Camping Adventures

 Hullo! We have finally arrived after our epic road trip! I'll let you guess where we are... And we are camping...

In a trailer! That is much more civilized than a tent... this bear is moving up in the world.

And we have a good supply of firewood...

Cause despite all of the fire bans in the rest of the province, this forest district has no campfire bans!

We went for a nearby hike and found Sande the Rock Snake!!!

Let's check it out! How long can a rock snake be??

It starts here... and goes...

And goes...

And goes!!!

OMG!

It's still going!

And... we finally found the end of it! Whew... thought it was going to go on forever.

Now we can go for our hike.

We walked through the forest...

And relaxed by the river.

And then came here...

To the Sandy Point... there are a lot of things named Sandy (or Sande) here!

There are a lot of cool rocks here as well...

We found a cool carved bench. One side has a forest gnome(?) and the other side has a little stack of chanterelle mushrooms. Cool!

After stretching out our legs... we went for another hike (I know... 2 hikes in one day!!). This is a creek and...

The salmon are spawning!!!!

How cool is that!

We think it is pretty cool...

And it is cool... more salmon for the future.

We came across this cluster of trees, all growing together in some sort of harmony - a hemlock, cedar and spruce... wish humans could do the same.

It's quite lovely on this trail.

And we took a pic with the mega spruce...

And then ended up at the lake! I mean... there are other lakes around here... but everyone just calls this "The Lake"...

And yes... there are dead salmon at the lake as well...

So we won't get our toes or wing-tips wet (did you notice Blueberry has like... zero feet??).

And enjoy the view...

Which is really quite lovely.

Then we came back to camp...

And had some snacks.

And... of course...

Made a campfire!!! Yay!!!

This little bear has bee campfire deprived this summer (2025).

This little squirrel came by but it was interested in smoked salmon...

And then we crashed in our bunk...

And dreamed of salmon and campfires... and long rock snakes!

Beans, Beans and More Beans!

 Hullo! We planted bush beans after we pulled the garlic and... well... we have beans!

So we are going to try dilly pickled beans!

And apparently this recipe has nothing to do with Dilly the (d)Wagon!

Let's see... what do we need...

We need some dill!

Luckily we have some growing in the garden.

First we have to cram as many beans into the jar as we can...

Doing pretty good!

Then we have to simmer our pickling mixture - vinegar, pickling spice, etc.

It's beary pungent on this little bear nose!!

Then we pour that into the jar until everything is covered....

And voila... we are making pickled beans... or Dilly Beans as they are called by some... these are only fridge beans... we are not going to can them... we have to figure out if we like them first!

Once we had the first jar done... we made a second one!

This one has yellow and green beans...

We have to let them sit for a week or so in the fridge and then we can try them.