This is going to be a long post - lots of pictures to share on this one. It also covers quite a few different topics - maybe it should have been multiple posts? I hope you’re ready for a long one!
On Friday night I had bought us tickets to Whiskey and Words, a fundraising event for the Vancouver Writers Fest, before heading to Galiano on Saturday morning for a long overdue trip. We stayed through Tuesday night getting lots of projects done around the cottage, before heading home to spring finally arriving. Wednesday night we went for a nice walk and had an amazing sunset.
Whiskey & Words
Each year the Vancouver Writers Fest hosts a whisky tasting event called Whisky & Words . Guests enjoy unlimited drams of whisky from distilleries around the world, as well as local craft spirits and beer. You savour delicious food and peruse the silent auction, featuring rare and unique whiskies and other goodies
It’s a lot like the Vancouver Wine Festival that has historically been one of my favorite events each year. had bought the tickets months back, an was excited to see what it was like.
The event was held on Granville Island, making it an easy walk there (and more importantly home) for us. Before the event, we headed over to Alimentaria Mexicana, a Mexican restaurant on Granville Island and one of our new favorites. Our timing was perfect as we wrapped up dinner and headed over to the event space in time to arrive basically as the doors were opening at 8:00 p.m.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was busy and there was a great energy in the place. It didn’t take too long to check our coats, pick up a tasting glass and get into it!
It was busy inside, with a DJ playing music and lots of great things to try!
Much to the detriment of our wallets, there was a silent auction set-up in the middle of the room. There were lots of interesting things up for grabs and it was the focus of attention as we moved about the room, trying lots of different whiskies (and other things). It didn’t take long for the booze to get to us, and Justine was especially having a good time…
We were having a really fun night!
I was pleasantly surprised that there were some scotch producers from Islay in attendance! This is my favorite type of scotch, and they were reasonably well represented. There was even a Gin producer from the same island. Their offering was really good and we got sucked in, ending up buying a very pricy bottle of gin (it was the last one and not available in the liquor stores).
One of my favorite distilleries - we may have returned for multiple samples…
As the night wore on, we may have drank too much. We ended up winning on 4 silent auction items (Justine x3, Warren x 1 - I was the good one for a change!). I got a pair of preseason Seattle Seahawks tickets (at what I think was a good price). Justine won her bids on a bottle of Irish whiskey that we really liked (and again is not available for sale in BC), a gift pack of coffee accessories and a gift pack that was a series of different honeys and some books. I think we actually did pretty good on value and got some interesting things.
This was the Whisky that we won through the silent auction. It’s really nice - quite different.
The night ended up being a bit of a rough one. We had both drank way too much and it made our early start the next morning to head to Galiano a bit of a rough one. Still, it was a super fun night!
A Few Days on Galiano
For me, it had been almost 5 weeks since I had been to Galiano. Way too long. The India trip was the main culprit, but we’ve also been really busy with various things going on. Last weekend I had spent the day with my friend Bill. We had done a short hike on the North Shore then went for a few beers at a local brewery. A perfect Saturday afternoon in the rain. Where we did our short walk there was First Nations Nursery that was selling a lot of local, native plants. And they had lots of Tall Oregon Grape! This is a plant that we would like to try and replace a lot of the broome that we’re cutting down, but it’s hard to find. So I bought a number of plants to take with us this weekend. Earlier in the year I had also placed another order through TreeTime.ca and had received out shipment of baby trees. So we had lots to plant.
A back seat full of plants.
I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is where the plants above ended up. We spent a lot of time on Saturday cleaning up this area of the yard and planting the trees that we had brought over.
IN addition we had finally broken down and bought a wood chipper. It had finally gone on sale at Canadian Tire and so we pulled the trigger. It was a pricy item, but we have so many downed branches around the property that we needed to do it. Plus, this way I can make my own mulch for the gardens. It’s a win-win.
Our ferry was fairly early on Saturday morning. Which was rough. But we got there and were over to the cottage by about 10:00 a.m. It was an overcast day with spots of rain, but it was pretty well suited to getting some yard work done. We had lots of trees to plant. IN addition to the 4 Tall Oregon Grape, I had 1 lupin and 1 flowering currant from the First Nations Nursery. From TreeTime I had 5 lodgepole pines, 2 eastern redbuds, 2 flowering crab apples, 4 raspberry vines and 10 Dull Oregon Grape. It was a lot of holes to dig and tree to plant.
