This is going to be a completely different column, written in the first person. For the first time in 40 years, the column is written by me, J.P. Squire, not me writing in the third person, using the pseudonym, “The Sheriff” to describe myself.

Some readers, like Constant Companion Carmen, may wonder why I have written so extensively (and in such excruciating detail) about farm easements on the two major rail trails in the Central and North Okanagan—the Okanagan Rail Trail (ORT) and the Shuswap North Okanagan Rail Trail (SNORT). It's the potential creation of a world-class rail trail system of 100 kilometres, from Sicamous to Kelowna but allowing farmers to continue farming.

In 1983-84, I began co-writing a weekly ski column with then-sports editor Terry Edwards at The Kelowna Daily Courier. It was my introduction to the so-called “Four Seasons Playground of the Okanagan Valley.”

Downhill skiing led to trying snowboarding, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, hiking and kayaking. After jumping on a horse for the first time (Shiloh) in West Kelowna, I bought a two-acre hobby farm in the Agricultural Land Reserve in Kelowna in 1986 for the sole purpose of buying a horse, having it on........

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