Eating what we 'catch'

   A wee breaking of our fast on the front porch in Sooke.

  Morning walk on Wiffin Spit in Sooke. Wiffin Spit from our pilotless drone that came with our new Nikon D3200. We are that dark spot beside that light area. 

Our first pothole we splashed in, nice and shallow here.

A little dip in the second pothole we visited. Being submerged in the icy water was quite the shock to the human body!

Our youngest did not want to part with his egg that he picked.

After dropping and cracking his precious egg he was more than happy to eat it!

Our middle child prepared with the lid in case the crab escaped the transfer.

Our first morning in the cabin in Sooke was pretty decent, except for the early birds wanting their worms. But it seems that when in a cabin or camping early mornings are a guaranteed occurrence.

We started off with pancakes, waffles and toast and some strong (new coffee makers are always fun to learn) and finished off on the front porch planning our day.

We first headed off to the natural peninsula in the Sooke Inlet called Wiffin Spit, cue the wild crazy laughter from our oldest boy. It is a full kilometer long and almost stretches across the whole opening of the inlet. We were advised that is was a good spot to see sea otters, sea lions, and seals.

After a good hike out on Wiffin Spit, and disturbing many early morning walkers peaceful stroll, we headed back with nothing to be seen.

Until we spied two sea otters diving and swimming near the shore! The kids were excited and watched them for a good 53 seconds and were then off to the Boardwalk down the coast a bit.

The board walk was a cool little walk down a bunch of stairs and then along the coast for a couple hundred yards. It was a great view of the inlet and is supposed to be a great place to watch whales that happen by the area, no sea animals for us though.  We dis meet a nice boxer named Lola though.  She was rescued by the "Without Borders Boxer Rescue" and taken in by this super nice family when she was only a pup.

Once we made it back to the van we were off to the destination that everyone was excited to see...the Meadery!!!

I think it is called a meadery?

There is a little farm outside of Sooke that is a honey farm and a meadery (they make their own mead!) called the Tugwell Creek Farm and Meadery. After our trek down the coastline we found out that meaderies are closed on Tuesdays. Crap.

So we went back to the cabin to drown our sorrows in lunch, and a nap for the wee one.

After the rest we were off to what the locals called the Potholes, well I gues the government calls them the potholes too because it is called the Sooke Potholes Regional Park. But this is a place along the Sooke river where over many years the water has worn away the rock to form these little pools along the bank that are great for swimming.

So we vanned it up to the park and hiked down to two of the different pools. They we great!

The water was cold, clean, and clear. It was a popular place for people to hop in a tube and float around, swim the little pools (the first one was about 100 feet wide and in the middle we couldn't see the bottom), or to bask on the pebbly beaches.

It was a great afternoon in the sun. And we are amazed at how many different places to swim we have found that have been absolutely different than each other.

It was supper time by the time we left the potholes (which by the way look absolutly nothing like a pothole.) and so we were going ot stop for some fresh prawns at one place and some lettuce at another.

At the first stop we bought some prawns but Dad, in his wisdom, also bought a live 2 lbs Dungeness Crab to boil and eat.

At the second stop we bought some mixed fresh greens and jam and in talking to the owners Ellen and Dick ended up spending an hour and a half touring their farm. It turns out Ellen is from Saskatchewan and has been turning her little plot into her little prairie oasis.

She has a great garden (which she plants wheat and oats!), a few sheep, some goats (which they milk and make cheese out of), a few geese and ducks, a dwindling flock of chickens (a pesky racoon has been taking the hens), and a great little orchard of fruit and nut trees!

This was an absolute fantastic evening! The kids got to pick eggs from the coop, eat mulberries and thimble berries, feed the goats, see all the trees (they spun around the mulberry bush, and picked artichokes from their garden.

Ellen and Dick, or Grandpa Dick and Grandma Ellen as they introduced themselves to the kids, were amazing, and sweet to the kids. Ellen showed everything to the kids and did not just talk to the adults and even picked up our youngest and excitedly walked him to the almond tree they had.

If you are even in Sooke keep your eyes open for a little sign that mentions fresh veggies and baking, Ellen and Dick are busy people (their veggie and baking stand in the yard is a self serve and pay deal with a slotted tin to put your money in) so hopefully you get the opportunity to meet them!

