The Great Outdoors + A Blog Award!

Before I begin today's post, I just have to say how wonderful all your lovely comments were on Monday!  There is nothing more motivating to me than the knowledge that you enjoy my blog and my posts, and that you take the time to tell me so!  Among all the lovely comments was one from Kat of Kat's Confessions, telling me that there was an award waiting for me on her blog!  Awards are always a thrill, and this one especially so since I get to pass it along to ten lovely bloggers!  Before I can do that, however, I need to list 10 things I like in order to truly accept the award.  So here I go!

1. My beautiful dogs, Molly and Tinkywink.
2. Cape Breton Island (the "home of my heart" which I actually love)
3. "Super, Natural British Columbia" (my current home)
4. Knitting
5. Scrap-booking
6. Red wine
7. Lazy Sunday mornings in my jammies with lots and lots of coffee
8. Cooking up a storm!
9. The first snowfall
10. Blogging, and all the wonderful blogland friends I've met!

That was fun!  And now, here are the 10 blogs I'd like to share this award with:

1. Pattycake Manners
2. Housewife Bliss
3. Beat Until Fluffy
4. From the Kitchen of: Mrs. Bettie Rocker
5. Making the World C.U.T.E.R.
6. The Girl Creative
7. Bubblegum and Duct Tape
8. Tehlia.com
9. The Feminist Housewife
10. Live, Love, Green

These are all fabulous blogs and I am delighted to be able to acknowledge them with this award.  Blogging is rewarding, but it is a lot of work.  I know that many of the authors of these blogs have very busy lives in addition to their blogging, and I so appreciate the work they put into their blogs.  Reading their blogs brings me a lot of joy, and I know you will enjoy them too, so I encourage you to hop over and visit them!  To my 10 recipients, in order to accept your award, you must:

1. Post who it was that gave you the award.
2. List 10 things that you like.
3. Give this award to 10 other blogs and let them know with a comment!

Now then, back to our regularly scheduled program!

As some of you noticed, I was AWOL last Wednesday until the early afternoon.  At that time, I promised an explanation. We went for a campfire with some friends at one of the local "rec" camping sites.  Recreation Sites and Trails BC is a system of backcountry camping sites that are available for use free of charge (I believe they are all free of charge) for up to 14 consecutive days.  Great idea, eh?  It was a beautiful location by the river, and we had a lovely time visiting by the fire.  Before we knew it, it was after midnight and time to head back.  It was after 1:00 AM by the time we got home and clearly, if I started blogging at that point, half asleep and full of toasted marshmallows, well, the results might have been odd!  I reasoned that I promise new content "Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays" but I never specified what time (excuses, excuses, I know!) so I sensibly went to bed and waited until I was well-rested and caffeinated before composing Wednesday's post.

We've been blessed to have lived in two places that are full of breathtaking natural beauty.  Our home in Cape Breton ranges from wildly beautiful (rugged coasts, forests, and mountains) to heart achingly lovely (fields of wildflowers, sparkling lakes, and historical reproductions).  British Columbia, as the motto says, is "Super, Natural" and this week we experienced just how much so, as the "Nature" was practically on our front doorstep.

One night last week we decided to go for a late night drive. We bundled the dogs into the car and headed out.  Not far from our house, my husband slowed the car and pointed at a lamp post in  a church parking lot.  There it was, an owl.   I've always wanted to see an owl in the wild (as opposed to a wildlife park) so this was a thrill!  We parked, got out, and quietly made our way across the lot.  However, you can't be quiet enough for an owl, and soon an ear-piercing shriek filled the night air and the owl took off, showing it's dramatic wingspan.  Mentally crossing this item off my "bucket list" we headed back to the car and out of town to Hirsch Creek Park.  Hirsch Creek Park is a provincial picnic park, and it's a few miles outside of the town proper, on an extremely dark stretch of highway.  We pulled into the parking lot and my husband told me to get out, and I didn't waste any time finding his arm to hold onto!  What could he possibly have to show me in the middle of the night out here, I wondered, when he stopped and told me to look up.  A perfect, endless northern sky, absolutely glittering with stars, canopied the Northern woods.  We star-gazed for a few moments before my nervousness returned, and we headed back to the car and into town. 

Not long after we left the park, we passed another vehicle who flashed their lights at us.  Odd, we thought, we had turned our high-beams down as soon as we saw another car on the horizon.  We shortly discovered what it was they were alerting us to: a very large porcupine was slowly making his way across the dark highway, unconcerned with anything except making his way to his next snack.  I had always pictured porcupines as tiny little fellers, but this one was huge!  Once he was across the highway, we continued into town.  As we drove past the Golf Course, another giant porcupine was waddling along the side of the road!  Marveling at all the wonderful wildlife we had observed that evening, we headed for home, and on the main road, just before we turned off onto our street, we saw the piece de reisistance, a young grizzly bear frolicking in the night air.  At the sight of the car, he stumbled around in confusion for a few moments before running off down a walking path (this is how we knew he was young; an older bear wouldn't have been confused by the sight of a silly old Jeep).  Once we were sure he was off the road, we headed home and went to bed, millions of stars still sparkling in our heads when we closed our eyes.

It was a week for nature in our small town, as we had a very rare visitor, a Kermode Bear.  Kermode, or Spirit Bears, are a rare species of bear that live in Northern British Columbia.  Some, but not all of these bears are born completely white due to a recessive gene (there's a little trivia folks, not all Kermodes are white!).  For more information on the Kermode, please visit this link to Canadian Geographic.  However, it was a white Spirit Bear that made it's way to our town and for a few days he caused quite a bit of drama as sightings of the bear were reported.  It is important to remember that even though a white Kermode is rare and exciting, it is still a bear, and it was becoming frustrated with the amateur paparazzi that were following him around (NOT advisable!).  Conservation officers were able to lure the bear into a humane live trap, and the intrepid little (well, not so little!) traveler was relocated to a better location 100 kilometers away.  Now stay put, Mr. Bear!  We love you, so we want you to stay where you're safe!

To top things off in "Super, Natural British Columbia" this week, our next door neighbor, Alberta, got its first snow of the year!  And when Northern Alberta gets snow, Northern BC is just a hop, skip, and a jump behind!  According to Environment Canada, Canada will actually have a real winter this year (for my international followers, last winter was a joke by Canadian standards, with very little snow and balmy temperatures).  This year, however, things will be different, and you can read all about our upcoming "longer and more intense" winter here.

So there you have it!  Mother Nature in all her wonder, knocking on our door and breathing down our neck!  Time to make a list of winter supplies and get on it, even with our "milder" winter last year we still had lots of snow, and it started before Halloween!

Have a great day!  See you on Friday!