The weather for the most part has been amazingly hot and sunny.  However, it is usually a few degrees below freezing by the time the sun rises, and there is a definite hint of fall in the air.  The sunrises are endlessly pink

The van saga is still not resolved.  Having spent several thousand dollars with one guy, who pronounced it drivable, but I still was not happy with it, I took it to another who told me his mechanic was scared to drive it and contradicted almost everything the first guy said.  He told me repairs would cost 2,000 more and the parts would take 2 weeks to arrive.  So I drove the shaky van home with a load of stuff, but first spent the night at 108 where I took my usual early morning stroll around the Walker Valley.  The leaves there had a definite yellow cast.

As the sun rose, ducks floated on the misty pond.

Coming home, the Chilcotin was brilliant.

Further west a cattail swamp was turning yellow.

Because of the long hot summer (way more heat and sun than usual), the range feed is eaten down and a lot of the cows are wandering home, mostly on the highway.  One has to drive extremely carefully at night.  Some cows are more goofy-looking than others.

Then the weather suddenly turned cold and rainy, just as I took the volunteers down to Bella Coola to see the bears (except there weren’t any – they come for the rotting salmon and there are hardly any fish in the river this year as the spawn got washed out to sea in the big flood 2 years ago.)

Now it’s back to +27C temps in the day and -2 or -3C at night with endless sunshine forecast.  One morning, there was an acrid smell of smoke.

The fire was north of Anahim, above Moose Lake.  There was no natural reason for the fire – not a hint of lightning – and it was close to some cabins so there was either extreme carelessness or something fishy going on.  (This photo was by Johnny Blackwell.)