberries came from their garden and the pie was dee-lish!

Once we'd finished shopping we took a walk along the river to see the big red kokanee salmon migrating upstream. I would love to have taken a picture, but the reflections on the water made it impossible. There were many of the big fish working their way toward their birthplace and it was a thrill to see them. They are a spectacular colour!

We took a little drive on the way back, south toward Osoyoos. What a beautiful spot this is. It's like one huge park. One realtor says the postal code, V0H 1T0, is an acronym for "Valley of Heaven in the Okangan".

Once we were back from our rambles I took a very impatient cat for a nice long walk. He had to read the news and check out all his favorite spots. Someone's little grey poodle came up to the fence. The Red Chief noticed and turned around to run back to the fence where the dog was standing. The dog had the bad manners to bark, which made Sal hiss. I've noticed that he is very interested in dogs, and wants to go see every dog he lays eyes on. He isn't afraid of dogs, and wants to play with them. This makes me wonder if there wasn't a dog friend in his past, when he was just a small kitty?

When we returned from the walk Tony joined us to sit in the sun until I decided to come in a make lunch. I made a corn salad using many of the ingredients I'd just bought, put some sliced roast beef out, along with a bowl of grape tomatoes. It was a meal fit for a king, and we invited our next door neighbour, 82-year-old Bernie, to join us. We had a good conversation and a pleasant time. Lovely day!