Apologies

Sorry for no new posts recently. I am a busy girl. I'm up to my neck working 2 jobs and finishing this class I'm taking. I have a paper to focus on and an exam to write coming up on November 8th. Any free time I have is spent trying not to become stressed.

I will post more in November after the exam!

Who Cooks For You?

Awesome Barred Owl Vocalizations on Youtube



Graydon and I heard two Barred Owls vocalizing in the northwest corner of VanDusen Gardens yesterday. It was really cool to stop and listen. Too bad we didn't see them.

Pics from the PNE

Earlier in September, my second cousin Sara and I went to the PNE. I had just been laid off and I suddenly found myself with all kinds of free time on a weekday! We caught the Hastings bus and spent the day wandering around the grounds. We ended up spending the majority of our time wandering through Farm Country, where we could snap photos of all the cute animals.

Here is one of the RCMP horses, taking a well deserved nap before the musical ride (which will feature later)

Such a cute little calf. I hope nobody eats him.

These poor chickens were being constantly scared and harassed by little boys who were poking their fingers through the cages and yelling. This is still a cool shot, backlit from a low angle.

This guy was SO soft.


Piglets nursing! Check out the video below. It's kind of frightening.

Hours old chicks, just hatched!

Fluffy Angora bunnies!

A carousel horse made of plants! Kind of neat.

After farm country we wandered around a bit. We went to see the Superdogs, but it was too dark and far away to get any good pics of the mutts. They were very amusing though.

The main thing we had come to see was the RCMP Musical Ride. But first, a bit of pre-show entertainment... the Carlaw Clydesdales. This is, from what I understand, Canada's only six Clydesdale team, and they're from here in BC. Here they are showing the skill involved in parallel parking a furniture delivery wagon. It was really pretty impressive!

And here is the musical ride. This was unfortunately my best picture. The lighting conditions in the Agrodome weren't ideal for my camera. I have a very short video though. I will see if I can upload it:

After it was all over we did some more wandering around through art exhibits, got some of Those Little Donuts, and stopped by the bandstand to see the Dal Richards Orchestra. This guy is in his 90s and still swinging! It was also great to see Bria Skonberg play and sing. She's a great girl I know through the Vancouver swing dancing scene. That's her in the back right in the black dress and playing the trumpet. She just released her first CD!

We enjoyed a delicious lunch of Fish n' Chips while watching the live music, and then we took a quick perfunctory walk through the Showmart. Not much to see there. But it was a really fun day and I'm glad I went.

Personal Update

My life has been in a state of flux lately, moving to a new apartment, changing jobs, getting used to new situations... it's not been bad but it's not been easy either. Yesterday I caught the flu so I have ample time to sit around and blog.

These days I'm living in Point Grey, in a cute little ground level suite that is just big enough for me and my stuff. I'm enjoying the neighbourhood, my independence, and perhaps especially my kitchen. I love that I am able to be cooking and baking again. It's great picking up fruit and veggies at the farmers' markets on Broadway on the way home from work. The bus here is pretty convenient, so I decided to park my car at Ravenwood for the forseeable future and save some money. A storage policy is only $30 for a year, so I'm happy to be saving on gas and insurance.

Work has changed a lot. I'm still teaching English downtown, but I've changed schools. In late August, I was laid off by the school that I worked for all summer, due simply to their lack of available classes and my low seniority. Within 2 weeks I found 2 more jobs; actually I interviewed for them both on the same day. I now teach at 2 campuses downtown during the day (for one college), and I've picked up some evening hours a couple nights a week with another school. Unfortunately this makes for some long days. Those long hours, a pay cut and some other random inconveniences (that I won't go into detail about) have all lead me to apply to SFU for January admission. This won't be for the 'teaching program' just yet, but I'd like to get my foot in the door and start taking some of my B.Ed. classes early. I'll keep you posted.

I haven't been dancing a whole lot, but I have been getting out and about for hikes and fun weekends. Those blogs to follow. For now, I need a nap.

