Life On The Ranch: Mammoth Summary 3

Today is our three week coast-aversary! I honestly cannot believe how quickly time is flying. After several days of rain, we finally got some good weather and were able to take our kayak out on the water for the first time.

On The Water At Lamb Bay, Sechelt, BC, May 2021

The past few weeks have mostly been about wine and homemade food. I can't wait to start writing about them, once I've wrapped up our time on the ranch.

I finished up my "Mammoth Summary 2" at the end of March, where we were getting lots of signs of Spring, but also fairly regular snow and hail showers.

Week 22

Sunshine And Kitty Cuddles

Week 22 brought some more steady sunshine and we were delighted to find that our orchid was showing signs of reblooming again. Since our actual deck didn't really get any sun, we took to sitting on the chairs at the front of the ranch after our daily walks.

It didn't take long for one of the beautiful ranch cats to come and make friends with us. We were very happy to have lots of cat cuddles, especially since Bagheera reminded me so much of my recently passed baby girl, Poppy, and it reinforced to us that we are definitely ready for a fur baby if we can ever choose a place to "settle down"!

A Very Indulgent Easter Weekend

In British Columbia, there are 10 statutory holidays. Unlike the UK, they are pretty evenly spaced meaning that you get one almost every month. The exceptions are June and, depending on when Easter falls, March or April.

Whilst it's great that we get so many additional days, it somehow makes the months that we don't have them even harder! We hadn't had a long weekend together since our accidental Valentine's adventure on Family Day, in February, so we were very ready to spend Easter together.

Our plan for Good Friday was to go for a short walk, get some groceries and start preparing for our move (updating address details, decluttering etc.) We managed to get a walk in at Dilworth Mountain Park, and then "accidentally" ended up in a bar.

After several months of near normality in BC, our Covid cases had dramatically increased and Dr Bonnie introduced patio and take-out options only for restaurants. The weather was so glorious so we thought we'd join a waitlist at Cactus Club, only to be immediately seated in a complete suntrap.

After that we proceeded to order at least half of the Happy Hour menu and scoffed it all. We finished the day drinking local beer at the ranch.

Our Easter Sunday menu involved lots of chocolate in the morning and a BBQ "roast" dinner in the afternoon. Of course, there was also lots of wine. Easter Monday is not a stat holiday in BC, so we slightly regretted that decision the following day...

Week 23

After the indulgence of the Easter Weekend, we took it pretty slowly in week 23. We had a few more cuddles with the ranch cat, were treated to some beautiful sunsets and had yet more unusual weather, including hail and snow.

On the Friday of this week we FINALLY received the wonderful news that our application for Canadian Permanent Residency had been accepted!!! This was the culmination of a journey that we'd been on for a very long time and the rest of the weekend passed in a haze of sparkling wine and emotional phone calls with people we love all around the world.

Week 24

Week 24 was lining up to be a "quiet one". We had some nice weather and did lots more walking around the ranch. We also finally got enough sun on our deck to have a successful date night. During our Thursday night dinner on the balcony, Rich mentioned that we were forecast incredible weather for Saturday. He suggested we drive to one of the lakes down south for the day. We were half a bottle of wine in at this point and our plan escalated very rapidly...

An Impromptu BC Road Trip

After Rich tabled the idea of a trip to the lake, we talked about a winery lunch. Driving down south, we both only had one place in mind - The Burrowing Owl Estate Winery in Oliver.

When we did our BC road trip last summer, The Burrowing Owl was by far one of our favourite places and we both knew that was where we wanted to go for lunch on Saturday. The problem was that it would be a four-hour round trip and I didn't want to put the burden of driving all that way just for one winery on Rich.

So we did what any sane, slightly tipsy couple would do... we booked a hotel.

We decided to make a weekend of it and, just like that, our cheap day out at the lake turned into an Okanagan Winery Tour, complete with a stay at the wonderful Shiraz Villa just outside Osoyoos, BC.

We set out from the ranch around 11am and the sun was already high in the sky and temperatures were rising. Our first stop was the Painted Rock Estate Winery where we tasted four different red wines overlooking the vines and the lake. Next was a flying visit to the aptly named See Ya Later Ranch for a tasting paddle, before winding down through the stunning countryside to The Burrowing Owl.

We were both so excited to be back at one of our favourite places in BC, but sadly, we were slightly underwhelmed. There was nothing inherently "wrong", I think we were just so impressed last year that our own expectations were not met. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our lunch with a view and even got a takeaway charcuterie board for later that evening.

Our evening was spent drinking the wine we had collected from our winery trips, soaking in the amazing tub in the hotel and eating lots of cheese, meat and olives. The following day we got take-out breakfast from A&W which we enjoyed outside before the drive home. We finished a wonderful weekend with a steak and yet another bottle of wine.

Week 25

Our final full week at the ranch was really very uneventful. We finally started packing and cleaning in preparation for our move, got our car serviced and had our photos professionally taken for our Permanent Residency cards.

We spent a bit of time on the balcony enjoying the sunshine, had our last Freshprep delivery and watched yet more wonderful sunsets.

And, after six wonderful months and 17 blog posts, that just about concludes our adventures at Myra Canyon Ranch. We feel so lucky to have had such wonderful experiences and we cannot wait to tell many more tales from the Sunshine Coast.