Dog days of summer - finally

July 24 and summer is finally here.  Brooke is missing her feline friend and now Dan as well since he's off cavorting in the Kootenays.  So, we got up early this morning and went to the beach:

The weather was perfect, not too hot but nice and warm.  Brooke did some playing with the little ones then headed off to find someone more her size:

When that got old she found a couple great danes who made her look like a kick dog.  They were HUGE and moved fast so I couldn't really get a group shot:

The funniest part was that the two Danes had a little sister, a two pound pomeranian!  If you click on the picture it enlarges, then click on it again. You can barely see the little peanut behind the leg of the whiter dog in the left of the picture.

(Not sure what is up with the bottom of the pictures, I took them with my phone and lower portion seems to be missing.)

July in the Cariboo

After taking care of business for my fuzzy feline friend, we packed up and headed to the trailer.  The weather of course was predictably unpredictable.  The only thing we did not get was snow.  Not to be deterred, we made the most of the days with good weather. 

The wild roses are just opening:

Since we did get some sunshine, which is seriously lacking here on the coast, we took the opportunity to charge up some solar lights.  However, the set up looked like we were trying to send a message to aliens:

Charging, free of charge.

Night time arrived and the scene changed:

We had 40 of those things stuck in the gravel pile.  However no contact from the extraterrestrial.

Dan took the lights and lined the pathway to the firepit and the second bathroom.  As he is doing this I hear ."there's a little garter snake".  Wholey flipping hell or something similar came out of my mouth.  Being the loving husband that he is, he assured me the snake left.  Alright, I will try to accept that and we carried on.  Later that same afternoon I come out of the trailer with the dog to take her for a walk.  I step down on the deck, have one foot on the driveway and Dan says "uh, nothing, just keep going".  YEAH RIGHT, JUST KEEP GOING.  Instinct says turn around and look - but that was really a dumb idea on my part.  I screeched and cursed and made it to the middle of the driveway in less than one second.  That damn snake was sunning itself on the deck.  Once again Dan assured me it was gone.  He then proceeded to take the dog down for a pee - leaving me standing in the middle of the driveway, too afraid to move.  Fun times eh.

Our feathered friends showed up for a few meals as well.  I gotta say, I think the whiskey jacks really are badass bullies at times.  The usual group showed up:

Oh, hey, it's you guys.  Got any bread?

Then the black sheep of the family showed up:

Mmmmmm, stale bread.  It's a bit dry.

Now look at these guys together to see the difference in the color:

Don't let the fact that the black sheep is in the back escape you.  Those grey buggers were M E A N to him.  He had to sneak around and steal the bread whenever the others took off or weren't looking.  Otherwise they were squawking and swooping him.  We got tired of the bullies and brought in the big guns:

They were too chicken (teeheehee, that's a fowl joke) to get the bread in front of Brooke. 

Another visitor, latched on to my leg:

The squatters have really destroyed the neighborhood too. 

I like what you've done with the place, is that a new side door?

Something large has been teething on the bird houses.  I'm going to just tell myself it is the deer.

We also went to Lac De Roches, which is a Huge lake.  There is a great rest area/lookout on Highway 24 where you can look down on the lake and see this:

Amazingly enough - we stopped there.  Oh how the times are changing!

The trip home through the canyon went well.  The river is still running really high, with potential to go higher:

Squint and look at the left side of that picture (or click on it and then use your 'back' button).  There's a semi on the highway.  I have heard stories from people that recall travelling the canyon in the past and having the river covering the highway.  Not gonna happen for us - no bloody way my nerves could handle that.  We'd be turning around and going back to wherever we came from.

RIP Oscar Fuzzbutt

Although not mentioned here often, Oscar was a big part of our lives - for nearly 17 years.  Oscar passed away in his sleep the morning of Saturday, July 2, 2011.  Oscar moved in Easter weekend of 1995 and there was never a dull moment after that.  He would hide under the vehicles in the driveway and wait for me to walk by - soon as he could see my ankles he would pounce, wrap his paws around my ankle and bite me  - HARD.  And, as a typical cat, he often brought in live gifts for us which always resulted in very loud shreiking on my part and much laughter from Dan.

As posted earlier, Ceasar toughened him up as a kitten.  They used to drive me up the wall in the evening chasing each other through the house, round and round, and then down for a nap:

Those two were really the best of buds. 

After we lost Ceasar, devildogChevy moved in and Oscar nearly moved out!  He just could not get away from the devildog:

Once Brooke arrived, Oscar reclaimed what he had been missing.  Even at only 13 pounds, he took over a queen size bed (which resulted in me often sleeping on the edge, worried about falling off). 

Please shut out the lights when you leave.

Oscar demanded that he be an indoor/outdoor cat so we caved and let him out during the day.  This resulted in him being a bit of a thug in the neighborhood.  We never had strange cats in the yard because he made full use of his vantage points (we have had two cat visitors since he's been gone):

Oscar tolerated some 'dress up' time:

Why do you do this to me, you know I will bite you once you take this off.

And, of course, he liked to kick back and chill once in a while:

He was a great buddy and will be missed.