All My Blogs

  Dumping RV tanks shouldn't be this hard. If you have ever travelled in an RV, you probably know that one of the downsides of the whole experience is dumping your greywater and blackwater tanks.  We have travelled with a variety of recreational vehicles over the years and I have had the unpleasant task of doing just that.  Every time.  And I can say with honesty that it isn't always problem free.   This last point was clearly made at the conclusion of our last outing.  In fact, it has the honour of being the worst experience in my tank-clearing career, thus far anyways.  It started when we were finishing up at our last site in preparation to leave for home.  One of the last things that has to be done is to dump tanks. I prefer to dump at the camping facility when possible, and our site had the appropriate connections to allow this.  We had a new trailer (we sold our motorhome last year) and a new hose kit (see lower left inset in the ab...

European Starling taking a bath - showing nictitating membrane on left frame. What do Vulcans and birds have in common?  They both have nictitating membranes!  The Vulcan reference comes from The Original Series show, Operation: Annihilate  (Season 1, Episode 29) where Spock's blindness was temporary due to the protection from his inner eyelid, otherwise known as a nictitating membrane.  It turns out that birds have this adaptive mechanism as well, although it is less about protecting the eye from too much light and more about just protecting the eye. I was out paddling yesterday and found a starling bathing along the shoreline.  I didn't get any photos of it that I liked, but I noticed that one of the images was vastly different from the others.  In it, you can see that the eye has a translucent covering over it (left image).  The other images showed the starling as one would normally see it, with the second eyelid open revealing the bird's eye (see r...

I have always liked gardening.  Not that I am good at it; I can do a modest job and end up with some tasty produce at the end of it all though.  That's part of the reward, but I have to say the greater joy comes with watching stuff grow, taking care of it all, and being successful to some extent.   I suppose I could grow flowers instead of veggies, and I would enjoy that too, but I have never really gone a big way into blooms.  I can't tell a delphinium from a zinnia, and peonies just sound rude.  Although, I have to give myself some credit as I did plant tulips and crocuses last year and planted petunias in my front garden.  All of my lavender died though, which saddens me, as I have to tear out a good portion of my front zero-scaped yard to correct the problem. Last year I built the retaining walls that bracket the garden in.  Then I backfilled it with topsoil and got my first vegetable garden in Kelowna.  It all got done rather late though...

Kathryn (left) and Eric (right) and Murphy (both!) biking the Okanagan Rail Trail yesterday.  As many of you know, Kathryn has been dealing with migraine headaches for about 15 years now.  Any kind of activity exacerbates them and she finds even simple chores too much for her.  Biking was something we used to do, but since the onset of her migraines, we haven't taken our bikes out together.  In fact, Kathryn hasn't been on a bike for nearly 20 years. All that has changed with our newly acquired e-bikes.  We have been out a couple of times now and are looking forward to more excursions in the near future.  One of the advantages of living in Kelowna is that the place has a myriad of dedicated bicycle trails, many of them using the defunct rail lines that used to sprawl through the area.  We did some 12 km yesterday and enjoyed the sights and sounds along the path.  We passed a waterfall, rode along the Wood Lake shoreline most of the way, and return...

Charles and Eric on various excursions. Charles, a long-time friend, and I have done a lot of travelling together.  Just some of the adventures include New Zealand, Arizona, Texas, Juan de Fuca and West Coast trails, Broken Islands, Ontario, the Maritimes, the Yukon, and vast trips throughout BC and Alberta.  The list is impressive. We met at college in 1978 and have been hanging out together since then.  Our friendship has passed through all the milestones adults go through.  We were in each other's wedding parties, saw our children grow up and move out, retired, and through all of that we took the time to get together in spite of the fact that we live in different provinces. As we get older our abilities have ebbed.  Health problems have been creeping up and our backpacking and kayak touring expeditions have turned into RVing with a big-screen TV.  Even here we rouse each other onto adventures, although now e-bikes are our mount of choice.  And, as a...

You would think that these diminutive creatures would be easy to see, but they are very secretive in nature and keep to hidden places with low light and higher humidity.  They, like all arachnids, are carnivorous and will attack and consume smaller creatures than themselves.  The front legs, called pedipalps, are often longer than the organisms' bodies and are fascinating in their own right. The pedipalps are unique in the animal kingdom.  They have sensitive hairs that help in the process of locating prey.  It turns out that these scorpion relatives have poor, or sometimes no, vision.  The tips of the pincers have openings to poison glands.  These glands excrete a toxic substance that helps dispatch a prey item of interest.  Another interesting thing about the pedipalps is that they allow the bearer to tenaciously grip onto other insects as a means of relocating themselves.  Their ride may be a beetle, wasp, or other winged forms of conveyance to...

