Things that Made me Happy in 2025, part II

I wander alone most of the time, these days. Except, that is, for those friends I meet on the trail, some human (and such a joy to find you out here under the trees!), and many others, the true owners of the forests and shores I'm privileged to visit.

Here are a few of those:

Raven, patrolling the Elk Falls parking lot. June.

Black bear, Buttle Lake, out for an afternoon stroll down the highway. Here he stopped to investigate something among the roadside weeds. July.

Sparrow, bringing home breakfast for the kiddies. Tyee Spit, July.

Chia, companion, midnight zoomer, keyboard stomper, brown bag destroyer. Always at the door to greet me when I come home.

Deer in snowy woods. This area, just south of Campbell River, always gets the deepest, fluffiest snow early in the season. February.

And new fawns, on my street, June.

Cute little green froggy. September, at the beaver pond, Hyw. 28.

Many not-so-good, bad, or really terrible bird photos make me happy, too. (Some make me laugh and I post them to the Worst Bird Facebook page.) This was just a speck in the distance on Roberts Lake. In my viewfinder, with the lens at maximum zoom, it was still a speck. Blowing up the photo revealed a loon, not diving, showing off his checkerboard back. August.

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Ando a solas casi siempre en estos dias. Bueno, eso es sin contar los amigos que encuentro en camino (¡y qué gusto verlos aquí bajo los árboles!) y muchos otros, los verdaderos dueños de los bosques y las aguas que tengo el privilegio de visitar.

Aquí hay unos de estos últimos:

1. Un cuervo grande, Corvus corax, vigilando el estacionamiento de Elk Falls. Junio.
2. Oso negro; caminaba por la carretera pasando Buttle Lake. Aquí se detuvo para investigar algo entre las hierbas. Julio.
3. Un gorrión, con el desayuno para sus polluelos.Tyee Spit, Julio.
4. Mi gatita, Chia; buena compañera, escandalosa a medianoche, reprogramadora de mi computadora de dia, destrozadora de bolsas de papel a cualquier hora. Siempre me recibe en la puerta cuando  regreso a casa.
5. Venado en el bosque lleno de nieve. El bosque por este rumbo, un poco al sur de Campbell River, siempre se llena de la nieve más profunda, más volátil al principio de la temporada. Febrero.
6.  Y nuevos venaditos en mi calle. Junio.
7. Una ranita verde cerca de la laguna de los castores, en la carretera 28. Septiembre.
8. Muchas fotos no tan buenas, o malas, o verdaderamente terribles también me hacen feliz. (Algunas me hacen reir y las subo a la página Facebook Worst Bird.) Vi un puntito negro en la distancia en el lago Roberts. Con la lente de la cámara a su zoom máximo, sigió siendo un puntito. Al ver la foto aumentada en casa, apareció este colimbo común, Gavia immer, que nadaba tranquilo, sin bucear, mostrando su diseño de manchas blancas y negras en forma de tablero. En agosto.

Trails on a hillside

Driving down the highway, going north or west, I pass the entrances to roads, un-named, unpaved, sometimes just a couple of ruts. I can't resist seeing where they go to; usually they're logging roads and go on and on and on, winding across the hills.  But sometimes they seem to  have no purpose, and just peter out after a turn or two; why they were made is hard to imagine.

One, with a wide enough space to park at the beginning, then goes under the trees for a dozen car lengths and ends with space to turn around. (Not always the case.) And someone, someone not willing to pay the fees for appropriate dumping, has been using this space to discard construction debris; a few days ago, it was a stack of broken drywall.

But below this, a narrow trail, maybe a bear trail, not likely human-made, leads down to sunny, moss-covered rocks, where grasses blow in the wind and dragonflies circle over a trickle of water. On my first visit, I sat here for a good while, listening to the rustle of swaying grass, the bird voices in the trees.

Another trail, widened recently by small all-terrain vehicles, goes from the highway steeply down to a logging road below. And this road passes a small lake, Mirror Lake. The name is descriptive.

Somehow I end up stopping here often, even on my way to someplace else.

View near the top of the hill. Grass, Ocean spray shrubs, Scotch broom (Grrr!), evergreens. End of June.

The grass now is all tall and dry, whispering; it covers most of the rocks, even hides some of the Scotch broom. A couple of days ago  I  followed a narrow trail through this grass, leading off from the mossy rocks, thinking it might cut across to the ATV trail. It wound around, aimlessly, it seemed, down and down and down. There were human signs near  the top; a pair of high-heeled shoes, in good condition. (Why?  Why?), a broken office chair. (Again, why carry it all the way down here?)  Then nothing, only the tramped down grass still cutting a curvy path, until it opened up into a depression. A bear wallow; a circle of flattened grass about 3 metres across. It looked comfortable; the grass would make a soft bed. No bear; wrong time of day.  But I got out of there, and I won't be back.

