Saw an otter or two today...

Deer in our front yard

This past week, we've had major snowy mornings melting away by the afternoon.
Makes it hard to get up and go to work.

A pair of Canada geese.

But now it's the weekend and the sun's starting to shine, so Dave & I drove to Castlegar. We made some stops on the way home, to enjoy the sunny day and the beauty that surrounds us.

 I'm so glad we stopped at the Kootenay River bridge, 

I wanted to take pictures of these ice spikes. 

We spied a river otter (or two). They were far away and hard to see, but eventually one swam along the shore line, towards us, and I was able to get a little video and a couple of photos.

River otter

 River otter under the bridge.

Video of the otter swimming.

 Sorry about the poor video & noise. My camera's about 3 years old, and it's time to replace it. I've been shopping around for the past month, and last night finally made the decision and bought a new one. It'll have a better zoom, video, and bigger viewing screen (so I can actually see what I'm filming:)  I can't wait for it to arrive!!
 In the meantime, here's a National Geographic video of otters.

A productive weekend.

I hate to see this weekend end...

 We spent a peaceful morning enjoying the sunshine, birds, and collecting rocks at Queen's bay beach.

(Note: The lake level is really low right now.)

                                     Then the weather changed quickly so we headed home.

 I dived into my studio to start my 3rd clay bird project. This one will be a bit smaller than the others, but only a bit.

         I also made some earrings (and a little pug "window jewel")  with the tiny animal beads I bought recently. 

 Taking pictures and listing them takes some time,

 but I managed to list a couple of them in my Etsy shop as well. 

Back to work tomorrow... time to change gears.

Finding treasure on a gloomy spring day.

 Short version:

Dave and I went for a drive, walked on the beach near Queens Bay and I found a neat skull.

  

Longer version: It was gloomy but mild today, so Dave and I decided to go for a bit of a drive to Queen's Bay. We parked at the side of the highway, and took a steep little trail down to the beach. 

 It was cold, windy and noisy! I was surprised at how big the waves were, so I took a little video .

The rounded rocks are hard to walk on, but I love beachcombing… every chance I get. I found a "couple" of rocks to take home…so many rocks, so few pockets.

  Then I made a most unusual find!!

The partial skull - of a small deer, I think.  One of the short antlers is broken, but the weird part is that they were growing in opposite directions!  If you know anything about this, let me know… PLEASE! (Here's more photos from different angles).

 We didn't walk too far, as the wind made our eyes water and our ears got cold, but I have a new treasure to show for our efforts :)

  Next we drove up to see the little church, of course I had to stop and take pictures. It's rare to find a church with an outhouse out back.

   When we got home, I took Spike for a walk to the mailbox, hoping for one of my bead orders to arrive... but was disappointed. Oh well, there's always tomorrow :)

 Have a great week...