People often wonder what life would be like, even for a short while, without electronics and all the communication devices we rely on every day.  I got a taste, again, last evening when the power went out due to a wind storm.  The picture doesn't show the powerful wind, but this is the lake in front of our place.  You can see the turbidity of the water stirred up by the fierce winds:

  A tree was blown down on the lines cutting the power to all of us along the lake.  I was on the phone at the time.  In the middle of a neighbour's rant about the difficulties of pig butchering, the phone went dead.  I was on the cordless phone so without power our call was cut short.  I smiled as I knew she was not finished her rant, but now she, as I, had the power outage to focus on.  At first I was annoyed that yet again the power failed.  I worked myself up further thinking about how BC Hydro had sent crews out to clear the lines.  They removed all the saskatoon bushes along our property, much to my chagrin, but left large aspen and spruce. I went out to the generator but noticed the battery was removed, so that was not an option.  As I scooped water from the lake for Ben, our ram, (no power, no water pump) I thought about how I could turn this power outage into something pleasant.  After feeding the dogs I got my head lamp and battery powered lantern, some crosswords, a sudoku book and an Alexander McCall-Smith book I had been planning to read.  I spent the evening with the dogs laying around me in the kitchen, doing crosswords.  I had the corded phone plugged in so was able to receive a call from my sister, which was a pleasant diversion from the complete quiet.  It is amazing what you hear when all electric items are unplugged - no fridge humming, no buzzing of any sort.  It was a pleasant evening.  I found I was very tired by 9:00 but tried to continue to stay awake until 10:00 so I could let the dogs out before bed.  I was happy to get to bed, read my book by lamp light, and soon was off to sleep.  One thing I noticed was that I was so completely relaxed.  I wonder what role being on a computer or watching tv before bed plays in sleeplessness.  I am going to try it again tonight.  I will turn off the computer and not watch tv.  I will spend the evening reading or doing crosswords or sudoku.  We'll see if I sleep as well as last night. 

 I was awakened at 6:00 this morning by Finn who was desperate to go outside.  Of course he was!  Sunday night, while I was at the hospital, Finn opened the gate from the basement to the main floor, managed to somehow reach some roasted lamb that was on the back of the stove, and consume the works.  There wasn't a shred of evidence, no bone, no slobber, on the floor.  Just the empty dish on the stove.  I was expecting some stomach issues with him so made him sleep upstairs with me last night.  A good thing too.  Now he needs to be washed before he's allowed in the house.

Amigo is doing well.  I put him on a long line each day and let him out to play with Niko and Finn.  Rhaq is confined to house since Amigo is still intact, Rhaq sees him as something to fight with.  Amigo continues to put on weight.  Not an easy thing since he is totally not food oriented.  Anyway, here are some pictures of this lovely boy:

 

Another picture of our weather - pretty Canadian to always focus on the weather, eh?  Anyway, this was very stunning after a rain storm the other day.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but gives you an idea of the beauty here:

 

The shadow in the upper right corner is the lens cover that gets stuck when I turn on the camera.  I usually notice it but didn't this time until the picture was done.   
Next is a picture of some red aspens down near a friends place.  Usually aspens go bright yellow, which in itself is beautiful.  The red is unusual so I took a picture: