Upon arriving at my brother's house, we were welcomed by his sweet little wire-haired Dachshund, Natasha. She took a while to warm up to us, but by the end of our visit she was quite friendly. This little dog was a real trooper and followed us along trails that were a bit tricky for those short legs, but she managed very well.
And my brother. He moved to Victoria about 1991 after graduating from university here in Ontario. He now runs his own architect firm, and was proud to show us around his new office. I really liked how the office was decorated with the low wood slat ceilings and "barn" style doors over the boardroom. He made the live-edge table (behind him in the boardroom) himself! Such a cool idea for a boardroom table.
Our first weekend on Vancouver Island, we quickly set off for a hike along East Sooke Park. Beautiful views, and a wonderful trail!
My nephews have two dogs, one lives with their mom, but he was with us that first weekend. "Albert" is his name, and he's kind of nutty, but the boys love him.
Another day we headed down to Witty's Lagoon where the boys took their homemade skim boards to skim across the shallow water along the edge of the beach.
"See! It's easy!!"
On the way home, we stopped to have a look at some sculptures a local man, Paul Lewis, had put together from driftwood on the beach. They were all sculptures of birds, and they looked great in this natural setting. We read an article about the man who created them in the local paper (you can read another article here). He apparently had had a rough time earlier in his life with a criminal record and jail time. He wanted to turn his life around and started to work on these sculptures as part of his new life. There were plenty of people stopping to admire the birds.
And that was our first weekend with my brother's family. I'll share more of our adventures in another post.
Looking towards Whitby Harbour where the boats are still encased in plastic
Took the pup and one of my daycare girls down to the Waterfront Trail this morning. It was a rather dismal looking morning, but there was no wind and it was quite mild. Soon after we got going it started to rain a bit, but we didn't get too wet as we were well bundled.
Five minutes along and I stopped to deal with the dog or the child (can't remember which) and when I straightened up I noticed we were being followed ...
Not a great photo from my phone, but it was a coyote. He was just standing there watching us and maybe 40 feet away from me. Another man came walking along, and I pointed behind me and said "coyote". He didn't believe me at first, "Are you sure it's a coyote?", but when the coyote turned away and sauntered away from us we could see his nice bushy tail. I was continuing away from the animal, but the man was heading towards it. I suggested he make some noise as he walked along to scare it away and maybe find a good stick. He crawled under a tree and came back with a suitable stout stick and went on banging the stick on the pavement. I put the child into the stroller and kept Cody on his leash and we had no further encounters. It was just a little bit creepy because of the way the coyote was very still and definitely interested in us. I'm going to say he was more interested in the dog than the child.
Below are the photos uncropped
Cody isn't a big dog, so I too found a stout stick ... just in case! Coyotes around here have been known to grab a dog out walking with their owners, so I wasn't really thrilled with the encounter and I kept a wary eye out for him.
Anyway, that was my excitement for the day. I did take some more photos along the trail, but it's not the most interesting of places. I'm kind of glad I didn't bring the camera because of the rain. We were out for a couple of hours, and it was nice to get home and warm again.
I like taking photos of tree silhouettes while the leaves are still off the branches.
a very dried out Queen Anne's Lace
larch tree / tamarac
There were all kinds of these beautifully made little nests in the red shrubs. I don't know what bird made them, but maybe the sparrows or goldfinches?
Lake Ontario had a nice tint of turquoise today. There were lots of ducks out on the water. I think I saw a lot of buffleheads, but couldn't be sure. I'll have to go down again with the zoom lens and try to get some better photos of the water birds.
A tree recently felled ... shall we count the rings?
Cody doesn't seem to enjoy the wet weather so much as he gets older. He was quiet and walked close to me the entire walk. Good thing he has a nice thick double coat which repels the water fairly well.
