Ken and I always find the first Christmas season after being home in Scotland for Christmas hard. This year was no exception and, as I said in the previous post, I was a bit of a Grinch/Scrooge this year. However, by the time Christmas came I think we had improved. I had even managed to get stocking filler gifts for Ken on my third attempt of trying!

Christmas Eve both Ken and I worked as normal. For me, work was a very relaxing day and everyone who worked brought some food in so that we spent a lot of the day chatting and eating. The Health Unit decided to collect items for a local women’s shelter and I had the privilege of delivering the hamper with another friend from work. It was nice to be able to help out in that way.

When we got back from work, Ken and I were originally going to go for a snowmobile ride and have a campfire before coming home to eat some food and watch a movie. But when we got home we discovered Ken’s brother Jim and his wife had invited us over to their place to have a supper of appetizers with them. A different way to the spend the night, but still enjoyable. We still had time to come home and watch a Christmas movie.

Christmas Day we were up at 5.00 a.m. to start a video call with our family back home – a great way to be part of each other’s Christmas if you can’t be there in person. We spent a couple of hours online chatting, opening gifts, etc. and sharing Christmas with our family back home in Scotland. Lots of fun for sure, not the same as being there with them but almost as good. We decided to hang up and let them enjoy their brunch without seeing Ken and I’s drooling faces!!! We went to bed for a couple of hours before getting up again to enjoy chatting to my family back home again for another hour or so.

After chatting with the family we went out for a snowmobile ride together – it was fun. As soon as we got to the bottom of our backyard we spotted two elk running around. We turned off the snowmobile and watched them for a few minutes (needless to say, I didn’t have my camera with me or there would have been photos here of them). After they finally left, we continued with our ride. It was lots of fun and was amazing to be out in the bush and see all the beautiful surroundings.

When we got back I made some buns or our Christmas dinner with Kendra, Frank and family and friends in Dawson. As soon as they were made we hopped into the van and drove to Dawson. We had a great time, great food and great company for the rest of the day. Lots of food was eaten; memories and stories shared; games played and so much more. It was a fun day and we are thankful to Frank and Kendra for letting us share it with them.

On Boxing Day our friends from Fort St. John came with their daughter and son-in-law for a visit. The day had been planned as tobogganing, bonfire, meal, games, movie and popcorn. Unfortunately, it didn’t all go as planned! We got changed to go tobogganing right away. Ken got the komatik hooked up to the snowmobile and took Ben, Crystal and Rob down to the tobogganing hill while Isobel and I started walking there. The hill was a bit too steep for me to be brave enough to go down (anyone that knows me knows that I am a bit of a chicken when it comes to tobogganing). After everyone had gone down the hill once, Isobel and Crystal decided to try a double toboggan ride. Unfortunately, not the best decision. At the bottom of the hill there was a small drop and Isobel’s head flew backwards right into her daughter’s nose. Blood immediately started flowing. Ken drove everyone back to the house by snowmobile and komatik. After 15-20 minutes the blood had stopped flowing as much but a trip to the hospital was decided upon. After only being at our place for just over an hour they all got back into the truck and headed back to Fort St John. They definitely made the right decision as their visit to the hospital showed that Crystal’s nose was broken. Not a Boxing Day that will be forgotten quickly.

So with the change of plans Ken and I spent the night watching the bonfire (all the brush, etc. we had cleared up from the backyard this year), playing games, and watching movies. Still enjoyable but not quite the same.

This year Ken got me Beatles RockBand for the WII. Ever since playing Guitar Hero at Katrina and Colin’s last year I have considered getting either Guitar Hero or RockBand. So we got the Beatles RockBand because it was a great deal. We have had fun playing it the last few days, although playing the drums is a bit of a challenge because I don’t have the best hand foot coordination!!! He also got me lots of stocking fillers and a Roomba!!!

