Spring seems to be here, finally. Almost everything I expect to be coming up in my garden is and the hillside behind my house is green and dotted with yellow flowers: Kelowna’s official flower Arrowleaf Balsamroot to be exact. These flowers are also known as Okanagan Sunflowers and grow in some of the hardest places (I think) in the area.
Our neighbourhood is in the shadow of the Grainger Parcel (or Grainger Highlands), or what most just call the backside of Knox Mountain park.
To be honest maps for this area are pretty challenging to find and for the most part unhelpful as far as identifying what green spaces/mountains/undeveloped lands are what. I did, after a lot of searching, locate a bit of a map in the City of Kelowna Knox Mountain Management plan. It’s a relief really to see that the Grainger Parcel is noted as an environmentally sensitive area and hopefully will be spared from development. I’m not anti-development but I do know from my early morning walks that the area is home to a lot of wildlife: deer, raccoons, coyotes, owls and other birds.
Anyway: Arrowleaf pops up for a brief time in the area and for a few years now I have missed out on walking up to see them. Luckily a combination of boredom and a need to get my dog out more into different situations got me out of the house this weekend on on the trail. I’m looking forward to more walks throughout the spring up through the Grainger area. There’s some great views of Kelowna from up there, I just have to remember to do it before it gets too hot.
Ok, if you’re with me still I guess I’ll talk about boredom and the whole dog needing to get out more plan.
If you’ve been following for a while (especially if you came over from my old blog) you’ll know that my husband works away so for a couple of weekends a month it’s just me, the kid and the dog. Combine that with the Kid being old enough to be working weekends and you have boredom (maybe I should get a weekend job too – kidding, sort of).
To counter the boredom and to provide some more socialization for the dog we’ve started to add some longer more populated walks to our usual routine. It’s painful, for me, because he really wants to see all the other people and dogs: pulls and barks. BUT after a month or so of purposely taking him to busy places he’s getting better, and ultimately I’m getting better at controlling and distracting him.
Outside in Kelowna 