2011/05 Family letter - Weather news |
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Weather news |
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There’s been plenty of other news here in BC. Osama’s shooting barely made the news here, as the Canadian election, that wedding over there, and the Canucks in the hockey playoffs dominated the headlines. Sandie got to vote for the first time in about forty years and the first time in Canada. She had to work at persuading them that she was a valid voter, as it’s rather strange for someone born in Canada to not appear on the voting roll for nearly 50 years.
She thought it was important to witness the royal wedding so sat up all night. She wasn’t too impressed by the Canadian commentary; Peter 
Mansbridge seemed to be enjoying an English vacation, definitely no Richard Dimbleby.
The biggest news in Hope is that the new Coquihalla bridge is now complete and the “historic” Rambo bridge has been bypassed except for pedestrians. It’s a good spot for photography. It’s still for sale.
The only news about the weather has been bad. We’ve had a few isolated warm days but the main story has been “cold and wet”, with frost warnings this week. The hummingbirds are back and we have our feeders out. The vultures are back too but Sandie wouldn’t let me put feeders out for them. They’d be easier to photograph than the hummers. The hummingbirds are very territorial and it’s rare to see two on the feeder at once. The males look permanently angry.
As we now have a few fruit trees and shrubs we thought we should boost our bee population, and put up a nesting area for mason bees. These are the little mostly black and white bees, native to the area. They don’t have hives or honey to protect so they are docile and easy to manage; all they need is a good supply of deep 5/16 inch drilled holes for their eggs. We even bought some hibernating bees to add to the local population, but the local robins misunderstood our plans and thought they were bird feeders. Next year we’ll add chicken wire to the design.
Even high water is late this year, but as you can see from picture of Sandie and the quilt, the Fraser is now wet from bank to bank. It’s reached the hypnotic stage, where a passing tree catches the eye and we realize we’re still watching minutes later. No one
seems to be talking about a Fraser flood this year, but we can monitor the water depths all the way along the river via a web site. It’s deep enough at the moment to cause a background roar as it goes under the bridge.
Sandie appreciated the flowers for Mother’s Day; there are still a few flowers surviving two weeks later. We spent the day upriver at Hell’s Gate, mainlybecause it was their annual free ride day. So we actually took the tram ride rather than hoofing it down and up as we usually do. Not as exciting as the jet boat ride there of two years ago, but a lot cheaper.
The dismal weather has been good for the web site and now it includes almost all the surviving letters, going back to our first days in the USA. None of the letters prior to 1994 contained any pictures as that was about the time that hand-held scanners and colour printers were first affordable, but our children will be delighted to know that I have lots of pictures of them going back to the 1970s, and I’ll be adding those as slide shows. Something for the grandchildren to giggle over in future years.