Post 59: Going home to see new family! (And of course a summer hike!)

My niece was born on 11 July this year, and I was away for the birth. But after some hectoring and reissued invitations to come home to see Sophie, I arranged for a quick trip home.

It was a great trip!

Me and Sophie! She was just under a month old here. 

Sophie is a cutie, and as someone who doesn't have many friends with newborns, she's one of the first babies that I've spent time with. I'm amazed by her vulnerability. The fact that she can't get anywhere on her own. That she sleeps A LOT. That she eats and goes to the washroom, and is so dependent on my brother and her mother for everything. It's amazing to me how these little beings develop and eventually become fully grown adults. What a fascinating process of learning. And there is SO much to learn!

When I was there, it was noted that she now had a range of sight that allowed her to focus on people or things about 2 feet away (aside from something more general and undefined like light). ISN'T THAT JUST AMAZING!? :D

She is pretty neat, and I'm a little bit sad that I won't be able to spend that much time around her as she figures out some of these other things, like locomotion, and temperature regulation (she was always very hot, such that when I held her, I would be sweating within minutes, too!), and her voice!

My sister had two friends visiting as well, and we went up a local favourite, Meadow Mountain. Here are a few fun panoramas that I took, learning how to use that function on my phone:

Gorgeous wildflowers, including the long red maturing seed pods of dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum L.) and the bright flash of red of a Castilleja species! (L)

 My parent's dog Laika, super excited and slobbering over the backseat. Her ears are pushed over by the ceiling. (R)

Smoke moving into the valley above Kootenay Lake from the Cascade Mountain fire. 

Meadow Mountain! Looking East and south. 

Meadow mountain looking west and north. Beautiful bright green larches can always be found on the north side here. 

 It was a great short visit home, and I miss the mountain dearly, especially when it's so easy to get up into them.

Seeing the smoke of the fires in the above photos, however, does mean my thoughts go out to the folks in especially the Okanagan, Rock Creek, and Oliver, who have lost homes, properties, or livestock due to the fires there. Stay safe! And many thanks to the many fire fighters and support staff working hard to keep our communities safe this summer.

Post 51: Being home in the Kootenays!

Home is a magical place.

Kaslo, my tiny hometown, population around 1000 (it fluctuates during the year with the quietest point in the winter, and the bustle returning for summer), is—surprise!—the largest community on the main body of Kootenay Lake (Destination BC).

Being home for me means working in the bakery that my parents have been running for the last 23+ years and waking up to the smell of fresh, baking bread filling the house, as the bakery is attached to it; it means regular visits and card games and spending time in the our massive garden with my grandparents, because we share a backyard with them and the garden is my grandpa's main project right now; it means taking the dog for walks along the Kaslo River Trail, a visionary project that my dad set in motion; it means winks out at star-filled skies before climbing under sheets, and relatedly, quiet nights with amazing sleeps; it means spending time with my family and my siblings and their significant others.

My awesome grandparents celebrating my grandma's 80th birthday! 

And sometimes it means spending an afternoon filling the table with apple peels and flour because we know that my mom loves apple pie:

My sister Heidi (R) with her fiancee Peter (L), and our mess on the table. :) 

Being home means a lot of things to me, including mountain adventures, a general sense of things are all right in the world.

It also frequently means a lot of work, haha, so my sister and I spent a lot of time organizing things, and dusting and taking care of the chickens and the dog, and weeding, and other such fun things which I've really been enjoying these past few weeks.

View from the Public Beach, North. We're in the Selkirk Mountains; the Purcells are across the lake to the right.

While I brought home my StandStand, I've found it more fruitful for now just to stand and do some of the research work that I brought home with me at the kitchen's island counter, but all of the running up and down stairs and garden work and walking with the dog have reinforced for me that I feel much better when I'm switching things up as opposed to hunkering down in a chair for 7+ hours a day. So I will definitely need to remember that when I get back to Victoria!!

Here are a couple other pictures of home so far:

Pebble Beach, one of my favourite little corners.  

Giant tulip in the garden. 

The garden slowly taking shape!

 And then of course there is the fun and wild madness of the Kaslo May Days: a long-standing tradition. Every kid who's a kid in Kaslo needs to participate in the maypole dance (which I wasn't able to attend because we were baking.) But I did catch some of the fun of the choker race:

And here's an action shot of the women's log rolling competition!

Home is a good many things, but many things aren't as good as home. 

And now off to the Climate Change in Culture Conference in Charlottetown!