Mail Call!!

Hullo!!! I know... it's been months since I last shared a mail post... 

Fun Fact: Did you know this little bear gets more personal mail than the humans?? It's true!!

Alright, first up is a beary nice bear card from Jerry & Ben... Beary nice... I particularly like the bowl of blueberries the bear is munching on...

But then I read the card and... J&B are going to ICELAND in August!!!! Without me!!!

But, but... Iceland is on this little bear's Bucket List!! Oh wait... it's called... the LBBL (Little Bear Bucket List)... anyhow... they better take lots of pictures...

Then we have a card from Ajdin!

Ajdin has a bit hit-or-miss with posting to his blog but we all know he's been struggling with a slacker of a sekrebeary for years! Good help is hard to find (don't I know this!!).

Ajdin sent some temporary tattoos (bear tattoos!). They are from Kodiak Cakes. 

Never heard of them but they do make a Double Dark Chocolate Muffin Mix which sounds yummy... Thanks for the mail guys! Now... if I could only get my sekrebeary to write some mail for me to send!! Although we might be heading into another Canada Post strike. Sigh.

 

A Waste of a Good Beer

 Hullo! This post is from the spring. I know... it's a long story... anyhow... you might think from this picture that I am sitting at the campfire ready for a campfire... with my beer in hand... Well. No.

See... firepit is not in use right now...

No... the beer is for something far less fun and appealing...

See this pot... do you see any nasturtium seedlings?? No!!!

Why, you ask? Because the slugs ate all the leaves and left a few stalks and that's it!!!

And the dahlia???

Munched clean... argh!!!!!

It's not a good scene... soooo many plants and sooo many munched off!

Even in the greenhouse...

And yes... we have tried eggshells... they just roar right over them. Sigh.

Sad little stubs of plants...

So we are pulling out the heavy guns...

A beer trap! Slugs love beer (who wouldn't) and if you sink the container so it's level with the ground and fill it with beer... the slugs slither in and happily drown.

Or at least that's the theory...

we are also spreading more eggshells....

Gardening is hard work you know... Between deer, raccoons, rabbits, slugs and goodness knows what else... 

But it sure is pretty.

Harvesting the Garlic Scapes

Back in June we went out into the garden with an empty basket... it was time to harvest...

... the garlic scapes!!!

The garlic puts out these curly thingies that, if you let them grow, will turn into garlic flowers and drain the bulb/clove of all its oomph... so better to cut these off...

You have to do it before they do 2 full circles...

We almost left this too long....

And we have a good quantity of garlic this year too!

While Mama's doing that...

The strawberries did beary well this year...

Yum!!!

And the lettuce is bursting!

Seee!!!!

Potatoes are doing well too...

Here's the scape harvest (part of it)... some of the garlic was a bit slower (different type) so we'll have to come back for more scapes later. We could pickle these... or make garlic scape pesto or... so many options.

 

Britannia Mines - The Honeywagon...

 Sooo... you may be wondering where the miners went to the bathroom when they went down into the mine tunnels... Well, they had this little contraption that came down on the little railway.

It's a little cart that has a toilet at each end!

I don't know about this... seriously... I guess if you were desperate, in a pinch.

Although the name for this thing is completely disgusting...

It was called the "honeywagon"!!! Honestly... humans have no respect for honey!

Alright... we are getting closer to the big concentrator building... it's known as Mill 3... there was a Mill 1 and a Mill 2!

Ooooh.... looks like some rain is coming down the Sound... that's OK... we are going underground soon.

Oooh!!! You see that big ship!!! That's that ship that was converted into living quarters for the crews working on the Woodfibre LNG plant... The SS Isabel or something? It was docked in our harbour for months while they tried to get a permit to park it over here...

Cool!!

We are on the west side of Mill 3 and these are the foundations of Mill 1. It got too small real fast so they built Mill 2 which burnt down... and then Mill 3 was born!

Alright... are you ready... claustrophobic? Don't worry... I got you!

We all got on a little tiny train...

The humans got to wear hardhats...

We were told to keep all arms, legs, heads and bears (!) inside the edges of the train...

And we're off!!!!

Oooohhh... we are a good way inside!

We learned about mining drills and stuff (with a demonstration - being told to cover our years)... and then a demo of how they shoveled the ore (by hand and then a machine - also noisy)... it was pretty cool!

And then we got pooped out this end... You see that tall pole to the left of the guide (guy dressed in black)... it is a steam whistle that signaled end of shift (one blast) or an emergency (3 blasts). Believe it or not... it was LOUDER than the rock drills!!! Super loud!!

Beary neat!!!

Sandy highly recommends this adventure!

Then we trundled down the hill and came by the core shed where all the exploratory rock cores are stored... well some of them. They used to have 16 rock core sheds... now they only have one.

But you can see the chalcopyrite in the granite... that's what they were mining. Chalcopyrite is CuFeS₂ while regular pyrite is just FeS₂.

After that... we went into the bottom level of Mill 3... and it was... impressive!

It's huge!!! And eerie... and... they've filmed lots of TV shows ("The X-Files", "MacGyver", "21 Jump Street", "Smallville", "Altered Carbon", "The Man in the High Castle", "The Last of Us") and movies here ("G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes", "Okja", "The Descendants 2", "Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed", "The Fantastic Four", and "The Age of Adaline". 

You can even see some oxidized copper staining (blue) along the rock walls.

Crazy... and this is just the lower level.

Next up is the Boom! show!

Those are some of the windows that look out onto Howe Sound.

This is a pretty famous shot from inside Mill 3... this steep staircase and then a little track with an ore cart on it... The Boom! show gave us an overview of how the ore cars dumped their contents way at the top of the building and how there was a process through which the rocks get crushed smaller and smaller and then the copper was separated out by frothing. Fascinating!

This was a GREAT adventure!!!! Sandy approves!