This post is a bit of a catch up. There’s been lots going on over the last month or so with no downtime to write it all down or post. We’ve been doing lots around the city, I took a week off from work to head over to Galiano to catch up on some projects and as part of that trip was able to swing by Victoria for a day and a half to catch up with some friends. It’s been busy but fun!
The Skydiggers at Wise Hall
There are three Canadian bands that I have been a huge fan of that I will see at every opportunity that I have to do so - 54-40, The Skydiggers and Lowest of the Low. As 54-40 are Vancouver based, I see them almost every year; the Skydiggers I used to see around Christmas in Toronto, and the Lowest of the Low had taken a long hiatus, but are now back but don’t get out this way much. Earlier this month we had a rare teat of the Skydiggers playing in Vancouver at a tiny venue in East Van. So there was no way I was going to miss that!
I had never heard of Wise Hall before this show, and I have to say, I have been missing out. I think they only sold ~250 tickets, but that was perfect for me! There’s a great private bar under the hall that I wish I had know about 20 years ago. My friend Scott and I had been looking for a place like that for years!
The show was amazing! They played some of the new album and covered all the hits. It had been quite a while since I had seen them last - I couldn’t make it down to the Christmas show last year as the weather was horrendous - so it was great to see them at home. It makes me want to go see the show in Toronto this year…
A Day Out Mountain Biking
My friend/co-worker Dave lives in Port Moody (a suburb of Vancouver) which has some pretty amazing mountain biking right at his doorstep. We have been talking about going riding for ages, and finally managed to find a day that worked. The holiday Monday of Remembrance Day was free for both us us, so I threw the bike in the bake of the truck and headed out to his place.
We were joined by another former co-worker Peter, who also lives in the area, and as it turns out is a much better mountain biker than I am! In fairness, I am not very good. I told both of them this, yet they still decided that we would ride black diamond runs the whole day. They just about killed me. That said, I only went over the handle bars once (minor miracle), and we did have a fun day out. It was more than I could really handle, but it’s good to push yourself sometimes.
OUr morning mountain biking in Port Moody - it didn’t kill me!
Throughout most of December we’ve had, for the most part, really nice weather. It’s been clear and sunny. It’s provided some really nice views of the city.
Vancouver Christmas Market
Each year at Christmas they set-up a German-themed Christmas market downtown near the convention center. It’s pretty well done, and they have mulled wine, traditional food and lots of interesting vendors all set-up. We typically buy an annual pass, and try and go a couple of times over the season. We made it out pretty early this year, taking advantage of the nice weather to head down early one evening to get ahead of the crowds. It’s nice to just walk around and soak up the festive vibe.
Rick Mercer and Jan Arden Book Tour
A while back I bought us tickets to see Rick Mercer and Jan Arden together at the Chan Center at UBC. We have been big Rick Mercer fans for a long time, and were always entertained when Jan Arden was on the show with him. Some of the funniest bits. They both have new books out and decided on a book tour together, which seemed like it might be a lot of fun to go see.
And it was! It was a relative short show, but they spent a lot of time riffing off each other, telling stories and generally having a laugh. You could tell they were having fun out there together. As a bonus, we each got a copy of their new books, which I look forward to reading.
A Week on Galiano
It seems that I had a bit of time banked for holidays that the company really wanted me to use up, so I booked a week of vacation and headed over to the island to relax and get some project done around the property.
It’s mushroom season, so one thing I noticed while I was there was that there wer elots of cool mushroom about. Here are some fun ones…
The main reason for heading over was to get some projects done that I have been ignoring for a while. Some are just not that much fun, others you have to wait for the rainy season to really tackle. A number of years ago we had a big storm and a lot of trees came down. There’s a pile of them that I need to cut up, but just keep avoiding. So my plan, with my freshly serviced chainsaw, was to work through it. I was only half an hour into the project when this happened…
Somehow the trigger on the saw broke! It wouldn’t operate after that, so it was off to other projects.
I had finally strated to make some progress on the damn logs…
With that off the table, it was time to move on to cutting broome. As we move down the hill, the plants get bigger and harder to deal with. I spent a could of days working on the “west” side of the property, getting into the dense salal plants to cut out as much as possible. It was hard work, cutting them down then dragging the pieces up the hill to where I was making a burn pile.
The other project I wanted to tackle was to start cleaning up the forest areas around the cottage. There’s a lot of downed trees and branches, which means a lot of fuel for fires. Earlier in the year I had bought a wood chipper, so that I could take all of these branches and turn them into mulch, rather than having to burn everything. So I spent a bunch of time working through the forest, pulling down branches (“laddering” the trees), picking up downed branches and making a big pile of mulch later. I made some decent progress in one part of the forest.
Starting to make a pretty good pile to chip.
Another beautiful sunset.
A Couple of Days in Victoria
For a couple of the later days in the week, I was heading over to Victoria to hang out with my friend Stuart. He and his family had moved to Victoria about a year ago and we still have not seen their new place. So I decided to head over so we could hang out for a bit.