Grass, gone to seed.

And another grass.

Near the bottom of the ATV trail, I came around a rock and startled three rabbits browsing under a tree;  they leapt into the tall grass, out of sight in a flash. A squirrel raced up a trunk, leapt sure-footed from branch to branch, disappeared. Goldfinches foraged among the evergreens. Sparrows stopped to look at me.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

Well-fed.

At the bottom of the hill, I followed the logging road to the lake. Rock faces cast this part of the road into shadow; the broken rocks at the bottom are covered in moss. Dry, dull moss at this time of year. Where the light percolated through, it caught a few stalks of St. John's wort, now gone to seed.

With scraps of dry weeds.

Past its sell-by date, but still beautiful.

From the road,  at this time of year, the view over the lake is mostly hidden behind leaves. I haven't found a trail — yet — that takes me down to the water's edge.

Mirror Lake, end of July.

I'll be back. Again and again.

A Skywatch post

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En las carreteras hacia el norte o el oeste paso por las entradas a caminos sin nombre, caminos de grava o lodo, a veces apenas dos surcos paralelos. No puedo resistir el impulso de ir a ver a donde llevan;  generalmente son caminos de los forasteros y van cruzando los cerros por largas distancias. Pero otras  veces no parecen tener propósito, y después de unas pocas curvas terminan sin llegar a ninguna parte. Porque los hicieron se me hace difícil de imaginar.

Uno de estos, con espacio amplio para estacionarme al lado de la carretera, pasa por el bosque por unos 50  metros,  luego desemboca en un sitio abierto con espacio para dar vuelta al coche. (No siempre se  encuentra esta facilidad.) Y alguien, una persona que no quiere pagar para dejar sus desperdicios en un sitio designado para el propósito, ha estado usando este espacio para tirar materias de construcción. Hace dias, fue un montón de cartón yeso roto.

Pero más adelante, bajando la ladera, un sendero angosto, tal vez un sendero hecho por osos, menos posiblemente hecho por algún humano, se dirige a un grupo de piedras asoleadas, cubiertas de musgos, donde los pastos se agitan por el viento y  donde las libélulas dibujan círculos alrededor de una corriente pequeña de agua. La primera vez que vi estas piedras, me quedé sentada en una roca por buen tiempo, escuchando el susurro de pastos, los cantos de las aves en los árboles.

Otro sendero, recientemente ensanchado por vehículos ATV recreativos, baja abruptamente desde la carretera hacia un camino de madereros al fondo. Y este camino pasa por un lago pequeño, el Lago Espejo. El nombre lo describe bien.

En este sitio me detengo muchas veces, hasta cuando no es mi destino planeado.

Foto: cerca de la carretera a  mediados de junio.  Pasto, Holodiscos discolor (el arbusto con flores), el invasivo  retama negra, Cytisus scoparius, y árboles coníferos.

Ahora todo el pasto está a su tamaño máximo, seco y bailando en la brisa; cubre casi todas las rocas y hasta llega a esconder algo de la retama negra. Hace unos dias seguí un senderito atravezando este pasto, saliendo desde las rocas cubiertas de musgo; se me ocurría que podría cruzar la ladera y llegar al camino de los ATV.  Este sendero serpenteaba, aparentemente sin rumbo fijo, bajando, bajando, bajando. Al principio, había señales de la presencia de humanos; un par de zapatos de tacón alto, en buenas condiciones  (¿Porqué? ¿Pero porqué?), una silla de oficina rota (Otra vez; ¿porqué la trajeron  hasta aquí?) Y luego, nada; solamente pasto aplastado todavía cortando un camino serpentino, hasta que por fin se abrió una hondonada. Una cama de osos; un círculo de pasto seco aplastado, de unos 3 metros de diámetro. Se veía bastante cómoda; el pasto haría una cama acojinada. No había ningún oso; a estas horas estarían escondidos. Pero yo me di vuelta y subí la cuesta aprisa. Aquí no pienso volver.

