The Lake and Picking Redcurrants

On Saturday evening, I decided to talk a walk to the lake to check it out. This whole area is connected by a series of lakes, this one being Shuswap Lake. The mountains, serene lakes, and perfect skies make for quite a view. Apparently this area is a popular place for Canadians to retire, which I can understand. In fact, these pictures were taken from a bit of shore line at a retirement community (it was the only public access road I could find around here to get to shore):





I stayed at the lake until it started getting dark. I didn't want to leave it too late because I didn't feel like it would be a great idea to walk down the Trans Canada Highway when it's pitch black. Particularly because there are not street lamps on the road.

Then this morning, I checked out a church service at St Mary's Anglican Church. I ended up being late because the time was listed incorrectly on the website. Oh, and also it was a UCC service. So really that whole operation didn't work out so well. But I caught the second half of the service. It does make me miss St John's in Chicago a bit, but I'm going to be home before I know it. Three weeks can go by very quickly.

Finally, between the breaks in the rain, I helped Patrick and Colleen pick redcurrants. They are getting married August 10th and then moving out to a new farm in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. For their wedding, the brewery owners, Brian and Rebecca, or going to make them a red currant ale to serve at the reception. Hence, we picked them 10 pounds of redcurrants to add to the ale. Patrick said that the currants give the ale a nice pink tint, and will make it suitable for a festive toast.

It took a lot longer to pick these than I expected! The last time I really had fresh redcurrants was when I was living in Oxford and I used to buy them at the farmer's market. They were a lot more sour than these ones, though. The main thing I used to do with them was cook them down, strain them, and add some sugar. Then we'd use the resulting sauce on vanilla ice cream.