New Year Archives - bc-bog-trotter.com

Seed Not Included

The favourite. Despite baskets full of squeaky toy’s, this one is Libby dog’s prefered unit. No head, no squeaker, plenty dirty. Love requires no explanation.

Feeling hugely benevolent, I bought a sack of bird seed that was on sale. Mix with hot water, let sit until mushy, then add a little brown sugar, it’s a breakfast of champions. Twenty bucks will keep a person in breakfasts for well over a month. And it’s good for you.

Anyone seen the dog? It’s winter. Bugger off, leave me alone!

Seriously, seeing wee dickie birds coming by the window brings a little cheer to anyone. “Look at the pecker on that one!” There is a decrepit old feeder which I cleaned up a bit and now that birds are coming to my window, they will get a brand new shiney restaurant. Joy to the world! The on-line comfirmation of the order clearly stated “Seed not included.”

Really? Would some folks expect it. “Product not as illustrated.” Perhaps someone would impose a trade tariff or would it be a contravention of some obscure agricultural edict? Then there’s the “Free Willy” bunch who would advocate that feeding wild birds ain’t natural. There is nothing you can do without pissing someone off, especially the self-appointed experts. There is no bottom to politics and in the weeks ahead we will see some new lows. “Seed not included,” perhaps that’d make an interesting bumper sticker.

Bob! He loves swimming, cold and wet be damned. Go Bob!

And so it became Christmas Day. The temperature is just a few degrees above freezing. Rain bucketed down. When I was a scuba diver there was a joke about the rain being too heavy to go diving. It is one of those days. Huge gusts of wind randomly blast the deluge almost horizontally for a few moments. The wet splatters on the windows. Oh lord! I’m so glad it is not snow. Homeless folk huddled in doorways and under bushes and I remember a time when that was me. This wet winter weather is as deadly as the minus forty degree days and nights I knew. It holds a mortal threat which is slower and more painful. Everyone is hunkered down as these winter systems march in off the North Pacific; the next week’s forecast is grim. I sit at my desk and watch as herds of white ponies gallop and turn on the black water of the harbour. Some crash on the reef across the bay. The dogs sleep.

The lowly kale. A food staple for man and beast through the ages. The center part will make soup before next frost.

A southbound flock. I believe they may have been discussing what to do to that solar panel.

The shiny new bird feeder has arrived. It is an instant hit. Tiny birds fly through the rain. If I scaled it up, and it were one of us swooping around out there, each raindrop would be a bucket of ice-cold water. How do those fragile wee creatures survive? The miracles we look at and just don’t see!

I am malingering. This blog is now looking into the mouth of the New Year. The weather is dull, dull, dull and so am I. I have hardly been out and about and there is not enough light to photograph much of anything. I went to the local liquor emporium and bought myself an expensive treat; the birds can’t have all the joys. I once was given a bottle of Irish whiskey called “Teacher’s Tears.” It was nectar. So I went looking. I ended up buying the least expensive bottle of “Writer’s Tears.” It surewasn’t cheap, but worth every drop. The problem is that it is 40% alcohol and is certainly a jug of whammy. Sleep comes easily after a few sips of this brew. Bloody lovely so!

The former MLA’s office is now a massage parlour. Draw your own metaphors.

After a soothing massage you may as well go across the street to the pub. It’s warm and dry with good food and beer.

And so the New Year begins. No resolutions. Buckle in, I think it’s going to be a wild ride.

The bleary old fart hisself doing a little bit of bookwork in his lonely writer’s garret. No wonder he’s lonely, just look at the bugger! Photo by Jill.

“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life .” – Robin Sharma

Christmas Zoom

“Thazzit?” Hopefully the White Christmas business is over. Thank you!

Two days before Christmas I sat watching the desert fly by. Cacti, and rocks and dust fling by the handle bar of a motorcycle where a video camera was mounted. The bike is participating in a rally in The Baha desert. I love the desert by I can’t understand why anyone would want to beat themselves, and their expensive piece of machinery like that. Just because I don’t get it does not mean it’s wrong, it is just not for me. I’d love to be there in fact, right now, on a motorbike, but idling along; Fred Quixote, the happy wanderer. I’m a lover not a racer. Outside my window here, a grainy snow sifts down, ahead of a forecast for a heap more snow, then torrential rain.

And the creeks did rise. There was flooding which subsided quickly.

"Follow me. Don't worry, it's too cold for snakes." — “Follow me. Don’t worry, it’s too cold for snakes.”

Television news this week is full of reports of cancelled flights and backed-up air terminals as people complain about who is to blame. There are claims of never having known storms like this before. Really? Do you actually believe yourself? It doesn’t taking much digging into records to see that there have been plenty of winter storms, fiercer, colder, snowier than this. A funny thing happens when you plan to travel during winter, you have to deal with winter storms. Yes really! Your agenda has nothing to with what the weather gods determine. It’s called reality. Don’t take it personally. It is not the fault of any airline, or weather forecaster.

I find it ludicrous that Canadians expect that by stepping through a few doorways, and waiting a few hours, you can move from a country known to be a wintery place and always arrive, on time, in some lower latitude tropical paradise. Even telephone calls don’t always get through. Reality, and our expectations, are often very far apart. There are still seats available on the all-inclusive Christmas tour of the Ukraine. For no extra charge, you can pick out an orphaned dog or cat and bring them home with you. And then, there are the children.

