While 2020 has been an unforgettable year for many, we want to catch you up on our travels and projects, so far. The highlight of this year must be our trip to Cancun, Mexico. Troy and I had never been to Mexico before, so it sure was memorable. The wildlife there was certainly a strange sight for us. Coatis, are raccoon-like animals that ran free through the resort and scavenged the crumbs of the tourists. You often saw their striped tails upright along the sunken forest trails or only caught a blur of them running underneath the beach chairs. Then, there was the raccoon that patrolled the hotel garbage bins each night. These animals were always good for a chuckle. Alex even bought a mug with a coati to remember these little fiends.
While there were many excursions to choose from, we were most excited to see the magnificent ruins of Tulum. The ruins of the ancient city were once home to the palace court. The cities is fortified by walls on three sides and by a deathly cliff on the fourth. Even though some of the walls were crumbling there are still somethings time cannot erase and that is the magnificent view of the Caribbean ocean.
Things were quiet when COVID arrived, but when the weather turned we were back outside. In the spring, we prepped the raised beds and planted our vegetable garden. We spread lots of wildflower seeds around and waited to see what would grow. The ditch needed to be cleaned out of forest debris so the culvert would drain properly. With the wet season the mosquitoes were terrible, but they are always terrible. We had a nest of hatchlings in the corner of the car port. They nested their last year as well. We will be looking for them again in the spring.
For Mother’s Day, we had an outdoor picnic, and my Brother, and his kids, caught some trout in a locally stocked pond. My brother Tim, Crafty Woodsman, taught me how to gut trout that day. So, I did the dirty work for the niece and nephew as they reeled the silver fish in. Troy also caught a trout, which was our only fish this year.
During June, we took a short road trip out to see the ribstone petroglyphs by Viking, Alberta. It was a nice, quiet drive. Perfect for a half day road trip. Standing at the ribstones, you can see for several dozen kilometers all around. You can understand why the First Nations would go to the top of that hill to find the bison in the surrounding lands. The view was certainly unique for the Alberta prairies.
This summer, we decided to take a trip on the Harley Davidson. While in B.C. we drove the loop from Vernon, to Peachland, to Kamloops, and back to Vernon. We had bright, sunny weather during our rides.
Alex’s grandfather took us out for a boat ride in the Okanagan, and Troy spotted a few herds of mountain sheep. We enjoyed watching them climb and slide around the side of the mountain from the gently rocking boat.
This summer we struck gold when Troy traded his labour for a 1970's camp trailer from his buddy who needed some transmission work. Luckily, we were able to get the camper cleaned and shaped up for when Troy’s sister came out to Edmonton with her children. Alex took the kids on many nature walks around the yard and taught them about the various plants that grow along the trails.
Troy always has a dozen or so project on the go and this summer was no exception. He sanded the rust off the suburban and is using body filler to shape the body before repainting. We took an afternoon to sand and refinish some wooden oars and Troy sealed the body of the aluminum boat. Troy also fixed someone's broken quad in exchange for another broken quad, which Troy fixed. In fact, we are planning to use that quad for our hunting trip in November. An ongoing project is rebuilding a red one-ton ford with a flat deck that will become a work truck / hunting truck. The rust on this truck had to be cut out and new metal put in, so it has taken much longer than the suburban.
It has been a jam-packed summer! We wanted to catch everyone up on our several projects, because many are setting us up for future fun. And now we are turning our attention to hunting. We are scouting for a hunting area and that requires many trips into the wilderness.
Stay tuned for more posts about the progress of our projects and for more on hunting!