Bears and Shitting Your Pants.

Found this little gem while organizing the disgustingly huge mass of photos and videos on my comp that, well, need to be organized.

Yesterday Chrissy took me to a spot, right along the Fraser River in Yale, that she, the 2 boys and man in her life( his family's land ) spend a large majority of their summer. 

We got there and I had to take 5 minutes to just suck it all in. Of course, you have to completely love mountains and rivers and sand ( bloody well beach sand!!...bleached over sparkly clean silt basically ) and this canyon to totally appreciate it. 

I walked around with my mouth open. Dotted throughout the forest of massive Fir trees and Salmonberry bushes were 3 tents, a cooking and eating station and plenty of smaller areas to sunbathe, read, play, whatever. All of which was right on the banks, literally, of the Fraser River. By the time school begins and they are back permanently in their house a month from now the creeks will swell from the last of the mountain melt, which floods the river and voila!/shame the ideal camping spot is under water till next summer.

Wow. That was the one word I said a good dozen times. It was just so beautiful. Then I reached for my camera, so I could take some photos and drool over them later.

I had left the batteries for the camera, in the photo charger. At home.

We thoroughly enjoyed the views, then went on to another spot where more fun could be had. It was one of the many run off creeks ( from the melting mountaintop snow on both sides of the river ) and that area as well was just stunning. The creek water was 100% see through and we could see a half dozen Salmon ( Pinks I think? ) resting before they fought the rest of the way up the mighty Fraser to their spawning grounds. Next spring I'd like to go there once a week to photograph the progression of the river, creek and banks alongside them. Try my hand at a time lapse mini film when done. :)

Next we headed over to a spot on the opposite side of town, (stopping for my freshly charged batteries...yay! ) that Chrissy and her friends used to play around when they were kids.

We followed a  pretty well worn vehicle path 

Which narrowed to this

and then we saw these fresh bear claw marks

Being as how it is berry, fish and camper garbage season...and there are bears walking around all the time, we decided to head back. But we carried big sticks and talked loudly!

These are 2 human and animal tunnels that run under Highway #1

This water is flowing down Silver Creek from the Cascade Mountain Range and right into the Fraser River.

Oh! Another little gem!

Enjoy today...go do one spontaneous act of kindness.

Sweat, Swearing and Happy

Yesterday was a day of sweat, swearing and finally a few happy moments.

The sweat and swearing involved separating 7 of these 3 month old Silkie babies

from one rooster, 3 hens, and 6 five day old chicks. The moment we ( Fred and I ) tried doing any type of herding, chaos ensued.

Once the adult birds realized we weren’t coming after them or the wee ones, they told the 7 teenagers to go hide somewhere, stay together and to shut the fuck up.

Seeriously, they told them that.

They told them and they listened so damn well we started thinking they had fled the yard and were now carousing the streets of Hope.

Hacking my way through Blackberry AND Raspberry bushes 8 miles thick *shaking fist at Fred  and his lousy non-existent pruning skills* I spotted them huddled in a corner almost completely camouflaged.

And not saying one damn word.

A 1/2 hour later, 6 were all safely crated. The last one was just too damn fast!, or we were just too spent from it all, whatever. The 6 were loaded into the car, ready for the trip to be passed off to the sucker lady who was offering them a new home. She’s known as the Food Lady and her blog can be found right there  → Woo Tube. ( for future reference, a link to her blog is also found in the link at the top here under “Human Stuff”  Also for future reference, she, along with others operates a Border Collie rescue right here →  B.C. Border Collies )

We went in the house, bathed our wounds, and headed off to meet up. Then came the spectacle of exchanging them from Fred's crate to the Food Lady's. 5 of them were easy peasy, but the last one loosened itself from Fred’s grip and took off running like crazy for grass and bush that was even more foreboding looking than the Blackberry/Raspberry jungle at Fred’s house.

Fer fuck sake man.

The 3 of us were vainly trying to catch this 8 inch chicken in grasses that at some point were over our heads. Absolutely ridiculous. The Food Lady sent in a young pup she is fostering to perhaps flush out the chick. Seconds later, the sound of a chick being eaten alive came from the grass.

The chick was fine. Oh, there was a bit of canine saliva on it. And it was obviously traumatized from the whole wicked morning, but then so was I. Fair’s fair.

