The Pear Tree

As the weather warms and new plants and seedlings take root, it sometimes seems that the Okanagan itself – soil, water, air and all – is about to burst into bloom. And indeed, within a couple of weeks there will be colourful blossoms around every turn.

It’s hard to compete with a flower. Even the Bible points this out when it says, “Consider the lilies of the field… even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Just the same, we have beauty on our minds – floral beauty and human beauty. In the coming month we’re going to look at a little of each, in the hopes of finding inspiration – in the garden and out enjoying the summer sun.

Our line-up of features this month includes a local beauty product manufacturer and a spa that comes to you. And as usual, we will have a guest post by food columnist Darcie Hossack, a DIY project by Kyle Poirier and an artist studio tour.

We also want to shine a light on our June sponsors, Kelowna Museums, Early Music Studio and Public Bone.

Public Bone joined us as our newest sponsor half way through last month, offering a link to hand-made jewellery by Kelowna artist Lori Mairs. You can visit her website to learn more about her work, and click here for a virtual tour of her studio.

The Early Music Studio is back this month, offering an excellent source of information on period guitar, lute and keyboard instruments, as well as downloads of centuries old music played on authentic and replica instruments.

The Museums Society is another returning sponsor. Their link takes you to a calendar of events so you can learn about such things as the next Neighbourhood Nosh, this Thursday (June 3) from 4-6 p.m. Their featured winery this month is Arrowleaf Winery.

In addition, The B.C. Wine Museum & VQA Wine Shop is giving away one gift basket for every week they’re in a trailer (next to their usual home in the Laurel Packinghouse at 1304 Ellis Street, while renovations continue).  Pear Tree readers are invited to stop by and enter their name into the draw. A new winner is selected every week, and there is no limit to how many times a person can enter. Try one of the free daily wine tastings while you’re there.

Giveaway

To help promote their weekly giveaway, the VQA Wine Shop is also passing on one extra basket to The Pear Tree, exclusively for Pear Tree readers. The basket (pictured above and at top) contains: a Kelowna Museums fleece vest, a Central Okanagan Sports Hall of Fame hat, a Himalayan salt platter, a Himalayan salt votive candle holder and a Himalayan salt mortar and pestle, all wrapped up in an Okanagan apple box!

To enter this draw, leave a comment below.

For extra entries (up to a maximum of 4), you can also Tweet, Facebook or blog about the giveaway before Friday morning.  (But you must comment here with your blog, Twitter or Facebook details so that we know). A winner will be randomly chosen Friday morning, 9 a.m., and announced here.

Winner!

Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment – we always love reading what you have to say! Our randomly selected winner this time is Tammy. We will be in touch shortly to work out details on receiving your box of goodies. For everyone else, keep reading – we have another giveaway planned for the not-too-distant future. In the mean time, thanks again to Kelowna Museums for donating this great package!

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