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Grey Whales are back early

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Happy New Year Ok, OK, I know I do a lot of sunsets (and sunrises) - but they are so beautiful Sunset over Vancouver Island (iPhone) Well, as feared in the last blog, it turns out that coming from a new joint email address our festive messages ended up in a lot of folks junk folders. W e sent e-Christmas cards as Canada Post were on strike for several months before Christmas.   So if you were thinking "we didn't get a card from the Cronks this year", check your junk email.  If it isn't there, then our email list was clearly in error (or you have changed your email address)!   It seems e-Xmas messages are starting to replace snail-mail (not surprising if you go on strike before Christmas) and probably arrive nanoseconds after they were sent. We had several.  Our first batch of the more tactile traditional cards arrived from the UK Fri Jan 10th, apart from a couple that must have been posted last summer, or maybe even Christmas 2023! Winter seems to have bypa...
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Breaking News

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Now Fred Not content with having to manage Jack's broken leg, Fred comes out in sympathy, goes A over T at tennis and fractured the radial bone (top/neck end) of her left elbow.  I always thought tennis was a rough game.   No plaster-cast or brace, just a sling for a few weeks and no driving for four weeks. More importantly, no skiing at Christmas.  Still on the positive side we now have a built-in dogsitter while I go skiing! Jack on the other hand is now walking and playing normally, no limp, which disappeared a couple of weeks after he hit the car.  If we had not seen the x-ray we would have him labelled as a complete fraud. Fred managed to arrange the 'incident' a week before we hosted Sebby for five days while Nick and Lizzie jetted off to NYC to celebrate her birthday.  The same weekend (Dec 8 & 9) that I had two concerts with the A Cappella Strait choir I belong to.  It was, to say the least, a full-on weekend.  After dropping him back ...
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Fall Leaves and Rainfall

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Jack Vs Car Sat November 9th Fall seems later this year and the deciduous leaves have been a lovely mix of golds and reds with the predominance of Maples in all of its varieties. After last week's storms, most of the leaves are now down along with quite a few trees.  Further up the Coast a tornado was reported taking out multiple trees that closed the main highway and took out power for local residents for around three days.    A local driver caught the trees coming down on video .  After two consecutive dry summers, 2024 has been wetter with no significant water restrictions on the Coast.  I assumed this was good news until reading an article in the UK press that suggested late autumns are just another sign of global warming. The storm left us without power for nearly 12 hours and a huge number of properties were similarly affected across southern and central BC.  Fortunately we had a good supply of candles and a gas lamp.  Some friends near the ...
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Grizzly Comes to Town

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And gets moved on Tuesday Sep 24th Sunrise over the Salish Sea - with a BC ferry in the distance A Grizzly on the Coast is big news.  W e don't get many.  The young bear in the link was wandering around the roads in upper Gibsons which backs onto Mount Elphinstone and the forests that go on for hundreds of miles.  We get a sighting maybe once a year and the Conservation Officers were soon on the scene setting up a trap and subsequently catching the said Grizzly before relocating it by boat.  We know not where, for obvious reasons. This was a good outcome.  Bears are often shot if they become a nuisance, particularly Black Bears which  apparently, are difficult to relocate.  They cannot be placed  into another bear's territory and will often return to where they were causing a nuisance.   Picking garden produce early as bears come in to their hyperphagia period (eating as much as possible before hibernation), especially fruit trees and o...
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