What happened to spring?  These last 2 weeks have been awful. Minus 6C at night and cold cold winds, sometimes rain, in the day.  The kale is rigid with frost when I pick it for my morning soup and the hummingbirds wake to a popsicle.It is not all that usual to have a hot May and a cold June.  The colder weather started at Karen’s Artisan Fair.  She and her husband have the Eagle Roost resort.  She is the lady in blue. Hussna has made a local name for herself doing henna paintings.Even the kids line up.Another of the English teachers and myself have been taking Hussna and Hussien driving when we can.  Hussien is getting pretty good at controlling my van.  I rigged up a stop sign:and a place to practice parallel parking.  The boxes on the left represent cars and the three on the right are people on the sidewalk.  This is a foreshortened view – the tape is the size given on the Internet.  Glad I don’t own any of those cardboard cars….Hussna normally drives my friend’s smaller car.  She finds the van a bit daunting.I have not had Hussien work for me as much because the family is  observing Ramadan when they can’t eat or drink – not even water – during daylight hours.  But one day it was cold and I had some lighter Jobs.  Hussien will always struggle with English, but he has a distinct practical bent and took to carpentry right away. (We are installing shelves.)The sun has not showed its face a great deal but if it appears it is usually in the morning and the light is often dramatic.  Of course, you have to be up at 5.00:am to enjoy it.(Finger Peak is showing his singed side.)And a morning with fresh snow on the mountains.Downtown Kleena Kleene. I went to town a couple of weeks ago and the balsam root daisies (which grow only at the eastern end of the Chilcotin, or further south) were absolutely splendid.  I’ve never seen such a display there.The shrubby penstemon has been making a gorgeous show.Here is a curious double blossom.  Two flowers joined and both eliminated the upper parts of their flowers.Silky phacelia is gracing the gravelly wastelandsAnd wild roses are opening everywhere.Occasionally we had a pretty sunset, too.This last one was taken between hail storms.Just the other day, two cyclists arrived.  They were travelling between Revelstoke and Bella Coola.  They dodged some pretty bad weather on their trip.Negotiating the first hill on my driveway….Because I have been driving back and forth to Tatla Lake most of these last 10 days, I have had plenty of opportunity to observe the denizens of the road.  I had seen this bear several times, but alway he ran away until now.  What a magnificent bear!  What a privilege it is to live in a country where large wild animals still roam free.