Didsbury Happenings – September & October 2013

While it was still summer weather in mid September we headed to a nearby lake with Jeremy and Micaela and the Stewart’s cousin Marty, and tried out skurfing again before it got too cold. Then back at the Stewarts we had a lovely outdoor dinner with Wanda’s brother and sister and their families and a few others, so it was great to meet a few more people!

Jeremy

Marty

Sunset supper at the Stewarts

While the harvest was happening things were pretty busy here, but there was also a lovely little baby born, which called for a baby shower, at the end of September! Wanda and I made a ‘diaper cake’, which was kinda fun, and decorated it and hosted a baby shower for Heather and little Kallie, and in doing so I met a few more of the locals, which was great!

We had a great day and ate lots of naughty foods, and little Kallie was SO cute! She pretty much slept through the whole thing…

 

Very happy Grandma Stewart with little Kallie!

Diaper cake

Mmmmm...

Some of the friends

Kallie

Aunty Leanne (Heather's sister)

Kallie and Great Grandma Willa

Wanda and I also visited Bryce and Rebecca (some nearby friends) and played with their little kittens, horses and adorable little kids, Bentley and Bella…

Bentley

Bella

Bentley and Bella

And before it got too cold and closed down for the year, Robert and Wanda and Lawrie and I went to visit the nearby Wildlife Discovery Park in Innisfail, whose star attraction is 3 bears which have starred I different movies and TV ads (as well as a whole bunch of other bears). These were pretty cool! It’s amazing how ‘tame’ they can get, although obviously you’d never trust them properly… We weren’t allowed to take photos while they were showing us what these bears could do, but one was a black bear behind a very small fence and electric fence, and the lady inside had her arm around it and kissed it and fed it by putting food in its mouth with her hands… And he did things like holding a honey pot and licking it, and a few different poses, which was cute!

Cute little European squirrel at the wildlife park

Hilarious young ostritch

Reindeer! Also known as caribou

And we finally saw a wolf... 

Bull Elk

Jaguars - so not mess with...

Movie star black bear in 'high security'...

The other 2 show bears were grizzlies, behind considerably larger fences with bigger electric fences, and one of these was absolutely massive, about 1600 pounds they said! NOT something you’d want to come across in the wild! (although with our luck for seeing bears, not exactly likely anyway..). One was a female and did a few tricks and poses, one of which was ‘smiling’ and waving on command! And the other, ‘Whopper’ (for very good reason) was best known for his ‘scary’ pose (also named for very good reason!) which they put sound effects to in the movies… He also played with a ball for us, and they said he’s able to drag a stunt man around by the leg to put him in a certain spot… Not so keen for that one myself! When feeding the grizzlies, the lady touched them sometimes and spooned some cereal into their mouths, but otherwise just through them the food – there was a pretty big difference between the black bear and the grizzlies!

Gigantic grizzly bear 'Whopper'

We were able to pay (yes, touristy…) to get our photo taken with any one of the 3 bears, so we chose the massive grizzly and got him to stand up behind us and make his ‘scary’ face J - We were a little unsure of how this would actually happen, so it was a bit of a relief to see the thin electric fence wire between us and the bear’s head half a metre behind us when we sat down! But we could definitely feel the moment he stood up behind us!

Photo of a photo, of us with Whopper