One of the gifts I bought Ken this year was a trailcam – it is a camera with night vision capabilities that is triggered by movement/raise in temperature in front of the camera that you put on trees, etc. to see where animals are moving, etc. So for a trial we put out in our backyard on Christmas Eve. On Boxing Day while we were waiting for our friends to arrive we looked outside and saw a couple of deer munching on the hay bales we had used for archery last summer – fortunately this was where we placed the camera and looked forward to getting close up photos of them. I also took some from our deck with my camera. An hour later I looked out and one of the deer had moved even closer, so I managed to go out on our deck – approximately 30 feet away from the deer – and take photos of it. Unfortunately, it was eating our saskatoon bushes so Ken decided to get on the snowmobile and scare them off. It was pretty neat to see them so close again and be able to take photos of them. I have attached photos I took and also photos from the trail cam – look like the deer decided to have breakfast, lunch, supper and late night snack at the hay as we had over 100 photos over the couple of days at various times showing the deer there. In the photos below, the ones that say Bushnell are a couple from Ken’s trail cam.

So that was our Christmas, how was yours??

So where to begin….mmm, our last post was about Thanksgiving weekend…….

At the start of November we made a quick visit “down south” with stops in Lethbridge, Calgary and Edmonton. Ken decided it was time to visit his brother and family in Lethbridge. As we were driving that far we also decided to visit Ken’s nephew and wife in Calgary and then his friend Ken in Edmonton. It was quite a long drive down but the weather stayed good and with the help of an audio book we made it all the way to Calgary in 9.5 hours. It was a long drive considering we left Dawson Creek around 2.00 p.m. after a morning of work. The next morning we hopped in the vehicle again and drove the three hours to Lethbridge. We picked up Ken’s niece and had lunch with her. Ken then spent the afternoon driving his brother around different places while I hung out with his niece and then in the evening we all went for supper. We eventually arrived back at Calgary around midnight. The following morning we met up with Ken’s nephew Tim and his wife Ashley for breakfast. We had a great breakfast at a Dutch place. The pancakes were amazing and the breakfast definitely one to remember. After breakfast we all headed to BassPro Shop, much to Ken’s delight! If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend a visit – even if you aren’t big into hunting or the outdoors. The decor/design of the door is amazing – check out the following link for pictures : Big Bass Pro Shop

Saturday morning Ken was working so I got to spend the morning relaxing, doing some housework, etc. and enjoying life. When Ken came home in the afternoon we went out for a nice long walk through the bush surrounding where we live. It was beautiful to walk through the trees with all their Fall colors, to hear the crunch of the leaves under your feet, see the leaves falling down, and feel the cool Fall breeze. A great way to spend an afternoon.

The evening was more relaxed with watching our first Christmas movie of the year!!! Some of you may think this is a bit early, but considering we just finished Christmas shopping last week – some may consider it a bit late (although, to be honest, we had to do all our Christmas shopping early so we can send it home to Scotland by surface mail!!!).

Sunday morning we were up early – 6am (early for a day we aren’t working) – to go hunting. We drove by truck to an area just 10 minutes from where we live. It was beautiful to watch the sun rise and be in the middle of nowhere, just hearing the sound of nature. Ken went out and walked around for a couple of hours. He saw a moose in his travels but unfortunately at the moment all he can hunt is elk. It wasn’t a wasted morning though, as we both enjoyed the scenery, the fresh air and just being together.

In the afternoon, we decided to go for a quad ride. We got bundled up (it was slightly cool – the temperature in the night had dropped to -16C and it had only made it back up to about -6C) and went out for a very enjoyable ride for a couple of hours before stopping to have a small campfire. It was great. Again just getting out and seeing the beautiful countryside that surrounds us was amazing. Add to that the fun of being with Ken, driving a quad, crossing a small shallow stream, campfires, seeing spruce hens, etc. – it was definitely another memorable afternoon. The trip back was a bit cooler and we were both extremely glad to get back to our cozy house and get warmed up.

In the evening our neighbours invited us over for a Thanksgiving dinner with them. That was very nice – turkey, stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoe and more. A surprise for us and slightly different from the pizza we had planned.

Today, Ken has gone out hunting with a friend while I have had the fun of chatting to family online, starting to make our Thanksgiving Dinner and taking time out to write a blog since it has been several weeks since our last blog.

Below are some photos of our weekend. Hope you are all doing well and enjoying life to the most wherever you are.

