ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

Continuing the theme of local authors that we kicked off with our recent post about Ingrid Baier's Fish On book, we now want to bring another published Okotokian to your attention!

Chris Garrett and his co-author Darren Rowse are highly regarded in the blogging and internet marketing world. It's Chris that's the local boy among this duo, having recently moved with his wife and daughter from the UK.  When we say these guys are highly regarded in their sphere, we are rather under-playing it.  For instance, these guys were invited to speak at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2010 in Las Vegas.  Here's a video of Chris being interviewed at the Expo.

Chris and Darren's book, "ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income" has a fairly self explanatory title and it is now in its second edition.

The book is available in book stores but also on Amazon.ca, here.  You can preview the book on Amazon and if, like us, you are interested in blogging and want a grounded view on how to focus and develop what you are doing with your blog (whether generating income is a goal or not), then it is an excellent read.

J&E

Fish On - Seafood Dishes that Make a Splash by Ingrid Baier

We had to share this with you all as we think it is just so excellent!

Our next door neighbours, the Baier family, have been so friendly and welcoming to us since we arrived in Crystal Shores Pt back in 2007. Along with the Vincent family on the other side of us, we couldn’t wish for better neighbours. We all chat away and help eachother out where we can but this past couple of days, we have discovered a remarkable secret about Ingrid Baier – she is a published author!

Modest and unassuming, Ingrid has never thought to mention this to us before! We were gobsmacked! The book that Ingrid has recently had published is a down to earth cookbook that gives many great ways to enjoy fish. It is called “Fish On – Seafood Dishes that Make a Splash”.

You can see from the link below that it is readily available via Amazon.ca

Fish On - Seafood Dishes that Make a Splash by Ingrid Baier

Ingrid has been kind enough to provide Jan and I with a copy with a little inscription and this is something that we will treasure. If you want to preview the book, you can do so via the Amazon site at the link above.

Should anyone wish to buy a copy (and have it signed by Ingrid) to add to your own cookbook selection, order it from Amazon and when it arrives with you, drop me a line to let me know and we'll figure out a plan for getting Ingrid's signature on it.  Jan has 3 on order (for her sisters and for her Mum and Dad, as a little Christmas present).

This has been a strange year for meeting authors.  We'll blog about another author living among us shortly.

J&E.

Town of Okotoks Community Calendar

For those living in Okotoks, check out the month of October 2011 in your new Okotoks Community Calendar.  It should have been delivered with your Western Wheel this week.  The photo it features was taken by Jan.

The sharp eyed among you might recognise the photo as that used on http://3crystalshorespoint.ca/

We both really like the photo and thought we would submit it for inclusion in the community calendar - and it got selected!

The photo was taken from our home, one fairly still, summer evening.

J&E

The Lake Freezing

This blog post is for especially for Lee in the UK, who wanted to see some photos of the lake freezing.  We have never really monitored how quickly the lake starts to freeze once it begins to get colder, so actually, we thought it quite a good idea!

We first noticed ice on the north end of the lake on 13th November.  However, it warmed up a little the next day and it looked as though most of it had melted.

We took this photo on 17th November which doesn't look much further along than it had looked to us on the 13th.

We took these two the next day, the 18th November (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and with the amount of snow and freezing temperatures, you can see that the lake is pretty much covered now.

19th November 2010

20th November 2010

21st November 2010

22nd November 2010

There doesn't seem to be much changing on the surface at the moment, so we have decided to leave it a few days.

24th November 2010

We have the first person testing the lake.

He was obviously happy with the thickness of the ice, as the skating rink prep begins.  Not being brought up with this sort of thing, we usually wait until the lake staff put up their notice to say the lake is safe to go on!

However, this was issued on 25th November from the Beach House saying that the last recorded ice thickness was two inches and it is not yet considered safe - oops.

Sunday 28th November 2010

It was quite a nice day out, not too cold.  So more work begins on creating new skating rinks.

They certainly make the most of it and were out on the lake for several hours.

However, on 29th November, they Beach House was still suggesting that the ice is still not thick enough at just six inches, which seems quite thick.  However, we believe the Beach House likes the ice to be 10" to 12" in depth for greater safety, (especially for use by the community at large as opposed to these few folk) which is just fine by us!!



