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Walking Distance

Sip. After about 65 years of taking pictures I can assure you that it is not about equipment. It is about developing an eye for the simple beauty all around us and understanding the basic science of light. For the last few years I’ve insisted on using a mobile phone to capture images to prove that. Frankly, phones are now much more than cameras used to be but the process is still the same. AI will never exceed human creativity.

Yesterday I was in a recycled furniture shop. Laughing and joking with a group at the till I made a silly mistake and then mentioned a T-shirt for sale that said “ I had potential.” The cashier brusquely replied that I didn’t need a sign for her to see that. Gotta love a girl with a sense of humour!

One more from the notice board. Thar be a push-pin pirate!

Somehow, for me, June has meandered through my existence and we are well into July. I am looking out my office window at the harbour. There is a brassy light as the sun ladders through an overcast sky. The Westerly wind is rising and stirring the water with catspaws. Soon there may be whitecaps in the bay.The temperature is pleasantly moderate. It’s time to get the girls and go see what’s up in the woods before some citiot sets fire to them. Another beautiful day in a wonderful place to live. Oh Canada! Later I’m back sitting again at my desk staring balefully out at the world. This sitting is getting to be a bad habit, one that urgently needs breaking.

An artechoke morning. What an amazing plant! This photo is about life-size.

I try to avoid political comment but I feel the need to say this. I think our current prime minister is doing well. He waded into the Trump swamp, has a mess left behind by dear Justin and is trying to secure his own political future with every step dogged by Mr. Polynever yipping like a jealous puppy. Here’s my thought. Mr Carney has vowed to do something positive about affordable housing in Canada. He has annouced plans to manufacture affordable homes which can be delivered to the jobsite.

I was flummoxed to hear him announce yet more plans to spend $100,000,000 to refurbish 24 Sussex Drive. Apparently no PM has lived there since Stephan Harper’s day. (He must have had some wild parties! The joint is trashed) I’m wondering why pre-manufactured housing won’t work there. A nice double-wide trailer should do the trick and make a noteable political statement. If it’s good enough for the likes of we, then why not he? Just sayin’. Lead by example.The balance of that hundred mil. could build several more shacks for the people. Oh, leave the old stone doorway standing as a monument to an era long gone.

I say old chap, where has the ocean gone?

This baby bunny won a stare-down contest with my dogs. It is about six inches long.

And verily the fir sprang forth from the cedar.

This is the bottom of Haslam Creek. In a few months salmon will spawn in its rushing waters. It is hard to grasp but it IS normal.

So we have teetered over the fulcrum of mid-July and this blog is still sitting on the back of the stove. There is wildfire smoke in there air but not much else is going on in our sleepy little town. I have decided that Ladysmith is indeed the finest community on Vancouver Island. We have small town politics while we continue to sell ever more building permits and then worry about our water supplies. Ever bathed in beer? The City Of Ladysmith just doesn’t have a ring to it. We’re still a town, We like it like that. It is why we moved here. Allegedly voted to have the nicest mainstreet in Canada. Uhuh!

Some days it may best to stay home and smell the flowers.

Today I went to the local harware store. There were some ladies selling donuts for a local baseball charity. A rather rubenesque soul tried flogging me a box. I said, “No thanks, I’m allergic. They make me swell up!” Her response was, “That happens to some people.” So of course I had to reply, “I can see that.” I know why I don’t have many friends. You’ve got to have a sense of humour if you want to hang with me. There is no-one so poor as a person without a sense of humour.

The shameless bather. In the dryness of summer a tiny puddle can mean life itself. The snail is about 3/4.”

A workshop shot. I’m refurbishing an 80 year-old Aldis lamp (Navy signal lamp) for a neighbour. These allowed ships to communicate using Morse Code. No radio signals could be intercepted.

As Vancouver Island closes its pulp & paper mills, toilet paper farming has taken on a new urgency.

Oh Canada! What a wonderful place we live. The mountains of the mainland loom over the mayhem of Vancouver. I’m happy to be an islander. I love that wee wooden boat.

It has occured to me that, with broader thinking, most places are within “walking distance.”

Five Hundred

As I sat down to begin writing this I was flashed an e-ad for a T-shirt with the caption, “I had Potential.” End of blog, what else is there to say?

In the end we tried a few. They’re tasty enough but a lot of work. I’m an artichoke virgin no more.

