Spring time in the Kootenays.

 Spring time in the Kootenays.

In a nutshell: We drove up to Trout Lake to see the gerrard trout spawning.

Here's a few scenery and wildlife photos, plus a short video.

A couple of weeks ago, we saw this badger, on our way to Cranbrook! Awesome!

Spring flowers in my garden.

Kaslo is our 1st stop on the way to Trout Lake.

Johnson's Landing- mudslide from last summer

The gerard trout spawning at the mouth of Trout Lake

 Early in May the gerrard trout spawn at the mouth of Trout Lake and Mother's day is the perfect excuse to go for a beautiful drive up along Kootenay Lake, and see them. 

It's become a bit of a tradition for us to witness this annual event, and enjoy our lovely scenery,  that we sometimes take for granted.

Trout Lake from the bridge.

 We went on the Monday after Mother's day, so there was no one else around for a long time, makes me nervous about bears. It was sunny and hot which encourages the spring run-off, and the fish are BIG!

The trout seem to just hang in place, but if you watch them closely you can see they are quite busy, and once in a while one would jump out of the water. 

Gerard spawning, just missed a jumper.

 There were many butterflies and birds of all kinds, including some common mergansers and a mature bald eagle. 

Hope you enjoy my photos :)

Mergansers

Spring run-off. This silty creek is flowing into the main river. Note the
difference in the water's colour.

Here's a short video of a jumping trout.

Simply charming...

The short version: I bought some charms and made simple, earrings with them.

The long version:

  I enjoy shopping for unique pieces to use in my jewelry.

Combining pretty charms, colourful glass, or precious stones, into a pair of earrings, is almost instant gratification.

 The other day, I received a new order of charms, and was anxious to go to my studio and make some new earrings. However, my son was on Skype, and we were having such a good visit, so I opened the packages, and we just kept talking.

    I have a couple of tools in my desk, so I made several pairs of earrings while we visited. 

They're simple, lovely, and Inexpensive.

Clay pieces often take weeks from start to finish. 

Paintings also take many hours to be completed.

Earrings are one of the few things I can make from beginning

to end, in one sitting AND they are easy to ship.

But, just adding a charm to an ear wire? Anyone can do that… if they want to.

Makes me reluctant to call them "handmade", however, not everyone is willing or has the patience,
to fiddle with tiny things. 

 So... 

A simple charm hanging from a hook.

Easy to make, and yet so pretty to wear.

It'll take time for me to get them all listed in my Etsy Shop, but I did 

add the butterfly earrings.

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.

A new clock for the kitchen.

Here's my finished clock.

Update June 7/11- The recycled clock parts, quit working, after less than 24 hours. I don't know if it was the weight from my little "bug" ornament, or if it should've been trashed instead of recycled. Anyhow, I have an unused clock mechanism, with much smaller but fancy hands, so I just replaced it.

3 days later and it works fine, but I think I'll skip the bug … not everyone has the same appreciation of insects, even handmade ones. Go figure :)

June 4/11

I've been thinking about a new clock for our kitchen.

Of course I want it to be unique, so I looked around on-line, and decided to make one myself.

The finished clock isn't perfect, which is fine, it's about instant gratification and using stuff I have collected. It was easy to assemble, but I think next time I'm working on clay, I'll make some funky clock faces. I've got some great ideas brewing...

What a fun way to start the weekend :)

It took all of 20 minutes (including looking for a clock mechanism that I had stashed years ago.)

I dug around my studio and found everything I needed:

- A decorative round box lid - for the clock face. (The lip is 1 inch deep, perfect to allow for the clock

movement part.)

- Black paint in a squeeze bottle (Dimensional fabric paint). To quickly "write" the #'s on.

- Clock mechanism with hands -salvaged from a cheap clock, years ago . I didn't glue it in place but could've used a bit of hot glue, but may do that later, if it needs it.)

- Exacto knife (to "drill" a hole in the middle of the box lid- just big enough for the clock thing to poke through).

- Hand made bug (optional- I bought this little guy years ago, and have used him as a cool thumbtack, but this is the perfect way to show him off.) I used a dab of hot glue to attach him to the hand, so that he's easy to remove if I find a better place for him...years from now.

P.S. On a recent bargain-hunting expedition (in Cranbrook, with Katie). We stopped at Liquidation World, and I found some boxed sets of 4 ceramic plates. Too bad most of the plates had noticeable flaws, but I loved the fish design on them AND on the round box, so I kept looking until I found a good set.

I should've bought more anyway. I love the design, and besides, small plates are so handy!

Anyhow, that's where I got the perfect FACE for my clock.