Close call!

When I was still looking for work, I almost had an interview with this school, but I canceled because the pay was very low and they also seemed very unprofessional. Kind of blows the mind, really.

Garibaldi Lake

Two weekends ago I was able to take my car for one last hurrah up to Squamish, where I went hiking with a friend at Garibaldi lake. The hike itself was not technically difficult, however it was long, and it was vertical. There was lots and lots of "up," taking the form of a switchbacked trail that went on and on and on and on until...

(The hike probably could have taken us three hours, but we had many breaks for water, cookies, berries on the side of the trail, photos of strange mushrooms, and a chance to breathe.)

Photo Credit: Landon Boyd. More of his photos Here.
All other photos posted here are mine.

...four hours and nearly nine kilometers later, we reached the first payoff. A view of the Black Tusk from Taylor Meadows. Another time I'd like to do this as a proper weekend overnight hike, and there would be a good view from up there. This time however, we just had the Sunday.

Whiskeyjacks visited us on parts of the hike; Landon has some good shots of them eating out of our hands, if you follow the link posted earlier. We gave them only sunflower seeds.


Payoff #2: The unbelievable colour of the lake. The sky was overcast, so it's impressive to see such a bright blue near the shore. You have to love glacier lakes.

Payoff # 3 The view of the glacier from Garibaldi lake. You can't really see the colour of the lake here because the photo is from a weird angle and you're getting just the reflection of the sky.

Oops I lied. This photo credit is from Landon's camera too.
Although I think technically my car was the photographer!

It took us nearly 2 hours to get down again. Payoff #4 and 5 were changing into flip flops after the hike and dining at the local White Spot in Squamish. I have to admit I could hardly walk for days afterwards. And yes, I do like this as a hobby.

Lindeman and Greendrop Lakes

Well this is way better late than never! I am all moved and settled into my new home, and here I have more regular access to the Internet and use of my own computer. More about that later.

So, back on June 27th ish, my friend Ben and I went on an overnight hiking trip to Lindeman and Greendrop Lakes, out in the Chilliwack area. We arrived at the trailhead at dusk, and pitched the tent in a mossy clearing just off the trail down to Post Creek. We were still close enough to the car to leave the food there overnight, so we wouldn't have to hang the bear-bag unnecessarily.

Equipped with packs, water, bear spray, Ben's fancy camera, and a hiking pole for my dodgy knee, the next morning we started out easily enough up the varied path to Lindeman lake. When we arrived there after about an hour and a half we were hot, sweaty, and already a little tired of carrying the packs, so we decided to stop for lunch and a swim. The lake was a beautiful turquoise and oh-so-very-bloody-freezing-cold. But it was a nice contrast to the hiking with packs, so we quickly changed and enjoyed a 30 second dip (whilst shrieking and swearing under our breaths), then we dried off and ate a lunch of soup and tea and something else we can't remember. This is the problem with writing blog posts two months late.

Photo Credit: Ben Cecchetto
More photos from the trip found HERE

The scenery at Lindeman was really great, especially as we pressed onwards and got a better view of the lake from the north side. The mountainsides were a lot like those at Cheam, which I hiked last year around the same time. Not surprising since we had to pass the Cheam trailhead to get to Lindeman/Greendrop. They're just a few Kms apart.

What we weren't expecting was the difficulty of the rockfalls/scree slopes we had to hike across. Damn. They were really taxing. Keeping your balance on the boulders is challenging enough without 50lb packs. Then there was the sheer quantity of them... there were at least a dozen or so on the trail. We always seemed to come to one more just as we thought we were finished with the worst of them. I have to say it was the slightest bit disheartening, especially on the way back. I had really ugly bruises all over my calves for the next couple of weeks! However, the upside of these scree slopes meant that we had the opportunity to see quite a few Pikas! So Cute.

