OWL Rehabilitation Society - Week One.

My second internship started on Thursday August 25th. OWL (Orphaned WildLife) Rehabilitation Society is under direction of founder Bev Day. This Birds of Prey rehabcentre is worldwide renowned for its efficient training and pre-release cages. This week started off differently because OWL's second Open House of this year was coming up. Visitors got to see more birds and had acces to several interesting rooms of this facility so everything needed to be prepared. Highlight of the weekend: the release of a juvenile Bald Eagle on each day. Daryl, a long time volunteer, was the lucky Star on Saturday. As soon as Bev had given a few thank you's and a brief history of the eagle, it was time to go!

OWL has two types of educational birds: Permanently injured birds in the front-educational zone, these birds are left wild, set in pairs and are often used as fosterparents for incoming orphans. The side-educational birds are different. A few are permanently injured, some of them are human imprints while others are born in captivity. There is one thing they have in common, they are all glovetrained and handfed daily. I've learned a lot about these raptors last weekend because I talked about them for approximately eight hours, : ). Interesting how people of all ages react differently on these magnificient hunters. One bird I was talking about was Katie, a female North-American Kestrel (Falco sparverius).

This gorgeous little falcon is a human imprint in perfect condition. We feed and train her daily on the glove and I already had the opportunity to do it myself, what a wonderful scene...all beautiful stories in life start with small things. Unfortunately, OWL gets patients in on a daily base: I've seen injured Barred Owls (Strix varia), a juvinile Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) and a juvenile Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) with nerve damage, coming in. An injured Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) was on its way by sportplane when I left OWL on monday. Cars, windows and humans are the main enemies of these raptors. Please keep your guns inside and keep all your garbage in the car till you get home folks, even fruitleftovers!

This is why and how I do it my friends, Hands-On experience and working with the best on these magnificient birds! At present, I'm a shadow of the supervisors but hopefully in the future...maybe one day I'll supervise myself. I'm enjoying this final chapter of what is still a wonderful journey. And ofcourse, Big Up for my all time favourite BlueBerryPicker...thanks babe, for letting me do this! I close this story with one of the most beautiful purebred falcons I've ever seen, Falco cherrug...Meet Sally.

To be continued...

The Beast The Beauty and The Rocket.

Permanent Residents of North-Surrey!





Roaming Around - Southern BC!

Driving round the southern BC penninsula brought us on different spots! We tried different campings and different parkinglots. In a meanwhile searching for a permanent place to stay during this final chapter while we're trying to sell our Dear Annabel! It's still summer down here that's for sure...does anyone know these flowers?

And if it's 28 degrees outside we like to have of pop cold! Icecold...the almighty Westfalia Freezer did it again, or should I say MyLady did it again. Awesome result...

We went to different places, searching for different rooms to rent. One of those places was White Rock...after visiting an awful basement room we were right on time to see an amazing sunset! The sky on fire...

This part of BC has some beautiful spots, beaches and walking trails! We enjoyed a walk along the Boundary Dyke Trail and the Raptor Trails in the Regional Park looking for Harriers.

There's much more coming up folks, we finally found ourselves a cozy little studio! I've started my second internship in a Worldwide Renowned Raptor Rehab Centre and it all looks very promising!

Enjoy life and seize the day, we're almost there!

T H Th.

Modern Slavery.

I think you all know we both are not afraid to make our hands dirty and work ten hours a day. In the Southern part of Vancouver you see a lot of Blueberry fields and guess what, it's picking time! We contacted a guy and we could start yesterday at 8 am...for every pound we picked we would get 44 dollarcents. No green, no red, only darkblue...please! That's basically how our day started...

It was burning hot on the fields: 28 degrees and practically no breeze! We were mostly surrounded by Indian families: shouting, singing, laughing and...picking! We started off smiling and had a lot of fun. At the end of the day (10 hours later), we were tired and dirty and we realised how insane this job was. If you don't pick fast, NO MONEY, welcome in today's modern slavery! We are very lucky, fortunate and spoiled that we can choose to do something else, that we can travel the world knowing that our future will be bright. It's crazy to realise that a lot of people have to do jobs like this to survive, even in Canada, people like us, children even...something to think about!

We're both good workers and we don't give up easily...well we only picked 157 pounds with the two of us (that's basically five 12 liter buckets! We've been told that experienced pickers can pick up to 300 pounds each which is very hard to believe. One dollar is zero point seventytwo eurocents, so I think you have enough numbers now to figure out how much money we made on saturday 22nd of August 2011.

We live, we learn...we still have fun!

T H Th.

Okanogan Valley.

We left the Island a week ago, we missed some Travel Juice to enjoy it to the fullest. We didn't catch any salmon in Campbell River, Tofino was a dissapointment...bad weather, a crappy little town and a beach like we saw many before, nothing special or maybe just us! We did enjoy the Rain Forest in Pacific Rim, very impressive! Anyway, we found the travel spirit back in Naramata, a nice little village in the beautiful Okanogan Valley, interior BC! Maritime temperatures and nice lakes with fake beaches and unfortunately...no fruitpicking for us!

Thurber's first swimlesson!

Off he goes...

He made it to the shore and so did we...: )

No comment...

