The West Commences: 65 The Iron Age

I turned 65 and am officially old, no more kidding myself about being middle aged. I remember a line from a movie I saw years ago in which a mother said something about being middle aged to which her daughter responded by asking her how many one hundred and twenty-year-olds she knew. Girls are hard on their moms. That’s one of the many reasons why I’m glad I had a son. Bert and Peg had me over for a birthday/fathers’ day dinner on Friday, June 17. Their son Chris was there with his wife Lisa and their 14- month- old son Eli whom I had not seen before. Peg’s lively 96- year- old mom was there too, as were Jules and Carol, so we spanned 4 generations. It was fun.

The Canucks lost the Stanley Cup, and for one day, Vancouver rivaled Libya for scenes of fire and mayhem on the international news networks. Now I can continue to get to know BC in less violent ways, like gardening and hiking. Both of these pursuits are strenuous but fruitful. Tuesday’s hike along the BX trail to BX Falls and back was great. Because there was so much snow this winter and a slow melt this spring, the water was roaring. I plan to go back there in the summer if we get the dry heat that I was told to expect in Vernon but haven’t felt much of yet. It’s been warm but cloudy and rainy most of the time with only a few hot and sunny days. That leads into gardening, which I continue to do because I can’t resist improving the front yard before it gets too hot to move plants around. I spent some of my birthday money on a Japanese red barberry, which I added to the new Asian bed that also contains a Korean forsythia and Nanking cherry. A woman who gardens at the church came over to comment on the roses and to suggest that the reason some of them had yellowing leaves was that they lacked iron, so I went to the Swan Lake Nursery and bought the iron supplement she recommended as well as some mulch for the roses. Another of my projects, cleaning the rust off the tree of life that Jim and I bought the first time we were in Mexico in 1986, required the purchase of Iron Out, so it’s been an iron week. Also, my friend Priscilla from the hiking group recommended a carpenter whom I contacted and have now met. He seems to be a reliable young man. He’s going to fix the problem with the sunroom door that won’t shut. His solution is one that he’s used on many homes that shift a bit on the Vernon clay. Fortunately the only aspect of this house that is affected is that door. He has got me in touch with a plumber friend of his whom I have also met and like and who is going to tackle the other ‘issue’ with the house, the fact that there was a sewage leak in the basement last year.

The Vernon Outdoors Club near the end of the hike to BX Falls. We finished at Donna's, the woman in front of me, for a drink and look at the view of Vernon and Lake Okanagan from her house