Recently during our annual snow event I found myself outside making busy with a shovel. Something did not seem right, (apart from the incessant desert longings in my brain.) Snow was zinging horizontally past my ears yet I could hear an incongruous sound. I finally realized what it was when the snow eased for a minute. High in the top of a neighbour’s tree I could see five mourning doves. To me there is no sweeter, soothing sound than the call of these birds. The quintessential song of the desert was alive and in person. That they managed to arrive in a mild blizzard seemed like some celestial message which I haven’t worked out yet other than being a song of hope. “Hang in there, there’s better things to come.”
The Edge of SpringLa Tuque Keep a cool headAfter the Blizzard
This is the time of year when I traditionally go join the Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, OR. It is uplifting to find spring has arrived just those few hundred miles further south and to mingle with old friends who are fine artists, musicians and story tellers. Looking forward to that event each year helps me get through the winter. This year, due to Covid, a fabulous effort has been put together, by many good people, to hold a virtual FPG online. My gig is a very short five minute performance on Thursday night at 8pm precisely. Somehow they are presenting upwards of a hundred performers in three nights. It is a massive piece of clockwork and I am very proud to be any part of it.
These are great people from various aspects of the fishing industry around the world. They are witty and humorous. Many are tremendously talented and their blue collar perspective is refreshing to say the least.
You can get a great overview of the Fisher Poets group and a review of poetry reading (Yep mine too) by going to our website www.fisherpoets.org Then go to “In the Tote.”
I have a video produced for this year’s FPG which you can see via this link:
So, enough said. One of the wonderful things about Astoria is its many brew pubs. Once you’ve had a pint of something like ‘Bitter Bitch’ you’re doomed to go back for more. So I’ll raise a jar to you all for now. Bottoms up. Then two jars for next year.
Bitter BitchA sense of family. The view out from the Wet Dog Cafe onto the amazing Columbia RiverOne of our venues It’s a beautiful townLooking out over Astoria to the infamous Columbia Bar and the open oceanFPG Shirt, the Alaska artist Ray Troll is part of the groupHere’s to the days when poor people lived by the sea and ate fish.
“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” Henry David Thoreau
They’ve freakin’ blown it. The Republicans will not win an election for generations. That’s my humble uniformed bog trotter’s opinion. I’ve promised to restrict my political rhetoric but this is so pathetic it demands comment. If the Republicans truly wanted to restore trust and belief in their party all they needed to do was to make a stand and declare that they do not support or condone the abhorrent attitudes expressed by Mr. Trump. “He was our mistake.” This way they have virtually guaranteed a Democrat win next election and probably the next as well. Some Republican senators did vote in support of the impeachment. It is encouraging that these politicians chose to put their country ahead of their party. They will probably be punished for their historic stand. A quirk of politicians, in particular, is that they seem unable to admit mistakes. If only they could confess their human frailty they would be demonstrating a strength which would take them much further than any lie or denial.
Or this?
As far as I am concerned one party is no better or worse and ongoing political chess games have nothing to do with reuniting the country and putting it back on the rails of peace, prosperity and “In God We Trust.” The “united states” may well dissolve in anarchy and the Second Civil War will be upon us. Yeah, I know we are Canadian but if you don’t see yourself as a North American, you will be rudely awakened when the troubles erupt in full blossom. We’re part of the fiasco.
Yesterday I watched a video clip sent to me by a friend. It was a cell phone recording taken while some goon sat on his ass and watched as a police officer was assaulted by a madman with a large stick. Ultimately the cop shot his assailant twelve times, point blank, before the nutter finally fell down and died, twitching and jerking just like some of the deer I have taken. What appalled me more than the actual graphic detail was the shallowness of the man recording the event. The videographer cheered the policeman and expressed pleasure as a fellow human gasped his last breath not ten feet away. The event was entertainment to him. This pathetic soulless son-of-a-bitch is not alone. There are millions like him…on both sides of the border. Here’s the link if you have stomach enough for a dose of harsh reality. That the perpetrator/victim may have chosen ‘Suicide by Cop’ does not devalue human life.
I’ve confirmed that this is a real event which occurred on Feb. 6th. It is ironic that this is an area where several fatal shootings of black people by police have occurred. Here a black man encourages a policeman to shoot a white perpetrator. I can’t help wondering what might have happened if he’d gone to help the cop.
After I wrote the above I wrestled with myself while I showered, vacuumed, ate breakfast, walked the dog and shovelled a heap of snow. Dark tabloidism is not my genre. I prefer to provide hope and cheer, introspection and humour with my blogs. The darkness here doesn’t do much to make the world a better place, but sometimes a little slap therapy is in order. I desperately need to find another boat.
By the way, Happy Valentine’s Day. It has something to do with love I’m told.
A wild flower for Valentines. Bee happy.And a rose for the day.
