Surprises about how mice come and go

In the last 3 weeks, as a family, we've killed 12 mice in the house. Jello has most certainly done his share.

The hunter, the prey in his mouth 

Playing 

"You can run, but you can't hide" 

"Move and you're dead"

We think the mice started to come in when a few days of rains caused them to hide from the weather. Then it snowed, and they came in again. Now its getting cold, they're coming in for the winter. I'm sure that if we searched, we would find their food cache. A few months ago, we found about a pound of bird seed buried in Karen's sewing stuff. Last fall we found their store of mouse poison in my ski boot. We've been fighting the mice since we moved in (amazing, both the the 2012 and 2013 posts were both called "Smart Mice").

About the time we found the 4th mouse this go-round, we decided to call the exterminator back. There's no exterminator in the Canmore area any more; we have to call one in from Calgary. The one we use in Calgary guarantees no more mice if they can access the entire foundation wall. Two walls of ours are under a deck, which we didn't want to pull up. But with this mousal onslaught, we said (un)screw it, and today pulled up some boards in prep for the exterminator's visit on Wednesday.

We started by pulling a few boards up beside the wall we thought was their access point.

Two removed

It was MUCH harder to get the boards up than I imagined. The brilliant deck builder had overdriven most of the brass screws, and the deck had been painted a number of times since the deck was built. So, more than half of the screws were embedded 1/4" - 1/2" into the boards, and I had to carve the wood away to get them out. Most were stuck, so in order to not strip the screw heads, I had to hand-loosen them. It was slow and painful work (and I have at least 3 blisters to prove it).

Carved out and exposed

We got those first two boards out as we were instructed by the exterminators some months ago. We looked underneath the deck and saw something strange.

See that line in the darkness?

We discovered that the deck was built over an old, boarded up, basement window. This was news to us. We had a no idea that there was a window under there. We realized very quickly that we had to pull up a couple of more boards in order to access that window.

Another two painful hours of pulling screws and...

The boards are up

...we found the window -- and the way the mice get in. Whoever covered the window boarded the window up, but the window casing doesn't actually meet the hole cut in the foundation wall.

The metal window well, and the window

That lower right corner is the issue

It should surprise me that there's a window in the house we didn't know was there -- but it doesn't. It should surprise me that the way the window was sealed up when it fell into disuse wasn't even marginally done correctly -- but it doesn't. It should surprise me that my house is full of mice -- but it doesn't.

The exterminators are here in two days. Jello's gonna have 48 more hours of fun.  

Hiking! In the mountains!

So after going for a short, 5 km walk in my neighbourhood without difficulty, I decided to join the Sunshine SnowHosts on their annual hike today. We went up to Sunshine and wandered, the day after it snowed (yes, snowed on September 3rd). Okay, the others wandered farther, climbing a mountain. I didn't climb the whole mountain, just one side of it.

The two peaks of Quartz Ridge they planned to climb

Starting in the village, we headed up the trail to the Continental Divide, passing the Divide chair along the way.

Doesn't look like this in the winter

The group left me and my still recovering leg in the dust, and headed down the Citadel Pass trail.

Off they go

My plan was to just to visit Rock Isle Lake...

From the lake viewpoint

...but my leg felt fine after climbing 150 m and going 2 km. So I set off cross country in the basically flat meadow towards Quartz Ridge. The meadow was pretty beautiful.

Wide open spaces

Closer still

It was pretty lonely in the meadow. Most of the Columbian Ground Squirrels have gone underground to hibernate. Very few birds were out. No sheep ot goats were around, nor any real sign of them.

A hawk kept an eye on me 

Amazingly invisible at this time of year

I got to the base of the ridge and still felt fine, so started to climb the northern ridge. I had no intention of climbing to the top, but thought I could make the bench about half way up that's visible in the photo above.

The weather was varied today. It started sunny but went to cloudy, with weird clouds around.

Strange

I made the shoulder without difficulty, wandered around taking photos for a while, then found a place to sit, have lunch, and wait for the group to descend -- and promptly got very cold. It was only about 5°, and the wind was very chilly. Down jacket, multiple layers, hat & gloves were all necessary to stay warm.

The others are climbing the ridge towards the peak on the right 

Looking back towards Sunshine 

The end of the Monarch Ramparts, where I hiked in 2011

Towards Citadel and Fatigue Passes

 After an hour, the others came off the ridge.

Company!

We retraced my steps back to Rock Isle Lake...

Afternoon clouds

... and the Village, where (the best part of hiking at Sunshine) I had a beer to celebrate actually hiking just over 10 km in actual mountains, including 350 m of climbing.

Walking in the woods, finally

The original hope after I broke my leg was to be back walking by July and into the woods again by August. Then there was that setback, when I injured myself doing an exercise my physiotherapist gave me. Initially, it felt like a 3 week setback, but then I had knee problems, and 3 weeks became 6.