We wantd the kids to eat the eggs they had gathered so we planned on making some scrambled eggs with supper, except our little guy had different ideas. He did not want to part with his egg. He carried it back to the cabin and would not hand it over. But he ended up cracking it pretty good when he was playing with it and toy car he had. Then he was ready for the circle of life to take place, once he realized that the egg that he had gathered from the hen house was nothing but...an egg.

Supper was a buffet of sandwiches, salad, scrambled eggs, veggies, crab legs (receipe below), prawns, hot dogs, and yogurt tubes. We ended the evening with a marshmallow roast over a little fire and plopped the kids to bed before 9:00 pm.

We did end up finding some of the local mead at a pub in town, so Dad enjoyed a glass of honey mead and Mom a cup of tea.

Tomorrow we are back to Nanaimo for two nights then homeward bound.

Dad's Not Famous Crab recipe

ingredients

1 -2 lbs dungeness crab - as live as possible

1 big pot

lots of water

1 stove

First you put lots of water in the big pot. Then you put them both on the stove and boil.

Once the lots of water is boiling, place the as live as possible crab in the water, bottom down, and slam lid on pot as fast as possible so you don't have to see the angry crab boil.

After 20 minutes remove cooked crab and consume!

Fairy tale village, amazing ice cream, vineyards and ....Scandia?

The little guy enjoying chocolate milk from D Dutchman Dairy.

Walking from the chickens he said "cock-a-cock-a-doo-doo!" for 15 minutes straight.

Our little one feeding the young ones some hay.

Running from fairy tale to fairy tale in the Enchanted Forest near Revelstoke.

They went in and quickly came out saying "It is full of kids!!"

The kids using everything not nailed down to make a beaver dam between the beds in Revelstoke. Great Hotel!

"Those pigs have to be somewhere..."

Captain Hook vs. Captain Shaggy Beard

Today started with another early morning and a decent continental breakfast at the Best Western Wayside Inn. The pools were closed until 9:00 so we decided to hit the road because we knew of a few places we wanted to stop and check out.

And glad we did because today was jammed packed!

First, we stopped at the Enchanted Forest just outside of Revelstoke. It was early and rainy so we were alone there, but that place must get busy because it was cool! It was a walk through the forest with all the fairy tales and nursery rhymes recreated in little scenes spread through the forest. You could walk into all the 3 little pigs houses, the old woman's shoe, and even see jack cutting down the bean stalk (a tree) with a huge giant at the top of the tree looking terrified. We ended up spending close to an hour and a half there.

Second, we stopped in Sicamous Dutchman Dairy farm. We saw a sign that said friendly friendly farm animals...so we pulled off the highway and into an awesome place! We walked around the farm and looked at all the dairy cows, baby dairy cows (who were very friendly!), the chickens, llamas, donkeys, etc.

The kids loved the animals! The baby cows were great, we fed them hay, let them lick our hands clean, and they loved getting their heads scratched. And the surprise fun was our youngest went bananas for the chickens and roosters!

And we all loved the fresh ice cream, chocolate milk and whipping cream. Yes whipping cream, Dad accidentally bought whipping cream thinking it was milk and proceeded to chug it before realizing what he did. His guts were in knots for the rest of the afternoon.

But the ice cream.....holy hell! Best...ice cream...ever....period...no really...that...good...seriously.

Third, we were getting kinda hungry for lunch so we say signs for The Log Barn, waffles and sausage - sounds good.

The food was a bust because we pulled in behind two tour buses so it was way to busy to get anything. But it was not a complete write off because we found the smartest animals ever. Goats! These goats are on a bridge over the entrance to The Log Barn. What they have is a pulley system where the tourists (us) pay $.25 to buy a handful or corn and place it in a cup on a rope, that is attached to the pulley. These smart goats hear all this and use their little hooves to spin the pulley and raise the cup of corn up a good 50 feet to where they are camped on the bridge.

Smartestest animals ever!

Fourth, vineyards. Mom and Dad have just begun to enjoy wine (thanks to having kickass friends to share it with!) so we decided to pop by a few on the way to pick up a few bottles. This exchange sums up Dads experience at the vineyards:

- this vineyard was conducting a wine tasting -

Vineyard employee: "how are you doing over there?"
Dad: (carrying two bottles) "not to bad, just gonna buy a couple of these bottles."
Snobby vineyard patron: "So I guess you don't come to many wine tastings then do you?"
Dad: "no I guess I don't, good call!"

