September has been very warm and dry, all the locals comment. It has been really nice weather but now with the colder nights we have the beautiful Autumn colours on the trees. We were interested to find out what the statistics were for the Nelson area to share with you and these are taken from our weather office stats.Average figures for a regular September are: 1.7" rain, 14 degrees C average temperature and an amazing 192 hours of sunshine! We were even more amazed to discover that our average total rainfall for the year is just 28.7" and a total of 1876 hours of sunshine.
We are however awaiting the snow again. We have bought our season passes for the ski hill already as it won't be too long until the snow arrives in town. There is already snow falling at the hill. Lovely!
We have just spent a great weekend in Banff and Canmore with our friends The Tooths who were over in Canada for a weeks holiday. The weather over there was much colder than here in the Kootenays, it was -9 degrees C on Sunday morning - hats, gloves and down jacket weather! Just a great reminder of what is on the way. We had a lovely walk around Lake Minnewanka, the light was beautiful and the mountain air so fresh as ever.
We hope The Tooths had a safe trip home and we look forward to seeing them over in Nelson again very soon.
This month we have finally invested in a new fridge freezer, they are so expensive over here compared to UK, and we had managed to limp along with the old one which was in the house when we moved in until we realised that it was actually more effective at heating the house than cooling food! Here is a photo of it showing the water and ice dispenser which does work on this appliance what a treat! 
Rachael has mostly been baking cakes and making jam this month. Locally we have a glut of soft fruits which have been picked to keep the bears away and we have had people giving us their fruit to use. We have had a batch of delicious apricot and also plum jam. Good old Delia Smith's jam recipes win again - no pectin required. This is our apricot jam.
Oscar has started his obedience classes with Rachael and can now sit, stay, come and take food nicely from your hand. The classes run for 8 weeks and include a bit on first aid, dog health and well being, walking well on a lead and off the lead. There are 8 dogs in Oscar's class and he loves going to meet them all. He is really quite well behaved. 
However, when we went to Canmore and our friends looked after Oscar on their farm he was very well behaved apart from eating peaches from their fruit trees and eating bear pooh then being sick on their kitchen floor. He then decided to roll in something smelly in the garden and they had to bath him. Finally he decided to run away after some deer in the forest but luckily he came back! All that said they still enjoyed looking after him and their dog Huckleberry loved having him around. Oscar even slept in their son's bedroom, he is 4 years old and says that Oscar is his little puppy - cute! 
This picture was taken yesterday, 17th October in the sunshine, yes we really were back in t'shirts again. All the animals seem to have sorted out their position in the pack - here is a picture of Phantom sitting in Oscar's new bed!
This is the pack leader - our alpha male - Phantom aka Earl. He is our Yorkshire pudding!
That is all our news for this month - let us know what you are doing.
Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom and Oscar
xx