I started this wee blogging endeavour with the notion of providing yet another travel bog, a way of showing photos and perspectives that engaged folks and offered ideas a little out of the box. To do that you have to travel. There has been precious little of that although not all journies are measured in miles. Of course I’ve been providing myself yet another creative outlet with this blog. Along the way my readership has developed a following of folks who tell me they look forward to what I offer. Their interest in turn gives me reason to keep looking for good photos and perhaps a reason to live beyond my own selfish parameters. I have made some wonderful friends, upset a few others and documented both the interesting and the mundane. The world is not a better place for anything I’ve done, but damnit, at least I’ve done something!

Remember Melanie and “I’ve got a brand new roller skate….” This is a new variation of the geezer’s electric scooter. You can even get a heater and A/C!

And so this is blog number five-hundred. It is no great personal achievement but I wonder if there will be a thousand some day. This continuing effort has given me clarity and purpose. I thank all my readers for their support and input.

There’s a four-letter word I have come to hate. FIFA. I am not a sports person in any way although I do not begrudge anyone else their passions. If soccer is your religion, bow down and remain devout. But World Cup my ass! We’re forced to endure the endless drivel about the seven World Cup Games to be played in Vancouver. Look! The whole world is not gaga about kicking a ball about. In fact there will be less intererst after all this manic irresponsibility has been forced on us. If the fuss was about all the World Cup games I could be more tolerant. But seven, a mere seven games! The media’s focus is almost exclusively on this. (Gaza, Iran, the Ukraine are all in the “Oh yeah” file but Trump’s name still makes it into every newscast.) Multiple billions have been spent to turn the city of Vancouver upside down, roust the homeless, disrupt weeks of commerce for many small buinesses, brigades of extra police have been brought in. The price of everything for both locals and visitors has been jacked outrageously. This mayhem provides no lasting benefit other than the hope of having some temporary global attention. Soccer is a noble ancient sport but we have other desperate issues needing the focus our wealth and passion.

Captain Peck. He’s got an eye on you. A stinkeye!

A prettier bird in flight but they have a very ugly stink eye. If you see Turkey Vultures circling overhead… worry.

Chemainus Beach, Low tide, Father’s Day, Summer Solstice.

Well it is coming on to mid-June. There are no clouds in the sky this morning, water use restrictions have been advanced, river levels are desperately low and we all live in terror of wildfires. I’ve spent my five-hundredth blog growling at a football corporation and the dogs need a walk before it it gets too warm. Onwards and sideways. 501 or bust! Today is now already summer solstice and so I had best get this posted. The weather is perfect, no conflagrations in the forest although I’m sure some idiot is working on it and life goes on. Let’s get a piece.

A view from the deck of the Rampart Scottish Pub in Maple Bay. Thanks to a tip from a friend we found it after 39 years of going by. Everything there was grand.

More Swallow Tails. Note the pollen on its wing.

“It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.”

US Air Force Manual

An Absense Of Sirens

Magic. At a last moment we decided to take our trailer to the woods for a few days. What magic led me and my lense to be at exactly this moment in exactly this place. This beauty had flown thousands of miles to be precisely here for me. WOW!

Tuesday, May 5^th. Another brilliant sunrise in a cloudless Raincoast sky. There is not even one shower forecast ahead but maybe we’ll have one of those rainy summers. There are folks actually whining about the heat already. They’re probably the same ones who go south for a little of this same weather in winter. And, it’s not hot; temperatures are only in the mid-thirties! We do have forest fires already.

Fly me to the sun. A highway in the sky at sunrise.

In the pink. The glories of spring, which include sinus tortures, are a surreal affirmation of life.

At the head of our driveway, where it conjoin’s the neighbour’s, sits a large, ugly cast concrete planter guarding the straggling hedge between the properties. I hate it but it belongs to the reclusive lonley soul next door and I want to respect her. Although not only an eyesore, it is a hazard to navigation and lurks ready to savage any vehicle which gets too near. It has severely gnawed my front bumper.

Yesterday as we were heading out my wife Jill said, “You’re getting awfully close to the urn.” I replied, “Yeah well, we both are!” And so, with laughter, we launched ourselves back out onto the road of life. As another dawn spreads I realize how true it is. Tick Tock.

Tuesday, May19th. There’s half the month gone by. Tinkering this, tinkering that, times flies whether you’re having fun or not. Spring so far has been cool and clear and very dry. There have been a few days of summer-like warmth but nothing to match the “Hot” predictions of the weather girl in the tight dress. We finally broke out the old travel trailer just to change our perspective, and partly due to the outrageous price of fuel, decided to travel briefly to a place less than an hour from home. What a dream to find an overlooked location right under our noses that meets most of our expectations. Just Google up “Nanaimo Lakes Camping” if you’re interested. No explosions, just simple in the trees escape. And best of all, few people. Enough said, the photos can do the rest.