Cerca del pie de la ladera, siguiendo el camino de los ATV,  salí de detrás de una roca y asusté tres conejitos bajo un árbol; saltaron al instante y desaparecieron entre el pasto. Una ardilla corrió, subiendo el tronco de un árbol alto, saltando de rama en rama, sin tropezar, y se perdió a la vista. Jilgueros  norteamericanos buscaban entre las ramas de las coníferas. Algunos gorriones se detuvieron para mirarme.

Llegando al camino de madereros al fondo, lo seguí hasta el lago. Aquí, rocas altas dejan el camino en sombra perpetua; las piedras rotas al lado del camino están cubiertas de musgo, seco y pardo en esta temporada del año. Donde penetra la luz, iluminó unos tallos de hierba de san juan, ahora ya produciendo semillas. Ahora, a medio verano, hojas esconden mucho de la vista sobre el lago, y todavía no encuentro un sendero que me permite bajar hasta la orilla del agua.

1. Repitiendo; cerca de la carrtera.
2. Pasto seco, con semillas.
3. Otro pasto seco.
4. Gorrión,
5. El mismo.
6. Hierba de San Juan
7. La misma foto, cortada.
8. El Lago Espejo.

Regresaré.

Minding his own business

So I was driving past Buttle Lake, came around a curve, and there was a bear. Walking down the oncoming lane, in the centre of the lane, minding his own business. I pulled off to the side, rolled my window down, and took a couple of photos. He moved to the shoulder, but kept on walking, and passed me without looking my way.

Black bear, West Mine Road, Buttle Lake.

I watched him in the rear-view mirror, then went on, found a place to turn around, and came back. He was still plodding along. I passed him, stopped, waited. He never faltered; arrived, passed me, kept on walking. I passed him again, waited again. He passed again without a side glance.

Now I'm facing the opposite way; he's still going west.

Another car arrived, stopped. Then another, in the oncoming lane. The bear didn't seem to notice.

Checking out something beside the road.

I went on, waited, he passed me again, intent on his own purposes. I drove ahead, around the next corner, turned and came back; I had places to go, too. When I passed him, he was inspecting some thimbleberry leaves beside the road. One of the cars was still there. I passed it, waved; the driver waved back. The bear ignored us.

Miles to go before he sleeps.

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Iba pasando el Lago Buttle, camino a las minas. Y allí estaba un oso negro, en el carril opuesto. Caminaba tranquilamente en el centro del carril. Yo me arrimé al borde de la carretera, bajé la ventana, y saqué unas pocas fotos. El oso tomó el borde opuesto, dejando lugar para tráfico, si es que hubiera tal. Aparte de eso, no me hizo el más mínimo caso.

Lo observé por unos minutos en el espejo, y luego seguí, encontré un sitio donde dar vuelta, y regresé. El oso seguía su camino. Lo pasé, me detuve, esperé. El oso siguió sin pausa. Pasó, siguió caminando. Yo, otra vez, me adelanté; el oso vino, pasó, siguió su camino, al parecer, sin notar mi presencia.

Llegó otro coche. Luego otro, en el carril opuesto. Se detuvieron. El oso ni siquiera nos miró.

Me adelanté otra vez, esperé. El oso volvió a pasar, sin hacer caso. Seguí adelante; tras la próxima curva, di vuelta y regresé; yo también tenía mi destino planeado. El oso miraba unas hojas de thimbleberry al lado de la carretera. Uno de los otros coches seguía estacionado. Le saludé al pasar; la mujer tras el volante también levantó una mano. El oso siguió su camino solitario.

1. Oso negro, al lado del lago Buttle.
2. Sigue en la misma dirección; yo soy la que estoy apuntando en la dirección opuesta.
3. Mirando algo interesante al lado de la carretera.
4. Y siguiendo su camino.

Rosy scat

The trail beside the Campbell River was mostly deserted today. But a bear had been there not too long before. He left a pile of undigested rose hips on the path.

Black bear scat, with tiny rose hips, mushy leaves.

Until I downloaded the photos, I hadn't seen the fly that was waiting for us to leave.

Zooming out to include the fly.

And zooming in to look at that fly.

A rather unusual fly, with orange detailing at the top of the wings.

These rose hips are tiny, no bigger than huckleberries. There were few left on the bushes beside this trail, but I had seen them at Roberts Lake, earlier.

Baldhip roses, Rosa gymnocarpa.

"In baldhip roses, the crown of sepals falls away from the fruit early, leaving the end of the hip 'bald' (making it unique among our roses in this respect)." (Plants of Coastal British Columbia)

I am left with a few questions:

The bears eat great quantities of berries and rose hips, yet I have often seen scat with these berries entire or barely squished. Do they get any nutrients at all from them? And if not, why do they eat so many?

