By (Sort of) Popular Demand

Well, I've waited by the phone and, so far, no calls from House Beautiful , Better Homes and Gardens or even Style At Home, which is Canadian! So, I guess the only way to show my three or four faithful readers the glories of the Beach House is to drag out the camera, clear away the debris and take my own pictures. A proper "Home Stager" would probably have mopped first but I was too lazy.

I've been a bit preoccupied the last couple of days because we've had a constant string of tourists in and out. I know the place is a highlight of any Fine Homes of the Okanagan Tour, but after several thousand visitors my hospitality is wearing thin.

My visitors are as alike as peas in a pod, about 1/4 of an inch long and not easily dissuaded. They come in the door, form a long line across the floor, go under the table and exit through a window frame. A few stray of them off the path and end up on the counters, which I do not encourage. It may ruin my reputation as a gracious hostess but I have been using the hand vac to suck them up, then I dump them (unharmed but confused) outside. (Maybe the ride in the vacuum is the object of the trip?) I sprinkled borax at their entrance and exit points this morning and they have slowed down to the occasional curious rubber-necker. I hope I am getting somewhere. Vacuuming before morning coffee is not my idea of the way to start the day.

Anyway, here's the tour for those with two legs, starting in the heart of every home, the kitchen. I am greatly enjoying having counter space, a table which we can actually use, a four burner stove, a good-sized fridge and a freezer and two sinks!

Strangely enough there isn't much more storage space in this place as in the Tinpalace. But it's much more accessible. Those who remember the Tinpalace know it had a two foot square pantry with three shelves. What went onto those shelves promptly disappeared into the back, and never saw light of day again. Here the shelves are narrow and you don't lose as much stuff, though I still fish around a bit for items I've misplaced.

Next we step back and take a look toward the kitchen from the living room. You can see the nice little red fireplace, and what wallpaper Salvador hasn't shredded. You also see the rocking chair and a bit of the sofa.

Sal has always loved to be rocked. In Calgary I had a rocker and he'd jump up in my lap, roll over and snuggle in for a good cuddle and a rock. And a nap. Since I didn't have a rocker in the Tinpalace he went a long time without a rocking. He hadn't seemed to remember his old "sooky baby" ways until a few days ago. I was sitting in the rocker when two of his brain cells sparked and he remembered rocking. He jumped up, rolled over and sighed a big sigh. And pestered me endlessly for two days - he wanted to be rocked non-stop.

Next picture catches the corner of the banquette in the dining room LOL, but looks into the right hand corner of the living room, where you see the Chippendale desk which belonged to Tony's Mom. It's at an angle to the wall because the wheel well is in that corner and you can't put something flat against that wall. I like it at an angle anyway. As you can see there are storage cupboards above the sofa and chair. These are very handy. The little doll on the sofa was made by Mandy, and was a gift eight or nine Christmases ago. It has such a beautiful face, it looks much like our lovely d-i-l!

Finally, we end up in the bedroom, where the cover on the bed reminds me of one of my favorite plants, the blue hosta. You can see that we removed the nightstand on that side of the bed and replaced it with a filing cabinet. The small drawer units on top are great for the multitude of small loose objects that seem to collect. Sitting on top are Bimbo, the sock monkey my sister-in-law June made for me when I was five, a cloth doll made by my late friend Judy, and Chinese doll, carrying her baby sister and a little teddy I bought years ago.

So, that's the tour. I am going to quit sitting by the phone waiting for decor magazines to call, and take the cell phone and sit in the garden, waiting for gardening magazines to call.

Realizations and Rhubarb

It was the Victoria Day weekend, the first "long" weekend of summer, or what passes for that season in much of Canada. And, to our delight, our children managed to shake off the shackles of commerce and spend the weekend with us.

The realization part of this post is that it hit me after the kids left that though I love them as much as I did when they were tiny, I have reached the point where I see them as adults who no longer need "mothering". I can enjoy their company without feeling responsible for them. It's a good emotional place to be.

Though we have had a very cool spring, a heat wave moved in just in time for the weekend. We had sunny skies and warm temperatures. Highlights of the weekend were; (in no particular order)

A lengthy late evening talk with Ian, just the two of us, sitting in the garden. A bat noticed the porch light and came by to check for insects. We didn't actually see the bat but we saw its shadow. Ian said there were several gliding around the light poles the previous night. He could hear their squeaking as they echo-located their prey. Not many people can hear the high frequency calls emitted by bats. Ian must have inherited that from me. I can hear very high noises which most people don't notice at all.

A second highlight was a long walk by the lake with Zak. There is a nicely developed path which runs through a range of micro-ecosystems, from sand and sagebrush all the way to marsh and creek. Along the way many of the wild plants were blooming or pushing madly towards bloom. At one time there was a house along this path.

They must have had a lovely garden, for many "domesticated" species have escaped and naturalized into the woods. For example the lilies are coming up in profusion, their robust stalks and folded leaves a faint promise of the glories to come.

The rhubarb is miles ahead of the lilies. There are many huge plants with dozens of smaller volunteers surrounding them. The leaves uncurl from the center with the complexity of waves breaking on shore. Currant bushes and roses have simply run riot. None are blooming yet but the scene will be spectacular when they do.

Wisteria vines wind through the trees, wrapped like shaggy package twine around and around trunks and branches. It's in bloom right now, heavy with purple and white pendants. Wild catnip grows in pungent profusion. I plucked a pocketful of leaves for Salvador. He usually eats a couple of leaves and I dry the rest for later. This time I emptied my pocketful on the floor and he ate every last one! He then staggered to the bed in happy bliss and snored away the rest of the afternoon.

The Mahonia, or Oregon Grape Holly is also in bloom. These are beautiful native plants which make spectacular garden plants, if you can find one in a nursery. Oregon grape is also extremely useful in herbal medicine. It stimulates the flow of bile and is often used to treat jaundice, hepatitis, poor intestinal tone and function, and general gastrointestinal dysfunction. The berberine alkaloid, a constituent of Oregon grape, has been shown to be of benefit for some patients with cirrhosis of the liver.

Oregon grape is also used to treat colds, flu, and numerous infections. In laboratory studies, it has been shown to kill or suppress the growth of some of the nastiest disease-causing microbes: Candida and other fungi, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, E. coli and numerous others. Berberine inhibits the ability of bacteria to attach to human cells, which helps prevent and treat infections.