With over a century of logging these lakes still offer a recreational beauty for folks. Second-growth timber is now being harvested. Despite one’s environmental persuasions the logger’s skill and tenacity have to be admired. Without their efforts there would be no access for the public.

Nanaimo River, between First and Second lakes. This river is so clean that it hosts freshwater clams, trout, crayfish and other marine delights.

Roughing it. There was a time when if it rained a tarp and an overturned canoe provided my comfort. How the mighty are fallen!

No bugs. A breeze from the lake kept them away.

The way it could be; everywhere. This is how underbrush should be cleared in the proximity of people. With a huge surplus of homeless folks needing a meaningful purpose in life and a dignified way of earning themselves a living, an affordable solution to a few social and environmental issues is obvious. We have an endless supply of second-growth timber to be thinned and fire-suppressed. It is not an ultimate answer but we have to start thinking of possibilities instead of excuses.

Spring once more. At a higher elevation the season lags and trilliums still add their final glory in the woods.

Strange. I have never seen these fungi before and am eager to learn more about them.

There is a campfire ban in effect with which I heartily agree. “Cityots” the campground caretaker said. I concure. Most folks have no bush sense at all and on an afternoon like this, where the wind screams across the lake and into the trees, there’d soon be a nasty situation with an explosive inferno racing up the mountain. I’m content to let the wind whistle clean and free through the swaying timber. I’ve heard the now-too-rare chatter of a red squirrel, the cries of loons and geese, the sonorous duet of two barred owls. There has not been one siren. Funny what you can get used to!

For PEGGY. This image appeared outside my window just as I sat down to post this blog. Peggy left this world a few days ago at the age of 97. I never knew her as well as I’d have liked. She was the mom of a man who has been a friend of mine for over 44 years. I can honestly say that she never had a quarrel with anyone and raised some mighty fine kids. She was cherished by all who knew her. Fair winds dear soul.

Does the Monarch Butterfly know its own beauty?

“Laughter is the sound of freedom.” Jimmy Carr

Life Inside A Painting

A morning view from my desk. It is a very much like an E.J. Hughes painting. I live here!

On Sunny mornings I look out from my desk and realize that my view is a stunning live E. J. Hughes painting. The hard morning light on sparkling water, greening leaves, several varieties of fruit blossoms, bird songs, boat traffic and a hidden water tower on the ridge that glints in the light. I think of all the poor folks who never have the luxury of even thinking of a scenic view and I wonder at my decadence with such a panorama.

Our front yard welcomes you. We’re very fortunate.

As if we don’t have enough flowers outside there are a few inside as well. Our sinus’s scream.

Downtown in the evening. That’s me in the room with the plywood in the window.

Isn’t it funny how one thing leads to another? Last blog was about the new gazebo. There’s more. I can’t abide having something completely generic. I need to add something or modify things to make it uniquely mine. First I installed some overhead hanging lights. The eves of the new edifice neccesarily tuck themselves beneath the soffits of the house. You know what happens when it rains. A gazebo with runnin g water. My solution was to install rain gutters beneath two sides of the edifice to direct the runoff overboard from the deck. They had to be innocuous. That meant installing them as high as possible which in turn meant cutting down a drill bit to fit the narrow gap I had to work in.

Rain Chain. The end of a process that involved assembling a gazebo and then finding a new window. I think of the child-slave somewhere who assembled this lovely copper spirals.

That process sent the severed bit pinging off like a bullet, right through my shop window. Fortunately the old window was tempered glass and in slow motion collapsed in a heap of jagged crystal shrapnel. I had trumped myself.The gutter job slid to the back of the stove while I spent a very long time collecting all the crumpled bits of glint. It is not good for the dog’s feet, or mine.

The new doowindow. It almost looks meant to be. That extra workbench outside is a grand idea. It helped sell me on the house.

Then began a quest for a replacement glass. God forbid I spend more money! Amazingly I found a pair of sliding French doors a few blocks away free for the picking up. Git ‘er gone. Now I have the sexiest shop window in town. With all its small lead-framed glass panels it is much safer from the whirling mad blacksmith inventing stuff inside. “Like a bull in a sex shop.” Of course after all that, with the next rain, the gutter leaked. I fixed it.