Does this help the roses? Are the seeds viable after they've passed through the bears digestive systems?

Why do I never see the bears?

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Hoy no había mucha gente en el sendero al lado del rio Campbell. Pero sí, había pasado por allí no mucho antes, un oso negro. Nos dejó un montoncito de escaramujos sin digerir a medio camino.

Fotos:

1. Heces de oso, con escaramujos de rosa calva, Rosa gymnocarpa.
2. No había visto la mosca hasta que vi las fotos en casa. Ahí estaba en una hoja, esperando a que nos fuéramos.
3. La mosca, vista de cerca. Tiene manchas de color anaranjado en la parte anterior de las alas.
4. Hojas y escaramujos de rosa "calva".

"En las rosas "calvas", la corona de sépalos se separa de la fruta temprano, dejando el extremo del escaramujo "calvo" (lo que la hace única entre nuestras rosas en este respeto." (Plants of Coastal British Columbia)

Me quedo con unas preguntas:

Los osos comen gran cantidad de frutillas y escaramujos, pero muchas veces he visto sus heces que contienen estas frutas enteras o apenas machucadas. ¿Les sacarán algún beneficio en absoluto? Y si no, ¿porqué comen tantas?

¿Trae esto algún beneficio para las rosas? ¿Sus semillas, siguen vivas después de pasar por el sistema digestivo del oso?

¿Y porqué yo nunca logro ver los osos?

Sit spots

In praise of gimpy knees. On the trail, I tend to keep moving, going on and on with only brief stops to take a few photos. But since last year, my right knee protests, tells me to stop, to sit, to become part of the scenery for a bit.

Looking for candystick plants at Lupin Falls, I climbed the hill until my good knee started to grumble, then turned back. On the way down, I found my plants, then came near the bottom of the hill to Lupin Creek, at this time of year a mere trickle. I sat on a stump there; it was so peaceful, so quiet, so green. The air smelled of needles and drying wood. A bird called somewhere overhead.

The "lawn" is moss.

My knee was better when something new alerted me; a smell of bear, a perfume compounded of outhouse, wet dog, with a touch of that sickly sweet aroma of a garbage dump in hot weather. I saw nothing, no movement in the undergrowth, but I got up quietly and tiptoed on down the trail. As I went, the smell faded; I was going in the right direction.

Next sit spot: I passed the parking lot and followed the trail down to the lake edge. No bear smell, many buzzing bees and a couple of dragonflies. And the lake. Here, the water is high, and willows are growing half submerged.

Buttle Lake, from Lupin Falls trail end, looking north.

And back to the car and on the road again; there was still more to look for.

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Doy gracias por rodillas adoloridas. Tengo la costumbre de seguir siempre adelante, andando y andando, sin parar más que por un momento para sacar unas fotos. Pero desde el año pasado, mi rodilla derecha se pone de malas, me dice que me detenga, que me sienta, que me incorpore en el ambiente por un tiempecito.

Buscaba las plantas "bastón de caramelo" en el sendero hacia las cataratas Lupin; es un cerro bastante empinado; subí por el camino hasta que mi rodilla buena empezó a quejarse también, y entonces di vuelta. Bajando por el cerro, encontré mis plantas, y luego llegué cerca del pie de la montaña al riachuelo Lupin, casi seco en esta temporada. Allí me senté en un tronco. ¡Tanta paz había, tanto silencio! ¡Tan verde era! El aire olía a hojas de pino, a madera seca. Un pájaro cantó, invisible en la copa de los abetos.

Foto: el bosque y el riachuelo seco. Lo que parece césped es musgo.

Estuve allí un buen rato; la rodilla ya se sentía bien, cuando otra cosa me llamó la atención. Un olor, el olor de un oso; un olor compuesto de letrina rústica, con aroma de perro mojado, y un dejo de ese olor dulce pero asqueroso de basurero en tiempo de calor. No veía nada, y nada se movía entre el bosque, pero me levanté y baje por el sendero tan silenciosamente como pude. Mientras iba, el olor iba disminuyendo; bien, iba alejándome del animal.

Y el segundo sitio donde me senté: pasando el estacionamiento, bajé hasta la orilla del lago Buttle. Allí no había olor a oso. Solo las abejas muy ocupadas buscando polen, y una pareja de libélulas. Aquí si había agua; el lago cubría varios sauces hasta la mitad.

Foto: el lago Buttle, desde el pie del sendero de las cataratas, mirando hacia el norte.