The mullein is one of the first plants up. It has pretty furry rosettes of leaves which beg to be touched. Mullein was originally an English garden flower which escaped cultivation in Colonial times and has spread right across the continent. It is another enormously useful plant in the herbalist's arsenal. The leaves, brewed into a tea, are an excellent treatment for asthma or stomach and bowel complaints. If you simmer the flowers gently in olive oil in a double boiler and then strain the oil it is wonderful for treating ear infections. Doctors are now recommending that children's ear infections not be treated with antibiotics, and mullein flower oil is a natural alternative which eases both the pain and clears infection. The flower oil can also be used to treat cold sores and hemorrhoids.

Other native plants which were growing along the path or in the marsh included; tansy, wild carrot, cattail rushes, rabbit brush, Saskatoon bushes, scouring rushes, horsetail grass, false Solomon's seal, lamb's quarters (an excellent green vegetable at this time of the year), yellow salsify, goldenrod, mountain sorrel, rose root, stork's bill and others I can't recall off-hand.

Zak and I made our way slowly down the half mile circuit and back, touching, smelling, examining, and enjoying the plants we saw along the way. We saw Canada Geese, plovers, rusty blackbirds and red-winged blackbirds, barn swallows, and a yellowthroat (I saw it, he didn't). The crowning bird sighting was a trio of American Avocets, birds I'd never seen before, standing at the edge of the water. I had my bird glass with me so we were able to observe them closely. Gorgeous!

I didn't get one-on-one time with Mandy, but we did have a nice visit in the last hours before they left. She's a creative and spirited young woman who is always embroiled in a project.

The only regrets for the weekend are that Tony wasn't feeling very well, and I had a terrific migraine on Saturday. The kids all had things to do but it made me miss a bbq Mandy's grandparents hosted in Penticton. This means I didn't get the chance to visit with Mandy's mom, Carol, who I haven't seen since we left Calgary. :(

I guess there's no perfection in this world, but aside from those disappointments this weekend came close.

Can You Stand It?

More gardening talk? Best run now if you can't. :)


The coleus plants I bought last week have done nothing but sit and pout. I think they may have been frost-nipped in our cold spell and they may never recover. Most disappointing. And I am still pining for that fern, so today I trotted off to the local nursery, called "Windmill Gardens".

My garden has taken a distinct trend. I am very fond of plants with dark foliage, but all purple foliage begins to look a bit funereal, so I fell into a lime green, purple, purple red, and (of course) various shades of green from grey green to blue-green.

I started out by picking up a dozen coleus plants, in various shades of purple, purple red and lime green, sometimes all on one plant. Looks like exploding fireworks! Try this colour combo inside and your neighbours would drop dead when they walked into the room. But outside? It's spectacular!

Then they had the Ipomoea "Blackie" Sweet Potato Vine which has vigorous trailing foliage with dark burgundy–black maple-shaped leaves. The young leaves come in a lime-green colour and mature into a rich, dark purple. I bought three of these to cluster in a triangle around my bear-berry, which is still blooming as vigorously as ever.

Adding to my collection of "Hen and Chicks" I bought a fantastic ruby-red one (!), and two different green types, one furry and greyish, almost like a soft cactus, the other lime coloured, shiny and plump as jellybeans. So I now have a half-dozen different kinds of "Hen and Chicks". Maybe I could call this a small flock? They seem to do well around here in pots, hopefully they will do as well in the ground.

I added clumps of a low and mossy-looking plant called "Creeping Charlie" to the Buddha mound. It's supposed to spread quickly and creates a lovely ground cover on gravelly soil. It naturalizes very readily here and does well without much water, which is an advantage.

Then, at various places, thinking ahead to fall, I planted a half dozen flowering kale, half purple and white, half lime and white. These should flower just as everything else is beginning hibernation.

To round it all off and bring a much needed touch of light and sparkle to a dark colour scheme, I planted a dozen clumps of sweet alyssum in a pink, purple, blue-purple and white "rainbow mix".

I am going to have to quit. I am running out of room. By mid-season there will be hand-to-hand combat in the garden as the different plants duke it out for space. But it will be beautiful, assuming they grow!

Red Letter Learning Day!

When the boys were small I baked most of the bread we ate, but over the years the kneading process has become too much for my wobbly arm muscles. Several of the neighbours at Bel Air had bread machines, and we were often the delighted recipients of a loaf of fresh, hot bread. Oh yum.

We decided a few weeks ago that we should try Tony on a gluten-free diet. Someone in this family has the gene for celiac disease and we believe it to be him. This means he can't eat store bread, and he was really missing his bread. So a couple of weeks ago I broke down and bought a bread machine. I used it a few times, trying to get the hang of it. The first time I didn't have xanthum gum, and essential ingredient of gluten-free bread, so while the bread tasted fine it crumbled at a touch.

This reminds me of a story which happened many years ago... I don't remember why I was baking a big double-layer chocolate cake, but I was. I was also in a hurry so decided I would frost it before it was completely cool. In fact it was still a bit hot to the touch. It looked beautiful, but a few minutes after I finished frosting it Ian called "Mama! Something is wrong with your cake!"

We watched in dismay as it slowly split down the middle. The two halves split into quarters and the quarters shivered themselves into smaller and smaller bits until there was a pile of steaming, sticky crumbs on the plate. Oh well, it was still great with ice cream.

Anyway, back to the bread. Yesterday, having eaten the last slice of the most recent loaf, Tony surprised (astonished) me by saying, "Could I bake bread with the machine?"

Well! Could he? I copied the recipe out and talked him through the process, as he's never baked anything before. Here you see him as he measured and mixed and stirred and got rice flour all over the kitchen.

He spooned the ingredients into the bread machine and turned out an excellent loaf of bread he has been enjoying very much. He now says he wants to bake his own bread. I think he likes playing with the bread machine! But I'm not arguing. I love it when he learns something new.

I'll get some regular flour and let him bake me some bread too. :))

Here he is with his loaf, after we'd eaten a slice each just to make sure it was edible. He was so proud. And I'm so proud of him. How many men bake their first loaf of bread at the age of 67?

Siren Call

I had to run a spate of errands Monday, and everywhere I went seemed to have plants for sale. Plants call to me just like the sirens called Odysseus, but no one has yet tied me to the mast to keep me from buying just one, or a dozen, more.

