
Penticton is out of view to the right.

Penticton is out of view to the right.
An iconic Canadian symbol.

This little one looks like he’s about to burst, but he sure is cute, especially with those little red feathers on the top of his head.

Happy Wednesday. 🙂
Yesterday WP sent me this.

I forgot that it was my anniversary. For the most part, blogging has been fun and I have “met” many great people, some of whom I feel as if I know.

Unfortunately, only a very few of the bloggers that I started following in those early days are still here, but others have come along, and the life wheel has continued turning.

I have also changed. I started out (very rustily) writing about narcissism, but over the years I gradually dropped it and now haven’t written about it for a long time.
Lots of other changes occurred during these years. My M and I had some significant career changes, we moved from one province to another, and I took on a last big career job in the north while maintaining our Okanagan home. M retired. We will be moving again next month, but this time, only to the other end of town. We have been busy!

I will soon be retiring myself; in fact I am in my last 18 months of formal working time.
So what’s up 18 months from now? We’ll be starting work on a book about local wine, and I’ll spend some leisure time in a Cessna. It’s exciting, and I’m looking forward to the next chapters. 🙂

A distinctly northern beauty. 🙂
From a recent flight.

I like how smooth the clouds are with their little pond-like breaks.
Cheers from 32,000 feet. 🙂
A lily pad, so evocative of lazy summer days, warm and languorous.

Great to look forward to. 🙂
A little song sparrow stopped for a quick visit before heading south.

I hope there will be a safe journey ahead for him.
The bees were very busy around this large bush covered in small white flowers.

Humming away, they were industriously putting the finishing touches on their winter food stores.
Nature was very thoughtful to provide this late blooming source of late September nourishment.
Happy Thursday.
This amazing photo was taken by Vancouver photographer Martin Gregus in preparation for his portfolio submission to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Gregus won the “rising star” portion of the competition for young photographers aged 18-26; he spent an entire summer using a drone to photograph the bears from a distance so that he wouldn’t interfere with them. Given how endangered and precious the polar bears are, his non-intrusive photos are very important.
To see more of his jaw-droppingly beautiful photos, please see https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/polar-bears-in-the-summer-vancouver-man-wins-prestigious-wildlife-photography-prize-1.5625683