What Do You Do When It's 39 Degrees Celcius?

Well in a house that has no air conditioning we headed straight for one of our Delia Smith cookbooks, turned on the oven and made some bread and scones! For those who prefer the conversion, 39 degrees Celcius works out to be 102 degrees in Farenheit.

The only problem was that the ambient temperature was way too high for the scone mixture so we were unable to roll out the scone dough and cut into nice pieces, instead they turned into scone blobs. But they still tasted just as good. Here is a picture of the scones and also the bread rolls. The bread sat out on the deck to have its second rise and they doubled in size in about 5 minutes!

We are however very pleased to report that we both work in offices that have air conditioning creating our own small carbon foot prints.

Earlier this week Rachael decided to do some radical gardening. It was amazing how quickly the plants in the garden (back yard as they call it here) had grown. After 4 hours of clipping, pruning and pulling weeds being helped by Harley and Phantom I had finished. The cats thought it was great fun to hide in the huge piles of cuttings just as I was trying to load them into the truck for a trip to the transfer station (dump-it site). For garden waste dumping it is charged by the truck load at $5 (2.50GBP). Unfortunately we don't have the space for a composter or compost heap as we did in England and they are really not such a great idea in town as they attract bears and we don't really fancy that! I crammed as much garden matter as I could into the truck and headed off to the transfer station. It is quite cool how they keep track on how much waste you are dumping - they weigh you in and weigh you out - and for all you Dietitians out there reading this, by 'you' I mean the truck not just me! Our weight differential was 45kg. I took a picture to show the truck.

To celebrate having Oscar for 1 month we had been looking at getting him a new bed. One of our friends suggested a company that make some really high end dog beds which you could select the material and style of the bed to match your decor, well unsurprisingly these beds were a jaw dropping $200 (100GBP) after tax and delivery WOW !
So we decided to visit our local Walmart (our version of Asdas) and found a nice dog bed for $25. Well we figured he's not going to know anyhow and bearing in mind that he is currently snuggling up on an old bath mat don't think he is fussy.

Here is a picture of Oscar in his new bed followed by a picture taken 10 minutes later when Phantom discovered a new bed in the house and it was still warm - a cats dream! We are hoping for some cooler weather towards the end of this week with the forecast for Thursday being just 15 degrees Celcius with a splash of rain.

Catch up next week,

Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom and Oscar

xx

Just Like Carry On Camping

The blog is a little late this week as we have spent the weekend on a camping trip. We decided that our little two man mountaineering tent was just too cozy to try and fit not only two humans but also one 47lb dog in comfortably so we had bought ourselves a new tent. The new tent is a 4 man tent and has a porch which is ideal for a dog to sleep in. Not knowing how Oscar would get on we just went for one night and he was very well behaved even when we got rain, thunder and lightning!
Harley and Phantom stayed at home to look after the house but all three animals were really excited to see each other when we got home, although the cats were possibly thinking "oh no, they brought that big smelly creature back too". We caught Oscar trying to lick Harley which did not go down too well the look on Harley's face was funny "Now I am going to have to groom this dog saliva off my lovely ginger coat -yuck".

Here are some pictures we took at the weekend. Rachael and Oscar in Nakusp, just going for a coffee.

Shaun and Oscar at the Lake.

Nakusp is a lovely little town which is about 2 hours north of Nelson and sits on the Arrow Lake. If you click this link you will be able to see a map.According to the Nakusp website, 3000-5000 years ago three main Indian tribes came into this area - the Shuswap from the Okanagan, the SolvilIe from Washington and Kutenai from the East Kootenay.
The first white settlers arrived in 1890 following stories of the Gold Rush and mining. There are some old photos on the website. Nakusp today has some remaining logging companies however, much like Nelson, tourism is still booming due to the beautiful location of the town, the hot springs, the Lake and mountains. There is also a beautiful flower garden which has been donated and maintained by a local couple where our Photo Editor couldn't resist taking some pictures!

On Sunday on our way home we came back through Kaslo which is on Kootenay Lake about an hour north of Nelson where we have previously covered the Logger Festival on the blog. Kaslo is one of our most favourite places as there is nothing happening but always something to do, even if it is just having a picnic on the beach!

So after our wet camping trip we now have our tent up in the garage drying out but the rain has stopped and we are back to warm temperatures of about 25 degrees Celcius. Nice but not too hot for us humans, cats and dog.

That is all for this week, keep in touch.

Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom and Oscar

xx

August Long Weekend

This weekend is our August long weekend where we have Monday off work for our Civic Day. We have had a busy weekend so far and Oscar has joined in some of our activities. Saturday morning Rachael took Oscar on his first 5km run which was more sucessful than anticipated. He ran quite comfortably at Rachael's side for the whole route, well apart from the initial 'I am a big silly puppy jumping up and down' as we left the house! He soon got into the workout zone and ran the whole distance.

Later in the morning we met up with some friends at the Kokanee Park beach where dogs are allowed to run off leash. Our friends have a chocolate lab/mastiff mix who just adores swimming and showed Oscar the fun to be had in the water! We weren't sure if Oscar had the opportunity to swim before as he didn't seem that comfortable to start with but after watching the other dog he managed to wade and swim. Maybe there is some Labrador in him after all!

After we had all finished dinner, Shaun and the boys went for a couple of hours of fishing at the lake. He successfully caught two fish, the first was too small and went back into the lake to grow some more, the second weighed in at 1lb after it was filleted and shall be going on to our BBQ this evening for dinner. The fish in the Lake here are mainly Kokanee Salmon and taste really good!

Later we all met up at an open air presentation of the kids film Ratatouille. We all took our deck chairs and at dusk sat and watched the film under our blankets in the garden, in front of a huge screen that our friend's Dad had set up for his Summer films. We hadn't seen the film before but it was as good as the usual Pixar animations about a Rat who was an excellent cook who helped... Okay, we won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it yet but we would very much recommend it.
Arriving back home at 12am with a very tired dog we found our kittens very excited that we were all home. Here are a couple of pictures taken whilst Harley and Phantom had their tea, with Oscar looking on.

They seem much more comfortable around each other now although as expected the cats are still the alpha males! You may notice that Harley our orange tom cat has lost his Harley Davidson collar featured in a previous blog. He is currently sporting a blue collar but we have bought him an illuminous pink collar so he will be easy to spot! Here is Harley showing Oscar exactly who is the Boss!

Earlier this week Rachael went on a bike ride with a couple of friends. The bike ride was considered by our local bike store guys to be easy to moderate in technicality but 'a difficult uphill pull'. Well, we set off from the parking lot which was just near to where we leave the main highway to go skiing and started to climb up the fire service road. We got to 5km up this road which was really quite gruelling and one of my friends decided to share with us that actually the guys at the bike shop had told him that the first 5km were the easiest!

They were right, the next 5kms up the hill were torture in low gear all the way. Looking at the map afterwards I think we must have climbed approx 3300 feet (1000 metres). But when we got to the top the views were fantastic and the ride back down the other side of the mountain was a hoot! We even managed to take a rest half way down to pick some fresh huckleberries which were really tasty but apparently even better in a pie.

Well it is now 6pm and it is a warm Sunday evening, still about 28 degrees Celcius and we are now signing off for another week. The Editor about to enjoy a cold glass of Grape Cider which is locally made in the Okanagan valley.

Whilst our Sports Reporter is enjoying a snooze after his walk.

Whatever you are doing this week, enjoy it.

Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom and Oscar

xx