At the hardware store I bought half a dozen lemon thyme plants, some tri-colour sage (red stems, green and white pebbly-textured leaves), several summer squashes and four tomato plants.

A little bit later I found myself at the grocer's (well, I hadn't lost myself but you know what I mean), where they had a rack of - plants! Most were of no interest, but I did buy a half dozen "rainbow" coleus. Four are bright red and orange, two are green and yellow.

Tuesday we had to go to Penticton. I wanted to buy a storage cabinet at Canadian Tire, and noticed they had a large greenhouse and plant set up in the parking lot. My pocketbook and I were goners. Under the heading of, "I've always wanted to grow those" were heathers, purple Heuchera (coral bells), and best of all, hellebores. I bought several heathers, some burgundy mums, a large Heuchera, and a large Helleborus orientalis called "Pink Lenten Rose". It's in bloom now, with half a dozen green and pink bowl-shaped pink-edged flowers. The long-lasting flowers start off entirely green and gradually turn white with pink edges and pink-veined petals.

Other finds were a couple of fantastic "Dead Nettles" which have yellow-lime leaves, and look as if they are sunshine, even in shade. I planted the Heuchera toward the back, on the "Buddha Mound", with a dead nettle beside it. The contrast in colour, leaf shape and texture is gorgeous, though the contrast between the Heuchera and dead nettle confuses my poor digital camera.

I also got ivy geraniums, lots of pansies, mums and "sapphire" trailing lobelia. My hanging baskets should look wonderful in a few weeks! I still haven't found a single fern.

I put the squash and tomato plants into some large pots at the back, but the thyme, sage and coleus plants went into the bed to fill in some empty spots. I put the hellebore near the door (so much for avoiding flowering plants in the long bed). The heathers and mums went up at the front of the trailer in a bed and I planted some seeds for green leafy things - mesclun mix, rainbow chard and red and green lettuces in between and around the heathers and mums.

A little bamboo fence sets off the front edge of the garden bed and discourages foot traffic. I set a section of the same small fence at the back end of the bed, where it acts as a visual link between front and back. I leaned my plaque which says "Welcome" in Chinese against the fence at the front. I have a few more things to plant, but not many, unless I find some of those coveted ferns. I also have edging to place along the garden bed, again to discourage the feet which keep treading on my thyme seeds.

Tomorrow I will go into Summerland to pick up the round stepping stones I ordered earlier, and Linda ( One of the park managers) says they have brought in a load of gravel, and will bring some to cover the stretch of sand which now serves as the footpath.

Now it had all better grow. :))

Mud - A Beauty Pack For the Soul

I needed a chance to get in the dirt and work on my soul, so it was fortuitous that yesterday was sunny and warm. It also was the day that the Summerland Ornamental Gardens had their annual spring plant sale.

After walking the cat and feeding Tony breakfast I shot out the door as if my tail was on fire. Half way down the street my neighbour Del was working in her garden. I stopped, told her where I was going and invited her along. She dropped her spade, took off her gloves and ran for her purse, saying, "I don't have room for a single more plant, but I'll come along, just to look. And I'll bring my purse, in case something calls my name."

Something called her name, actually more than one something called her name.

As for me, I bought as much as I could carry. I've always wanted to grow lavender and rosemary, so bought some of each, and some lovely succulents. We always have called these "Hen and Chicks" because the little ones grow off the side of the larger ones. I got two varieties of those. Some "Elijah Blue" grass, which grows in clumps and is gorgeous.

I also got the last plant they had of wooly thyme, and I got a magnificent Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, 'Kinnikinnick' or 'Bear-berry'. It is covered with beautiful tiny pink balloon-shaped flowers. It should spread far and wide, as it is a magnificent ground cover for shady spots.

I also bought a toad lily, which is a little sad-looking after being frost-nipped a few nights ago at the greenhouse, but it should recover rapidly and grow about three feet high. These bloom in the fall and have spiky, delicate, orchid-like blossoms.

The site is not entirely flat. It lifts slightly as you go front to back, and the left hand side is slightly higher than the right. There are two large trees, one at the front and one about 4/5ths of the way toward the back. Both are to the left hand side. A few days ago I raked a lot of the gravel from the lower part of the site into a flat-topped mound surrounding the Buddha, under the tree to the back of the site.

This created a perfect profile for what I wanted to do. I planted the plants in a meandering bed almost up the middle of the site, beginning by planting the wooly thyme between the astilbes I planted almost a month ago. After I had the plants in I sowed perennial thyme over the entire area, to serve as ground cover under the taller plants. And behind the thyme some "bunny-tail" grass, which has a little puff of white at the top of each flowering stalk. I will put edging of some kind along the meandering line of the bed, to give it a finished look. I saw one which appears to be small stones. I think that would work perfectly, as long as it is flexible enough to bend to the curves.

An 18" square of moss got divided up into small strips and punched into the mounded gravel platform where our Buddha sits admiring the blue Hosta growing there. I'm hoping it takes off and spreads. It's a very shady spot, very well-drained (gravel) but moss only uses the soil beneath it as an anchor, as it draws its nutrients and moisture from the air. I would dearly love a carpet of moss on that mound.

To the left of the bed is hard-packed gravel. The neighbour needs access to the back of his trailer, so no point in planting things where they will be stomped into the ground, but surprisingly, the gravel ended up being a strong and very interesting part of the design. Its colour and texture ties the entire design together, giving almost a tiered effect.

I will buy some ferns, assuming I can find some, to plant along the boundary between planting bed and gravel and serve as a backdrop to the other plants. Except for the two astilbe plants at the beginning of the long row, this is predominantly a foliage garden, meant to showcase the forms, colours, fragrances and textures of leaves. Any blossoms are small and not the predominant feature.

To the right of the bed is the path we take to the back end of the trailer, where there is strong sun for six or eight hours a day. So at the back I will plant a tomato or two, and some squash plants. Also some kind of climbing something on a lattice, to hide the mess to the back. I'll put the containers and baskets of annual flowers in front, and we will be surrounded by a veritable Eden.

It's wonderful having a place to garden again. Pots are fine, if you don't have a "dirt" spot, but there's nothing to me like real honest-to-goodness digging in the mud.

