Birkeland on Denman

Mini-adventures on Denman Island; one of the northern gulf islands on the west coast of British Columbia, situated between Hornby Island and Baynes Sound. This site is intended for relatives, friends, and voyeurs who are interested in monitoring our alternate lifestyle. Updates are now done on a weekly basis. Visit regularly.

Remember that any of the small "thumbnail" pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them. And thumbnail pictures are retained for one month in the Diary section of this site.

Week ending August 29, 2010.

Last Wednesday, after visiting with us for a week, Lise went home. Before leaving, she and Marit went over to Hornby Island for a day. Naturally their trip included a hike around Helliwell Park, a mandatory trip for all visitors. I hope you enjoyed your stay Lise and I can't understand how you managed to pick up a cold here; we're all so healthy on Denman.

Yesterday I joined a couple other members of the Marine Stewardship Committee sampling our local shorelines for evidence of fish spawning in the high tide zone. The project is intended to identify spawning areas of local fish species and promote conservation of these habitats. The procedure is quite rigorous involving GPS positioning, sampling between tide markings, and preparing concentrated samples for lab analysis. The area and conditions are thoroughly documented and the procedure is repeated at regular intervals throughout the year. Yesterday's activities occurred at three locations on Henry Bay, just south of Sandy (Tree) Island.

Meanwhile, the garden activities continue. We're regularly eating fresh beans and broccoli. Kohlrabi is regularly picked and sliced for raw snacks. Our first corn was harvested yesterday; a type of "Peaches & Cream". But we agreed it needs a few more days of ripening. And since rain is in the forecast I harvested the final batch of onions. These will have to dry in the garage. The two other species had previously been harvested after their foliage had dried in the bed.

Where the pea vines had been removed, I dug in lots of seaweed (thanks for bringing it up, Odd) and planted three varieties of winter lettuce and four types of spinach. It'll be interesting to compare their progress and even more interesting to see if any mature before a killing frost occurs this winter.

Lets see, what else? We've had a couple kayak trips this week. I noticed the life-jacket was really tight. I hadn't changed the strapping so obviously the jacket must have shrunk in the past couple of months. It couldn't have anything to do with all the good food recently could it? And yes, I did make a batch of blackberry jam myself earlier this week. Unfortunately I used the wrong package of Certo, the 'light' variety, and my jam didn't set. (The lids sealed nicely though). Marit rescued me; she reprocessed the batch with the appropriate Certo. Thanks dear.

Next weekend will be the annual Blackberry Faire; Denman's version of the local fall fair and the unofficial end of the summer tourist season. Ferry traffic should return to normal.

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