On the 1st December the ice seems to be melting as the notice on the website had changed from 6 inches to 5.5 inches.  It was still saying that on 9th December so we popped into the beach house.  Unfortunately, due to the warmer weather, they are saying that it is unlikely to be considered safe until after Christmas. 

However, while we wait, we have had a couple of garden visitors over the past week or so.

 

 Have you ever seen a deer under a trampoline?  They seem to quite like it under there.

Personally, we think seeing a deer on a trampoline, instead of underneath it, would make a much better photo!

  

 



We will keep you posted.

J&E

Day at the Beach - IN OCTOBER!

Saturday was such a beautiful, warm and sunny day, we decided to make the most of it (especially this late in the year), and so we headed to Crystal Shores beach.  Two minutes later were sitting in the sunshine and admiring the view.

As you can see it was packed!

We spotted something in the water and decided to take a walk along the jetty to investigate.

Before too long, this little fellow was swimming towards us.  Not a Beaver, just a Muskrat (quite similar to a Beaver, but smaller).  It was still a little bonus for us on our day out!

 A very nice way to spend a couple of hours - note to ourselves...we must do this more often!
J&E

Waterton Visit

We have been meaning to try and get away for a while now and the Thanksgiving weekend gave us the perfect opportunity.

We decided to head off to Waterton.  It was the last day of the season there, so there wasn't much open, but it didn't stop us sightseeing or watching the wildlife.

These are some of the views coming into Waterton.

We started in search of Bison.  We didn't see many, but we did catch a glimpse of a few, including a baby.

We have always wanted to go to Red Rock Canyon, so while the weather was still pretty nice we thought we could take advantage of that and go and have a stroll around.  The road to the Canyon is about 15km and about half way along the road we spotted some ears. We slammed on the breaks and reversed and spied four bears feeding. We have seen a bear before in the past, but we haven't seen any in some years, so for us, it was a rare treat.

Don't miss the little cub face in the corner of the photo!

 

 

 

Then mum and two cubs started crossing the road infront of us.

 

Now that's what we call a cute butt!

 

This one got left behind and had to catch the others up.

 

Meanwhile this cub thought it would be a good idea to climb in this bush.  There were lots of noises of snapping twigs!  We were convinced he was going to go crashing to the ground at any point.  It didn't take long before he thought better of it and about turned and scrambled to more secure ground.

After all that excitement we carried on to Red Rock Canyon for our walk (are we wise?  There's bears out there you know!)  The Canyon though was lovely.  Apparently it has taken the water 7,000 to 10,000 years to carve the canyon.

 

 

We weren`t lucky enough to see the bears again on the way back, but we did see them the next day although they were much further away!  We headed back to Waterton Townsite to check into our hotel and have a look around.  Despite a lot of businesses being closed, there were still plenty of deer around to keep us entertained.

Our hotel room had a ground level balcony, which was surrounded by deer.

 

We could also walk down directly to the beach.  Unfortunately the wind had really picked up, making the lake look more like the sea. 

The next day started well.  There was no wind and the lake was lovely and calm.  The weather quickly turned though and the cloud started to come right down the mountains.  It was still pretty though, due to the rainbow colours coming through the clouds.



 

We started our day at Cameron Falls, which are very close to the townsite. 

We wanted to see Cameron Lake.  During the drive there, we saw our first snow of the season.  We did get out of the car, but it was so snowy and windy, that  we didn't even manage a photo!

We wanted to take a look at Blakiston Falls.  During the drive there, we stopped off at Lost Horse Creek, which is like a smaller version of Red Rock Canyon and also very pretty.

As we got to Blakiston Falls, there was a break in the weather, so we managed a walk up to the falls, which was another stunning view.

 

As we were returning from our walk, the weather was getting fairly bad again, so it was time to call it day and head back to Okotoks.  We managed to get a few more snaps as we drove through the townsite.

As we got close to Pincher Creek, we saw a sign for St Henrys Historic Church.  There was THE most incredible views from up there, but again, the weather was turning very chilly.

We could also see exactly where the storms were!

This Province has so much to see.  Even now, we are really only scratching the surface of it.

J&E