“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” ― Yehuda Bauer
I learned how to sew when I was a child. It began with darning socks. Yep, back in the day we repaired our clothing instead of talking ‘green’ and then throwing everything away as soon as it was less than perfect. Of course, most of our clothing was organic and not made of something synthetic, which is certainly a lot harder to repair. To repair a sock’s worn heel you inserted a special wooden disc beneath the hole then stitched back and forth in two directions, weaving the new material together into the old until there was a completely new heel in place. The trick was to make the repair smooth enough so that you could not feel it when wearing the sock. My skills evolved to sewing buttons and making dolls out of old socks. Eventually I could sew patches on shirts and jeans and my ability with a needle has served me well and often. Those were times when nearly every grocery store sold sewing supplies, cloth dye, iron-on patches and patterns for making your own clothes. Home Economics was a popular class in school for both genders. Not no mo!
Nut flowers. Snow sits prettily on Hazelnut flowers, a sure sign of the coming spring.Ayre’s first snow. She loved it. I guess she could be called the the grand-dog. She is a visitor. Jack loves the wee beasty.Jack’s first snow; now far too many years ago.The five pound terrorist home from the arctic steppes. It has taken me a while to accept that she’s all dog despite her diminutive size. Her legs are about the same size as my fingers but she’s tough and fast.
As an aircraft mechanic I learned how to sew new fabric onto rebuilt aircraft wings, an exacting endeavor with a perfect number of perfect stitches per inch and long stitches through the wing fabric which helped hold the linen in place during flight. Everything had to be done quickly so the organic material did not sag excessively before the first coat of nitrate dope was applied. This shrank the cloth into place and weather-proofed it. If you messed that up, you stripped the fabric off and tried again. Successive coats filled the weave of the cloth and produced an aerodynamic glass-like finish. There have been a lot of marine fabric and sail repairs through the years, all hand-sewn. I still have my leather palm and awls used to push needles through heavy material, including leather.
Morning in the park two days ago. Yes those are flowers.A world in a ditch. Winter growth before the snow. The more you look, the more you see.Then this!
On a recent morning I set about repairing a beloved pair of old sweat pants and tried threading a needle. My arthritic fingers made it a challenge and actually seeing the eye of the needle well enough to insert the thread was certainly humbling. The experience was a sobering milestone in my aging process. It goes on the shelf beside the first time I was asked if I qualified for a senior’s discount. I was indignant at first but have soon learned to demand every break as often as I can. Shovelling a foot of snow today was another marker, but that’s not an age problem. Let’s just say i bought some wine today bottled under the label of ‘Fat Bastard.’ Enough said.
A friend recently speculated on what I can find to write about in these Covid days when we are essentially under self-imposed house arrest. Sometimes I wonder myself. Unfortunately there are far too many Covid-related issues which deserve comment and so there is always something to raise a question about. Hopefully some day soon this will again be the travel blog it was intended to be.
Ya missed! Bird facilities. Knots on an arbutus tree look like a bird loo.
Despite the near-quarantine conditions there are still a number of out of province, and out of country, license plates. I’ll assume nothing but certainly do wonder what’s up. The borders are supposed to be closed. I recognize Pamela Anderson’s SUV with its California plates, but she is a hometown girl who again lives here a lot of the time. So I don’t want to assume anything about who’s doing what here. I do wish folks could respect themselves and each other a little more. The face mask issue rages on. A fellow ranted that now they’re trying to make us afraid of fresh air. I can see his point but I’ve had friends and family fall to this virus and I believe it’s real. If you’re not prepared to wear a mask out of respect for your fellows, will you volunteer to dig a few graves?
Pipe Finger
I’m an old bog trotter who knows there is a lot I don’t understand but it seems that shutting down the planet’s commerce for a few weeks would stop this bug in its tracks. We should have done that a year ago. Think of all we’ve lost because we did not. Despite all the dire consequences, it seems a small price to pay to stop an apparently thinking virus which will keep mutating faster than we can concoct new vaccines. Remember the old mantra “An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” We must stop putting economics ahead of our health and that of our planet. This is not a suspense movie. Morgan Freeman nor Dustin Hoffman cannot save us. It’s real life. What sort of economy will there be when millions more are dead?
Yeah, there’s a lot to write about. Unfortunately stupidity is infinite and it gets boring. I know I’m the same wooly-headed sheople as the rest of the herd but I insist on retaining the judgment to step out of its core, breath some fresh air and try to think for myself a bit. Instead of “Baaa” I choose to say “Woof” and that is not going to be tolerated.
Waterfront birdhouseTension rides the ebb tide.Winter reprieveWillows in winter sunlightWinter fieldThe field trail
At the moment we’re experiencing an intense winter high. It’s cold and windy with threats of “significant” snow fall. The media is trying to turn winter into another dark story. Perhaps it is my old fart memory but I swear that 40° in Winnipeg, or snow in Toronto or Calgary was once regarded as normal.
