Strata Cleanup June 16 - 21

Thursday started out early with clearing out our driveway. The motorhome went in for service and once home, we launched our boat then moved the empty trailer back into the garage for the summer. My Clematis is liking this damp warm weather this year.

Latest ever putting it into the water on June 16th! Of course it rained on and off all afternoon before we could get it's cover on. The driveway sure looks huge without our beast in the driveway.

Friday it was nice and sunny. After our morning chores, we were finally able to sit outside on the lawn out of the breeze for several hours. Then it clouded up and torrential rain started about 4:30 pm. It finally felt somewhat like summer before the rain. There was actually a lot of boat traffic on the lake for the first time this year. Lots of houseboats going out for the weekend.

The lake is really cold so hopefully this dude doesn't fall in!

Lots of things to play with!

Even our neighbour next door Mike, managed to get out on his new boat for a spin.

Saturday morning, cloudy. We were out the door at 8:30 am to help out with the strata cleanup. The strata were unsuccessful in getting a gardener to cleanup the winters leaves and weeds so we are all pitching in. Took 10 of us 5 hours to finish the cleanup. There's tons of debris from years of not being cleaned up by past gardeners. The strata saved probably $3000 doing it ourselves, but what a job! We ended up with 3 pickup loads and one big load in our traile,r which came in very handy.  We just pushed it along the road for easy access to dump our buckets of weeds.

Everyone went their separate ways except for Roy, who continued pressure washing the moss out of the cracks. 

After a shower and a hot tub and a couple of margarita's Ray made me, it was time for a nap. :) Everyone headed over to Mike and Debra's next door, for a brisket dinner. We donated a huge brisket in my freezer and Mike spent the day cooking it. The meat took a couple hours longer than expected ... but we all sat down and enjoyed a great dinner by 8:30 pm. With everyone well lubricated with wine and beer, no one minded the wait. 

Todd, June and Roy

Pat, Ray and Darryl

Lolly, Debra Izzy and Todd

Brisket is finally done! Notice Debra's son and friend came for dinner. They were camping next door at the park!

A bunch went home at 9:30 as they all had Father's Day plans tomorrow. Other than Debra's parents, Lolly and Brad, Ray, Pat and I were the last ones to stay until 11 and then we all called it a night. We are all walking very slowly as we are all pretty sore.

Lolly, Mike and Debra

Brad, Ray and Pat

A great evening.

Monday started out cloudy, but then the sun came out and it's a nice day. I picked up some dahlia's on sale at our local grocery store and planted them for colour in the front garden. I noticed the deer this year are not eating my lilies, so felt it's safe to plant dahlias. I also set up our micro watering system in the front of house and set up the timers for the main system. It's going to be finally summer later this week.

Next up was sausage making, grinding up the pork shoulder roasts, seasoning and then making into patties to freeze. 

While doing this, Ray went to Duncan to pick up some parts to adapt the intake and output hoses for out fire pump. Back home, we had a little deck time before dinner.

Tuesday, baby day! We were out the door by 8am to visit Jason and Amelia. Contractors are changing out their furnace today, we took Amelia out for breakfast at Smitty's. She is such a happy little baby, waving and smiling at all the people looking her way in spite of majorly teething.

Grandpa pushing Amelia to see the fish in the aquarium.

Yummm

Back home Amelia showed us how well she can ride her bike.

After several hours we headed back home for 3 pm. Not as nice here at the lake as it was in Nanaimo. 

The weather is supposed to finally improve Thursday onwards. Summer will finally be here, with a few days of really hot weather. Looking forward to some dock time.

Butchart Gardens and Sidney June 12 - 15

Monday morning we packed up early and headed for Sidney, BC, close to Victoria, BC. Clouds with sunny periods, but at least no rain in the forecast. Still only about 16C outside and quite cool with the wind over the water.

First up, lunch at the Rumrunner Pub on the waterfront. Delicious food and a great view.

Once we were fueled up, we hauled out our e-bikes for a ride along the waterfront. On the narrow pathways we had to push our bikes but further out there was a bike lane to ride on.

After about 8km we packed up the bikes and headed to our hotel, the Sidney Waterfront Inn. An older hotel that used to be a cannery years ago and refurbished. We were in the Annex section on the main floor with a nice view of the water. I could have reserved a room on the second floor, but as there is no elevator I did not want to haul our stuff up a flight of stairs. lol

After checking in, we went for a walk along the downtown street. Such a cute little town.

