A Windy Night

Gabriola experienced strong winds with gusts around 100 km/h last night and early this morning. The power flickered many times before finally going out at around 5am (where we live anyway) and was out until the early afternoon. We went for a short drive and saw lots of trucks and workers out wrangling branches out of power lines and getting the electricity flowing again - THANK-YOU!!
Our "white house" which shelters our gardening tools and supplies unfortunately did not make it through the night.

We Did It!!

Congratulations Gabriola, we did it. After making it to the semi-finals for the Aviva Community Fund we have moved on to the finals for Gabriola's Emergency Care Facility. The 25 favourite ideas are currently being reviewed by the competition judges. The competition winners will be announced January 25th, 2010. So with our fingers crossed and thinking good thoughts we enter into the holiday season with our hopes set on the biggest gift of all come the end of January. What a fantastic group of people to set this motion and thanks to everybody who reminded and reminded and reminded us to vote everyday, you are very dedicated. Everybody deserves this toast, "Here's to a fabulous community that extends far beyond our backyard, Thank-you"!

First Gabriola Snow!

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event"
It is the first Gabriola snowfall of the season and as always it is beautiful. The kids were so excited when I got home from work. We quickly got dinner started, got dressed and headed outside. Snowballs and snowmen and snow angels were made by all. Snowflakes were caught on tongues and much laughter and giggling came from all. Once we were ready to come in the girls enjoyed dinner and hot chocolate and my oldest gushed about all that she would be doing tomorrow in the snow, especially sledding. Here's hoping that the snow sticks around long enough for that to happen. What a wonderful evening we had marked by the first snowfall of the season.

Gabriola Street View

This past year you may have seen the Google Street View vehicle making its rounds around Gabriola. Well it is now official, visit Google maps and you can take a lovely tour of Gabriola on what looks to be a warm spring day. It covers every road on the island and does a 360 degree view from the road. See the ferry in dock, people on the streets, gas at $1.06/L, and many other things. A very interesting idea, now people who have never been here can get a good feeling for the island.

Relaxing on Hornby Island

We had the luxury of getting a week off this summer and we went to Hornby Island. Many people looked at us rather oddly when we said we were going to another Gulf Island for a holiday but we so wanted to spend some time in a quiet place where we were totally anonymous. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and headed to the lovely cottage we had arranged to rent for a week. The property was beautiful and equipped with a zipline in the backyard much to our 4 year old daughter's delight. Hornby is a beautiful island which you can reach by taking a ferry from Buckley Bay on Vancouver Island to Denman Island and then driving across Denman to the Hornby Island ferry. The ferry ride to both islands are a short ten minute jump and the connections are quite good.

Hornby has a wonderful shopping area called the Ringside Market where there are 2 clothing stores, a coffee/ice cream stand with the best americanos, cafe, restaurant, book store, pottery store and of course the Hornby Co-op Grocery/Everything you need Store. While there we made trips to many of the local artist studios, beautiful beaches, farms, and of course the Cardboard House Bakery which has the best almond buns and cream puffs. It is also the home of Pizza Galore which beats any pizza place I have ever been to, fantastic!!!

Hornby is also home to two wineries and a meadery which we managed to visit without our kids thanks to our wonderful friends/travel companions. Middle Mountain Mead is an artisan honey winery combining the best of ancient and modern techniques to create small lots of premium handcrafted mead. We left with 3 bottles of Mead which we are eagerly awaiting to try. Visit their website at middlemountainmead.com.

We had such a fantastic and relaxing vacation that we will definitely be back next year anxiously awaiting anonymity and almond buns:)

Eagles in the Morn

What a treat we had this morning while clearing the breakfast dishes! We looked up just in time to see a pair of bald eagles land at the top of a douglas fir tree for a brief break in the morning sun. This tree seems to attract the birds as it is the same tree that I caught a picture of an owl and a pair of ravens over the past year. The ravens are often perched in the top branches of this tree but the eagles are definitely a first. As quickly as I could I grabbed my camera, my gumboots and my vest and was quietly slipping out the back door. I crept down to the garden in hopes to not startle them before I got some pictures. The pair noticed me quite quickly and watched me much of the time before they flew off into the blue sky and morning sun. Definitely a special moment on a cold and clear February day on Gabriola.

West Coast Wonders

We finally received our seed order in the mail. This is an exciting occasion because it means we are once step closer to spring and with that comes gardening. We love getting an assortment of vegetables, fruit and herbs, nothing tastes better than a meal made with ingredients grown within 100 feet from your backdoor. This year we are trying our hand at cantaloupe, Lesley grew these one year and they were the best melons I have ever had. They were small, crisp and had such an amazing sweetness. Melons are a tricky crop to grow on the west coast, you should choose the part of the garden that gets the most sun and has the nicest, loosest soil for these plants. Saying that, we are always up for a challenge and nothing beats the satisfaction of growing your own food. Every year I look forward to getting my hands dirty and spending many a warm evening in the garden weeding, watching the kids play, and snacking on all that nature has to offer.