This weekend I abandoned Bev to go hunting out by One Island Lake. It was a great weekend! Saw new country, cow and calf moose and had a good time with new friends. The funniest thing was that tonight on the way home from work we saw 6 shootable elk along the side of the road on private property and they would have hung around long enough to be added to the deep freezer that is in the store. Ole well there is still lots of the season left to go quadding, whoops I mean hunting.

It was a great weekend, as well as seeing new country I went out hunting with a friend from town. It is a lot more fun going hunting with another enthusiastic hunter instead of by myself. We discussed the possiblities of future hunts – caribou and sheep as well as escapades around the peace country looking for the elusive elk, moose and deer.  It is going to be a good season!

Hunting – well it has been a learning year. The last 2 years one has been too busy to really go hunting. When one has a hammer in one’s hand it is hard to hunt. So since moving down we have only had one deer in the deep freezer. Down here it is real hunting compared to NWT hunting. One has to get to know the habitat, the movement and the areas of the animals. What do they eat, where they sleep, etc. This season I have joked about being in the animals bedroom. I have walked thru their beds and around their bathrooms but have not found their living rooms where enjoy their life. I guess one cannot find everything out in a few weeks. One has a lifetime to do that.

Another highlight this fall is that Bev is coming out quadding more this year. The last 2 years one has again been too busy to do what one really enjoys and it is changing this year!!!!!!!!  This Sunday I hope to go quadding with Bev to Ellilots Ranch area and take a rifle in case one can turn it into a hunting trip! I always said that it is great to be married because one can do things together and it is awesome to do quadding together. I introduced Bev to skidooing in YK but quadding is nicer just because it can be done in summer time without the cold weather. I remember one time when we left church earlier to go hunt caribou – we got on our sleds and headed out, sleded about 30 miles out of town got one caribou and came back to town. I would love to be able to do that with hunting down here.

Well have a fun week at work.

Ken

This past week has been a week of travels for me – over a period of seven days (Sunday to Sunday) I roughly travelled for one complete day by car! With commuting to work each day, a quick trip over to Fort St. John one day, Tumbler Ridge another, Grande Prairie a third and a finally a trip to Valleyview on Sunday. This week I only want to travel to and from work!!!

The trip to Fort St. John was to pick up a small part for the quad and at the same time visiting with our friends there. It was nice to hang out and catch up a bit.

The trip to Tumbler Ridge was a work thing – a team building day. The best part of that trip was the journey to and from Tumbler (and before anyone says anything – and the quick lunch time walk!). I don’t enjoy team building days as they normally involve (this one was no exception) some weird activities that I get embarrassed at. This team building day started with everyone wearing “tiaras” with Happy New Year on them. Being me, I chose not to wear it on my head and only wore it for a short while (a very short while) on my arm. Anyway, I won’t say anymore about the day as I don’t want to bore you all. Having said that, if you are ever in the area – a visit to Tumbler Ridge is a must. I wouldn’t like to live there, but it is a nice place to visit.

Saturday morning Ken was working, so I went for a ride with Kyle to Grande Prairie where he was picking up a few things. I think it was the first time in a long while that I have came back from shopping in Grande Prairie without buying anything – I do have to admit that there were quite a number of temptations, but I resisted.

After getting home on Saturday, we all had a craving for something sweet, but didn’t have anything in the house. Somehow I was persuaded to make saskatoon and peach pie from scratch. Normally I will just use store bought pie crusts, but as we had none in the freezer out came the recipe book and rolling pin and I made enough pastry for two separate pies. I made a saskatoon pie using the berries from our backyard – it really is neat to think that the pie was completely homemade – and peach pie using some peaches we had canned last year. I was a bit worried about the pie crusts as it has been at least two decades (aren’t I old) since I made pastry. However, in the end I preferred the pie crust I made to the store bought ones. Guess I will be making homemade pie crusts from now on!

Sunday we woke up to a rainy day. Ken was originally going to go hunting but the warm cozy bed won over the cold, grey, wet outdoors. After a quick brunch Ken decided it was a waste of a day to stay inside and opted for a road trip to Valleyview to visit his brother – a three and half hour trip each way. It was a nice day for a drive. It was nice to visit for a bit, but the drive home felt long!!! We got home around midnight and headed straight to bed.