Today, I entered the woods for the first time since early April when I was out servicing bear cameras. Okay, it wasn't all that exciting -- just a 4.5 km trip to the Banff Park boundary markers and back. But it was exciting for me.

Since the last time I was on this short trail, someone built a new bench in the middle of nowhere out of plastic and pressure treated wood --  next to an older bench that was in the middle of nowhere.

Not much of a view

It is trying to turn fall here.

We call it the Elk Meadow 

Some plant Karen doesn't know

I made it to the park boundary & back -- 4.5 km round trip -- with only leg muscle fatigue as an issue. Well, that and walking on a really crappy trail. Maybe I'm just out of practice.

Park Boundary marker

Warning signs at the park edge

The meadows inside the park. Mt. Rundle in the background 

More meadows. Peaks of the Fairholme Range

It seemed like a good day to play with HDR photos.

What it sorta looked like 

HDR version 

More of it

Even though we have run across a few bears in our 'hood in the last week or so, we saw only old bear poo to suggest any are around. We saw a few elk tracks, and not much else, except for this female spruce grouse.

Pretending she isn't there 

Trying to be invisible

There were other cool things, like fireweed in serious bloom...

Very red

...and a mushroom growing out of a tree.

Strange, that

It was nice to get back into the woods. I'm headed up to Sunshine Meadows on Thursday to explore with my fellow SnowHosts. Here's hoping the weather holds.

The Ice Bucket Challenge

So I was nominated by my friend Edwin -- who [a] lives in Holland, and who [b] I've never actually met -- to take the Ice Bucket Challenge. He's been reading my blog for years. That automatically earns him a challenge response.

I've been watching the progress of this internet phenom for the last few weeks, seeing it move from cool and funny to populous to mainstream to... backlash. It's the latter stage I find most interesting.

People have complained that it's a waste of water. It is, in a way, but that's pretty misleading. First, it's raised a whack of money for ALS, which isn't really a waste; that water has gone to good use. Second, I (like most people) learned in Grade 4 about the water cycle. Pouring water onto the ground doesn't waste it. It either gets absorbed into the ground or evaporates. If it evaporates, it eventually falls as rain. Groundwater is used by plants to grow, and they transpire that water back into the air, where it again returns as rain.

But there are other ways to "manage" that waste. Matt Damon poured grey water from his toilet over his head. Watch my video for how I managed it.

People have expressed concern over the impact of the campaign on other charities. Being the Chair of a charitable organization, I can tell you "charitable competition" is real. If my organization could come up with an internet phenom that would raise us 70 MM$ in 2 months, we would do it. In a heartbeat. But it's a real issue that people sending $100 to ALS means they might not send it to the United Way or the Crohn's Foundation or whatever their other favourite charity is.

What's interesting is that this campaign didn't start as a challenge for ALS. It started in New Zealand as a challenge to donate to ANY charity. ALS just picked it up and ran with it (and good for them, I say).

So I'd like to get the campaign back to it's roots. I believe that we "haves" (and that's ANYBODY who can read this -- those of you who can afford internet access and a computer are a HAVE relative to countries where the median annual household income is $2,000) have an obligation to give back.

It is with honour that I present to you my response to the Ice Bucket Challenge.

I wasn't the only one with the idea that day. Here's another guy:

He drove out from Calgary to do it

In truth, I have glaciers much closer to my house than the Athabasca Glacier (which is about two and a half hours drive away). I wrote about one here, and another one here. The trailheads to access each are 30 min or 60 min from my house, respectively. I would have gone to one of those, but the "hiking to the glacier" part isn't in the cards right now with my still-healing leg. You can drive to within 600 m of the toe of the Athabasca Glacier. You can take a snow coach ride up onto the glacier, and go for a walk on it if that turns your crank. So I went there instead.

I haven't been to the Athabasca Glacier in about 15 years. I was impressed how far it has receded since the last time I was there. Parks has erected little markers at the terminal moraines, one of which (the 1992 marker) is visible in the video. I remember way back when in the 1980's you could go right to the toe of the glacier, where there were ice caves. Can't do that now; the toe is sitting in a giant meltwater lake.

The movie's proof positive that I don't run iMovie that well. It was supposed to be in glorious HD so that my friend Edwin would see how fabulous the Athabasca Glacier is. I even wanted to figure out how to include this picture of a bear I saw on my way up there.

A shaggy brown coloured black bear

iMovie kept crashing while I was trying to record the audio, and I finally gave up. Ah, well.

The idea behind this thing is to challenge people. I'm going to challenge a bit differently:

• I challenge my friend Edwin to come see my glaciers for himself. He already dumped water on his head and donated to ALS. Good for him!
• I challenge my friend Gary Paukert to come up with something creative. He's a good sport, generous to a fault, and understands the impact that giving to a charity can have.
• I challenge my daughter. She's in Oz right now, up near Cairns. I challenge her to stand on a sandy beach and dump a bucket of warm sea water on her head. She ought to like that.
• And then, like this news anchor in Australia, I challenge everyone else everywhere to do their bit for charity. Still, he was a bit pompous about it, so I think he really should have a bucket of ice water dumped on his head. Don't be like that.

