With Canada Day being on a Monday, we used the holiday to spend 10 days on Galiano. We headed over the Friday before, and had the weekend to relax, get some work done and enjoy summer (finally!). On Canada Day, our friend David was picking us up for our 2nd annual trip to Saturna for the epic Lamb BBQ. The rest of the week was working, then our friends Cindy and KJ were coming to stay - but we’ll cover that trip in the next post.

I think this has the makings of a long post. There are lots of pictures to come - garden updates, birds and some fairly random stuff. I hope you enjoy!

Bird Buddy - Hummingbird Version

We’ve had ou “smart” bird feeder - the Bird Buddy for well over a year now - maybe two? It’s pretty cool - we get to see what’s going on when we’re not around, and it does a reasonable job of identifying the birds that come to the feeder. Last year, they did a Kickstarter for a hummingbird version, so of course I had to order one. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and so we finally got to try it out.

The new hummingbird version of the Bird Buddy, complete with solar panel.

This is the view from the camera.

The photos are actually pretty good!

There's lots of videos too, but I'll spare you...

I managed to golf quite a few days over this trip. The deer are… relentless. But this guy’s antlers are getting pretty big!

Garden and Orchard Updates

This has been a bit of a weird year. The spring has been a bit cold and wet, and as such, things really just aren’t growing as well as I had hoped. Things that did well last year, like carrots and beets just haven’t taken. I had to start cucumbers and squash multiple times, so suspect that they will not be ready once the fall comes. And the corn, I planted a couple of weeks eearlier, and it just is not growing. Overall, pretty disappointing.

The peas did OK - not a surprise. BUt the tomatoes I planted, started from seed just would not take off. And don't get me going on the beets and carrots.

One last beautiful foxglove. Their season is over.

I have one artichoke going - despite managing to keep them all watered this year.

The orchard is a slightly different story. After the caterpillar apocalypse last year and then our deep freeze over the winter, we were worried about the trees surviving. The good news is that they came through and flowered like crazy. But sadly, once again almost no fruit.

In fairness - it’s better than last years complete shutout - we have 4 apples and cherries this year!

We have 4 little apples on one tree. The other three trees produced nothing. Still, it's an improvement over last year!

The cherries were a bit more promising. 3/5 trees have some fruit on them. Most shrivelled up and dropped off, but some seem to be ripening.

A few of the little clusters have made it.

And some are even starting to ripen.

We've put a net over one tree, to see if it saves them from the birds. More experiments.

We’re good friends with our neighbors David and Tova at the start of the lane. We pop in to see the progress they are making on their new house from time to time. We went inside for a short visit this time around, and met the new addition to the family!

The cat really thinks she's a scarf. But she's pretty cute, and so can get away with it.

We had some pretty crazy sunrises over our stay.

Bird Break

You had to know there were a bunch of bird pictures coming, right?

We had a real surprise this week - a western tanager! We've seen them on Galiano before, but never right at our place!

It's warbler season, and this year it's the orange-crowned warblers that seem to be about the most.

Anna's Hummingbird

We're very pleased that the violet-green swallows seem to be sticking around!

I was petty pleased with this one - two goldfinches chasing each other through the arbutus.

Canada Day

Last year, our friend David and his family came over on their boat from Point Roberts, picked us up and took us over to Saturna Island for the annual Canada Day Lamb BBQ. I probably mentioned this last year, but they have been running this event since 1950, and it’s the biggest fundraiser for the island. We had a great time last year, and so when David offered to come pick us up again, we jumped at the offer!

Of Course, We’re Starting with Birds…

David was picking us up at the public dock at Sturdies Bay. We were, of course, a bit early, and were treated to the sight of purple martins nesting in boxes above the dock!

I don’t often take pictures of crows, but this one was making so much noise, it was like he wanted me to take it.

There was also a belted kingfisher hanging about.

Two juveniles. The colour is starting to come.

You can see the colouring differences between the juvenile and the adult.

The little guys' colours are starting to come in.

They were being very loud.

David and Val picked us up at Sturdies Bay around 9:30 for the trip over to Saturna. It was a beautiful day and the sea was relatively calm. It didn’t take too long for us to get our gear on board and head out! The trip over to Saturna takes about an hour, and it’s a lovely cruise through the Gulf Islands. We went a different route from last year, and I think I liked this this route better.

A quick screenshot, a little more than half way through our trip.

The trip over was quite uneventful. There wasn’t really much in the way of wildlife (we were hoping for whales), but it was a lovely day, and we enjoyed the trip. David is an excellent captain and we all chatted in anticipation of the day ahead of us.

Cruising!

Once we got to Saturna, I was on anchor duty.

The captain was shutting the others over to the dock on Saturna. We held down the boat.

Then it was our turn to head over!

It was a pretty relaxed day. Surviving the sun was our biggest concern.

We ended up arriving on Saturna quite early for the day’s festivities. The Lamb BBQ is the main event, but it wasn’t scheduled to start until like 2:00 in the afternoon. I was about 11:00 by the time we had made our way from the boat, to the dock, then on to the event site. We staked out a spot on the ground and relaxed in the bright sunshine.

As you can probably tell, Justine was the event photographer for us for most of this trip. I was pretty lax in my photography duties.

While the Lamb BBQ is the main event, there’s lots going on for the whole day. There are a number of booths set-up, with different craft vendors with various things on display and for sale. There’s other food on offer - we had some ice cream as a pre-lunch treat.

They also have a book sale from the library. a coconut toss game, and even a dunk tank. The event itself is a huge fundraiser for a number of the island’s services. It’s fun to support it, and it’s a great cause.

And most importantly, there was a beer garden. We started easy, with cider and found a spot on a bench in the shade to hide from the sun. While I was waiting for Jus to come back from the washroom, I struck up a conversation with a fun couple from Victoria that hads also come over for the day. After Jus came back, we chatted with them for a while, before heading back out into the sun to hang out with our group.

Local ciders - apple and pear - they were pretty good!

We had a really nice, relaxing day, hanging out in the sunshine with friends. We don’t slow down like this very often, so it was nice to do so. But eventually (we were starving!) they started calling people for the BBQ!

This part is not for everyone - this is how the lamb is roasted. And damn, it was delicious.,

I think they said they did 26 lambs this year.

And it's not just all meat - the spanish rice is also delicious!

The food, as always was amazing. The lamb was great, the side dishes were excellent and you just can’t beat the atmosphere. We all got our food at roughly the same time and sat around in the sun enjoying our BBQ. After we had eaten, we didn’t stick around too long. It had been a long day in the sun, and we were all ready to call it a day.

Surprisngly, it did not take us too long to get back to the boat. David did a masterful job navigating all the other people in their little boats, and the two trips over went quickly. I was cursing myself for not bringing a bathing suit, for by this point I was really hot and the water was looking very inviting.

The trip home went quickly (still no whales), and we were back to Galiano and home by about 6:00. It was agreat day, and a huge “thank you” to David for being our captain again.