Dearpath Rene

Today we had Rene come over to do a nature walk with us and the kids. He wanted to come here as he had a wonderful time making most of the the paths and stone steps on our property (his "business is called "Dearpath") oh maybe 12- 15 years ago. He is the mushroom expert around here and knows all the bird calls and all the wild plants. And he's a very interesting guy. Originally from Prague, he left Czechoslovakia in 1979 to immigrate to Canada where he was told to go to Toronto, and get married. He would rather live where there are mountains and ocean so he came to Vancouver on his own and then to Galiano 2 years later. He was about 27. And he's been here ever since, doing trails, stonework and nature stuff. I think he must have been an Incan in a former life, he's so good, but he says there were stoneworkers in Czechoslovakia too! He was just there and did not have much positive to say about the Csech Republic that he thinks is crumbling.
So we walked around (except for Fiona and her parents who came this morning, but were having a nap) and saw many different spring mushrooms, a lot of calypso orchids and some other rare wildflower (Twiblade?) and some different birds several pileated woodpeckers and an otter eating starfish. Sometime when I have more than 2 minutes, I'll put some interesting pictures of these on flickr.
The 3 older grandkids are having a ball rodding around by themselves in the little Avon raft with the new electric motor. I can almost remember how fun this was...
Grampa and I are just trying to stay upright past 9:00PM.