I think the property is really starting to come into shape. We’ve got some nice gardens planted and many of the trees we have planted in previous years are starting to grow and mature.
One of our flowering currants were starting to flower.
The deer were thankfully leaving the hellebores alone this year.
Justine did a great job with the new garden near the firepit. It needs a few more plants, but the deer are ignoring it!
Justine has also planted a whole series of flowers so we’ll see what comes up.
We were quite excited to see what looks like will be lots of buds on the fruit trees in the orchard. Last year was so heartbreaking in that we got nothing out of any of them, so we are hoping that this year turns out better. We’re still a bit early, but things look much more promising.
While I was wandering about, I ran across this little guy. I’m not sure, but I think it’s a type of shrew. I thought it wa sa mouse originally, but it really wasn’t scared of me at all. It was searching out and then disappeared into the long grass. The long snout kind of gives it away.
We got quite a lot done on Saturday. We cleaned up a long of the yard, got a lot of trees planted and took care of a number of little projects around the cottage. Sunday morning I went down and played a round of golf (it was really wet…), then came home and we got back to it.
Our neighbor Steven is an electrician by trade and has been kind enough to tackle our generator hook up. He’s been slowly working away at it for a bit, but spent most of his day Sunday working through the re-wiring of the workshop to support the new switchover panel. That will be great to get sorted out.
The rain stopped and it cleared up enough for me to get the new wood chipper out of the box and put it to work. It took us a little while to assemble it. They certainly didn’t make that part easy. I got some oil and gas into the engine, and it started on the second pull! I spent a few hours that afternoon chipping up a few piles of branches we had lying all over the place. It was very satisfying and helps reduce the fire risk once summer comes. I ended up with about three big bags of wood chips, and so we started mulching gardens and trees!
A Rainy Sunday Night - Lego Time!
We had a busy day, and towards the end of it the rain started. So after dinner, it was time to break out the Lego! Alex had bought me a cool Star Wars Lego project for Christmas. I am a bit embarrassed that it took until April to get to it, but it was the perfect project for tonight!
While I was working on Star Wars, Justine was building Groot!
Monday and Tuesday were work days, sadly enough. Still, the weather was getting better and it was nice to sit outside at lunch and enjoy the sunshine and the scenery. And, when the day was over it was good to get out and continue dealing with projects. Steven came back over again and we had to shut down the power so he could re-wire the panels. We’re very close!
The hummingbird feeder at the front window was constant action!
At least they were mostly sharing.
The females know to behave.
Hummingbird Battle Royale
This time of year we have both Anna’s and Rufous hummingbirds around. They are mating and soon we’ll have lots of little ones about. But they are absolutely crazy at the moment. The males are claiming territories, chasing the females about and generally causing hilarity. They dive bomb, zip by your head and make quite the noise. It’s so much fun!
A fun 1-minute video of the crazy hummingbirds.
This male Rufous is the bully of the bunch. He either sits on top of the feeders (in this shot) or sits over on one of the closer fences. The minute any other hummingbird comes to the feeder, he rushes over and chases them away. It’s hilarious to watch.
Perched on the fence, ready to charge into action.
Bursting into action!
In the evening, I was able to wander about and have a look at how everything was doing. It’s early in the year, but things seem promising.
We had a real mix of weather over the few days we were on island.
Mount Baker finally came into view on Monday. There is a ton of snow up there - they must had had a stellar year.
I brought my new camera over with me, but barely got a chance to use it. On the last day, as we sat outside in the sunshine before heading to the ferry I snapped a few shots.
A raven, flying in front of Mount Baker.
Eventually it was time to head for home. The days are getting longer and the ferry took us towards a Mount Baker in all it’s spring glory.
A Beautiful Spring Evening in Vancouver
Wednesday eveing the weather was spectacular and Justine and I went for a decent length walk after dinner. We lopped out along the local rodas then down to the seawall. As we were coming home we caught a lovely sunset.