Y regresé al coche, y a la carretera; todavía había más cosas que quería ver.

Basking bears

If he were a cat, he'd be purring ...

On the Baikie Island bear bench, with red currant flowers.

Second bear looks a bit envious

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El banquito de los osos en la isla Baikie, con flores caídas de Ribes sanguineum.

Mouse and bear

It has been another grey, rainy day, a day for staying home, a day for tidying shelves and hard drives, for making soup and posing as cat furniture. In a folder labelled "everything but the kitchen sink" I found photos I should have posted ages ago. Good fodder for rainy days.

This one is from October, 2020, on Baikie Island.

Part of a two-bear carved seat.

The mouse is unfortunately deceased. Some passerby must have moved him off the path and left him to dry in the sunshine.

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Hoy fue otro de esos dias de lluvia, sin color, todo gris. Un dia para quedarse en casa, un dia para limpiar estantes y para organizar los archivos en el disco duro, para preparar una sopa nutritiva, para convertirme en mueble para gatos.

En un archivo con el nombre de "todo menos el fregadero" encontré fotos que debiera haber subido hace tiempo ya. Buena provisión para los dias de lluvia.

La foto es de parte de un banco "dos osos" al lado del camino en la Isla Baikie. El ratoncito, pobrecito, ya había fallecido. Algún transeunte lo había colocado en el lomo del oso para secarse al sol.

I smell a bear

Most of Vancouver Island is made up of rugged mountains; steep, rain-forested slopes crammed together, with narrow valleys between. Highways crawl along the bottom of these valleys, winding from one lake to the next. And between lakes, there are lagoons, bogs, ponds, creeks and puddles, even in this dry summer. I slow down, passing them; you never know what you'll see today.

One lagoon, too small to have a name, is always full of water lilies. I've stopped briefly sometimes, but took no photos; it's been green on green, with weeds. Last week, as I drove by, just before sunset, I saw a large yellow patch. Were the waterlilies blooming? I found a place to park and walked back.

Water Lily Pond

I had stopped by the second arm of the lagoon; a short walk. I was no sooner out of the car when I smelled a bear. Definitely bear, although I couldn't see any sign of him. But I recognized his bouquet; a mixture of wet dog, old fish, neglected outhouse, compost.

Not to worry; it's not cub season, and I was on a busy highway. I went on to look at the water lilies.

And there were no water lily flowers. The yellow was the evening sun slanting down onto dying leaves, grasses gone to seed, and maybe a few distant goldenrods.

Second arm of the lagoon

As I returned to the car, passing a grove of trees that hid the centre of the lagoon, and coming out into the open again, there was a loud "plop!" Not a fish jumping; they splash or slap the water; this was like the sound a rock makes when you throw it two-handed into the water.

I looked, but all there was to see was a long ripple just under the surface. Something large swimming underwater. Not a bear. I couldn't smell the bear any more, anyhow.

I stood there a long while, puzzling over the sound, waiting for something to show its face. No luck.

At home, I looked at the photos I'd taken. They were dark and noisy; it was the end of the day, in the shade. But there was something there. I lightened the photo to see.

Beaver lodge

A beaver lodge, hidden at the mouth of a creek. So that was what plopped!

Question: does a beaver smell like a bear? Or did I miss seeing both beaver and bear?

Reindeer, pixies, and no bears.

In the upper Bella Coola valley, I stopped at Burnt Bridge to look for mushrooms. The forest floor here is often thick with boletus (edible if you can find them without worms; they make a nice, beefy gravy), Russula (they say they're edible, but you may as well eat erasers) and fly agaric (definitely not edible). But my timing was off; there were no 'shrooms, not even puffballs.

But there were lichens, and a bear tree; even better.

A reindeer lichen, with mosses.

More reindeer. The dark specks on the tips are fruiting bodies. (Click for a better view.)

Mosses, evergreen needles, and a densely curled lichen.

Leaf lichen on a dead tree branch.

Many lichens on a rock. Large leaf lichen, tiny pixie cup cladonia, a smaller leaf lichen, and several species of tiny crustose lichens.

And the bear tree? I've seen these several times in this patch of forest; dead trees that the bears have been using to sharpen their claws on and maybe to scratch their backs with. This one was ripped from knee-height to well above my head.

Do the bears choose a dead tree, or is it dead because the bears chose it?

I didn't see any bears.

Hands off!

Devil's Club. Oplopanax horridus. Justifiably called, "... the meanest, prickliest, baddest plant in the forest."