Monday morning was another quiet morning. The rain had dried up and all that was left was grey skies so Ken decided to venture out hunting with me as his hunting partner!!! (Unfortunately, his planned hunting partner for this weekend injured his ankle and wasn’t able to make it out). We were out for over six hours quadding and hunting. It was great fun. I preferred the trails with the large moguls (a lot of them are sections of road that have been ditch dug by backhoes, etc. to stop vehicles going up them) as opposed to the trails with large fallen trees that you have to get over. The holes are fun after a while going down into them and then climbing up the other side (both quite steep), the trees you have to go over quite hard and use your balance if you get high centred on them to get them over. I had a great time visiting the many spots Ken likes to go hunting and getting more use to the quad. We saw lots of wildlife tracks and even spotted an elk, but unfortunately Ken did not get anything to put in the freezer this year. We will definitely be going out together again to enjoy the area around us.

So that was our amazing weekend, unfortunately it has come to an end and work is back!!! Thankfully this week will only be a four day week! Looking forward to next weekend.

Enjoy the photos below of some of the sites from the quad trip.

Until the next time……..

Hunting – well it has been more like quadding than hunting. Moose season opened on Aug 15th for bull but I have not seen any moose yet. Seen a mule doe, bears today, cow elk, coyote and lots of tracks. Found spots to find them but no spotting of an actual moose.  Moose season carries on till Oct 1st and then closes for 2 weeks of bow season and then back to rifle season for 2 weeks as well as elk season. Something needs to end up in the freezer that can be ate all winter long. In one way it has been good because of the heat it is really hot and the meat would have to be processed right away.

Maybe one day I will be able to blog about the animal that I got and put pictures up. Till that time have a good week and see you later.

Ken

A lot of different things have happened over the past few weeks and so I won’t write too much about them all.  I have attached photos from some of the events.

Friends from Yellowknife came down to help their son (also our friend) settle into his new apartment in Dawson Creek as he starts school here.  While they were down we were able to spend time catching up with them.  We enjoyed sharing our house, our favourite relaxation spots (the river close to the house) and even some of our saskatoon berries (Ken willingly – almost – allowed Cheryl to pick some of his Saskatoons to make jam for her craft sales). 

The annual Dawson Fall Fair/Rodeo was on the same weekend they came down and so we all went to that.  This year I made sure that I got to see some of the Heavy Horse events.  It was great to see the big horses pulling the carriages, etc.  We also went to some of the Rodeo, the Chuck Wagon races and fair exhibits.  Unfortunately, for us, it was a very hot day and so we didn’t stay to watch the final events.  However, it was a great day, Ken got his Texas Taters and we will be back next year to watch more of the Heavy Horses.

We have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks in our garden.  Unfortunately, with the recent hot weather I was never to keen to go out and so I missed picking the many peas from the garden and by the time I did they were too bitter.  However, there were plenty of them.  At the same time of the hot weather we also had a surprise frost about a week or so ago when the temperature went down to -1C.  This hit the cucumber plants and potatoes a bit – they are looking a bit sick but we still managed to get some cucumbers and smaller potatoes.

We aren’t sure what we will plant in our garden next year – we may just stick to strawberries.  This year we have picked quite a few cups of strawberries, over 30 cups of Saskatoons and a couple of cups of raspberries from our yard.  The fruit seems to grow quite well without too much work or hassle.  To protect our garden from deer, etc. would cost more money and we really like having the wildlife in our yard. 

In the photos below you will see a photo of a bucket.  Now it may seem like a strange photo to include but there is a story behind it.  On one of our trips to Edmonton this year Ken made a stop into Lee Valley Tools to pick up some woodworking tools.  While he was looking at them, I chose to look at some of the gardening stuff they had on offer and decided to pick up a set of these buckets (one in blue and one in red) because they were advertised as being good for multiple uses as well as being pretty unbreakable – even in very cold temperatures.  Well, for me these have been my best buy of the year as they have been used so often.  We have used them for berry picking, produce picking, produce washing (as they are completely waterproof), carrying items for picnics, and so much more.  Now for those in Scotland who are reading this I am starting to sound like Oor Wullie, although I can’t sit on my bucket!  http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=1&p=53306&cat=2,2120

Anyway, on that note I should sign off since talking about buckets is not the most interesting  topic!  Hopefully the next blog should more interesting.

