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Did You Go to the Fall Fair?

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If there is a fall fair near you, I highly recommend you go. It’s outdoors, so safer from Covid, the weather could turn to autumn at any time but right now it’s probably not as hot as it was, the animal pens are so much fun. And the food! Elephant ears, anyone? Plus handicrafts everywhere.

We went to the Saanich Fair on Vancouver Island yesterday. It is one of the longest running fairs, dating back 154 years. The local farmers all participate– draught horses, cows, llamas, goats, sheep, poultry of every kind from tiny quail to large crowing roosters! It was quite a sight.

Chainsaw carver creating an eagle from a chunk of cedar.

There were thousands of people. The rides ranged from a giant swing that would probably make me puke if I went on it, to cute bumper cars and ‘the sizzler’- seats that twirl round and round as they swing by. The craft tables hosted a lot of handmade shawls and scarves of angora. Some of that wool was so soft, you couldn’t even tell you were touching it.

Lots of fun. What fair do you go to? The summer isn’t officially over until you’ve been to the local fair!

Alfie the Eagle has fledged

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When we returned from our road trip, the eagle nest had collapsed and was about a third of the size it had been. The rest of it was on the ground at the base of the tree. Alfie, the eaglet, was perched on a rock on the hill the other side of our driveway.

We were worried for him. The parents were still around. They perched in the tops of the nearby trees and screeched at us when we walked down the drive to get a look at their child, then flew low in swoops above us, twittering and screeching.

We talked to the wildlife people who thought we should feed him. They brought things for Alfie to eat. Here is what we learned. Alfie wasn’t in favour of herring, left it lying on the ground at the base of his rock. He liked quail okay. A parent would land and twitter at him, then lean down and rip off a bit of meat and feed it to him, beak to beak. Alfie likes rabbit quite well. He began to eat his own, pinning it to the ground with a talon and ripping the skin and meat off it.

His beak began to turn yellow, and his legs and feet. Then one day, he flew away. He came back the next day, landed in a tree to twitter at my husband, who had fed him all this time. DH twittered back, then Alfie flew off. He hasn’t been back.

(I told DH his eagle language might not be great and he might have said something that offended Alfie, we aren’t sure. 🙂 )

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

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We just returned from a road trip, got to see a bit of Canada out west. Lots of mountains

The road led through this rocky cut. Note the rain on the windshield. Yes, we travelled in a convertible, but couldn’t put the top down most of the time because it rained, poured, hailed, showered, sprinkled, pretty well the whole way. 🙂
The rivers and streams we passed were swelling up to the top of their bank, like this one. Flood warnings out everywhere. The snow pack in the mountains was said to be twice as deep as usual, and because of the late spring, it hadn’t melted yet.

No, this is not smoke, that was last year (sigh). It’s fog, so dense you can barely see the mountain behind. It was a great trip. We saw friends, family and met new ones. Aren’t we lucky? Let’s take good care of this place.

Eagle leaves the nest

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I know I’ve talked about this eagle nest before. But we were away for a couple of weeks. When we returned a few days ago, the baby had left the nest. He ended up on the top of a rock across our driveway, now and then fluttering his wings but not flying. I don’t know how long he’s been there.

We were afraid he would die up there, but with a telescope in the back of our pickup (:)) we were able to see there was a dead duck on the ground in front of him which he would pick at from time to time, so he was being looked after. Today a deer appeared, browsing along the grass at the foot of the rock. (The eagle is still up there, hard to see him behind the tree branch.)
The eagle froze. I was afraid the deer would discover the young bird. He kept lifting his head and waving his nose around, must have smelled the duck, and he climbed up and down the rock, but didn’t go closer to the eaglet.

Once the deer left, one of the parents flew in and landed beside the youngster. They twittered together for a time. Then the parent tore strips of meat off the duck and handed it over, beak to beak with the baby. Still looking after the little one. It’s been fun to watch.