There is one more anecdote about this online-ordered gazebo/shelter/pergola/pagoda. The shipment came in two awkward huge boxes weighing about two hundred pounds. One box finally arrived, sitting sadly on its own on the front step out in the rain. Days later, we finally called to inquire.The other box was out there in the ozone, we were not having an uncommon experience apparently, it would arrive. Jill employed a high charm setting and were subsequently told an entire replacement unit was going to be shipped. “No, no,” we responded “all we need is one only, box 2 of 2. Apparently that does not compute. A second order was being expedited at no extra charge, don’t worry about the missing box. Hmmmm!

Several days later, box 2 arrived, lugged to our door by a lady driver working alone. Next day, gazebo 2 arrived. Both of those boxes were each carried by two burly men. (Just making note!) To bring this story to a conclusion let me simply say that a nice lady is now the happy owner of a brand-new gazebo at a very fair price. Of course so are we! I am still waiting for an invoice for all of the entertainment.

Almost paid for. This mid-sixties Mercury even has a complete second for spare parts. Damn! They were ugly!

High water slack. Both vessels are beginning to turn as the tide goes to ebb.

Spring is indeed in the air. The lilacs are producing an industrial-strength perfume that tingles in my sinus cavities and leaves me gasping. The dogwood blooms are suddenly everywhere, flourescent day and night. The sun now rises almost forty five degrees further north than in winter. Each day begins with the soft chanting of morning doves, swallows pelt through the air and baby birds hop across the lawns. Still people bitch. There’s always something to find wrong but I like to point out to folks that if you’re truly unhappy here, the nicest thing about our country is that you are still free to leave. Piss off! It’s that simple. Maybe should you go spend a week in Gaza or the Ukraine or Iran. They’re not free to leave and the notion of a holiday is totally abstract, a decadence beyond imagination. Interestingly, while the price of fuel is a howler, folks still drive like demons and burn fossil fuels as quickly as they can. As Donald Trump said on a Sixty Minutes interview last night, “There’s a lot of crazy people out there.”

Knotweed. It is so a bloody weed! It is insidious, very aggressive and relentless. This a fully severed 2″ piece of root that survived the winter and then began to sprout. I swear you can watch the stuff growing and trying to strangle every other plant.

Bikes and boats. Once in a while I get out on the trail. I am trying to teach myself to ride again after fifty years away from it. I’m not intrepid any more but you can’t take the boy out of me.

Trying to prove to yourself that you still have full mojo is tough when your joints feel like this!

Fawn Lilies. Beautiful but fast and fading.

God is a name we give to the blanket we throw over mystery to give it shape.

(Quote attributed to an AC/DC roadie)

The Tin Temple

Deep in the dark woods as usual, raining as usual and, as usual, a trillium shows its exquisite delicate beauty.

Sea lions! 03:00 Yelping, barking, growling. I need to be near the sea almost as much as I need my sleep. This pushes the limits and I was not invited to the party. Geez boys, just take our herring and leave.
They stayed. Groggily I shuffle out onto our deck and get to work. Our deluxe 10×10 all-metal Gazebo has arrived from China. That ordeal ended. One huge box arrived weeks before the other. Now it’s here. I lug the two huge parcels onto the deck and lay them down, carefully extracting the contents, removing all the protective foam. There is a mountain of that. Inside each taped bundle there are parts mecifully coded. I find the instructions, hardware and tool kit. I know plenty of folks take advantage of the free entertainment that comes with assembling this monster mechano kit and they succeed. Lets see how this old wrencher manages on his own. Let the cursing begin.

Lemme see now. Safety first, then we take a break. Chinese universities must offer degree-granting courses in how to pack a box. There’s a whole wee house in these two boxes!

With everything set out, there were roof trusses hidden inside the base legs, the process of assembling tab A into threaded hole Ea. Do not attach inverted.

Now we’re getting somewhere. The neighbours must have wondered if we were planning a hanging.

Once at a previous home, I built a back yard shelter from local driftwood and named it “The Temple Of Jill.” Now I have to secipher someone else’s imagination. The instructions list some recommended extra tools to the ones provided including three people to help. I don’t want anyone getting in my way and besides, I can’t speak Cantonese. I put all the screws of different size in individual bowls. Easy to access, harder to lose. These kits are packed precisely. Often there is an exact number of pieces, don’t lose even one screw. Fortunately I have a large clear space to work on. I lay out all the parts and begin the tedious job of putting together various sub-assemblies. The objective is turn this Chinese puzzle of a thousand pieces into a single functional unit. By the first day’s end I have completed the main frame which is amazingly rock-solid.