Happy moments from yesterday; 1 ) I was able to grab a big ass bale of shavings while out. It’ll keep some of the silt that sits on top of the dirt in my small yard down. Less dust in my home. I really could use 3-4 more, but was in someone’s car and not my van. Next time. 2 ) Received $12 in coupons for free products from Island Farms! I had purchased some milk from a store here and it curdled ( ewwww! ) within 2 days. Long story short, the store owner blamed it on crappy milk, and the company blamed it on poor handling on the store’s end. I profited, and that’s all that matters to that story. :) 3 )  Was asked to house and dog-sit for 3 days next week. It's within eye sight so it's only a matter of feeding and tending to the dog. I'll take Ticket over to play with it daily as well as take it on walks with us. Also, they've offered me the use of their tub so I can bathe my  guys! It's been almost a year since they were bathed; there is only a 6 gallon hot water tank in this sardine can and that wouldn't even get one of them damp. So, I'll make a few bucks AND have clean dogs. Sweet!

I took the next 2 photos of the field where we met up with the Food Lady

This one shows the height of the grass the bastard chick escaped to. Told you it was head height!

And that was my yesterday.

Today has been calm and quiet. So far.

Observations and photos

Henry’s nose fits perfectly in my eye socket.

‘Bruised’ eyeballs scare small children. ( sorry again to the little scaredy cat girl at the post office. )


Fact: if dogs sleep on your pillow and bedding before you retire for the night you will have sweet dreams and a restful sleep.

Fact: I’ve never before used the word “retire” when speaking about going to bed. Sounds like I’m a high falootin’ 1920’s rich bitch with a cigarette holder. And a drawl. And a dry martini. And white elbow length gloves.

I bet I would have been beautiful too. Like the grand dame below.




The pride parade ( the photo above is from that day ) made me feel, ohhh, I don’t know, less outwardly colorful. My anthem now is to wear more color.

I’m going to wear brighter colors! A brighter shade of blue jeans? Maybe a sparkle of pink nail polish? Clean my white runners more often?

Yikes, I need a make-over!


Fact: Grandbabies make your heart hurt sooooo bad in a good way. It’s akin to experiencing the same intense love you have for your own child, but different. It’s freer. It’s exhilarating. It’s a grand thing.

This 1 window skylight of the 2 in my sardine can makes me smile.

Enjoy your day…You only have one August 4th in 2011!

Blog Stats

This blog was started so family members could keep track of my life. Also so I could have somewhere to journal and keep all my most favorite photos! It's remained with a very small following ( thank gawd, because I hate crowds ) because I do not *advertise* my blog on other sites, join groups of other bloggers, nor join up to search engines. I like it fine the way it is thank you very much!

While I have Sitemeter tracking some stats of visitors to this blog, I find that Googles own Stats are much more interesting.

Keeping in mind that Google Stats have been tracking since May 2009, here are some of the stats!

Here's an overview

Here's the stats from the Posts section of the overview. I am not surprised at all about the first one being "Chain Saw Carving Capital of the World Hope BC", but the second one did! "Cowboy Boot Windchime, Stuff and the Fruitcake Lady" also brings back some sad memories. One being that my Cowboy Boot Windchime was stolen from me by a co-worker at my last place of employment. So, if anyone is driving down Stave Lake Road in Mission BC and sees it, steal it back for me! ( and kick the thief Renee in the ass. K, thanks. )

These next stats are the Traffic Sources. I'm just thankful that people spell Hunde Haus correctly.

 Some search words/phrases that people have used to make their way here....

And the last stat, the Audience.

There ya go! Stats from a really small blog with an even smaller audience. 

I spent a couple of days vamping up my blog. I LOVED it. For about 20 minutes. Now I realize I will spend a couple more re-vamping. I'm not loving it so much any more. I do like the spark of color of flowers but there's just something not quite right. But that's all for another day, because TODAY I AM GOING TO SEE MY GRANDBABY LOGAN!! YES I KNOW I'M YELLING!!! 

Pride Parade

Wow, my eyes are still sore from all the bright colors, my ears are still ringing from all the music and sounds, and my mind is still boggled and loving all the fellowship and pure joy I experienced yesterday at the Pride Parade in Vancouver with my friend Rob.

Police, Firefighters, Ambulance, Nurses, Punks, Dykes, Trannies, and a big bucket full of others were there!

I took over 500 photos. My delete button is worn down, as is my pointer finger. It was so incredibly hard to select which ones to put here so I almost put them all. Go grab a cup of tea/coffee and come back and relax to see them all! Enjoy! ( as usual, click on the photos to enlarge them! )