Goats on Roof

Hullo! More adventures from our tour-for-the-poor-winter-sick-Albertans. Today we are visiting a place called Coombs. It is world-famous... at least I think so. It has grass on the roof and normally there are goats up there. But they weren't around today.

The roof is for the Goats on Roof Country Market... seee... they even have their own logo...

It is always super-cool in here. This time they have neat circular hangings...

Maybe from Nepal or Burma or somewhere!

Oooohhh... Christmas goodies are 50% off!!

Heh-heh... I met a couple of stuffie goats and we played on a swing for a while.

I also met some grey mice that were being auctioned off for $3.98. I thought I would rescue them but they told me they were quite happy at the market. At night, when everybody goes home, they scamper down the aisles to...

The cheese section! Oooohhh...

These are goat cheeses from Saltspring Island.... yum!

And some elderberry cheese.... they even had guiness cheese! For the discerning mouse who wants to eat cheese and get tipsy on guiness, all at the same time.

I had to bribe this guard to let me through to the bear section...

That's where they sell... smoked salmon!

And maple syrup...

Along with various fruit syrups like blackberry and saskatoon... super yum!

Oh... and some chocolate cream maple cookies. Is that a bear named Jerry with his nose plastered to the computer screen?

And of course... at the very back... there is honey! This is gold creamed honey....

And then there is liquid honey - this one is made from fireweed, a flower that grows in old burns. It makes a very delicious honey with a delicate taste. Did you know honey is like wine that way?

Oh my goodness.... a whole VAT of honey!!! I think I will just sneak under the spigot and open my mouth!

More mountain flower honey... mmmm.... super delicious!

There was even a buddha outside... He looked pretty happy... he must have eaten some honey!

Anybody want to come visit and help me finish off that vat of honey?

Millenial Tree

Hullo bears and not-a-bears! Today was another outing day. Which is beary good news. We had guests from Alberta. They still have bitter cold winter so of course they were in shock at how green it is here. We went to a place called Cathedral Grove - it has super old cedar and douglas fir trees.

It is a beary nice place when the sun is shining. When it is raining, it is kind of gloomy.

These are the douglas fir trees - they can get super tall.

There was a little trail through the woods, so we walked for a bit.

So lush and green - I love how thick the moss is on the branches.

This is the oldest tree here - it is over 1000 years old and way taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa! You can't even see all the way to the top cause of all the branches.

Somebody likes taking sun-in-trees photos!

There were a few trees that had fallen down over the winter and the trail had been cleared. I didn't count all the rings on this tree, but I would guess it's several hundred years old!

An Honest-to-goodness Outing!

Oh my goodness... I got to go on a genuine outing today!! All that hard renovation work paid off. Plus the weather finally cleared up after weeks and weeks of rain!

We went down to the ocean... there sure is a lot of new driftwood washed up. I suggested we take some home for our garden but (a) it's too big and (b) we are in a park sooo...

But it's nice to sit on and get a bit of warmth from the sun.

There's a little hike here as well, which is always cool.

See that green stuff in front of my face... those are little tiny leaves!!!

Yup, it is getting pretty green here... not that it ever really stopped being green. But this is a fresh, new, spring green!

The birds were out as well... Can you guess what this fuzzy picture is of?

This is a slightly better picture... They are hard to photograph when they are far away and soaring in circles!

It is so nice to see the sun again!

 I did a bit of exploring and came across this lean-to/teepee made out of driftwood.

It has a gorgeous view...

But the walls are a bit unweatherproof...

Although, it would be cool to have a campfire in here....

 Did I mention how nice it was to see the sun again?

Of course, we had to take lots of pictures...

Because that's what we do on hikes...

Of course...

I wanted to sit on this beach for a while... it has some really cool volcanic pebbles that get super smooth from the ocean.

Plus the view is pretty nice as well. On a good-day, you can see Mt. Baker from here... that's in Washington State.

A cool log got washed up on this beach as well...

This one has some gnarly spots where branches used to be attached. I'm not sure what type of tree it might have been.

Beary cool looking though...

He-heh... the sun-dappled water looks like it has diamonds on it.

We also saw some cool fungi...

And neat driftwood. Do you think this would qualify as "Winter Fun" photos for Julie Jane Zebra's photo contest?