Alberta-British Columbia Boundary.

Is that a cattle-grid on your gateway, and if, so what animals are you keeping out?
Yes it is a 2 ft deep Cattle grid.
One of our annoying neighbours uses our road as his private 'Long Paddock'.
If we choose to leave the remote gate open for friends to enter, then his Cows won't walk in.
There is also quite often Horses wondering about.
Once upon a time it was up to people who owned animals to fence their property off to keep their animals at home.

What do you have mounted on top of your gate posts?

A Green Letter Box on the right.
And a Sculpture of a Boy climbing a stump on the Left.

What is that shrub with the pink flowers by your gateway?

The Pink Flower is a Hibiscus.
Not sure what species.
I bought it from 'Bunnings' 2 years ago.
I will look it up next time I go to Bunnings.

I see why you need the cattle-grid!

Is the very charming gate-post sculpture a piece of your art? You have mentioned that you are an artist, but you have not said what you create in your studio.

I just went to take a Picture of the Hibiscus.
It is now seriously pouring rain.
So I broke off a branch and brought it up to the Studio.

The Boy was carved out of a solid piece of Limestone.

Oh dear, I hope you didn't get soaked. What are you working on at the moment in your studio, and do you have a thread in one of the other forums with pictures of your artwork?

We seem to have strayed from the thread topic again - my bad!

I'm in the midst of cooking dinner, so I'll be busy in the kitchen for a while. I'll check in on the thread later. Stay dry!

Studio Shots of Hibiscus.

Thank you for the close-ups of the hibiscus. It's a beautiful flower, and very different from the shrubby hibiscus that is (just) hardy here. Pray tell: what is the bird in the painting in the background of your first photograph?

They are a pair of 'Wedge Tailed Eagles'.

The Wedge-tailed Eagle has very long wings (wingspan is 2.3 m).
A characteristic long, wedge-shaped tail, and legs that are feathered all the way to the base of the toes.
The bill is pale pink to cream, the eye brown to dark brown, and the feet off-white.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge-tailed_Eagle
Not the kind of Bird of Prey we want to meet on a serious rock climb. ^_^

Impressive! Your weggie dwarfs the red-tailed hawk, which is the largest raptor I'm used to seeing - and it's scary enough up close.

These two Pictures were taken at 'Çurrumbin Bird Sanctuary' Gold Coast.
The second (whiter Bird) is a Sea Eagle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_eagle

Those bird-handlers are brave to put their faces so close to an eagle's beak! And they must have strong arms. I once held a (hooded) golden eagle, and after a couple of minutes, I thought my arm would drop off.

Is your creek running today?

Yes June, the creek was running one hour after I got the Hibiscus cutting.
Because of the cyclonic winds my umbrella inverted and was wrecked.
So my Canon got drenched.
But it did eventually dry out.
This is a sequence of the creek rising.

Ginger Looks like that creek made a big mess! Hope you fared well. I think the animals you have photo's of are sheep. The goats are white with very long hair. I will now google that to check because I always mix that up.
Alberta Ann

Thanks Ann,
I never did find out what they really are.
The amazing thing they did next was they cross a Wooden Bridge.

I was really shocked when I saw 3 people still on the Bridge.
It made no difference to the animals.

I found this link on the net.
http://www.canadianrockies.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/bighorn1.jpg
I must say they look nothing like the 4 I Photographed.

Can you imagine my surprise when I found out the people on the Bridge were Ozzie's ?
And they all came from Queensland.
They decided to jump off the Bridge into the Icy Cold Glacial Water. ^_^

Ginger, I hope you are still above water. When the creek floods over your driveway like that, do you have an alternative route, or are you cut off from the road?

The sheep/goats crossing such a high bridge is amazing. I looked-up the Bighorn sheep in a reference book, and it says only the males have the massive curved horns, the females have short slender horns. The Bighorn's coloration is brown, with a white belly, nose, and rump. There is also a species called Dall's sheep, that has smaller horns than the Bighorn, and is the same color all over - and can be either white, brown, or black. The book also says that Mountain goats always have a beard, even in summer when their hair is short, and their coloration is yellowish-white all over, while their horns are black. Does this help with identification?

As for jumping off the bridge - yikes!

If I don't post anything tomorrow, it'll be because the power is out. We're expecting a winter storm with snow and freezing rain.

Wow June,
That is a great help.
Ann said much the same thing, I think.
It is amazing how much I forget while on such short Holidays.
I always believed the Pictures would refresh the old grey matter.
But obviously not.

This guy was just brilliant in his Jumping styles.
I thought he should have been an Olympian.

No alternate way out for me June.
I just don't go out for 2 or 3 days.