End of Kayla's Journey

Kayla Marie St.Cyr

August 7, 1990 - May 2, 2008

We have lived not in proportion to the number of years that we have spent on the earth, but in proportion as we have enjoyed.
~ Henry David Thoreau

Marriage is About Sharing and Staple Guns

So I shared - my respiratory bug - with my poor husband. Last Saturday he woke up with a bone-rattling cough, which was not fair, since I wasn't quite finished with my turn yet!

He jumped the queue and has been sick ever since. This is one nasty bug. I only quit coughing yesterday, so he has a good week left. I wanted to take him to the doctor yesterday, but he said no. I wanted to take him to the doctor this morning but he said no. When I finally said, "Now will you go to the doctor?", at about 6:30 tonight he gasped yes and I helped him dress and get into the truck.

We waited a while but saw a pleasant young doctor who prescribed antibiotics, a steroid puffer for Tony's inflamed lungs, and something for his cough and muscle pain. He's now tucked back into bed, and we will hope that tomorrow he will begin to feel better.

I had a list of chores as long as a frog's tongue this morning, and after house cleaning, top of the list was to get the netting on the outside enclosure we have been trying to build for Salvador.

He spends about half his time hanging on the screen door howling to go outside. Most of the time he just wants to lie down in the yard and watch the birds, the trees and whatever is going by at the moment, but I can't sit out there all day with him. So we decided to build him a four by six enclosure which he can access with a cat flap in the "garage" door.

The floor and frame have been up for over three weeks, but first it was too cold and wet to work outside, then I got sick and then Tony got sick. So it has sat.

Today it was reasonably warm. The mock cherry trees are blooming like mad and smell wonderful so outside was the place to be. I got out the staple gun and did a temporary "fix" on the enclosure, so Sal can at least use it. We will put a proper roof on as soon as we are up to the task, but for now I put a piece of white tarp on for a roof, and stapled plastic deer netting all the way around, leaving a flap for the door.

I couldn't figure out how to close the flap so he couldn't escape but eventually used safety pins. (Okay, laugh if you must!) The safety pin goes under a staple, and clips through the deer netting. Of course I have to have a pin every two inches so "opening" the door is a bit time-consuming. I already can't wait until we can build a proper door with hinges.

I finished it and let him go in to explore. He cut his nose trying to push the netting aside, but once he realized he couldn't get out he was quite pleased with the space. I put his big litter box (which has a cover) out there, and brought the small one inside. I will put the big cat crate out there, so he has a place to snooze, and to sit on, but it's in the back of the truck and I couldn't reach it.

Sal kept running in and out. After going out and coming back in a couple of times Sal ran up to me in the kitchen, stood up and gave me a big kiss. Then he wrapped his tail around my legs and hugged me. (We call this gesture "love-tail".) He is a happy camper. Hopefully he will not be such a pain in the snout about getting outside now. He'll still get his two daily walks, but this will give him the chance to relax outside any time he wants, during the day. It may not be great architecture, but it gets the job done.

The Birdies That Sing in the Spring

Summerland is only about 50 miles north of Oliver, so I have been surprised at the different birds I've seen here. Perhaps it's because of the lake, which is only a stone's throw away. Perhaps it's because 300 ft in the opposite direction we are cupped into the shelter of some high, sandy cliffs. These are absolutely riddled with bird holes. Right next door is a vineyard and an area of uncultivated field, which includes a derelict log cabin and an impressive pile of old trunks and stumps, field debris and dirt pushed up into a 20 ft high mountain.

So the bird population spotted here so far, in no particular order, as much as I remember:

A pair of yellow-shafted flickers. These are lovely big birds with spectacular coloration, and they don't seem to mind being watched from a distance of 10-12 feet as they poke around in the grass looking for worms.

The inevitable pair of almost fearless robins. They love to tease the cat when we are out walking, by hopping just a few feet ahead of him. They let him get within about eight feet and then take off and land in a nearby tree. I saw one teasing the neighbour's cat in exactly the same way, leading the (very fat) cat to climb a tree trying to catch the robin. He was clinging onto the branch with all four feet, only a few feet short of the robin, when it flew into the adjacent tree. (And had a good laugh I presume!)

Canada geese - a mated pair - magnificent birds, but a victim of their own breeding success here in the Okanagan. This spring a team is going around addling goose eggs in an effort to reduce the enormous population. Can't help but feel sorry for the geese. They love their eggs like we love babies. When a clutch has a dozen eggs I don't know why the "addlers" can't leave at least one or two viable eggs for the geese to raise.

Rusty blackbirds with their bright yellow "bead" eye and irridescent feathers. There was a flock of about ten of them outside this morning.

Gambrel quail - three birds - not much of a covey after our hundred or so in Oliver. They live in the field next door and only occasionally come over this way.

Audubon's wood warblers - delightful little birds who for some reason look like giants bees when they fly! They land upside down on branches and trunks, pick at something there and flit to the next branch. They must be eating ants. Listed in my ancient "Birds of North America" as Audubon's warbler, there now appears to be a fair amount of confusion over the name of this bird. It is not the yellow-rumped (aka "Butterbutt") warbler which now seems to be featured in most sources.

Pygmy nuthatches They feed in the same way as the Audubon's warbler, upside down, hanging onto a tiny stem and bobbing in the wind - Alas I found one of these uncommon little birds dead after one of our unseasonably cold nights.

Red-tailed hawk pair They soar up and down on the thermals above and next to the cliffs on sunny days. They are harassed constantly by smaller, more agile birds, who dive bomb them, peck at them in mid-air and generally try to annoy them.

Barn swallows who appear to be some of the worst hawk-bedevilers.

Yellowthroats These lemon-yellow bits of sunshine have little black masks like bandits and a beautiful song!

I have heard but not seen a saw-whet owl in the middle of the night.

Pica pica (aka Magpie) Although they are almost universally despised I find the magpie's exotic appearance and incredible intelligence endearing. We raised one from infancy about 15 years ago, and I'll never look at them with anything but affection again. For the story of our maggie see Magpie Summer.

We also have coyotes, which come quite close at night, and our neighbour says the raccoons ate all the fish from her pond last summer. There are a couple of resident beavers near the beach, dedicated to removing all standing trees in the area. I haven't seen them yet, but hope to at some point when it's warm enough to sit on the beach.

