The salmon are swimming up streams and spawning.

Short version: I took some videos of the kokanee salmon spawning and have compiled them into a 7 minute video.

Question of the week:

"Is 7 minutes too long for a video?"

The rest of the story:

When I started this video, I just wanted to stitch together a group of short clips of the kokanee salmon swimming upstream in our nearby creeks. I managed to "catch the tail end" of this annual event (sorry about the pun...I couldn't resist)... but wanted a film to share a piece of "Kootenay time", with my relatives and friends, as most live very far away.

(Note: This photo, with lots of kokanee, was taken in 2006.)

With 12 minutes of video recording time available, I'm happy to have such a handy little digital camera- I take it everywhere! But rarely use the video. I have to practice being steady & stop moving the camera so quickly. I was up until the wee hours cutting out jerky parts. (Perhaps I could use a tripod, but my purse is already over-loaded. ) Besides it's hard to hold still when there's rustling in the bushes, or a mosquito bites... and I'm alone in the trees, surrounded by bear food.

I was going to add music too, since the creek sounds loud & quiet in different spots, but decided to leave it alone, so it's just the birds and water. Natures music...

My video may be quite amateur, but there's some good parts to it.

With practice, my next one should be much better :)

The video was too large to add here, so I've uploaded it to YouTube... here's the link.)

If you'd like to see some of my "fish" related creations, click here.

Emus in the snow.

Today was an overcast, winter day in the Kootenays.

The clouds hung low in the sky, threatening snow, but my husband and I

went for a walk anyway. It's something we don't do nearly enough.

I guess walking along the highway has a lot to do with it, but there are sideroads,

so we took one and ended up at a dead

end, by a fenced in

field, where there were 3 emus.

Yes, big flightless birds!

I haven't seen one since my kids were small & I took them to the Calgary Zoo. What a treat!

We watched them for a few minutes, and I took a bunch of pictures.

I should've used the flash, but didn't want to disturb them, so all my photos are dark & needed to be edited.

(I'll be going back on a sunnier day, to take some more pictures of these fascinating birds.)

I was so inspired, that I spent the rest of the day/night in my studio painting,

"Emus in the snow".

The challenge was to make a completed painting in one day... unheard of for me.

I ended up making 2 paintings! They are drying right now as I write, and my camera's recharging, so I'll post photos of the paintings next time.

Here they are.

**UPDATE: I'm offering the 1st painting in my Etsy shop.**