Surrounded by Wildlife

And Ants

Morning on Mixal

Mon Jun 14th

The instructions for the cabin remind us that all garbage must be kept inside because of bears and that mosquitos and ants are a fact of life in Canada, more so when you are surrounded by water.  Windows all have screens and doors are recommended to be kept shut.  They are not screened.

Fine in theory, but on the warm days we have had the doors open.  So far we've only had few problems with either, other than a few night-time bites.  Outside, ants (and some are probably termites but I've not worked out the difference) are certainly more prolific than in the UK. 

Painted Turtle
They even managed to discover the hummingbird feeder hanging on the underside of the roof eaves.  Ant killer in the bowl on the top kept them off for a couple of days, but in the end the feeder had to be moved.  It was heaving with large black ants inside (drowned) and outside the feeder. We now wait to see how long it takes them to discover the new location!

Female Rufous quickly discovered relocated feeder

We continue to see the Painted Turtle in the pond, the Red Breasted Sapsucker, Norther Flicker and Rufous Hummingbirds are regular visitors along with a number of other birds.  We even had a flypast through the garden, by the Barred Owl hotly pursued by one of the American Robins that are so common.  

Pond life
Jack has firmly become a water dog.  If he disappears from around the house he will be found by following the sound of splashing in the water, either in the smaller muddier pond or the larger lake.  If we go down to Mixal Lake he is in the water, swimming along the margins of the lake checking out the smells and being, well, a spaniel!  He is usually wet. 
The silence of the morning was shattered by a rockfall on the mountain behind us.  We're not sure what caused it, but it went on for about 30 seconds.  The smaller pond is the only thing in the trajectory of the rock-face so it all fell well away from the house.  Late morning some friends dropped by for a coffee.  

After lunch and with no hikes planned for the afternoon I did a run down to John Henry's alongside Mixal and Garden Bay lakes.  It was a warm afternoon so it was a slow time.  I'll go early morning next time.

The rest of the day was admin in readiness for the move to Gibsons early July.  Living on the Sunshine coast results in a $1k reduction in car insurance, which I was told by the broker, would be 'refunded by check' [cheque].  That's no help I said as we don't yet have a Canadian Bank account.  You'll need to talk to ICBC they say.   Half an hour on hold and I press "1" for a ringback that never materialized.  At about the same time this cartoon dropped in to my Whatsapp messages.  Very timely!


I was on dinner duty for the evening to cook yesterday's trout.  So fresh local trout from Mixal Lake, a few prawns from the batch we bought off the boat in Pender Harbour and asparagus from Mexico!  Sautéd 'nuggets' (new potatoes to us) and some left over fried rice.  Rather tasty. 



Tuesday sees the further lifting of Covid restrictions in BC, where the non-essential travel ban outside your health region is lifted, group sizes indoors and outdoors increase and other flexibility is introduced.  This means we should be able to fit in a trip to the north of Vancouver Island via Powell River before we leave the top of the Sunshine Coast in a couple of weeks for North Vancouver, back to our first accommodation in BC.  Just to tide us over till the house rental in Gibsons starts and for Fred to get in some essential housewares from the larger stores in the city.







 









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