How Criminals are Made

I never want to move again! It's not the sorting, packing, cleaning loading, unloading, unpacking, cleaning, etc that I have decided I never want to do again (though it's not a process I'd do for entertainment). It's the thought of going through all the flippin' paperwork.

So far it's taken us three full days to deal with the endless letters, forms and examinations. When did they start requiring a colonoscopy and a full body scan to get a post office box key and a new account at the credit union? (Thanks Dubya!)

At the post office our ID was unimportant. We could have been the advance scouts of Ghenghis Khan's army and they'd not have been concerned. But they suspected we were prevaricating when we told them where we live. With steely eyes and grim expressions they "checked the book" to make certain that the street we told them we lived on actually existed in their municipality.

Then they checked to see that there was a postal drop box at the location indicated and that it covered our "alleged" address. They checked our site rental receipt and declared it unconvincing and unsubstantiated evidence. Despite having the park name, address and phone number, our name, our site number and the signature of the park manager on it, it was inadequate to convince them to part with their precious postal box key.

They required an official letter from the park owner, reassuring them that we were permanently parked on their doorstep. This took a further ten days to acquire, and we had to go through the same interrogation process all over again. Every clerk in the place had to look over both us (hmmmm) and our letter. After 15 minutes of muttering and consultations they consented to allow us a box and key. Then they turned sunny as daffodils and chatted us up like we were all childhood next-door neighbours.

Then we went across the street to the credit union. The woman at the desk looked at us over her glasses and asked for 17 pieces of ID, blood samples and pedigree charts back to our grandsires. She looked over the stack of ID we'd brought and said of her demands (which we could not meet), "This background check is necessary. Everyone knows that the criminals choose small town banks and credit unions to launder their money." (Sheesh, you could launder every red cent we own in a salad bowl.)

By now I was feeling the need to check the mirror to see if somehow I'd morphed into a Hoochie Mama or a Harley Queen. Tony looked the same as ever, slightly myopic, bald as an egg, a little paunchy, and somewhat disheveled after wrestling with the guardians at the post office counter.

I guess we looked the part of the career criminals Ms. Credit Union has personally known and prosecuted. Maybe we resembled the masterminds of some diabolical plot! Two wrinklies, overweight and grey, schlepping into the credit union in our crocs and elastic-waist jeans seeking to defraud the nation. And she and her supervisor were absolutely certain we didn't live where claimed to. According to them, no such address exists, because they don't have their computer set up to accept site numbers. (This is the opposite of "I think, therefore I am". This was "We doubt, therefore you ain't!) She said, "Anyone who comes in and gives us an address like that doesn't know what they are talking about."

She wouldn't give us a joint account because Tony doesn't have a valid driver's license. Well, why would he? He can't see two feet in front of his nose and he hasn't driven in almost 20 years! He applied for a BC ID card three months ago but it's never arrived, and the application itself is not good enough for the citizen protectors of the financial system. All his other ID meant nothing. Passport? Has a photo but it's too old! Canadian citizenship papers? BC Medical card? Birth Certificate? No photos.

We endured the questioning. We cooperated with the authorities like the passive Canadians we are. After removing her latex gloves with a snap, and allowing us to resume our seats, Ms CU marched off to check our credit rating. Apparently you'd better have a good one or they send you and your potentially treacherous money packing. She finally allowed me to open an account, but my husband is not on it. He is persona non identifiable according to the credit union.

We reeled out of the credit union and down the street to face a new pharmacist. We couldn't believe it when they offered to fill our prescriptions, deliver them later in the day and put them on account, which we could settle whenever we were around again. I went weak in the knees and almost cried on the spot.

My tears (of joy anyway) were premature. When they delivered Tony's prescription the dosage was wrong. We had gone to the doctor in Oliver before we moved to get a new prescription for Tony. We asked (at the specialist's suggestion) that the dosage be increased.

No problem said the doctor, tapping his foot and looking at his watch. This is three-minute appointment Freddy. Every appointment is a "quickie" but not half so much fun. He never writes notes, and after a year and a half still does not recognize either of us, or remember anything about our medical histories, although he did say to me once, "Oh, you're the one with that weird stuff." We won't miss him. That day, after a minute of discussion he said, his usual, "Whatever..." like a bored 15-year-old and printed Tony a new prescription increasing the dosage.

We photocopied the prescription for our records and took it to the pharmacy to be filled at a later date. But when the medication came from the pharmacy a few days ago the dosage was wrong. I called and asked why. They said the pharmacy in Oliver had made a notation to halve the dose.

The pharmacy here called the pharmacy there and asked why the notation. They said they noticed the increased dosage and called the doctor to make sure that was what he intended. He said no, and hence the notation. (sigh)

I called the doctor's office and they said to come in. I said we've moved and I can't come in. I asked her to talk to the doctor and get it fixed, because I can't drive 100 miles to spend three minutes with him when he can fix it by simply calling the pharmacy. So far this is unresolved. He's probably trying to remember who we are, but not very hard.

I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning writing and printing letters to various governmental agencies telling them we have moved. The credit union called to say we can't live where we say we live, and we can't get mail at that address. I felt like asking her who delivers the mail, the post office who gave us the address or the credit union? I told her 100 of our neighbours get mail at the same drop box, call the post office and sort it out with them. They can examine each other's colons, mine is still a bit tender.

I am still hacking and blowing like a surfacing orca. I am grumpy, aggravated and feeling very un-Buddha-like. If I drank I'd be after a big bottle of something strong and stupifying. As it is a glass of water will have to do, but I am eyeing that bottle of codeine-laced cough syrup on the counter. Worse, I found a dime which got left in a pocket and went through the wash/dry cycle. Drugs and money-laundering. This is a clear-cut case of the credit union lady's worst expectations fulfilled.

You'd have to get a crowbar under me before I will move again.

It's Earth Day!

Ah, Earth Day, when we fondle our collective guilt and think for a few minutes about what we could do if we put our mind to it to conserve and recycle. Here the Buddha in our garden meditates on our energy usage, and what can be done about it.

I was reading that the average American home uses 30 kwh of electricity per day. So, in hopes of documenting virtue I sat down with our electricity bills for the past year and figured out our average daily usage in kwh.

I guess we are doing our part for the environment after all. Averaged out over the year we used five Kwh per day this past year. That's going to go up, because it doesn't include the power we used doing laundry at the laundromat. Now with a washer and dryer at home that power use will be more visible. However the new w/d I keep rhapsodizing about has a high Energy Star rating.

