30/30 Challenge - Day 3

Well I didn't make it too far from the house today. My legs were killing me from all the recent bike riding. I wanted to go out in the kayak, but the current  was strong and David was busy building me a car, so not available to help me get in and out of the kayak. I haven't been in it for a few years and am suddenly a little bit scared of it for some reason. I would definitely feel better with a spotter around. 

This is the car I bought at Christmas. The transmission slips out of gear while driving and there is a ton of blue smoke when you start it up. The underneath was quite rusted out which made any kind of work on it very difficult. I desperately needed another car but could only spend about a thousand dollars. It looked like all I could get for a thousand was a car from the 1990's. I decided, if all I could afford was a 25 year old car, then I might as well look for another one like the one I already have, at least that way, I would have a parts car at my disposal.
                                   

 This is the new car I got. Same year, make and model as the red car. The body, engine and transmission are in better shape than the red one, but just about everything else is toast in it. It sat for five years outside and was covered in green moss when I first got it. A lot of the rubber hoses etc. were toast. Poor Dave got a bad scald on his stomach when the rad hose blew while he was checking under the hood. The rear suspension rattles something terrible, the clutch is about ninety five percent gone, the brakes were seized up, the rad was blown, and the interior just stinks amongst many other things. Dave has his work cut out for him, as we will basically be rebuilding the car from the ground up.

 

I stuck around the house today to be available for test drives while he worked on it and as the sun was setting, realized I hadn't got out yet today. I grabbed my camera and decided to go for a walk down the road and investigate around the little trout stream that's at the end of our property. Caught the sunset from the back end of the parking lot.

Walking down the road a bit, this is the trout stream looking south. We paddled a canoe up here last year. It was a nice little excursion through some  picturesque farms.

This is the other view where it goes out to the Fraser River. Once, we watched a power boat come under that train bridge at low tide and get stuck on this side when the tide came in as it didn't fit under the bridge to go back out. We could hear the girls with them cussing them out all night as they waited for the tide to turn.

I walked a bit further up the road and crossed the train tracks to follow a path down to the river.

That's us way back in the distance. We always see people camping over here, now I know what we look like to them.

They had a cute fire pit set up with some spare wood stacked up, ready for another fire.

The view up the river looking towards our place

Another little trail led to this small campsite.

I caught the full moon rising on my way back up the road.

Saw this in the driveway, not sure if it is a dead snake, it was totally flat and imbedded in the gravel.

Got to love it when Nature does the gardening for you. I didn't plant these, they all self seeded.

A last shot of the rising moon.

 

Well, I didn't get too far, but still spent at least 30 minutes wandering around the river bank in Nature, so job done for another day!

 

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30/30 Challenge - Day 2

Well, surprisingly after all that exercise yesterday, I actually had lots of energy. I stayed up until 5 in the morning, got up at 11 am, cleaned the house non stop until 7 pm, then got back on the bike for my next adventure. I went a few km down the road to a dyke that we have driven past before. The road is probably about 1.5 k following the river which was hopping with little jumping fish. 

The view looking back from the far end.

 

 I went down by the water and walked on a little grass trail that ran beside it.

The dyke is quite high, doesn't really look like it in the pictures, that's my shadow on the hill.

Got to watch the fullish moon rise next to Mount Baker. These fields are a cranberry farm for Ocean Spray Cranberry juice.

Raced the sunset home on the bike, stopped for this shot through the trees.

Caught the tail end of it from the ramp.

 

My butt is quite sore from two days of biking, so I think tomorrow it will be a kayak day!

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30/30 Challenge - Day1

David Suzuki has a challenge to get outside in nature for 30 minutes a day for 30 days. I decided to take this challenge as I need to motivate myself to start moving my ass more. Today being May 1st is day one, so here is what I saw today.

Started off with a bike ride, found this lovely little pond just around the corner ( I really need to get out more!)

A local turf farm

with a nice view of the mountains behind.

I found a trail going into the woods ,

 so went for a walk and found a few cool things like this wood fort.

A big stash of berries, will have to come back when they are ripe!

and this cute little fairy door, propped up over a large hole in a tree.


Back on the bike, I came across a herd of Llamas, they were very curious about me and all herded over to the fence as soon as I stopped. Altogether, I bike and hiked for an hour and a half, very enjoyable day! The great part about living around here, is I only saw 6 cars the whole time, very nice having the road to myself!

Back home, I decided to take a few pictures of my garden. This is the third year of my grape vine, we haven't had any grapes yet, but I noticed these very tiny growths on the vine which I am hoping means we will be eating grapes this year!

The grape vine really grew a lot this year, the first year it was just two small sticks in the ground, the 2nd year it grew a few feet. This is only May 1st and it is already at the top of the container.



The last of the cherry blossoms, I do so wish they would turn into cherries, I mean what's the point of a cherry tree without cherries? Vancouver has thousands like that, just think of all the food they could produce.

Strangely the last few branches on both our cherry trees, have these branches with very different white flowers, apple maybe? Anyway, they don't produce any fruit either :(

 

 

 The peony came back strong again, it should be in full bloom in the next few weeks.

The purple Columbine is a good showing.

The pink Columbine which was the same size as the purple when planted is less than half the size for some unknown reason.

The lavender is really starting to spread and fill things in now.

The white lilac in full bloom

I was hoping to move the gooseberry bush into the garden area but it has really grown and sprawled this year. Maybe I would be better off taking some cuttings and starting another one?

That's a small pot of rhubarb at the bottom that is waiting for me to plant in the garden. I also bought a blueberry bush and a black current bush and was donated about 10 raspberry canes. Can't wait to get it all in the ground. I am still waiting for the landlord to come over with his tractor and fill in the low areas before I can start building beds.

My neighbor had dug up a few small bunches of these blue flowering plants a few years ago and gave them to me. They didn't do well the first year, shriveling in the heat wave, but they really rebounded this year, spreading quite a bit and much taller flower stalks.

 All I have done to the beds, is spread a bunch of crushed eggshells around the plants last summer and a bunch of leaves for mulch in the fall. I wonder if that was enough to make the difference? We did have a very mild winter, hardly any freezing days and a mild damp spring so far.

Sadly, I lost most of my bulbs for some reason. All the purple flowers came up, like Hyacinths and Muscari, but most of the tulips and all of the daffodils and bleeding hearts never showed. I just left all the bulbs in the ground since I planted them two years ago. Should I be digging them up every summer?

Our local geese became parents a few days ago. Spent some time watching them be proud, watchful parents.

And my favorite part of nature, the sunsets!

We just got this boat the other day. We traded it for my Honda scooter that I was never able to get running. We have a small electric motor for it, so we can go for little rides around the neighborhood without polluting the water or making noise pollution. I will definitely be going out in her during this challenge!

Looking forward to tomorrow, I wonder what I will see?

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