I fight with the urge to keep looking ahead in the manual. One step at a time dude! The drawings provided are very accurate except for sections they’ve missed. All one does is complete each step as shown. The precision of all these pieces is amazing, the fit is perfect. The little bolts are of poor quality and it seems Chinese metric hardware is very slightly different from standard tool specs. The metal roofing panels are like very large razor blades. Gloves would make it safer but I need to be dextrous to handle all the little bits like the tiny bits to screw everthing together. Each one is covered with a thin, sticky, fragile layer of protective cellophane. Removing it from the panels is the worst part of the whole job. Once it is gone you can see the scratches beneath the protective layer.

The hardest part of the job, peeling the protective film from the roof panels. Then you could see all the scratches hidden underneath. Jill was a tremendous help with this dreary chore and provided indispensable assistance at other critical times.

All’s well that ends. We’ll spend many happy times here. C’mon over!

In the middle of the job there was a severe wind warning. Everything was tucked away and the main structure was lashed down. What wind? All good things come to an end even if they never begin. The deck furniture will be moved in and then it is time to light the fire table and drink something with a little umbrella in it. There is no calculation for the free entertainment value of all the hours spent on this grand puzzle. There are a few slices on my hands but I still have all my fingers; it is not a recommended weight loss program. On a final note and perhaps a good omen, while having breakfast this morning and looking out through the new edifice, I saw a large male orca swimming in the harbour. Now that’s a bonus!

It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.
– Jim Collins

(Clearly he never put a gazebo together!)

Otra Vez

Peachy. After a severe pruning our fabulous peach tree makes a decision to keep on living.

In English: One more time. There’s no fool like an old fool. I am ninteen years old but trapped in a seventy-four old body. I’ve heard it said that “If I knew I’d live this long I would have taken better care of myself.” Fred Kneivel doesn’t have much of a ring to it but the gods know I’ve tried. Crash boom bang, Still I tick. A video series I watch begins with the words “Another day, another opportunity.” What can we get into today?

So here I sit. The sun broke the horizon at 07:14. I’ve pulled the curtain so I am not blinded by the light. My neighbour suggested I prune his cherry tree so I could better see the bay. My buddy was up a ladder with a chainsaw a year and ended up in hospital. I kept that in mind, lecturing myself that a turning saw chain knows no difference between wood and meat. Having survived that ordeal. Now this used-to-be-a-logger sits at his desk savouring the sight of boats heading out at dawn over a base of cherry blooms further down the hill. Aren’t people odd? It is forecast to pour rain tomorrow so it is seize the moment time.

The improved view. I’ve cut up a cherry tree so I can see cherry trees.

Cherry blossoms elsewhere. Pretty even in dull light.

There’s plenty to do. A house and yard to look after, especially in spring. Then there is a truck and trailer that always need something. For the moment there is no boat but there is a new used motorcyle. Yep here I go again. I had a beautiful little Honda, a wee bike designed for putting around the back country. For a Rubenesque old raider with a gimpy leg the bike proved a little too wee and reluctantly I sold it. Now I have a Yamahopper, probably a bit more than I need but I’m the nut that holds the throttle. I’ll try to remember to take my prudence pills. I do like to try big things with tiny units, boats, airplanes, motorcycles, finances.

Tomorrow is the first day of April, the year is one quarter gone. Spring plods along, cold and grudging. I sit at my desk, looking out, cold and grudging. While walking the dogs a few days ago, we took a back route where I slipped and landed with my hip on a sharp rock. I lay on the ground as the pain washed over me. Thinking the worst I knew a broken hip is a harbinger of advanced old age. And he’s going to zoom off on a motorbike? Well all is well, it is a pain in the ass but use it or loose it. The parts the bike needs finally arrived today. Hopefully I can swing a leg over the contraption and then keep myself from falling on my door knob.

Deep in the dark forest, in the pouring rain, the first trilliums put on a show.

So here I sit on April Fool’s day watching clouds scud along the ridge across the bay. The forecast is for rain. I have finally received my long-awaited motorcycle parts. Once I can ride what can hold me back? Well next to arrive, today, is a metal gazebo from China. It needs to be assembled. Oh bueno! That’ll get me through the weekend. I don’t really want to drag my trailer into the woods to drink beer while sitting around a smokey fire as some dufus in a brown shirt tells what me what I can’t do.