According to the sticker, washing eight loads a week at eight cents per Kwh, which just happens to be what we have been paying, costs $11.31 for an entire year! And the dern thing uses a tablespoon of detergent and liquid fabric softener per load, so it's economical on the soap too.

Summerland is starting a blue bag recycling program. Alas, the beach community is not included in the route. Summerland is divided up the middle by mountains and we are sort of in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps later they will come out here, but we are going to call and see if we can take blue bags to a recycling depot. We haven't ever had the extra energy to recycle this way, but we're hoping to make it the next step in our conservation efforts.

The lights in the Beach House are all 12 volt DC and use the same DC bulbs that you'd use in your old Ford's tail lights. DC bulbs use about 30% less power than equivalent-sized AC incandescent bulbs. We are looking at replacing a couple of our DC bulbs with LED lights. I'm not sure how that will work, but they do have advantages. Cost is not one of them. The little bulbs cost over $20.00 each! But they burn for over 10,000 hours and draw less than a watt of power, so the cost of the bulb would be offset by power savings over several years.

I'm buying locally grown produce in preference to stuff flown in from Chili or Zanzibar. The 100 mile limit is pretty tough to stick to in Canada during the winter, and I'm not ready to give up those first fresh strawberries and asparagus from California. But you can buy fresh BC grown apples here all winter long, so why buy watermelons from Mexico that taste like cucumbers?

Canadians use more energy per capita than any other nation in the world. It's time we smartened up and did what we can to put a stop to the waste around us.

A Week Down the Tubes

Last Friday, at about 3:00 am, I woke with a deep, bone-rattling cough. It kept me awake for a couple of hours, until I searched through our as-yet-unpacked boxes of grooming aids and health-care products to find a decongestant cough syrup.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I coughed. I was getting very sore by this point. Monday I... oh cut out the middle part. By the time I got in to see the doctor on Wednesday it was clear that I had pneumonia. I felt as cold as if I were sitting on an ice floe in a raging wind, I was struggling to breathe and felt as if I had been run down by a steamroller. I was too sick to drive so we took a cab to Summerland to the doctor's office.

He took my temperature, listened to my burbling chest, and said, "You have pneumonia." He gave me an antibiotic, plus some hot-damn prescription cough syrup that puts the OTC stuff to shame. He also gave me a requisition for a chest x-ray.

Three days on the antibiotic and I am beginning to feel perfectly human again, though I sound like a rusty gate when I breathe. I had that x-ray today. It was too late in the day to have it on Wednesday and I was still too sick to drive yesterday.

I haven't accomplished much this week other than slumping from the bed to the sofa. My lovely plans to achieve wonders went down the drain.

The only good that has come from it is that I've lost 10 pounds. Pneumonia must be a real energy burner, but then coughing is a good workout. Alas, I know the weight loss will not last. As soon as I am feeling well again the pounds will catch up to me. The last time I had pneumonia I lost 11 pounds in four days. I thought it was the hospital food, disgusting pap that it was, but this time I've eaten my own swill, so I guess it's the bug and not the fodder.

I'm going back to bed now. After I go have another swig of that great cough syrup.

Speaking in Code

Mr. Moo woke me at 5:30 demanding a cat cookie and I couldn't go back to the sleep, so I got up, made a pot of java, hauled out my box of gardening seeds and inventoried them. Hmmmmm.... I have six kinds of basil. Does that say *anything* to you?

I have a boot box full of seeds for plants that demand full sun. I have a very limited amount of space which gets full sun, and it's all gravel. This says "pots" to me. Thankfully, due to the generosity of my new next-door neighbour I have a good selection of *very* large pots. I think these will be just the thing for a few acorn and yellow squash plants, my basil selection, and a tomato plant or two.

I could use a flowering vine to screen the neighbour to the north, as he apparently doesn't know that soap and water applied to the *black* end of his trailer would make it all white and sparkly again. And he has a canoe pulled up there, a pile of hoses, old tools and various flotsam and jetsam. You get the picture. I need a screen. But it needs to be something which doesn't need much sun. That I have to think on.

In the place where I can use a flowering vine which does get sun I will plant scarlet runner beans, perhaps morning glories or sweet peas. The sweet peas might cook in the full sun of the Okanagan. I'll have to ask the neighbour how they do. She is an avid gardener too.

The planning of the garden is a most enjoyable pastime for the gardener. In your mind's eye everything jumps out of the ground and bursts into bloom within about a week. (This is fantasy.) In truth the plants will struggle half-heartedly out of the ground in poor competition with the weeds, attract every insect in a radius of a mile, and flower two days before the first killing frost, if they don't topple over in a windstorm first.

Nevertheless, here I am at 6:00 am on a Sunday morning, trying to decide if there's any place where four-foot tall red poppies would work. At least in my case the word gardener is code for hopeless optimist.

Welcome to the Beach House!

After sweeping up a tub of sand tracked in from the yard, and looking down our "street" to the beach, we decided to call our new home The Beach House.

We are moved, set up, almost unpacked, skirted and worn to a nub. But we are very happy with BH. We have much more room, plus that fantastic washer/dryer and bathtub.

Other things we particularly like are;

1) The bed is high, much easier to get in and out of, and much easier to make. Also comfortable.

2) The wonderful vinyl hickory plank floor which Ian bought and spent four days laying. Not only is it beautiful, it is so easy to care for.

3) Bigger fridge, large freezer!

4) Double sinks, prep room on the counter

5) four burner stove and apt. size (24") oven

6) closets to hang our clothes

7) Comfortable sofa and rocking chair in the living room

8) Comfy banquette in the kitchen. We can actually sit at the table and have our meals!

9) The view out the front window

Getting to this point hasn't been without its ups and downs but in addition to Ian's help we had help from the most wonderful friends Flo, Jim, Pat and Claude, as well as almost 40 hours of paid help from Gary the RV man.

Flo took down the dirty drapery from the BH, mended, washed and ironed it. I was thinking I'd have to replace the drapery right away, now I can do it at my leisure, thanks to Flo. She also carried most of our goods and chattels from the Tinpalace to the BH, and when I went to clean the Tinpalace in preparation for its new owner Flo pitched in with pail and soap and did the work of three people.