More somersaults and 360° twists.

That jumper must be fearless! I hope the park rangers didn't see him, or he'd be in trouble - and "Jumping is dangerous and forbidden" signs would be soon posted. I guess Australians aren't in the habit of calling a lawyer if they do something risky and hurt themselves! I used to work for a public garden in the US, where visitors would sue if they stubbed their toe on a step because they weren't paying attention - it was apparently the garden's fault for being too interesting - so now I tend to view everything from the legal angle.

How's your flooding situation, ginger? The ice storm here has not amounted to much. So far we have had a couple of inches of snow, and then a light coating of freezing drizzle, which is still coming down, but the temperature rising and so the precipitation should change to rain soon. I took my garbage bag and 3 recycling bins down to the road for collection early this morning when it was still snowing, and then the snowplow went by and a bow-wave of ice traveling at 60 kph knocked bag and bins into the ditch, so I had scramble down into the snow-filled ditch, and heave my garbage out onto the side of the road again. One of the joys of a Canadian winter.

We saw no signs saying not to jump.
Flooding is going down very quickly.
Now the clean up begins.
Lots of organic material in fence wire.
I gather it up for Mulch.
All 3 Flowers have chirped up since getting a bit of warmth.

I hope your lovely hibiscus plant did not get swept away by the water. Here's a pic of the only hibiscus hardy enough to grow in my climate Zone - it's not so elegant! The pic was taken last August. The previous owners of my property planted the shrub, about 12 years ago, against the south-facing wall of an outbuilding. Every winter some branches die back, but the shrub is now about 8ft tall and as much across.

Great picture June,
Your Flower has a much deeper colour in the throat.
My stamens are much finer and longer.
And no it did not get washed away.
But did get more than a foot of water over its toes.
I have lost about 100ft of 3 strand barbed-wire fence and about 8 drops.
They will all need to be replaced to keep neighbours Cattle out.
I wonder if he would notice one of his Cows missing ?
I could fit ¼ of one in My Pizza Oven. ^_^
I just need to find a mobile Butcher now.

These Pictures were taken from Lake Louise Ski Area.
That is Lake Louise on the opposite side of the Valley.
Red dot marks the Lake.

Chair Lift ride with Lake Louise in the background.

Suberb photography, ginger! What time of day were they taken? Were you up there skiing, or just sightseeing?

Sorry to hear you lost some of your cattle defenses in the flood. Please excuse my ignorance, but you need to tell me what "drops" are, in a fencing context. I keep envisaging pits with sharp stakes at the bottom!

Pictures were taken at 4.17pm and 4.55pm.
Yes you are right that day we were only sightseeing.

A drop is a steel star picket.
Very easy to drive into the ground.
http://www.starpicket.com/star-picket.html
But very hard to get out.

I think these are Goats.

There were three of them.
I could not believe how sure footed they are.

Yes, I do believe those are Mountain goats. Incredible climbers.

What you call drops or star-pickets, I know as T-bars or T-posts. I have some holding up the wire fence across the front of my property. I haven't tried removing any, and I hope I don't have to!

I think this is a Moose.
He was quite friendly for a wild critter.

Although I had the 300 mm lens on.
I was still quite close and did not feel threatened at all.
I don't know if it was a Male or Female.
I would have liked to take it home.
But I was already on excess luggage. ^_^

Here is an old Picture of mine with two drops in it.
The Bird is a wild Goose that flies in every day to steal My Horses tucker.

Chocolate moose and Magpie goose!

Thanks for the ID June,
It is always so hard to find out what things are while walking around.
And to be quite honest, interest vanes on arriving home.
There are so many other things to think about.
Do you have the Magpie goose there ?
Or do you just know it.

I have to confess to owning an ID book on Australian birds, due to my DH (who is a keen bird-spotter) having visited Oz a few years ago, and the Magpie goose was an easy one to name. There aren't many black and white geese to choose from!

What kind of horses do you have, ginger? I hope they were safe from the flood waters.

June, you can see some Pictures of My Horses on the 'Equine Forum'.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1231342/

The most-asked question on this hike was, Where's the bloody tunnel ?
You guessed it, There really is no Tunnel.
The mountain earned its name from a proposed route for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) back in 1882.

Here in AUSTRALIA we call that a 'Thoughty'.
A blunder in surveying led to the suggestion that a half-mile tunnel be blasted through the hillside. An idea that would have cost the CPR millions of extra Dollars.

That plan was quickly discarded and an alternative route was found around the mountain.
This incidentally, shortened the rail line by a mile and avoided two long hills, and most importantly, It got rid of that ridiculous idea of a Tunnel.
What on Earth were these early Pioneers thinking about ?????