Category Archives: Nature

Harvesting Balcony Potatoes

Today I harvested the potatoes I had planted in a half barrel by our garage, and in two reusable grow bags on our balcony.

Strangely the barrel produced little, but the small balcony bags were great. I’ll have to figure out why this happened.

I’d used fresh planting soil in the balcony bags, but had reused the soil in the half barrel, so there may have been a nutrient difference.

balcony potatoes burnaby bc

Temps to Break 40C in Burnaby

The plan today:

Up at 5:00am and get some stuff done.

Crank all the windows open until 7:00. Then batten down the hatches and hunker down while the temperature steadily climbs to ~42C (107F) here in Burnaby, BC, peaking between 2:00 – 4:00pm.

Thank you tall trees of Byrne Creek Ravine Park that keep us shaded until noonish.

Supposedly it will be back down to 30C by 10:00pm, and a bearable 23-25 overnight.

Check in on vulnerable family, friends, and neighbours.

Stay safe, all. . .

UPDATE: And watch out for pets, too. Sora the Cat quickly figured out that an ice-water filled bed warmer is a great place to hang out :-).

sora ice water bottle

UPDATE 2: As of mid-afternoon it now looks like we’ll top out around 36C instead of over 40. Whew!

Water is Life

Water is life.

The other day when we were camping at Nairn Falls Provincial Park just south of Pemberton, BC, we drove up the Pemberton Meadows Road to the bridge across the Lillooet River.

There was a wee puddle just across the bridge, and in the 34C heat several species of butterflies and moths were sharing it.

butterflies moths pemberton bc