Her husband Jim did so much work in the Beach House we were talking about adopting him! He pulled out a cabinet which was very difficult to move, helped put up the wall back up between bath and bedroom and hung the new door.

Pat and Claude also helped a huge amount. Pat broke her wrist and arm very badly shortly after Tony broke his leg, and her recovery has been slow and very painful. She is limited in what she can do with that hand, but it didn't keep her from making and feeding us wonderful treats like cream puffs, brownies, peanut butter squares and other fantastic edibles.

Claude took out a cabinet in the bedroom and assembled and installed a file cabinet. He repaired the sofa, and he and Jim leveled the Beach House, set up the water and sewer systems and spent two days skirting it after friend Mike moved it here.

While the guys were working on the skirting, Flo, Pat and I set up the garden shed, unloaded the truck, sorted all the stuff, put what we needed access to on a frequent basis in the shed and loaded the rest back into the truck. Ian says we can't buy a small car because we use the truck for storage and he's right.

Here Flo holds up their 16-year-old Pom, Dexter. Come to think of it Flo fed us some incredible food while we were working. Her "Sex in a Pan" is memorable. Remind me to get that recipe.

We went into Summerland for lunch both days they were here. We ate at a Chinese and Western buffet place called "Johnnie's". The food is yummy and the prices are excellent.

So, we are off to a fine start. The weatherman says it will soon warm up, and we will be out of this cold cold spell we've been in for the past six weeks. Then it will be time to garden, but more about that later. All this talk about food has made me hungry.

Sometimes the Moment Sucks

After several exhausting days we finally have TP II moved from Oliver to Summerland. Spring seems farther ahead in Summerland, probably because of the influence of Okanagan Lake, which is just at the end of our short street. There are tiny leaves on the trees. However we had snow today for several hours. It didn't stick to the ground but it is quite cool, hovering at the freezing mark.

It's going to take a week or two for me to get things organized properly. In the end things were simply stuffed into cupboards willy-nilly, a shoe and a pie plate side by side, right next to the box of remotes and charging devices. Ask me where anything is and the answer is likely to be, "I know nothing."

We've both done quite well, we had wonderful help from friends and neighbours, but now we are tired and need a few days to rest and regroup.

Unhappily, our attempt to rescue one little cat and add her to our family has ended in dismal failure. She escalated her constant belligerence, from hissing at Sal to attacking him (and he was so patient with her), then she began to be belligerent and aggressive with us, growling when approached or touched at times.

This morning, while she was sitting in my lap, presumably content to be there, she whirled around and attacked me without the slightest warning. She slashed through both my upper and lower lips, and gave me two puncture wounds, one in the cheek, the other just in the middle of my lower lip.

It took a while to staunch the bleeding and I have a very sore mouth and face. We talked and decided we couldn't handle this kind of aggression, especially when it was totally unprovoked. With knew we couldn't put her out on the street, and we certainly couldn't pass her on to another family. With heavy hearts we took her to a nearby vet's and had her euthanized and cremated. It's very sad. Was it her time on her own, having to fight for her life, that turned her into a time bomb, or was she thrown out of a household for this kind of behaviour? We'll never know.

But we did what we could for her. She was warm, well-fed and safe for the last weeks. I wish we could have done more for her, but sometimes problems are beyond your ability to solve and all you can do is what you think is best and try to get through it.

Yuchi News

Yuchi spent last night at the vets. This morning she was sedated, checked over, brushed out, dematted and vaccinated. She did not have the "kitty-make-no-babies" surgery because (praise be to the benfit of my slim purse!) she has already had that operation! (insert John Phillip Souza march *here*!)

Knowing that we won't be into the new trailer for another couple of days I went over to the pet store before I picked her up and bought a larger sized crate, one large enough for her to stand and walk around and also hold a small litter box.

She slept the first few hours she was home. She ate a couple of small meals and used her litter box. She wanted out of the crate so we let her out. She sniffed around, explored a bit and then called Sal a couple of rude names. She became belligerant so we decided to return her to the crate. Well! She got right snarly! It took some fancy footwork to get her back into the crate.

Over the next hour she grumped and snarled and growled enough for three cats her size. Apparently she is not impressed with the idea of being a house cat. She seems to feel that being fed and left to run wild in the neighborhood is just fine!
Sorry kitty. I know this will take some getting used to, but you are an indoor girl now.

Sal is being a perfect gentleman, but he is anxious. He snuggled up to me after we'd gotten her back in the crate and he was trembling. Poor big cream puff. He wants to be her friend so badly and she is acting just like a poop. Hopefully she will settle down within the next few days. It's a big adjustment for her, and she's probably feeling a little cranky from the vaccines, the sedation and the thorough going over she had. At least I hope her temperament isn't this bad normally!

On the moving front; Gary spent about four hours on TP II today, and says he'll be here first thing tomorrow morning to finish the job. We ought to be able to spend tomorrow night in TP II. This could be our last night in the Tinpalace! sniff (But not a sob, you note.)

I love this little trailer. It's cute as a bug's ear and has been lots of fun to live in, but the new one will be like a mansion, with its bathtub and washing machine. I promise pictures once we are settled and everything is in place. Right now it's wall-to-wall tools and boxes.

We lose our internet connection tomorrow and won't reconnect until after we are moved, so bye for now, and may peace of mind be your constant companion.

The Strength of Ten!

In the last 20 years I could probably count the days when I've felt as if I had perfectly "normal" strength on the fingers of one hand. Not that I feel ill, but I consistently deal with enough muscle weakness to complicate even simple tasks. It varies. Some days I do well, others I must do "quiet" things and plan to do more active tasks another day.

Today was one of those rare and wonderful days when I felt strong! I was up at 7:00 am and barely stopped all day. I went to town and ran a half-dozen errands, shopped for groceries, did a murderously painful massage on a neighbour who was in misery from head to foot, and in general had a great time.

About lunchtime I cleaned Sal's carrier, and put in a little box with litter and a soft towel inside it. When Miss Yuchi cat showed up for her lunch I put the food dish inside the carrier. She zipped right in. I closed the door behind her and I became the Mama of a second kitty.

She has obviously been in a carrier before, as she ate her lunch, gave a few pokes at the door and then laid down and went to sleep. At 4:00 I loaded her into the truck and took her to the vet's. She was very calm, didn't mind the ride at all, was sweet and cooperative at the vet's and weighs a hefty seven pounds! She should. She's eaten 20 pounds of canned cat food in the past two weeks.