Bacon ‘n eggs. The pig is committed and the chicken is involved. Actually this one’s a rooster!

Winter weather brings the elk down to low ground. They’re very tasty too but it’s wonderful to see natural wild herds on the roam.

The bulls have shed their antlers already, but they’re still noble creatures.

This old farm boy will admit to hating goats. But, I’ll also admit, they do have a certain charm.

With Christmas past, the weather has warmed, the wind and rain have hammered away much of the snow. We have survived our day of grief missing those we so loved and are now gone. The wee dogs and I will soon head out, hopefully there’ll be no more slush-hopping. With wind slamming the trees around it may be a good idea to stay out in the open. Four days later, after another “weather event” of biblical rain, the snow is completely gone except for the receding heaps we shoveled so high last week. Now our lowlands are flooded as usual after heavy rain. Folks, as usual, are looking for someone to blame. Frankly, I’ve little pity for people who are determined to live in bottomland that is repeatedly flooded. Hello? Hello?

End of the home stretch. One more spawn at Christmas time. The colour is right.

Five on the hook, waiting for a cargo just before Christmas as another storm blows in from the sou’east.

A glorious visual moment after two hours of snow-shoveling. It’s pretty up there.

Follow me. He’ll never catch us. “Gawd, I hate spiders!”

And so we have survived into a New Calendar year. Fireworks intermittently hammered under a beautiful clear sky until after 3 am. It sounded like yet another assault on Kiev. Life goes on whether we like it or not, suck it up and go do something. Wishing everyone health and happiness with good things to look forward to. May you find contentment in the moment.

The watcher. From deep inside an old alder, yet another bark owl peeks out.

Juniper. We’d be shocked to learn how old this venerable beauty is.

Trincomali Bonsai. A winter view toward Ruxton Pass during a solstice high tide.

Thet yer RV? A good mattress and two saddle bags, all you need. Due South!

“You are never too old to reinvent yourself.” Steve Harvey

2020

First Light, New Dawn.
May you live as a free as a dolphin.

A low slab of solid grey cloud extended eastward. Beyond that hard edge, well out over the strait, a band of azure sky was pierced by the jagged peaks of the mainland coastal mountains. They were coated heavily in fresh fluorescent snow which gleamed against the pure blue. It would be crackling cold up there but the sight was cheering. A thin rain continued beneath my island’s cloud. And so the day wears on toward the year’s end.

December Rose in a Ladysmith alley. Small but lovely they’re grand to see in winter.

On the other side of the house at the same time Forsythia blooms for New Years.
No complaints.

The neighbourhood book exchange. In a front yard beside a sidewalk in
Victoria. Note the rubber lizard peeking out. Lovely huh?

I use an old anecdote about climbing mountains. When you finally get to the top of one, you find the apex is not level, often cold and windy, a poor place to rest for long. But you are rewarded a grand sense of success as well as the incredible view and what you see are more mountains. One in particular calls to you and off you go, heading toward it as directly as you can, sliding down steep dangerous slopes as you realize that going down is more difficult and risky than climbing. Finally in the shadowed valley far below, you find yourself up to your arse in the middle of a bog. It is then you must remind yourself that you are actually climbing a mountain. Move forward, one step at a time.

Jack and I walk past this building nearly every day. It looks like a blacksmith shop to me. I love blacksmithing and in the cold rain I can feel the searing heat of the forge, see the bright yellow of hot steel, smell the near-molten metal and the coal smoke, taste the grit, feel the jolt of the hammer on anvil and hear the ring of steel on steel. We walk on in the winter wet.

The way we were. The tag says Canadian General Electric. I found this old radio in an apartment window by the sidewalk. Note the slides for pulling the chassis out of the cabinet. Replacing the vacuum tubes was a regular chore. There was a testing machine and racks of new tubes in nearly every hardware store. I remember listening to these kinds of radios. The cabinets are lovely and collected by some folks.

Corner unit, third floor, no balcony. Same apartment building, more of the way we were.

The man cave. Past the apartment, down the alley. Someone took grampa’s TV and now he refuses to clear out the weeds although he took out the garbage.

Light at the end of the tunnel. Walking the opposite way the path goes through a tunnel under the highway. A homeless fellow has taken up residence.

A few blocks away uptown is a remarkable contrast. An old-style butcher shop still graces the main street. There is excellent fare but I don’t understand how folks afford it. The fish prices are per 100 grams! Remember when poor people ate fish and lived by the sea?

It is another New Year’s Eve. I’m happy to put this past year behind me and look forward to a better one ahead. May we all have someone to love, grand things to do and plenty to look forward to, all the while doing no harm. Long may we climb.

The fairy grotto. Not hard to imagine little flitters in spandex!

And so the daylight is increasing. Yeah right! I’ve tuned up the exposure on this shot 1 1/2 stops.
How about walking a little old half-deaf black dog at 4pm? That dark blotch on the path between the two big trees is Jack. Guess I should get him one of those jogger’s tail lights.

Happy New Year.

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” —J.P. Morgan