Summer at a Glance

As usual, the blog posts during the summer have been sporadic non-existent. That is a good thing though, because it means that we have had a busy summer season. We had lots of repeat guests and met many new travelers who had never been to the park before, lots of whom live in the Cariboo and were just discovering Dragon Lake for the first time!

2012 brought many exciting changes to the park, one of which was our wonderful lighting upgrade compliments of BC HYDRO. A huge thank-you to all who voted for us in the spring. We couldn't have done it without you. For anyone who lives in BC, the Energy Fix Contest is run yearly and I highly suggest clicking on the BC HYDRO link above so that you can bookmark it and enter next year. $5,000 in improved lighting can be a huge savings for your business! We had our shower house upgraded because, as many of you know, they are some of the nicest washrooms in BC, but you couldn't turn off the lights! Now they work on sound and we have noticed a huge savings from them not having to run 24/7 for 6 months out of the year. Fancy that! 

Other changes included: re-doing the front row of pull through sites with new fencing panels and shrubs, improved security with a new coded entrance gate for guests and their children, a fancy new patio boat for hourly/daily rental as well as an after dinner cruise option with snacks and operator and one of the MOST exciting changes will be taking place at the end of the season - we are opening up our house as a vacation rental! Not only will this be a great opportunity to have friends and family all in one great location (sleeps 9), but it will be the only rental available over Christmas. 30 acres on the lake is a great opportunity for a great family vacation filled with x-country skiing, snow shoeing, skating and ice fishing. Our accommodations page has all the rates and details, so make sure you check it out!

I will leave you with a few pictures from this year and, for all the fishermen reading this who have suffered through a lot of information that they couldn't care less about, I will give you what you have been waiting for.... The cooler night temperatures have cooled off the lake and the fish are jumping! Guests are even catching a good number of fish off the end of our dock at night! So call for a reservation, get your boats loaded up, and we'll see you at 'The Roost'!

Never a Good Thing

So, I've been thinking...

I would like an aviary for our little bird. I do not like birds and find them particularly scary out in the open. (This is due in a large part to watching Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 movie, 'The Birds' and then being attacked by an army of crows).

Although I do not like birds, I ended up with one from my children. And, scary as they can be out in the open, it is even more sad to see them in a cage. He has a very large cage as it is, but I think he might need to have an outdoor aviary built for him so he can be in it on summer days. He should also have a few friends that aren't plastic.

So, unfortunately for Keith, my $10 bird is going to turn into about $200 in materials, hours of his time (What? You didn't think I could build it, did you?), and almost every ounce of patience he has left.

I shall add it to the rather lengthy list of projects that I've thought of this winter. -R

Message from H

Last week,me and my dad made houses for the animals. In the burrows that we made out of a Spruce tree, that was 76 years old. We didn't want to but we had to because it was coming down from the big storm we had. In these burrows there may be weasels, bobcats and maybe lynx.

Out With The Old... In With the ?

If anyone reading this has ever docked their boat to the old dock, they will appreciate this set of pictures. - R

Iris' anyone?

I have a feeling this post will annoy a lot of Iris lovers out there, but I had to do it. Today I ripped our every single rhizome from the front of the house and I feel so much better! I don't dislike all Iris, just German Iris. They look too stiff. Check out the wheelbarrow full! There's more on the ground in the background as well. - R

Projects

The grand master plan started off with our Inukshuk planting bed in August. The new arbor that presently looks like it's floating in the middle of nowhere does in fact have a purpose. Really it does. I know, it took me a while to convince Keith of this, but he has since seen reason and is officially on board with the plan...which is good... because I really don't think I could have built it myself!



This will eventually blend in with the 'new' planting bed and pond in spring '09 which will replicate this one that we installed at our old house (shown below). The plan is for a path leading from the arbor with the creek on the right hand side. It will end at the bottom of the hill with a new seating area. Well, that's about it. Feel free to give us your two cents! - R