We drove from Osoyoos to Summerland and back to Naramata and everywhere we asked: Do you need pickers? And everwhere the answer was...No, cherries are done and it's to early for apples! Bad timing so we decided to spend some more time...near the lake, in the sun...doing nothing!

The beauty...

The beast and the Coonhound!

Awesome summerdays in the Valley, beautiful region and definitely worth a visit! We know now that the Mellow Sausage can swim, which is great and that finding a descent job will be difficult! We're back in the Vancouver area to complete our final journey...Sorry for the delay folks! MeetTheMoose, still standing...: )
And oh yeah, that's what tourists do in Penticton! The two lakes in the valley are connected by a river, you jump into your innertube at the upperlake and float two hours and a half down to the lowerlake! Sometimes the river is really full of floaters...One little detail, the river runs next to the highway so you can take the shuttlebus back! Crazy canadians!

Thomas Hannah and Thurber.

Duncan: City of Totems.

We've spend the past seven days in Duncan. Being stuck isn't always that bad...Ocean swimming in Maple Bay, chilling by the river and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere in Duncan city near Duncan Garage. A cool place that provides: organic food, a second hand bookstore, relaxation therapy, a Showroom full of music and theatre and many more.

Have you ever seen a Chevy SS EL Camino...well this is it, awesome car. It's a mixture between an old american sportscar and a pick up, very interesting! And as you see, our camping spot was in the back. We thank Longivity John for letting us use the facilities of the garage, thx John! We also visisted the Bird of Prey Centre, they have a nice collection of raptors and offer a nice but short flightshow!

Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)

 Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)

Kookabura (Dacelo novaeguineae), Australia.

Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus)

Juvenile Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

Harris Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), Mid-Southern America

I hope to work with these beautiful raptors down in BC in the month of september. We left Duncan for Campbell river, Salmon capital of the world! I can tell you, so far no luck with the fishing that's for sure! Not even a single bite. After our week of delay and a rather big cost on our lovely van (thx Myriam!), we most likely will leave the island in a few days to go fruit picking in the Okanogan Valley. That means: no North Coast Trail for us, we're having a hard time finding a dogsitter anyway!

This is how we spend an average evening in our house, from left to right you see...Hannah's feeth, a bunch of clothes, a headhone case, a white iPhone, a walmart bag with groceries, grapes, a purse and training pants, a sixpack of Spyhopper, a mosqitoe zipper, water, old bread and my fishing gear. In the middle our lovely netbook with external DVD reader: ready to watch a Rome episode!

Many greets

Next stop will probably be: Tofino!

T H Th.

Pedder Bay - Boattrippin'!

Circumstances brought us down South the Island, in Pedder Bay. A new experience came up for the three of us...Salmon fishing in the Pacific Ocean! Boats for rent, awesome! One boat, one basic seafishing-rod, one exited Belgian duo and one scared Coonhound. Result: a couple of fun hours baycruisin' almost in the open ocean, icecold water, a lot of sunshine and unfortunately: no fish this time! Anyway, salmon fishing in the open water...CHECK! And Thurber...a True Hero.

Kind Regards From Duncan feat. Long John

Status: Stuck, tired but happy!

Next goal: unknown.

The Beast, The Beauty, The Hound.

Summer in BC - Victoria, Vancouver Island!

Everybody told us that Victoria is beautiful, definitely worth a visit! Well it is beautiful and it was worth a visit. You can compare the atmosphere in the capital of BC with the Holiday feeling you have in Southern Europe. We had a great time, enjoyed the exellent food, the activities around BC-day and our stay in Victoria's oldest B&B!

Tip: 'If you only have two cents, spend one on bread and the other on music. Bread will give you the means to live, music the reason.' -Anonymous-

Thurber's story has reached a new level...We've come to a point that people start having full conversations with our dog without even talking to us, very strange! 'Oh, you're such a cute puppy' - 'What happened with your paw, buddy?'. Funky stuff, a new star is born, Thurbo! We'll remember a very nice citytrip: lovely flowers, dogloving-people, delicious food and a harbour full of boats, kayaks and floating planes!

Zonnige groeten

HaarBol, Froufrou en Boef.

Montréal - Victoria.

Montréal - Hotel Viger, November 1st 2010.

276 days, 653 adventures, 98 blogposts and approximately 20 000 km later...: )

Victoria - Humboldt House B&B, August 3rd 2011.

Find the ten differences...: )!
MeetTheMooseCrew still standing...
Exploring the Island!

OneLove

T H and Th.

Squamish Days - Loggers Sports.

Maybe some of y'all saw these events on TV before. We love to watch it: big powersaws (Husqvarna meets Stihl), sharp axes, a bunch of lumberjacks, wood, a healthy competition and a lot of sweat. We drove all the way from Prince Rupert to Whistler to Vancouver. We made some pit-stops and one of them was Squamish! (Whistler was way to crowded by the way...beautiful though!). Loggers Sports here we go...

Surprisingly cool event...We made it all the way to the Island: Victoria, a wonderful city and capital of BC! We'll be back in Vancouver later this month...we write The Final Chapter! More news soon: Sooke, Duncan, Pacific Rim, Tofino...

See You on the Other Side!

Rudy Martien and Koekie.