Birds from the past

When I was a kid growing up in Ontario, one of the most common birds we had were Blue Jays. My mom hated them. She thought them noisy, plus they stole peanuts and sunflower seeds that she put out for the birds, squirrels and chipmunks at home and at our cottage. They were as common as House Sparrows, Grackles, Pigeons and Starlings. 

Where I live now is the extreme west side of the Blue Jay's range, as you can see on their Wikipedia page. Here, they are rare indeed; I saw one occasionally last winter. And I guess that rarity makes them more interesting.

Besides, I never shared my mom's dislike of them. Personally, I think they are beautiful, and fun to watch. They are bold as all get out, and easy to attract up close.

This week, three showed up in my neighbourhood -- a mom and two very large young of the year. A handful of peanuts in the shell hitting the back porch is enough sound to get them to come in for a visit, no matter how close you throw the peanuts in.

Mom. Note the very white face.

One of the kids. Grey face.

They occasionally, but not always, break the shells open and get the peanuts out. Sometimes they take them away and "hide" them in the trees or bury them under the ground (where the squirrels are finding them).

Mom in the tree

The kids are just as bold as mom, and don't worry about getting close to us.

Patiently waiting for food

Being nut/seed eaters, we thought they would like something more than peanuts.

They ate the almonds first, then the peanuts, then the cranberries

The downside to Blue Jays (or any other jay, for that matter, like our more common Grey Jays or the less common Stellar's Jays), is that they will take as many peanuts we can put out, for as long as we put them out. So once or twice a day, we get a 15 minute show from a handful of peanuts we throw out for them. Like my cat, when they are done with that handful, they hang out expectantly waiting for more. Technically, we're not supposed to put out bird feeders, as the leftover food is an animal attractant. Blue Jays leave nothing behind. So we're OK with feeding them so long as they're around to greedily take our food.

A face even my mother could love

Summer gondola riding in Banff

There's LOTS of things to do in the Banff area if you're coming for a visit. One thing I always recommend to people is to get to the top of a mountain, and the easiest way to do that is to take one of the sightseeing gondola rides that are available. The choices are the Sulphur Mountain Gondola, the Lake Louise Gondola/Chairlift, or the Sunshine meadows hike.

Sunshine is a fantastic experience, but you still have to hike and climb a minimum of 200 m after the bus ride to get to the actual top of a mountain pass, to get that truly panoramic view. The hikes up there are glorious (which I wrote about here and here and here), and if you are a hiker just visiting, there's no better option than to start your day up high, and hike Simpson Pass/Healy Pass, towards Citadel Pass & Quartz Ridge, or any of the other options. But that's hiking.

Looking back at the village

If you don't hike, the Sulphur Mountain gondola is an option, and it's just outside of the Banff townsite. You get to the peak of Sulphur Mountain, though there's not much to do up there other than a short walk to to old cosmic ray station. The 360° views are stellar, especially of the Banff townsite, but that's about all there is up there. The owners are planning on renovating the top station, which would be good because it's old and decrepit. The ride costs $37 these days.

Me, my mom and daughter on Sulphur in ~1999

With my Auntie Eva, too

A better option is the Lake Louise Gondola/Chairlift. You don't get a 360° panorama because you don't get to the top of a mountain. But you do get a 180° view, which has more mountains than you can count, and multiple glaciers to see, plus the lake itself.

The lake and a bunch of glaciers

At the top is a pretty good set of things to do. 

• There's a pretty good wildlife interpretation museum that cover off all of the critters in the neighbourhood, from bears to lynx and beyond. It's a bit dark, and has an overload of info, but is generally well done;
• There are interpretive talks (free) and guided walks ($5);
• There are a few "short self guided walks", all less than 2 km with limited altitude gain. They all go to various viewpoints and overlooks;
• The restaurants at the top and bottom are both pretty good (the one at the top has a killer deck). They feature a $14 lunch buffet that is only $4 when added to the $30 gondola ride charge, which is a very good deal.

The Sulphur gondola is a fully enclosed gondola, and you have that option at Louise, but you can also ride in the open on the chairlift, which is WAY better (especially on a sunny warm day when gondola cabins are like ovens). Because unlike the Sulphur option, where all that you see riding up is better views of the Town of Banff, Louise is hugely active bear habitat. Daily bear sightings are common.

A bear from the chair

Open views from the chair

In general, the views from the lift are better, and the ride more interesting, at Louise.

So Louise is cheaper, has good food deals, has better views, offers significant wildlife sighting options, and has better things to do at the top (and bottom) than the Sulphur Mountain gondola. If you can only do one, Louise is a better option.