It is an attractive plant; large, maple-like leaves surround a tall flower spike, which later develops into a cluster of the reddest of red berries. In its favoured habitat, the dense rainforests of the We(s)t Coast, they add a welcome spot of colour in the fall and winter.

Devil's Club, Cougar Creek canyon

Unripe Devil's Club berries.

Its other features are not quite so welcome. It's covered in ferocious spines, up to an inch long; spines that break off with a mere touch, that dig deep into the unwary hand and fester there.

Spines on the main stem, and on the leaf stalks, too.

On a flower stalk. Laden with toxin.

Even on the leaves, top and bottom.

Various parts of the plant were used by BC's native peoples as medicine, or to prevent attack from evil entities. (This last, by sympathetic magic ; one dangerous thing scares off another, or its converse; something so bad must also have an equally good effect.) It it edible, just barely; the tips of the plant in the early spring can be eaten in small quantities. Otherwise, it proves toxic, except in medicinal doses. (And even then, caution is needed.)

I was bushwhacking through a wet forest in the Bella Coola valley, years ago. The ground was littered with fallen trees, rotten stumps on top of rotten stumps, thick cushions of slippery moss, all bound together with salmonberry canes. It was slow going, and when possible, I walked above it all, using more recently fallen trees as bridges, and holding on to cedar saplings and salmonberries for support. (Salmonberry has spines, too, but they're short and soft up near the top of the plant. )

I was too high to see the stalks, and mistook a Devil's Club leaf for a harmless thimbleberry.

See, (and this is the worst thing about Devil's Club) the two plants are twins:

• They grow in the same habitat; moist banks, rainforest, stream banks.
• They grow to about the same height: anywhere from 1.5 metres to 3 metres.
• The leaves of both are large and spread out horizontally to catch the light.
• They both have white flowers and red berries.
• The leaves look alike at first glance.

These are thimbleberry leaves. Photo from nwplants.com.

And these are Devil's Club. Photo from Sierra Club.

• The leaves are even equally soft-looking. Thimbleberry leaves are soft, absorbent, and flexible, and have been traditionally used for wrapping foods or holding a serving of berries. They can pad a backpack to protect your harvest of mushrooms, roll up to make an emergency drinking cup, or serve as a hat in a sudden rainshower. And if you're ever caught in the bush without TP, they work for that, too. Try that with Devil's Club leaves! Or rather, don't.

Thimbleberry stalks, stems and leaves are always spineless.

And everything they say about Devil's Club spines is true. My hand swelled up, the spines buried themselves and festered. It hurt! For a long time. And I never forgot the lesson.

One other thing; BC's native peoples say that bears eat the berries.

"The Tlingit thought bears chewed the roots to soothe their battle wounds. The Bella Coola thought that bears ate the unpalatable fruits (known to them as "grizzly's berries") and used the thorny branches as bedding." From ZooScape.

Of course, grizzly bears (Ursus horribilis; it's somehow appropriate that they would eat O. horridus.) have fur so thick that Devil's Club spines could never reach the skin.

.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jog

Bella Coola trip, Part VII: Last leg.

(Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI)

The sun was shining brightly when we left the hotel in Port Hardy that morning. At the harbour, the water was as smooth as glass.

We had no deadlines; the Nanaimo ferry runs every couple of hours all day; we could dawdle all we wanted. But we were tired, and it was hot. We kept moving.

Except here, where I braked in a hurry. Beside the road, a young bear was grazing in a bed of clover.
Yes, that is clover and he is eating it, like a cow. I never heard of them doing that before.
He ignored us, even though we were only a few feet away. When a second car stopped, he turned and ambled over the top of the hill and out of sight.

We had lunch in a rest stop; sandwiches, boiled eggs, tea and coffee. A river flowed just below us and the air was cool. A pair of Steller's jays hung around waiting for scraps. Afterwards we walked around a bit, stretching our legs, and found great masses of ladies' tresses, Spiranthes romanzoffiana, a native orchid, in the gravelly spots.
We passed Nanaimo in the late afternoon and decided not to take the ferry after all. We were just too tired. We found a motel and crashed.

In the morning, we checked out a couple of local antique shops. Laurie bought some Japanese porcelain, as usual, and I picked up a cute pair of saltshakers. (I don't really need any more: I have some 100+ on display already.)
Is he henpecked, or what?

I also found this big clay duck from Tonalá, Mexico. I love their pottery, traditionally done in earth tones, unglazed, and burnished with a piece of wood.
And that was it; we had lunch on the ferry, were home by suppertime. It was good to be back.