Where are the brown shirts when we need them? Transmission fluid leaks into the seawater as yet another derelict boat is abandoned on the old coal beach.

A vague claim of ownership. One old bow line tethers the hulk to a useless peg. It is careened with the deck facing the wrong way, in my opinion. Hopefully she’ll rise with the tide before she floods.

Wasn’t that a party? There was no sign of anyone else there.

Half a gazebo arrived ten days ago, it was a hundred pound box. The rest of the order did not show up so now, hopefully, we’re receiving a whole order. Wanna buy half a gazebo?

“A good thing about becoming old and forgetful is that you can hide your own Easter eggs!” …moi

Clever People

From where I view the world. In the murky dawn I can hear sea lions. Later a little sunlight appears.

There are nearly one and a half billion Chinese. This is a nation of folks who can eat soup with chop sticks; an art I am yet to master. I mention this only as admiration for ancient skills beyond my understanding. They also understand patience and long, hard work. Some of the world’s largest earth-filled dam’s are in China. They are mostly built by hand, one hatfull of soil at a time. It is a nation of formidable determination. We could learn things.

A courier delivered a heavy box today. My wife had ordered an open wardrobe for our guest suite. Yep, it was made in China. My job was to assemble it. Me, the jaded old mechanical guy. The first trick was opening the box which was emblazoned with a warning “DO NOT USE SHARP KNIFE TO OPEN.” Uhuh! Of course one has to use a knife and with that accomplished there was the ubiquitous explosion of white styrofoam insulation; statically charged snow stuck to everything. “Well golly” I muttered as I surveyed a cleverly-packed heap of bits and pieces. There must be a university degree available for packing boxes. You’ll never get the contents back in again. Bags of screws all counted out to the exact amount required, marked tubes of various lengths were all to be assembled into a single fuctional contraption. Frankly the heap of bits looked a bit like a home-built airplane kit; yes a real airplane. Serious business. Where to start? The manual, including a tool kit, was in the bottom of the package, of course.

Contraption complete. I used my own tools.

More instructions. First I need new glasses.

It won’t fly. But everything eventually fit together perfectly and it is solid as a rock. The only tools I needed were two proper screwdrivers. All I had to do was look carefully at the drawings in the manual. I recall that the worst diy assemble-at-home furniture I’ve faced was neither from Asia or Scandinavia but from Quebec. I can read French and the instructions still made no sense. Pictures are good.

When I think of Canada’s new agreement to buy Chinese Electric Cars I wonder if the low price means they have to be assembled by the buyer! Clever people those folks!

Anenome fading. Perhaps the most beautiful time.

It is Monday morning, Friday the 13^th has passed, Saint Patrick’s day is now in the rearview mirror. It is cold, damp, grey. The week ahead is forecast to be a continuous rain storm. Flood warnings are posted. The wind at times is filled with a mix of wet snow flakes and cherry blossoms but by week’s end the biblical deluge has not arrived here. Friends describe their vacations in Mexico. Good for you! The news from around the planet is filled with doom and gloom, suffering and hopelessness. Clearly, there is an invasive species that is out of control. We know who we are.

Down in my workshop I’m building a doghouse. Springtime. Uhuh!

Walk quickly, you don’t need any hairy sticks.

Happy people produce. Bored people consume.”
― Stephen Richards

The Sea Duck

Some folks call them sea ducks. I know them as mergansers. They are furtive and elusive. The brief and distant glimpses they allow provides a mystery to the jaunty figures they cut. They have a Woody Woodpecker haircut, the females have a russet colour to their crested heads, the males are black and oftern mistaken for loons. When they see you they will paddle away vigourously or dive instantly or explode into startling rapid flight.

Ring-Beaked Common Merganser. It’s the shiny things that get us all.

The dogs and I were sitting at our favourite spot in the local salmon hatchery soaking up a few minutes of delightful mid-winter sun when I noticed a clump of feathers hauled out on a nearby log. I was glimpsing this apparition through a thatch of tree limbs and assumed it was a gull which is seldom a shy bird.

Another fish-eater. Blue Herons are one of my favourite birds. They can be found just about anywhere around the world.

To my surprise it was a female common merganser. It had a metal ring jammed over its upper beak right to the base. It was clearly unable to eat. It was not doing well, otherwise it would not be sitting there alone and allowing me, and the dogs, to approach within thirty feet. This beauty needed help. I feared she would starve unless the ring could be removed.

