October 12th, 2011

Bittersweet October.

The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause

between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.

Carol Bishop Hips

Such a beautiful month, and I can't believe how fast it is flying by.  Our days have been filled with medical visits that take us up and over the Yellow Lake Pass where for the past eight months a friendly flagman has waved to each and every motorist who has waited, frustrated, while the rocky cliffs have been ground away to make a wide safe road the length of Yellow Lake

And some days we still sort and store as we try to accommodate all the precious paraphenalia we brought from the house on the hill.

Today was such a day, but delightful.  Charles went singing, and early in the morning I had an aha moment about where we could put the old oak dining room table and chairs that have been languishing in the garage taking up room that the SUV will soon need when the weather grows cold.  The buffet moved from the kitchen into the dining area.  The high table and chairs took its place in the kitchen, and in a most serendipitous moment our oldest son and youngest grandson turned up to move the heavy oak table, and it all looks quite homey.....

Nice days keep happening.  On Saturday we decorated the church, and on Sunday we expressed our thanksgiving for the great gifts we continue to be blessed with.  A small church, and humble. but dear to our hearts after sixty years of worship and association.

In the afternoon Charles kept a singing date at the historic Grist Mill in Keremeos which dates back one hundred and fifty years (a long time for this young western valley).  At the beginning it was the only mill in this southern part of B.C. and farmers came from as far away as Vernon at the northern end of the Okanagan Valley to have their grain milled into flour.

 I left my camera at home, but a dear DIL had hers, and shared her pictures.

The Singers, - Charles and Steven in the background.

Only a few of them, but all in good voice and well received.

Photoshop and I spent a wonderful evening with these photos.

Out in the front garden where we put the blue iron swing whose top bar serves to hang all the bird feeders there is great fluttering and scattering of seeds.

Our first visitor was a Stellar Jay, but mainly the clientele is made up of finches and chickadees, thrushes and sparrows and robins.

And cleaning up all the scattered seed the quail from the neighbourhood have had the word and gather beneath the bar, lovely and plump and happy that the 6th Avenue cafe has opened.

Complete with spa for bathing......