When last I left you, I was on vacation at The Hills Guest Ranch up around 100-Mile House, in the interior of British Columbia. I was there for some much-needed R&R and to work on my health. That being the case, I consciously tried to not do a lot of photography, because I could have easily spent all of my time there trudging around outdoors with my camera.
I did let myself take some photos, though, when the weather was good and I had some time to get out. There wasn't a lot of life about, and not much happened on my outings, so my commentary will be lighter than usual.
We start on the 4th of March, when I went for a short walk on the trails right below the main ranch buildings in the afternoon. This is the view starting down the hill. |
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And here are some trees with bits of snow on them. It had snowed my first few nights at the ranch, and the woods were just lovely under the fresh blanket. |
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| I'm not sure if the horses really appreciated it, though. Once the weather gets better, horse-riding is one of the attractions at The Hills. |
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Those were the only photos worth showing from Tuesday.
On Thursday, I was out again, in roughly the same direction. This time I found some old man's beard hanging in a tree. |
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| Well, I should probably say Old Man's Beard, which is the general name for a lichen in the genus Usnia. This one seems to me to be U. cavernosa, the Pitted Old Man's Beard, but I'm no expert and I didn't check it carefully enough to make a positive i.d. |
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| I took a number of landscapes of the woods while I was wandering the trails. |
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| The small branches coming out of the bottom parts of the birches were interesting, so I took a few shots of them, as well. |
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| I ended that day with some photos of the woodpile behind the main building. |
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| On Friday I didn't go far, but I did get some photos of animal tracks in the snow. |
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That particular animal is domesticated, has four legs, and goes "woof."
On Sunday the 9th, which marked the end of my first week, I went out for a little drive. A little north of The Hills, I found some cattle who seemed just as curious about me as I was about them. |
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That second one seemed a bit self-conscious about something, though. Maybe it was the odd bit of horn she had growing on the left of her head.
At one point on my return journey, I was facing some nice backlit clouds. I'm always a sucker for good backlit clouds, so I had to stop and shoot. |
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| Back at the ranch, I pulled up to find a small Red Squirrel on the rock in front of my parking space. He had just discovered a small fir cone and was checking it out. |
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| I had no trouble figuring out what he thought of the cone after having inspected it. |
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| The squirrel was nothing if not efficient, though. Here he is, posing for a portrait, before the cone has even hit the ground. |
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And just as quickly he bounded away and scurried behind a tree.
It was nice to catch the squirrel. I knew there were some around, as I had occasionally seen them out the window from where I had been eating. The Red Squirrel is quite a common species across the continent, but we don't get them in the Vancouver area.
Your old man with a beard,
Tom
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