After walking about an hour, we headed back to our room, with a little book for Amelia, and sat on our balcony. The wind really came up, so we moved the patio furniture inside the glass door and listened to this guy's music right in front of us. According to Steve and Dianne this guy is a regular here.

At 5:30 we headed over to the restaurant, Riva, next door for a delicious Italian dinner. Our view.

Beef Short rib Ragu with Linguine

A few pictures walking off our dinner.

Later on the clouds really came in. Ray headed back out from some "night shots".

"It was a dark and stormy night" lol

Sidney Marina by the Rumrunner Pub. We saw a dozen or so boats coming and going today. Certainly not as busy as a usual summer.

Looking towards the Riva Restaurant on the left.

 

A great day. Tomorrow Butchart Gardens.

Both of us were up at our usual time 6 am lol. Ray headed out to bring us back coffee and a pastry to tide us over until lunch. We arrived at the Butchart Gardens shortly after they opened and by 9:15 were walking through the gardens. Nice to get there early so there wasn't too many people in the way of Ray's pictures. lol

After parking the car we entered near the plaza through the chain tree archway to where the shops and restaurants are.

Gorgeous begonia and fuchsia baskets. They love this cooler weather.

Next up is the path to the Sunken Garden. Lots of work by the gardeners pulling out all of the tulip and daffodils which finished blooming and replanting other annuals. You can take a gentle sloping path down to the base of the garden which is wheelchair accessible or go down a large flight of stairs, which we did. 

The busy gardeners.

In the middle of the garden is a "hill" which you climb using a skinny set of stairs to view the gardens from the top. 

This shows how steep they are coming down.

You can see that the plants are really small and waiting for warmer sunnier weather to really bloom.

Ross Fountain at the end of the garden.

Heading back up the gentle slopped path looking over to the stairs to the hill.

The bees are busy is the iris's

Peeking through the dogwood tree.

Heading back up the gentle path is the Bog Garden.

After leaving the Sunken Garden we headed past the Rose Carousel, children's play area to where the totems are.

This area has more colourful plants.

Love the colour combinations.

The path continued on towards the Dragon Fountain.

They have the most amazing peonies in this area.

Next up the Rose Garden. I managed to get a few pictures of some blooms. Most of the garden is major delayed due to our weather this spring. The Rhododendrons only now finished blooming instead of 3 weeks earlier. I also noticed their beds of geraniums don't look any better off than mine, with not so green leaves. lol

Here are Ray's pictures of the Rose Gardens.

These arches will be fabulous once they start blooming.

Exiting the Rose Garden and past the Sturgeon fountain is the entrance down into the Japanese Garden. When it is really hot out, this garden is a wonderful shady respite from the sun and peaceful with the trickling water sounds.

After slowly wandering through, one exits just below the buildings for the gift and coffee shop past the Star Pond and the Italian Garden, but first a peak at the water entrance to Butchart Gardens.

Star Garden

Italian Garden

We headed back towards the gardens and Ray took a picture of Mrs. Butchart's private garden beside the dining room. We ate there 10 years ago, but visiting on a Tuesday they were not open for dinner only "tea".

The original owners private garden

Just before heading out we took a picture of the waterwheel at Waterwheel Square.

And of course I had to go through the gift shop. 

A great couple of hours. Since it was still quite early, 11:00 am, we decided to try out a pub called the Stonehouse Pub near the Swartz Bay Ferry. Lunch was just so so... but the ambience of the place was fabulous. I snapped a picture of a deer in the parking lot.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel, as we were both pooped from all the walking on hard surfaces. Later in the afternoon, we noticed a sailboat anchor out in front of us. They went for a late lunch at the restaurant onsite and then headed back out to their boat. Unfortunately for them, they were unable to bring their anchor back up. Being as this is an old cannery site, I'm sure there is lots of debris dumped on the seafloor. They will either have to get a diver or just cut their anchor. That became a very expensive lunch. (They were still at anchor when we left)

Lots of boats in the channel.

Look at the size of that!

Lots of people looking for glass on this beach.

The guitar guy was back too and serenaded us for 2 hours. Dinner was at a Chinese Restaurant a short walk from the hotel. Super fresh and very tasty. 

Wednesday morning we were on our way by 8:15 and stopped in Duncan at the Doghouse Restaurant for an early lunch. Ray ordered two pieces of pie and I the clubhouse sandwich. In the driveway by 11 am. A great adventure. A lot less sun here at the lake than Sidney. We were fortunate to have 2 days of good weather for our mini vacation.

Banana Cream and Coconut Cream