While walking Jack a few mornings ago we came upon some rabbit tracks in freshly-fallen snow. They travelled up a trail then abruptly ended in a tidy pile of rabbit fur with a tail. Leading on up the trail from the scene of the ambush a set of large house-cat tracks meandered onward. Garfield lives! It has been snowing here all day, a fine sifting sort of snow that manages to pile up quite quickly and will require shoveling a second time by day’s end. At least I’ve heard no-one mention Global Warming for a few days.
How hard it is to be an island. At the moment, the ice is almost thick enough to walk out. But, the tide keeps shifting it.A dream machine to me. A beautiful home-made expedition vehicle built on a Fuso 4×4 frame. I saw this parked in Ladysmith and had to turn back for a close look. Love at first sight!May you find a portal to your dreamsWatch all you want bro…Just remember, two ears, two eyes, one beak!
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less” – Marie Curie
An Arbutus Owl. Folks make these wooden birds from scraps of wood and install them in trees along paths. The practise has gained momentum within our pandemic. The birds appear in places where real birds might stealth themselves away. I approve.
Sitting beside me on my desk is a frozen package of salmon fillets. The package has been labelled By Captain High Liner of Lunenburg Nova Scotia (Yep, on the Atlantic Coast.)
The claim is that these are “Wild caught in the North Pacific Ocean.” On the back of the package it is marked as “Product Of China.” No, it is nothing new but it still pisses me off immensely. I repeat my rant about the chicken farmer who goes to town to buy eggs.
I live, work, play and travel on the Pacific Ocean. I am almost as much a part of this body of water as this alleged fish. Lunenburg China? Where dat? Hell, the two oceans don’t even smell the same. And I know that China does not have a salmon fishery. I have been told that these fish were caught by Alaskan or Canadian boats, sent to China for processing and packaging, then returned to us marked up accordingly. We wonder what is wrong with our economy! When we go to Canadian Tire, or Walmart or any other box store it is tough to find products not made in China, including Covid face masks! Snot funny! China is not coming, it’s here!
Well, I edited out the rest of this rant. I’ll admit I should have first read the packaging on those pieces of tasteless pink protein. But geez Louise, can’t we even trust Captain Highliner any more?
Yes Really!
Yesterday I was placidly sitting on the couch when hit with a sudden muscle spasm in my neck. It was the sort of pain that causes you to squeal out loud without even knowing that you are. It was agonizing. I was writhing about like Quasimodo when a loud beeping began. Struth! The whole house was filled with a skull-shattering omnidirectional (My illiterate spellchecker didn’t like that one!) regular piercing burst of violent noise. Hobbling quickly with one contorted arm and curved neck I fetched the kitchen stool and began ripping smoke detectors from the ceiling. Reaching over my head was excruciating. Old Jack was desperate to escape the house and the metal-jacketed sound and my frantic efforts. The alarm continued, despite unplugging the devices and then removing their backup batteries. SkreeeeeP SkreeeeeP at seven million decibels. “Oh golly” I shouted in mounting frustration. (Yeah right) Then the phone rang; of course. This is just a bad dream I thought. But it wasn’t. I spat out the teeth shattered by the ultrasonic assault.
The culprit turned out to be a Co2 detector I had installed a few years ago, wondering at the time how we had ever dared sleep without one. It had been long forgotten as it sat there lurking like a terrorist device behind a piece of furniture waiting for the perfect moment to wreak havoc. My ginky neck is still with me, the instrument of pervasive sound is in the garage. Wanna buy a Co2 detector? It works really well!
Stragglers. At the end of January, the last few Coho spawners struggle in the stream at the end of their incredible journeys. It has been a spectacular season for them and an uplifting affirmation that nature works if given a chance.So many Coho Salmon have spawned that latecomers have dug out earlier-laid eggs in order to deposit their own. I t seems sad but these will not go to waste and will sustain other creatures.The amazing dipper bird. These little guys bob along in fast-flowing streams finding morsels to eat. They spend as much time underwater as above and often leave one wondering at what they actually saw. That these frail creatures can hold themselves against the rush of water is wonderful.Jack on High. On good days he’s still able to clamber about a bit and go survey his kingdom. I savour every moment with him.Bobby McGee’s house. Notice the recurring theme of travelling and looking into the distance?
Pandemic
What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath — the most sacred of times? Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling. Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different than it is. Sing. Pray. Touch only those to whom you commit your life. Center down.
And when your body has become still, reach out with your heart. Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful. (You could hardly deny it now.) Know that our lives are in one another’s hands. (Surely, that has come clear.) Do not reach out your hands. Reach out your heart. Reach out your words. Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move, invisibly, where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love — for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live.
From Lynn Ungar’s first book of poetry, Blessing the Bread