I'm hungry!

While a highly intelligent Packrat goes after the bags of chickenfood and leaves it's droppings all over the place, these little fellows have to wait for mum- and daddy-bird to push down some food in their throat. Last year, their eggs were stolen (eaten) by them noisy magpies. So we consider it a lucky year for the blackbirds.

Ready for Winter

As nature takes care of the wild burns, we get ready for our controlled fires during the Okanagan winter. Most of the firewood is split and ready to store away so we can haul box after box through the crisp snow again.

Smoke on the water

It is wildfire season again and we have been lucky so far. Just a few days with smoke in the air and our view was not as spectacular anymore. Most of them started during a lightning storm and only few are actually threatening housed areas. So they just watch them burning. At least they get rid of the nasty pine-beetle that way. This one is eating its way through the mountains near Keremeos.

The wonderful thing about John Cleese

Unbelievable!

Local Hillbilly Rodeo in Keremeos

This annual event takes place at the foot of the famous "K-Mountain" in Keremeos. It is on a much smaller scale than a Calgary Stampede but quiet charming anyways.

Bear attack #2

What a peaceful morning it was, until we heard the rumbling up at the chicken coop. A bear! Nicole shouted. The adrenalin kicked-in instantly and we both were up like firefighters after the alarm came in. There he was, cracking the lock of the foodbox, bending back the metal sheets and opening up the lid, only to grab a 20kg bag of chickenfood with his snout. Swinging the bag out of the box like it was full of air. But it was a lazy one. He only draged the bag a couple of feet away, before he started munching the crumbles. Equiped with lids and ladles, we approached the door and started the countdown. Screaming and ratteling we stormed out of the house and scared him off the property. At the same time, a moose calf was grassing beneath the house and was suddenly interrupted by our rampage, running off into the woods as well. Sorry, we did not mean to!

Bogner's on Global TV

Smok'n in Cawston

As Part of the Spring Wine Release 2010, the Similkameen Wineries Association organized a BBQ event at their community hall. Cawston is a small village 50km south of Penticton with a few wineries and a lot of farmers. The population in 2006 was app. 973. So this event was clearly operating on a smaller scale. Of the originally six BBQ contestants were in the end only three participating. So we smoked ribs from 6 in the morning in our home-built smoker which we drove to Cawston the night before and slept in our tents, freezing our asses off. At least we had some decent breakfast with pancakes, maplesyrup and real coffee. I even tried to get me some fried eggs cook'n. What do they say, "it's all about participating, not winning". Well, that's what we did! Even the bribed jury members did not all vote for us... We had a lot of fun anyways and we'll use the smoker for our bacon and sausages as well as our Friday night Roast & Toast on the Patio.

Füürio de Zeusli chunnt!

To get rid of all the weeds that grew on the farm last year, we set the whole field on fire, to make room for more veggies for the restaurant. We also did some pruning in the orchard as part of the "spring cleaning". Some of the salads are already growing at the restaurant to be transferred outdoors, as soon as the weather gets a little warmer. Last week we had our first annual rhubarb tart with Keremeos rhubarb, yummi!

We were there!

Huge crowds on the streets, 4 to 6 hour line-up's for the "Zip-Line" and spring-like weather (15°C) were awaiting us in Vanocuver. Not that we had time to stand in line with the hundreds of people for a 30 second ride on the "Zip-Line" over Robson Square. We did our daily fitness program by walking the streets and bridges and rewarded us with a Raclette at the House of Switzerland on Granville Island, where the Swiss celebrated their medals with Rivella and Nusstorte. Unfortunately both these items were sold out at the time of our visit. What a bummer! The visit of Mike Schmid, who won a Gold medal for Switzerland the same day, compensated a little for the lack of Swiss products, but only a little. Like responsible citizens, we parked our vehicle in Burnaby (thanks Metrotown for the free parking!) and took the 16min Skytrain ride to downtown. You step out of the station and you are in the middle of the happening. Just awesome!

You Gotta Be Here, the official 2010 Ad for BC

Olympic Torch Relay in BC!

Happy New Year!

Once again, we had to work on New Years Eve, but this did not bother us that much. After work we geared up with our snowshoes and went out back with Bianka, Justine and Stan on a fullmoon hike with firewood, ovomaltine chocolate, hot tea and some booze of course...
After we found the lighter, I dropped somewhere in the snow again, we finally could get a fire going. What an amazing setting in the moonlight, topped off with a "Schnupf" to welcome 2010.



We all wish you an exciting New Year!