Saturday Ken went for a 3 hour quad ride with his niece Kaitlyn.  When they got back they told us they had found a great place that had lots of ripe raspberries growing wild.  So we all decided it was a great day to go back and pick them.  Ken, Kaitlyn, Deb and I rode by quad to the area while Kyle drove his truck as close to the area as he could (pretty close) and then walked in to join us.  It was really hot but we were able to pick around 4 cups of raspberries.  It was fun. 

As we were so hot when we got back, we decided it was time to head to the river for supper and to cool off.  This time all of us ended up in the water and enjoyed a couple of hours fun in the river swimming, playing around, etc.  By the time we decided to head home the sun was going down and it was beautiful ride home.

Sunday Ken and I decided it was time to do some yardwork.  We spent the morning clearing away brush around almost 20 young raspberry plants we discovered while cleaning up the backyard.  After about an hour’s work we were roasting hot but it was great to see the raspberry plants and hopefully they will be able to grow a lot better now.  I went into our nice cool as it was so hot but Ken decided to keep up the hard work and continued to do a number of yard jobs that needed to be done – the list is slowly getting smaller.  In doing that he discovered another two areas of raspberries, much to his delight – and mine!

When the evening started to cool down we decided to keep on with the yardwork and decided to pick the saskatoon berries that were ripening.  After a couple of hours we had managed to pick over 16 cups of saskatoons with lots more still to ripen.  We froze most of them, but kept out enough to make a saskatoon pie.

Monday the good weather came to an end and we had a nice bit of torrential rain.  We decided it was a good day to head into Grande Prairie to escape the dreary weather and to enjoy our last day of the long weekend.  Not much shopping was done but we had a great meal out with Kyle and Kaitlyn at Joey’s Seafood with a dessert of amazing ice cream and frozen yoghurt from the marble slab creamery (http://www.marbleslab.com/ - check out the website to make you drool).  A great end to the long weekend.

After we finished pouting over the garden down we went to the river. It was fun. I tried to get a fish tonight but I think I need to change our fishing line out for new ones as I lost  2 hooks to the river. A couple of times it felt like I had bites / fish on the line. Maybe that was just wishful thinking!!  While I was out fishing Bev got the fire going and the sandwiches toasting to melt the cheese. What a way to forget about work and just enjoy!! Bev will probably attach pictures below later. It is also a nice way to cool down.

Have  a  good week. Talk to you later

It was nice to go down to the river on Friday night and have a fire.  Tonight we did the same.  Fires made by driftwood are amazing, the smell is unique.  A person is use to having a pine or poplar fire but the driftwood fire seems to be more comforting.  I was mentioning to Bev that it reminded me of Hay River days and having a fire on the shores of Great Slave Lake. 

Tonight we decided not to take our fishing rods and there were a few guys fishing.  While we were down there they caught a nice size trout, making us very envious.  They also caught a jack - but both Bev and I have caught plenty of them when we were up in Yellowknife.  This week we will go fishing again.  We have seen their spot where they catch them and they use my favourite lure – a five of diamonds!

We went to Fort St John earlier today.  Kaitlyn and I went by bike, while Bev and Deb went by van.  In conjunction with Safeway and a local welding company, the Salvation Army put on a bike weekend called “Christmas in July”.  Since I worked yesterday, we couldn’t see the bike rodeo but went to look at the bike show and shine.  I got roped into being a judge – didn’t enjoy that.  But sadly tonight was the most fun!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking forward to the long weekend coming up.  Will probably be helping a friend move into an apartment – all going to plan.  There will be quadding, fishing and archery happening as well.

Have a good week – below are photos of some of tonight’s fun.

P.S. The Saskatoons are getting ripe, in the future there will be bowls of them for us to enjoy – photos will be added as soon as I collect enough without eating them!!!! (Very tough to do, but maybe I can get Bev to pick them instead).