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Bowen Island, B.C., Canada

As predicted the weather is warming up a bit and volumes of snow have melted today. The roads are in pretty good shape, bare and wet so should be no problem tomorrow getting the Mazda up here to take to work on Saturday. Walked down the hill today with the youngest of my three charges, it’s quite the trek and glad when coming back someone picked us up about halfway before the September Morn corner.

It’s only a nine month old dog, big size but inexperienced with the ways of the world and easy to spook as a kindly woman was to find out at the General Store. He got scared enough with me inside the store that he broke the leash, and lucky that we were using two tied together on the way down so had something to come back on.

No sign of any animal food being dropped off like it should have been done, enough until tomorrow evening but will have to call in the a.m. to see what is going on. Other than that it’s been uneventful so far up here, except for the weather and the scenery of course. Being so high up affords views of the “glory hole” in the cloud making its way across the water, and the sunrises are nothing short of spectacular.

Another big snowfall with about a foot or so accumulating mid-island this morning. Not everything came at once, yesterday morning there was about 8 inches to shovel off the sundeck for the house sitting maintenance and then more in batches throughout the day and evening. There was even sunshine during the non-snowing spells, turning everything into a spectacularly glorious winter scenery.

Attempted to get the car out of the house parking lot last night, but even with a fair amount of clearing it was just too deep to make it over the existing ruts and mountains on their sides from the 4×4 truck going through. A straight shot was no good, just too much of a slope to begin with so backed down and promptly put one wheel over the edge of a landscaping tie half buried in the ground. It was enough of an extra hump that then there was no choice to go anywhere but straight back and pop over the lower end of he driveway, navigating around the wood chipper and between two garden lights along the way.

Did real well and got up some good speed and made the sweep onto the driveway but again the mountains created outside the 4×4 ruts were too much for the little Mazda. Oh well, it will probably be raining and six degrees above with melting and flood waters in a couple days and will get it out then.

The new house sitting gig is at the top of an area called Valhalla, with a typical very steep and winding road to get to it and so had a buddy from the building centre take me up in his truck. Good tires and a good driver, he made it all the way up the steep driveway to the garage door and backed down again no problem.

The view from up here is incredible, way, way up the sound to Squamish it seems like and down south the Olympics and volcano should be there when the clouds lift. East goes on forever too, the city is laid out like a treasure box full of sparkling jewels at the edge of the sea.