If you watch enough television you will eventually come to the conclusion that America, the United States that is, has eyes everywhere.  Their various government organizations, the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security, all have their ways of obtaining information.  We may reasonably expect that there are moles, weasels, and even rats at work around the globe as part of their intel-gathering networks, but whoever would suspect the charming American robin? The first indication of their involvement in surveilling their northern allies comes with the fact that the robin is American.  It flies freely across the border and has no restrictions on its movement.  Furthermore, we Canadians welcome this foreign national because we see it as a prelude to spring and enjoy its colourful breast feathers and familiar song.  But have you ever stopped to consider where these winged spies actually live?  That's right - right outside your home. Robins are so familiar to us because ...

  I look forward to this time of year with great anticipation, not the least reason being the return of swallowtail butterflies.  There are many species of swallowtail, all of them large, colourful lepidopterans that are easy to identify at a distance.  It is a little trickier coming up with a particular species moniker, but that takes only a bit of time and a decent field guide.  There are 11 species of Papilio in BC; yesterday I saw three of them where I am staying in Winfield.  The other two were possibly the Canadian and pale swallowtails. The western tiger swallowtail is univoltine (a new word for me - it means it has only one generation per year) here in BC.  Farther south the species may go through two or even three generations (guess which word specifies that status? - polyvoltine) in a year.  Their southern range goes all the way to southern California.  I only ever see them up here in mid to late spring. The caterpillars feed on a variet...

  OK, not the best photos I have ever taken, but they have the value of being the first time I have ever seen this species.  My first guess as to its identification was that it was a bee-fly, the clear wings and long proboscis being indicative of the group.  However, an internet search did not reveal the insect's identity.  I vaguely recall seeing a lepidoptern group called clearwings, and was rewarded with that shard of memory in that it lead to a successful identification of the creature. Clearwings are moths and belong to the same group as hawk-moths, although they are much smaller than them as a whole.  They have very good flying skills and were able to aptly move from blossom to blossom without the wildly chaotic meanderings typical of many of their kin.  Hawk-moths, also called sphynx-moths, are capable of hovering and show excellent control in flight. Also known as California clearwings, these moths are not nocternal or even crepuscular as other moth...

Two foreigners, both on Canadian soil, accidentally met each other only a few days ago.  They scattered, one to its home to tell the reigning monarch that invaders may come and the other to its own territory to share information on potential new resources.  The initial conflict was a minor skirmish, there were no fatalities or even injuries.  That was all about to change. It wasn't long before the first members of the rival faction showed up.  Lookouts, aware that there may be trouble, were the first to encounter them and the violence soon began.  While some defended their territory with all they possessed, others informed the rest who were peacefully going about their business.  They all dropped what they were doing and took up the banner in a call to arms. At first, it was the intruders that were victorious.  Their numbers steadily grew and soon they overwhelmed the few that stood behind to protect what was theirs.  The bodies of the fallen litt...

It's nice to get out into the backcountry once in a while.  Although I find my fair share of creatures in more populated areas, the fact is that nature is less disturbed the farther one gets away from civilization. While walking with a friend today out in a wild area northeast of Kelowna, I uncovered a small juvenile salamander while searching for creatures hidden beneath forest litter.  Uncertain at the time of its species, I photographed it with my cell phone and hoped to identify it later when I had access to my various field guides.  Peterson's Field Guide on Western Reptiles and Amphibians helped identify it as a long-toed salamander. These amphibians can grow up to 17 cm, or just over six inches.  This one just fit in the palm of my hand and would have been around 6 cm at the most.  There are a number of other salamanders that look similar to it, but the long toe on the hind foot was a giveaway (see image below).  This is the first one I have ever fou...

Enjoying an encounter with wildlife. It's hard to enjoy yourself when you feel lousy.  A cold, the flu, covid; all things that cause you to hunker down with the aim of getting better so you can get on with life.  These, for the most part, must be endured for a time and then disappear.  But what happens when you can't get past the waiting part? I started taking Ozempic almost four weeks ago.  The first two doses were only 0.25 ml, barely anything at all, and I felt no ill effects.  Then, as suggested by my pharmacist, I upped my dose to 0.5 ml.  If 0.25 did nothing, double nothing should still produce the same result. Boy, was that ever a misconception. It turns out that my injection day is Saturday.  On this particular day, two things were happening.  The first was my 0.5 ml dose of Ozempic for the first time.  The second was a dinner with my daughter and her boyfriend's family.  Greek food, good company, and feeling good.  It was a...