On my way to the ferry that morning, I made a couple of stops to do some short hikes. The weather was once again spectacular and I wanted to see what birds were about with the change of seasons. My first start was to make the short walk down to the beach below our property. I had been hearing whales and sea lions all week, so I was hopeful for some activity. Sadly it was very quiet - one lone sea lion, no seals and definitely no whales!
It was a nice clear day and you could see snow on the mountains across the straight.
It was a pretty quiet day on the shore. Gulls were about all that were around - either flying by, or trying to eat things that didn’t look likely to fit.
After hiking back to the truck, I drove over to Montague Harbour to go for a walk around the island. I was keeping track of my sightings and had a pretty good time of it. While there wasn’t anything new, there were lots of birds around and I got some decent shots.
The walk started with hearing a kingfisher, which took me down to the public dock. It was sitting on the sign over the dock, but of course flew off before I got any really good shots.
But there were lots of ducks out in the bay, so I took some time to watch what was going on and take some photos. The light was pretty good, so I stayed for a while.
Eventually it was time to head over to the main trail and walk out to the little “island” that has a nice walking trail around its perimeter. The tide was quite low, so the trail out the spit let you get across (normally when the tide is anything but full low tide, you cannot get across. So that was nice, as it meant a slightly different take on the trail and put my right into the heart of the forest.
I started out going the opposite direction of the way we would normally go, which I think worked out quite well this time. As I worked my way along the shoreline, there were quite a few birds to see.
The surf scoters had started to fly into the bay and there were quite a few mergansers as well. We start to see all of these diving ducks in the winter. Most of them spend their summers further north for breedings, heading our way as the weather cools.
The walk around Montague Harbour
As I worked my way around the little island (it’s not really an island), there were big flocks of surf scoters and buffleheads, and there were lots of other ducks mixed in for fun. But soon I had the best part of the walk - there were three otters fishing, and obviously having a good time of it!
A couple of river otters catching their lunch!
They seemed to be catching fish. You can see the tail in this shot. They were up and down quite a number of times, and each time they seemed to have caught something.
It was a pretty productive day, but sadly, I had to call it and head to the ferry. My ferry to Victoria was at noon, putting me into Sydney around 1:30. I was meeting Stuart at 3:00, so I had a little bit of time to kill. I headed into Victoria proper and down to the Costco. There were a few things I needed, so it seemed like as good a time as any.
After my little shopping excursion, I headed back up to Sydney and met up with Stuart. It was my first chance to see their new house, and it is lovely. As his girls were still at school, we did the tour of the house then headed over to one of their local breweries to have a beer and catch up. It had been a while.
After having a flight, we headed back to their place to hang out for a while. It was great to see Jo and the girls, and so we chatted and got them some dinner. Jo’s Mom was kind enough to swing by to look after the girls so the three of us could head out for dinner. They took me to an amazing little bakery/restaurant right on the harbour close to the ferry terminal. The food was excellent, we had a nice bottle of wine and got to hang out and catch up. It was a fun day. Friday morning Stuart needed to work, so I went with him to drop the girls off at school, and then I left them to their day.
My plan had been to get in a round of golf before heading back to the ferry. Sadly it had been cold over night and there was a very heavy frost. I drove around to a number of golf courses, hoping that maybe the ones near the water might be less affected. Sadly that was not the case, and it was unclear if any were going to open that day. So I switch my plans and headed over to a bird watching area to see if I could have a nice day wandering.
I wandered up and down the causeway at Esquimalt Lagoon, looking for birds!
I had a lot of good luck and a few new species to add to the “life list”. These were not new, but are probably the best pictures I have of oyster catchers.
As I said, it had been a pretty good day with a couple of new species identified that I had not recorded before. The second one I think is a Black Turnstone, which you will see a few of below. The great thing about Victoria is that it’s even more “costal” than Vancouver, so get’s more of the migratory birds.
It was a beautiful, clear day with some great view of Mount Baker.
Eventually I decided it was time to call it a day. I grabbed some lunch then headed back to the ferry a little early. There were a ton of issues with ferry staffing and they had cancelled a lot of ferries on Friday. Fortunately I got on the one I needed and also saw our friends David and Tova. So that made the trip a bit more fun.
Friday night was pretty low key as I knew I had lots of work to do on Saturday!
Back on Galiano
Saturday I was up pretty early. My plan was to get out the wood chipper to take care of the pile of branches that I had created earlier in the week. I wanted ot use them to make a better bath along side the garden. But first I needed to level it out. I was a bit afraid that it was all rock and sandstone, but that fear proved unfounded. It was soft earth and took very little time to even out.
After working through the new path, I was pretty much done fpor the day. I sat on the deck and enjoyed the late afternoon sun and had a beer. I was having dinner with David and Tova up at Lola’s at Bodega Ridge that evening, so I needed to have a shower and get organized.
Always good to catch up with friends and have a nice night out.
Back in Vancouver…
I probably should have done this as separate posts - it got really long. But this is the last segment, I promised. This past weekend we were due for some crazy high tides, so Saturday morning we headed out and went for a walk around the seawall to see how hight they were!
OUr morning walk around the seawall.