She will get a full exam, vaccinations, the ping-pong ball size matts cut out of her coat and the "Kitty-make-no-babies" operation. I thought she was pregnant at first, but now I am not so sure. She hasn't gotten any bigger in the tummy. She may have already been spayed. That would be a plus. She obviously has been someone's well-loved baby at some point. I do wish she could say something more than middow-middow-middow. (Must be a Buddhist cat, advocating the Middle Way.)

Over at Tinpalace II the new sink is at least in the bathroom. It's not hooked up but it is there. We want to move Thursday morning, so Gary has one more day to:

1) plumb the sink
2) plumb and reset the toilet
3) install the wall in the closet
4) hang the clothes pole
5) find (and fix) the propane leak
6) fix the leaking water heater

Until these things are done we're stuck. No can cook, run water, wash face, stay warm, put away clothing, go tinkle, or anything else. I can sit in my rocking chair and rock, but after a while you get hungry and in need of the bathroom.

Plus tomorrow afternoon I'm bringing home a new cat which will have to stay inside, in this tiny trailer, and there is no way to keep the two of them from killing each other until they adjust to each other's presence because there are no doors here to close between them.

But I had a heck of a day.

Grateful is Not a Strong Enough Word!

We have made some wonderful friends while we've been here. And in the last month they have jumped in and spent an amazing amount of time and energy helping us get TP II ready to live in, and things moved.

I am past being tired. Tired was a week ago. And there is so much to do still. But things are progressing well.

We realized today that we need to move two days earlier than we had planned, which gives us two days less working time. Gary has installed the washer/drier and in working on plumbing the new sink in the bathroom. He worked on it a couple of hours yesterday.

This morning when I went over I could smell propane as I approached the trailer, and inside the smell was very strong. I opened the vents and the doors, and let it air out. It was so strong it made me feel sick, so I came home while it cleared out. Don't know what's going on there. We tested the furnace a couple of days before and it worked perfectly. No propane smell at all. So that has to be looked at.

My lovely neighbour Florence carried basket after basket of stuff over to TP II today. I used two large laundry baskets. I would pack one, she'd carry it over, I'd pack the second, she'd carry it over. Then I'd go over and put away what she'd carried. Once I was done I'd take the empty baskets home and fill them again, and she'd carry them over. I was able to accomplish three times as much as I could have done alone.

And, late in the afternoon, when I had packed as much as I felt I could for the moment, Flo's husband Jim came over and helped Tony and I cut and put up some paneling, replaced the door jambs which had been removed and then installed the new folding door between the bathroom and bedroom. That was a big job and I am very happy to have it done!

Jim and Flo have already spent hours helping, as have friends Pat and Claude. I don't know what we would have done without them!

On the whole I am very pleased. I have put away about 80% of what we need to get into the trailer and as of yet the closet and bathroom drawers have nothing in them, since Gary is working in there. The cupboards in the bedroom are also empty as of yet. The one banquette is still almost empty, and I have lots of cupboard space left in the kitchen. If I'm not careful we're going to have a place for everything!

A Timeless Break

I need to dispose of a pile of construction debris, or to be more specific, deconstruction debris piled in front of TP II, but while the morning is sunny it is still a chilly 33 degrees F outside, so I am dithering.

I could get up and clean the debris in here, but for the moment I really feel a need to just lie back on my bunk and give my muscles a well-earned rest. I worked very hard yesterday, and will have to do so again today, and for several more days, if we are to get out of here on time.

While Ian was here last week we drove to Penticton to buy supplies. On the way we took a five-minute detour. He'd found petroglyphs a short distance off the road last summer, along with a spectacular view looking south down the valley. He wanted to share these with me, so we had a quick break in the otherwise tightly focused busy-ness of the week.

He took these pictures in October when he was here, and to our dismay some hooligan has defaced the petroglyphs since. I fail to understand what drives people to do such stupid things. What are they trying to prove? These pictures are ancient. The rock has cracked and flaked since they were painted, and large patches of lichen grow over some sections.

We puzzled what they meant. A stick figure with nine lines extending from the head, a half circle with 15 rays. The figure has no legs, it appears to be wearing a skirt. Was the picture painted by a woman? Do the lines on the head mean nine people, the half-circle a journey of 15 days? There are also four spots, almost certainly made by pressing the ends of the paint-covered fingers on the rock. Perhaps she stumbled as she reached upward, and touched the rock to steady herself. There is another figure but it is so obliterated by age that it's impossible to decipher.

All looking southwest out over a vast rocky valley, but a highly fertile one. I touched one with a sense of what can only be described as reverence. A recent report says that 95% of all Native Americans carry the mitochondrial DNA of six women who lived between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago in Beringia, the now submerged land underlying the Bering Strait.

A cousin drew these, an Old One, perhaps a woman. In my imagination she could have been one of those original mothers of Native America. I have walked in her footsteps, seen that glorious view down the valley - was it wetter then, drier, lesser or more heavily treed? Even today it is rich in wildlife. Along that corridor I have seen deer, mountain sheep, beaver, coyotes, birds of many kinds including Canada geese, ducks, swans, cranes, bald eagles and dozens of smaller species.

The "paint" used for petroglyphs was often a combination of blood, fat and iron oxides. The group hunted here, perhaps sheltered in the small cave beneath the massive boulder the petroglyphs are painted on. They left their mark. She left her mark, not only on a boulder face but in the flesh of millions. Thanks Mom.

First Meeting

Today, when Yuchi (new spelling) came for breakfast I fed and petted her, then came inside to get Salvador, who was watching anxiously out the kitchen window.

I put his harness and leash on him and he scooted out the door to sit on the porch and watch her from 15 feet away. She rolled around on the ground in the sun and kept an eye on the big guy sitting on the porch.

After a few minutes he walked down the stairs toward her. She held her ground but came to her feet and faced him. They looked at each other, but there was no aggression from either. They chattered to each other, then strained forward and touched noises.

She raised one paw and hissed softly. He hissed back, but very softly. She turned, walked a few feet away and lay down. He lay down and watched her for a few minutes. Then he got up and moved closer to her. She moved away and he followed. They played cat and cat for 15 minutes. If he moved she followed, if she moved he followed.

I had to drag him back by force. I don't think it will be too long before they're friends.