When you combine these cute fuzzy things

local fruit picker...

 with any kind of fruit tree, its usually a lethal mix; (somewhat like mixing certain politicians with the key to the public purse…) certainly for the fruit trees, and sometimes for the unfortunate bruin. They demolish fruit trees. Obviously table manners (such as “when stripping the branches to get at the plump ripe fruit, always leave a few leaves and try not to break the main branches off”) are not taught regularly in the bear households. If they didnt do so much damage to the trees, why , sharing the fruit wouldnt be so bad. But with those little bear brains, they dont get the concept that if they wreck this tree they might as well not bother returning next year.  Electric fences, motion detector sprinklers, motion detection lights, yelling, screaming, running at them (sometimes…), – not much seems to work. We have one more apple tree to pick and if we can keep the brown fuzzy who is this year’s resident pest from getting up there for a few more days, we will be fine. Alternately we could get a (big) dog. Teaching the cats to chase bears hasnt been totally successful to date.

Happily, the bears around our place are just black bears. A few km up the road (at the spawning channel, mentioned in previous posts) is where the BIG bears hang out. (Those called “grizzlies”?.) When I finally did get up to the spawning channel, I saw many official looking signs “Caution! bears in area!” which kept me in line. And in my car. I parked as close as possible to the spawning channel, leapt out, took some pix of the incredible fish and hastened back to the car. (“Wilderness Girl” they call me ) (not!)…

Bears are a part of our culture, as is fruit. Kaslo and area , at the turn of the century had a huge cherry industry. They shipped fruit to England from the Kootenays. Then a cherry blight came along and there went that source of industry. There are still many smallholdings and orchardists (ie, the Doukhabors) who have fantastic crops of all types of fruit. I would think that in the Columbia Basin, we could grow just about anything, given the diversity of climate and temperature around the region. And perhaps the “100 mile diet” is a perfect fit for us here.

The Vallican Whole (community hall in Vallican) (waaaaay over in the next beeyuteeful W.Koot valley)  has had several wonderful ‘100  mile potlucks” lately which attest to the diversity of  food we can produce in these parts. Potlucks. Now theres a cultural icon. I barely knew what a potluck was until I came here. People are professionals in the potluck department in these parts. If ever you are invited to attend one? - Go to it. You wont be sorry!

Best go and do some more reading (and puzzling over…) who I might cast a vote for on October 14th. Ya know, if they would deal more with the issues and less with saying how wrong all the other candidates are, we might be able to choose a leader.  The media of course (bless its vulturous little heart) seems to thrive on those precious sound bites of politicians dissing one another and not quite as much on how to run the country, what the issues are, and how to help the greatest number of people.  As much as I sound like Im dumping this on the media, Im just as guilty for listening and still remain glued to the radio most days (no, we dont have a television; who has time for that?) to see how the political circus is progressing so I realize Im supporting it all. The radio does have other uses. For the last month or so, we have been sharing our radio with the little (and big) creatures of the forest, to try and scare them off. (see comments above about bears and fruit trees). we hang a radio out in the garden shed (just paces from the orchard) and its going 24/7. That works for about two days, then the bears get used to it, and probably come by more regularly so they can catch the hourly news reports…..

And on that note, I will say goodnight. Til next time. DB