I went to the folks at the hatchery, but clearly I was not going to spark enough interest to attempt a rescue. Their little boat was away for repairs and I understand that mergansers eat the tiny salmon hatchlings. At home I began to telephone all the people advertising themselves as animal/ bird rescue organizations. I did hear a creative collection of excuses. Reluctantly I phoned the BC Conservation folks. (Usually when a conservation officer becomes involved, something gets shot) Admittedly they were the only ones to respond at all.

That call-back came hours later from someone with a very broad Cantonese accent. At first I thought he was another telemarketer. I was hanging up when I heard him say “Common Merganser” albeit with his twisted pronounciation. Eventually I grasped that he saying he was in Vancouver and so could render no assistance. I thanked him for the call and then hung up in frustration. I’d done my best. I could not do anything effective on my own. If I tried, chances were there would be some self-appointed gatekeeper calling someone like ICE to take me down for harrassing wildlife. God knows that is the world we live in now.

Abeautiful basket filled with spring nettle tips. They became soup. Yum!

Next morning I was back at the hatchery and could see no mergansers, anywhere. That was good I reasoned. The bird had been caught and helped… or it had been able to fly away with its flock. In any case, it was well enough to fly and I had done my best.

Another sign of spring. It is not my idea of going to sea but at least they’re out there!

First flowers from the garden this spring.

Ok, I know this isn’t a very interesting story to most people. But of bemusement to me is that I was once a farm boy with a single-shot .22 rifle who typically killed everything he could see. I remember once killing a tiny song bird. For no reason. All that was left was its pea-sized heart still beating on top of the fencepost where the little singing bird had sat moments earlier. At the time I though it was funny. I have graduated to possessing a nagging sense of disgust and self-contempt for being such a horrible little brute.

A notion of progress. The toilet goes here. IP

I evolved to become a seasoned great white hunter and killed an awful lot of beautiful wild creatures big and small. They did all become food but eventually I could not justify hunting any more. I realized my slaughter was as much about testorone as anything to do with being a provider. I didn’t want to feel that I was one of those bastards. Now I’m another kind of nasty human… an urbanite! An overweight one who aches to be back in the woods and out on the ocean, far away from the sight, sound and smells of people living in grossly unnatural congestion. Then we become unnatural beings and chose for leadership those other unnatural beings who prove too unfit for any sort of progressive human endeavour.

If that makes me a bird hugger … so be it!

“ So much of language is unspoken. So much is comprised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.”

…Enzo the dog, ‘The Art Of Racing In The Rain’ Garth Stein

Ho Hum Morning

Mid-February; already. It has been dull and rainy with frosty nights. Another normal winter. There is the occasional burst of birdsong and green buds are swelling but I also know that we can yet receive several feet of snow overnight. Remember the Australian love call “Brace yourself Sheila!” Be ready for anything.

I will not add my uninformed opinions to the gross cacophany of inuendos, half-truths, and outright lies in the air. What do you believe anymore? I am not prepared to engage myself in a fist fight over material gleaned from our media sources. The most recent horror is a school shooting in a northern BC community. Television News trips over itself with conflicting facts and some politicians are trying to make mileage for themselves out of this deep tragedy. What a weary and sadly repetitive gearbox of human folly.

Be braced for all the juicy news rhetoric and mindless speculations. School safety, mental health, gun licensing, gender designations will be within the weary mantras that will be spun every way except sensible. Within two days the story is no longer headline news and the dark gears of human tendencies grind on. Try to imagine the dread and reluctance every parent must endure, in every Canadian community, as their children go off to school.

Reminds me of someone I used to know. An interesting example of winter fungus.

Frosty bathing at low tide. Feb. 8th Brrrrrr!

Look up! you never know what might fall on you.

You’ve got to sing like you’re all alone.

Last night I sat and watched the Television News cover the vigil in Tumbler Ridge for the victims of this week’s mass shooting. The Prime Minister and prominent politicians were there, both federal and provincial political leaders offered sincere words of condolence. Some were even visibly in tears. I was too.

Guess who’s coming to dinner…even with two ratter dogs in the house.

What occured to me is that around the world there are many communities who endure such horrors on an almost daily basis. They do not even have the opportunity to stand together in the open to mourn their losses and their shared misery. The horror of their existence is so common it is not even newsworthy. This singular event in Canada has drawn the entire country closer together. In our troubled times with the notion of a country divided and the bullying from south of our border, I hope we are better able to stand firm in the face of it all. The most wonderful thing about our country is freedom. You are free to leave. No-one forces anyone to stay. If you cannot find the good in being Canadian, if you do not want to be part of the family; please go. We’ll be better off without you.