As we got closer up to Greendrop Lake the trail became pretty ambiguous, since it had been washed out and re-posted several times in the last few years. Generally, though, we followed the river as we figured it had to be emptying out of the lake, got our boots nice and wet, and found the orange trailmarkers again without incident. The campsite there was nice and private, surrounded by large thorny Devil's Club plants and sheltered by hemlock and fir. After some difficulty getting the fire going with damp wood, we were offered some hot embers by the neighbours (who seemed intent on burning down half the forest) and we eventually were able to warm up and keep the mozzies away with a little smoke. There was no campfire ban at this point, and we made sure we were very careful, as always. I got dinner happening on my little camp stove. We had rotini pasta with sundried tomatoes, basil and garlic. Mmm. Ben thought it was tasty, but maybe a little too fancy for camping. I dunno. I like the challenge of preparing something semi-gourmet with the limitations of a wilderness situation. It's just a thing.

We hung the bear bag that second night, and settled in for what proved to be a very rainy night. Unfortunately, my tent did not hold up to the extreme mountain weather, in spite of my waterproofing efforts a few days prior. At least we spent the night dry and cozy, but there was a rather large puddle on top of the tent by morning, and the advice of "don't touch the walls" was only useful after the fact. But that's ok, it was funny and the interior waterfall proved worthy of a good laugh-- it was a sharp wake-up call!

That morning the breaking of camp began pretty much right after the breaking of fast. (Cinnamon blueberry oatmeal with brown sugar.) The hike down was long and arduous. I could have done with another day just to camp and relax at Greendrop. I had to constantly remind myself that yes, I do enjoy this, and yes, this will probably be my only chance to get out for an overnight hike this year. I was just out of shape, physically less able to keep up with my usual pace. I was sore for days afterwards, but I thought it was so worth it.

We stopped at Lindeman for lunch on the way down, for a pack removal and for not-swimming. It was so nice to get out of the rockfalls. All in all, it was a good trip. We did not have to use the bear spray, we did not get hurt, my knee held up well, Ben got some good pics, and we were happy campers to arrive back at the car.

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. - Lin Yutang

She's Alive!

Surprise! I have not vanished off the face of the Earth!

I've been getting settled in Vancouver, finding work, hiking, dancing, and staying busy hanging out with friends. Rough! I have a great job working as an ESL instructor downtown, and I'm now in my second month there. It's really great to be back in the classroom, facilitating the learning process again. I work with adults of varied cultural backgrounds, in small 3 hour classes, and right now the focus is on conversation. I am happy with that because I approach teaching with a communicative emphasis... I'm not really into the whole grammar lecture thing. Besides, I don't really have much experience teaching grammar as grammar, so I am much more comfortable with things like role-playing, pronunciation games, Q&A sessions, interviews, etc. I'm loving work. It's awesome.

Hikes have been mostly on the north shore. In the last couple of months I have been to the Stawamus Chief in Squamish, the Brothers Creek trail, and the Baden Powell trail down to Deep Cove. However pics from those are presently too much work to put up here... I don't have regular access to a reliable computer at the moment. Soon? I hope so.

Dancing is also in full swing. I am taking lessons on Tuesday nights, and since it's very nearly Summer, dancing at Kitsilano Showboat is happening on Thursdays again... it's so nice watching the sun go down behind the mountains, feeling the cool breeze off the water, and socializing with great people (that is when we're not dancing....) I haven't been going out dancing as much on Saturdays since I'm usually sore/tired from the hiking, or just enjoying a chilled out weekend and the occasional early bedtime.

I have been eating a lot of sushi, enjoying the company of friends, walking over the Cambie Bridge, ogling flowers in people's front yards, hanging out in parks, poking around Granville Island, taking the bus because I can, meeting new people, thinking said new people are awesome, roasting corn on the BBQ, watching movies, relaxing, and enjoying life. It's all pretty sweet.

Camping this weekend... First time this year... it's long overdue!

Creativity

Raven and Aspens, Acrylic on Canvas, 40x30cm