Greens are Up!

Digging in the Dirt (and Snow)

I dug out one bed in the garden on Wednesday.

By this morning it was pleasantly clear of snow and ready for some planting. I put in a few rows of my favourite salad mix: The Zesty Mesclun Mix from Stellar Seeds.

The cloche - Nevis was thrilled with his giant outdoor solar-heated kitty box. Hopefully I've put enough rocks down to prevent him from getting in.

7.1°C a foot above the ground just next to the cloche.

19.4°C inside. Grow plants grow!

Tadpole - Images from the Pond

Tadpole's foot. Taking after Dad who has size 13s.

I had my 20 week ultrasound this past week. Ultrasounds are pretty damn cool technology. I go from feeling like pregnancy is all about feeling like you have the flu for too many months, to thinking - "holy crap! there's a human in there". Seeing tadpole swim about at 10 weeks and then seeing those big feet kicking, heart beating and brains that looked like "a saucepan full of vegetables" (according to J) at 20 weeks was just downright cool.

The pictures that you get at the end are never as impressive as the moving ultrasound though. Take this image above for example - I'd say tadpole looks like neither of his parents and alarmingly like Voldemort here. Hopefully we think that's cute when the kid comes out.

Here's a yawn - I thought this was pretty cute.

Evening Ridge

James just spent four days doing the Bonnington traverse down near Nelson. I joined him for some Nelson time on the weekend and made it out for a short, but sweet tour up Evening Ridge near Whitewater.

Anne rockin' it on the new AT set up.

The tadpole likes turns.

Spring! And new things...

We headed to Vernon yesterday to see some grass and enjoy the spring like conditions.

We traded our old Jetta in for a swanky new one while we were down there. The old Jetta (on the left, in case you can't tell) had 527,000km and was 20 years old. After one of the wheels fell off and passed James while he was driving on the highway a few weeks ago, we thought it was time to replace the old Jetta. The new Jetta is tied for 3rd for fuel efficiency on the highway in Canadian cars (behind the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid).

James saying goodbye to the old Jetta. The VW guys were pretty excited about the number of kms on it and thought they might keep it as a showpiece to show prospective customers how far these diesels can go.

We took our new car to visit M, S and baby T who are lucky enough to live right next to Kalamalka Provincial Park.

Kal Park also has some lovely mountain biking on (mostly) snow-free trails.

First mountain bike ride for the tadpole I'm growing, which is now 19 weeks old.

Little Sifton Traverse

Got out a couple of weekends ago in the lovely warm sunshine for a second lap of the Little Sifton Traverse this season.

Skinning up.

Aaron approaching the top of Grizzly shoulder.

Lovely warm lunch spot.

Some bold tracks coming off of Grizzly mountain - looks like they got a stunning line.

Approaching the rock step.

Mt. Tupper in the background.

Sir Donald and the Illecillewaet Icefield.

Too much of a good thing

Now that it's March, I'm hoping to see out my windows sometime soon. Maybe even see some soil or grass. It's looking less and less likely what with the extra 50cms of snow we've had just this week. (Though I can't complain about the thigh-deep, face-shot, buttery turns I got at the fingers on Monday.)

Shovelstoke, running out of snow removal money.

Out the kitchen door on Monday morning.

Fresh tracks.

The back window.

The warming spell we had before our most recent snowfall melted a pool of water into the snowblower. The water then froze into about 6 inches of ice. With the help of Nevis and about 10 pots of boiling water, James managed to free the handy machine.

Cat track to the cat door.

Cat door and kitty terrain trap. So far there's been several snowblower triggered avalanches onto the cat door, but no naturals.