The Joys of Summer

The town is awash with tree planters. They are renting all the available rooms at the hotels, at the cabins on Gun Lake and here in Gold Bridge. I hear they are staying for six weeks. Not a bad start to the summer tourist season. I wonder where they hang out in the evenings. Finally some fresh young faces around :)

Mountain biking was awesome! A friend took me on a great trail, just the right ability for me. A good 40 minute climb, and then a sweet sweeping ride down the hill in the trees.

My friend and his dog.

The biking was followed by a par three golf game at Gold Bridge's lovely golf course, where we saw one of my students who just got a new golf cart to drive around town. She offered to caddy us around the course and clapped at all of our best shots. It's always nice to see the students outside of school. I did pretty well actually, shooting lots of fours. Not bad for the first game of the season!

Then we participated in a third sport: extreme swinging.

Horseback riding on Sunday with Barry was also eventful. I almost got bucked off, but managed to regain control of the animal who was spooked at walking through swampy water and sinking in to his knees while the rest of the pack of horses went along ahead of him. At least it would have been a soft landing.

I was helping Barry move nine of his herd down to a grazing spot by the river. The horses were all "hot" meaning it was their first trip of the year and they were all feeling a little frisky and spirited. The tiny chestnut mule, full of sass, went bucking and galloping between mouthfuls of the lush new grass by the side of the highway, and my horse was at times difficult to hold back. After turning him in frequent tight circles he finally realized that if he went faster than I wanted without me asking, he was going to have to turn around again. He hasn't been ridden much, but I am feeling really confident in the saddle after the spooks he has had recently. It's all about being ready for anything, and then not hesitating to use the emergency stop when things start to get hairy.

He's a gorgeous horse, though, and we make quite a team.

He looks a little grumpy but I think his ears are back because I'm taking to him.

This week it's back to full steam ahead with student-led learning conversations (kind of like parent teacher interviews, but the kids are supposed to do a lot of the talking and show their parents their work). It's a good time to look at what we have accomplished throughout the year and to get kids doing some self-reflections on their work and work habits.

Over the last four weeks we have been driving into Lillooet for swimming lessons in the morning, and then in the afternoons we have been spending some time with the Lillooet Naturalist Society learning about invasive and native plants in the area. We also learned about the river ecosystem and the salmon spawning channel. The kids (and their teacher) are so much more engaged in activities outside of the classroom. Like today, when they were so full of beans, we went "tracking deer" through the bush for an hour. They are quite the little off-trail travellers, and when we got back we were relaxed and ready to carry on with the day. Sometimes you just have to make a new plan :)

Liam and Tenyse under what Liam calls "nature's shower"--a waterfall by the side of the road that carves a straight white line like a stripe down the mountainside. It ends as pictured, as a spray of mist after a one-hundred foot plummet off of the final cliff before hitting the ground.