Photographing wildflowers along the Paradise Meadows trail in Strathcona Provincial Park

Mt Albert Edward is one of hiking destinations from the trailhead

by Keith and Heather Nicol  

 On Monday , June 29^th  we decided to check out Paradise Meadows in Strathcona Provincial Park since the last time we were there was in mid March when the cross country ski area closed due to Covid 19.  Paradise Meadows is just a 30 minute drive from Courtenay –Comox and is a quick way to get into the sub alpine. To access this area follow the signs to Raven Lodge and the hiking trails start next to this building. On this hike we decided to focus on some of the wild flowers which are easy to see along the Paradise Meadows trail. This area is certainly popular and we were surprised to see the parking lot near the trailhead virtually full when we got there. Fortunately there is lots of overflow parking in the Nordic skiing parking lot nearby.  

Jeffrey's Shooting Star is in full bloom in many places along the trail 

The Paradise Meadows trail is about 3.6 km and you can do a shorter 2 km wheelchair accessible boardwalk trail if you have people with mobility issues or small children in your group. There were many species of wildflowers out when we did the hike and there are markers identifying many of them along the trail. We especially liked the Jeffrey’s Shooting Star as well as the delicate Arctic Lupine. The trail also gives views of Mount Washington Alpine Ski Resort as well as several ponds. Also several other trails branch off from these trails providing access to the higher mountains nearby. For more information on the large variety of hiking options see : http://bcparks.ca/explore/parkpgs/strath/.  You might want to bring a tripod for taking photographs and some kneeling pads allow you get down to the flowers level.

Heather walking along the Paradise Meadows trail with Mt Washington Ski Area behind Many plants are identiifed with small plaques

More offseason balance ideas for cross country skiers

By Keith and Heather Nicol

This balance set up is about the width of a xc ski

     With Covid 19 closing gyms, cross country skiers who want to work on their offseason balance have fewer options these days. However you might find this simple balance device made out of 2 by 4’s might do the trick until the gyms reopen. I don’t think the length matters too much but I have built so that it is about the width of a typical groomed classic track. This one is 25 cm wide by 55 cm long. Since it is about the width of a cross country ski it provides a similar balance challenge to regular skiing. Since one footed balance is most skiers biggest problem area I recommend practicing balance drills through the summer and fall. 

You want to have your nose, knee, toe alignment over the foot you are balancing on

 The key to obtaining longer balance is to get your toe, knee and nose to line up and you can see in the adjacent photo. Once these are lined up you should be able to balance for progressively longer periods of time. Most people want to keep their head in the centre and this prevents a solid weight shift from one foot to the other foot. It also helps to lean slightly forward so that when you extend your rear leg you have a natural counter balance. So remember these tips: weight centred just behind the ball of the foot, line up your nose, knee and toe and adopt a slight forward lean. Practicing your offseason balance will pay dividends come winter. Check out the video before for more information.

Adopt a slight forward torso lean to counter the rear leg

Point Holmes is well worth checking out at low tide

 By Keith and Heather Nicol

     We like to head down to the Point Holmes shoreline of Comox when there is a very  low tide since it is one of the few places we know of locally that has small tide pools and exposed bedrock which can hide sea stars and other organisms. It is also easy to access from the parking area at Point Holmes which is on Lazo Road on the Comox Peninsula. On Sunday , June 7 low tide was just 0.3 meters  at 1:40 pm so it was ideally timed. We like to get down to this area about 30 minutes before the low tide so that we can do some exploring knowing that the tide won’t start rising for awhile.

                                                 Video of our visit to the tide pools

   On our most recent visit we didn’t see any birds eating midshipman fish like we did the month before but we were rewarded with sitings of various sea stars including the purple sea star which can be easily found in this area clinging to clefts in the rock and in the tide pools. We also saw a sea cucumber which was very interesting as it slowly made its way across a tide pool. We don’t usually see these creatures so this was a bonus. We also saw a leather sea star which is another species we don’t many of in this area. If you sit and watch the goings on in a tide pool you can often see hermit crabs that use discarded shells as hiding places.  You know that the shell is being occupied by a hermit crab since all of a sudden the shell starts to move (see end of video above).

  

A sea cucumber (with many spines) making its way across a shallow tide pool

We also saw a gull trying to eat some sort of small fish and it didn’t quite know what to do with it since it kept putting it down and picking it. Another gull came along and so the gull picked the fish up and flew down the beach. The next very low tides will be July 5, 2020 so make a note of it. We will see you there.

A gull deciding what to do with a fish that it caught.

Getting rid of garden slugs and saving the beer - Comox Valley Gardening

by Keith and Heather Nicol

Slugs eating our strawberries

      It has been a wet cool few weeks in Coastal B.C. and this has led to a field day for slugs in our garden. And this is just as the strawberries are ripening in early June. Slugs seem to like our berries and we don’t have a large strawberry patch so we are not that inclined to want to share them with the slugs. When we mentioned this to gardening friends they said that placing 1 “ of beer in some containers worked well for attracting slugs but who wants to waste beer. So we tried an online recipe for slug bait that included 2 cups of water, 2 tbsp of sugar, 2 tsp of flour and 1 tsp of yeast to see if it would work.

    

     We used  plastic mushroom containers, drink bottles and we cut the bottom off a plastic milk

We would rather not share our berries with the slugs

container and placed them out in our garden spaced about 3 feet apart near our strawberries with about 1 “ of slug bait mix in the container. Some were buried and some were not but it didn’t seem to make much difference—they all caught slugs. On our first night we had no strawberries eaten that we could see and we caught about a dozen slugs all together in 4 containers. So if slugs are bothering your garden in this cool, wet June spring in the Comox Valley or Vancouver Island in general then try this technique and let us know if you found that it worked. Check out the video below for details.

Building Raised Beds from Free Wood for our Comox Valley Vegetable Garden

By Keith and Heather Nicol

A sandbox became our first raised bed

    The Comox Valley of B.C. is blessed with a great climate for growing many vegetables and we have been having fun watching things grow, especially since Covid 19 has forced us to stay around home alot more. The other day we came across a sign showing free wood on a neighbors driveway and since the wood was mostly 2” by 4”s in various lengths (3 feet to 16 feet) we thought this would be perfect for increasing our garden space this year. The wood had been used to crate the metal roofing they had just had installed on their house. We love repurposing wood and when we moved in to our house 3 years ago we emptied a sandbox in the back yard and it became one of our first raised garden beds. 

Our most recent addition to our garden

      All of our other raised beds have been made from 2 by 4’s that we have been given or found for free.  These beds grow all of our lettuce, swiss chard, kale , argula and basil and tomatoes that we enjoy through the spring, summer and early fall. This year we stopped buy lettuce from the store on May 20 and are really enjoying the ‘garden mix’ seed pack we bought this year that has red lettuce, green lettuce, kale, endive, argula and other greens all in one seed pack. No need to pick from different rows to get a great varied salad. 

Another raised bed built 2 years ago

Our 2” by 4” beds are 3 boards deep and we used plastic to line the inside of the boards. Along the bottom of the bed we put down a layer of cardboard to keep the soil in the box and the weeds trapped below it. The only wood we bought was the trim to cover the plastic at the top of the beds. So to keep the cost of home gardening down think about using discarded wood for your raised beds.  Stay safe and hope you have a great growing season. 

Our tomato garden with garlic along the front of the raised bed made from 2 by 4's