But we ended up with a few bottles.

Fifth, Scandia. We should just stop talking now about this place because it really doesn't deserve anything besides a glorious controlled blaze.
It advertises itself as a fun place for kids to have some fun and supper. But it was a terrible place that is a combination of a dirty Ruckers and and terrifying Chuck E. Cheese. Most of the games were broken and half of the working ones had no tickets. The mini golf was sad and thank goodness we can't tell you about the food because we left to go eat somewhere else. Just don't go there.

Sixth, hotel. We are at the Best Western Kelowna Hotel and Suites. Pretty cool place, it is super green and prides itself on being energy efficient. it has loads of skylights instead of lights in the hallways, they push recycling to the max, even in the rooms, and there is a full array of solar panels on the roof. The bad part is the hotel is 3 buildings,so we had to walk outside to go to the pool (and will have to go to the third building for the free continental breakfast tomorrow) and it was cool and windy tonight.

Here is how it looks:

Best Western Kelowna Inn and Suites

Room 2/5 (nice room and pretty good little balcony, but no microwave and the fridge is even to small for a dorm room.)

Pool 3/5 (the indoor pool is decent, no waterslides though. And the pool area is all concrete so it echoes a lot wand is very loud. The outside hot tubs are nice but small.)

Location 4/5 (good location. Near lots of shopping and restaurants, but not close to downtown. Can't walk anywhere.)

Hotel 4/5 (overall decent place, but we would likely look someplace else next time unless we had Best Western gift cards.)

Where are all the carrots?

On Sunday we ventured out ot the farm again to check up on how the little seeds have been doing these past 2 weeks since we planted them.

To the kids dismay there were no towering rows of corn, or rows thick with carrots.

give it 6 weeks and it will look delicious!But the kids were happy enough once Grandpa got the riding mower and the Gator out of the quonset. If the battery hadn't have run out, and Grandpa changed it, and then the other battery didn't run out the kids would have been on it all morning. 

Bringing some snacks to the hungry gardeners.

Grandpa showing the boys how to switch out the Gators' battery.

Leo Mol Sculpture Garden

We took the family to Assiniboine park in 2011 in early summer, and it was actually by accident.

We had planned on spending the afternoon at the zoo in Winnipeg, which I find out later is actually called the Assiniboine Park Zoo. On the drive to the park we drive by this fantastic looking gated park/garden/sculpture place.   THe both of us looked at each other and were immediately excited about taking a look at the place. ONce we were done pulling a wagon full of tired and hot kids around the zoo our excited had faced a whole lot. But we thought we would give it a try.

Now what we had found was one amazing huge garden(s), and the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden. The sculpture garden is inside the English garden but you just have to wander around and you will find them both.

Now it does seem strange to take these,

these boys don’t sit still for long, just like bees!

to this,

Assiniboine Gardens

But it worked, it worked so well!

They were tired and hot and were even kinda bored with ‘seeing’ animals at the zoo. But these gardens allow you to walk multiple paths, get close to the plants and flowers (no touchie!) and slowly walk around in the sun and shade and relax.  It allowed them to wander and be more free and investigative than the zoo.

We quickly split up with the young one teetering around at his own pace and random directions, while the older two were a bit more focused and suggestible as to things to look at or paths to take. We spend a good hour or so wandering around.

Water feature in the Leo Mol sculpture garden

Now the plants and flowers are amazing, we went early in the summer so the flowers were crazy cool, though i am sure later in the summer there would still be nice flowers to view. We would suggest this to families that like to have a little walk, enjoy to beautiful gardens and spend some time talking about some of the amazing flowers.

WORD OF CAUTION: this is not a picnic place or ball throwing kinda park (there are lots of those in the Assiniboine Park though). This place is a tranquil quiet place, and so may contain it’s fair share of khaki wearing-loafer donned-pearl necklaced-sun hat wearing-culture snobs (and there is nothing wrong with that). So you either have to enjoy other people getting annoyed by active kids (I do), or maybe keep away.

The whole Assiniboine Park was nice, great picnic places, room to run, zoo, but the gardens were a surprise that was excellent.

oooooh, sculpture in a garden.