Zoom! RCMP Pilatus PC12 on short final to land in Nanaimo.

I sit with a mug of hot coffee and look out over the bay at sunrise. Fog is dissipating and drifting south. There is a background of grey and brass cloud split with a dagger of blue open atmosphere. Boats go about their commerce in the harbour. Now some fog moves northward. Camilia buds on the tree in my front yard swell and take colour. Birds twitter at the feeders outside the front window. It could be worse; so much worse. Be content. Breathe.

Life is often a lonely old path. Keep walking toward the light.

“We’re too poor to buy cheap boots.”… Janusz Konkol, Haber Yachts

Looking Up

“Oh Camilia, you’re breaking my heart” Much too early this camilia flower on the tree in my front yard adds brightness to the winter gloom.

Well Happy, Happy New Year! Ain’t it all a flock of bluebirds flitting about under a triple rainbow!

Can it be the Easter Bunny already? With high grocery prices it may well become someone’s supper.

I have just sat outside for a few minutes on my front porch. There is a street lamp outside our hedge. In its cone of light a thick soaking drizzle sheets down in waves. It looks like a Hollywood film set. Humphrey Bogart could appear in a trench coat, collar turned up, fedora low over his eyes. “Gotta light sweetheart?” It has rained steadily all day, there are two more days and nights of this in the forecast. Happily, it’s not snow. Yet.

No man is an island. Especially when he’s out of rum or firewood.

We’re already well past the middle of January. It seems we’ve already had enough woes thrust upon us to last until next Christmas. “Can’t have gravy all the time” a former boss used to say. I’m not asking for anything but a happy news story or at least an intelligent one. I am happy to not be spending the night in a doorway and I’m glad enough to be here versus so many other places on the planet. We’re doing fine. The only ambitious thing I did today was to walk the dogs on a sopping path in the woods nearby. They were happy to be home again. The hammering rain continues.

My tide guage. In the extreme spring tides just after the New Year, or “King Tides,” I use this dock across the bay as a tide guage. When the ramp is nearly horizontal, it is near high slack. At lowest low tide, in the dark, it will be tending toward the vertical.

Sunup 08:00. A gift. Mount Baker, our own volcano about ninety miles away, sits just over the wire.

Finally the weather breaks and we are caught in the chill damp of mid-January. The sky is clear overhead but before the frost has melted away my backyard is in shadows for the rest of the day. Within that gloom I look up to the glittering spectacle of high altitude flights glittering in the azure lofty sky. This nutter is trying to accomplish some landscaping projects while the rain holds off. What other goofs are out there trying to reshape their little world in the middle of winter? Passengers in those aircraft are thinking ahead to tepid seas, warm sandy beaches, palm trees and icy citrus drinks. Bugga!

Winter ducks. Isn’t your ass getting cold?

Did a manic winter-bound sun-starved pagan carve this?

Aliens. Lenticular clouds over the Strait of Georgia.

Today the bay was shrouded in fog. It lifted and fell, swirled and drifted, twisted and rose then fell again in a heavy bank. The day was dark and forbidding. Late in the afternoon a ship came in to anchor. Its horn thundered wonderfully and continuously in the thick fog. It sounded as if we would soon see the bow looming over our backyards. Finally there came the thunder of the anchor chain as several shots of writhing steel shot out of the hawse pipe. Then silence. Out in the bay, in the night’s fog, a ship and its crew, from some foreign port rests.

WALK? We’re warm, we’re dry and you want us to go out there in the cold? Leasve sleeping dogs lay DAD!

Somewhere else tonight, coyotes howl under the light of a gibbous moon. A mesquite log shifts in a campfire and little creatures skitter among the brush and cacti. I wish I were there, just for the night. The desert is a splendid place to sleep. Perhaps someone there also wrestles with a troubled mind. What do they worry about? I doubt they think of anyone on a water-logged island somewhere in the North Pacific. And who cares? We’re here; now. That is all there is.

Yippy owooooo.

I love this painting. It adorns the wall in our favourite restaurant in Ladysmith, the ‘Indian Palate.’ The food is fantastic. This unsigned original was purchased by the restaurant owner in India.

“ I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”

“Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people.” – Fredrik Backman ‘My Friends’