Another Surrey joke

And one that's not at all funny. 

The image is what's called 'public input' in Surrey, the city where I live (though wow, there are days when I wish I could move someplace else!). 

The City has decided to expand one of its cemeteries into a forested area where there are many trails, including the Semiahmoo Trail, one they themselves have designated as 'heritage'. In an area that's in the midst of a development explosion, cutting down trees and removing side trails is about the last thing our community needs. 

The room where last night's meeting was held was packed with people, many of us doing our best to engage with representatives from City Hall, trying to get straight answers. 

But straight answers don't seem to be what Surrey is all about anymore. One of the questions none of those reps could answer was why this meeting hadn't been advertised better. So many of us were there only because we'd heard about it from neighbours or friends. 

Those of us who were able to ask direct questions mostly received run-around replies that sounded like double-talk. In his all-too-prescient novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell called this kind of lying talk 'Newspeak'. His vision of distorted communication seems to have become the all-pervasive language here. 

As one of the comments on last night's boards suggested, the future is going to need more trees, not fewer (Surrey's canopy keeps declining every year). If you care about trees, you might want to think about adding your name to this petition. 

Gone, gone, gone

I used to live in a house on a steep hill. It was so drastic a slant, the first few days of living there, I had flashes of vertigo when I looked out the dining room window. 

The house was torn down over a year ago, but the big tree on the boulevard was still standing--until very recently. 

Even though it was old (we counted over 80 distinct rings), it was healthy. Just look at all the fresh greenery on it. 

And oh, such a coincidence, the way it came down on a weekend when it seemed the bylaw folks had the day off. Naturally, no evidence of a permit on the property...

This is what White Rock accepts as 'progress'--nothing 'pro' about it in my mind. 

Let's just hope the tree wasn't all that was supporting that steep hillside. 

Thinking about our planet on Earth Day

When founders established Earth Day back in 1970, I wonder whether they dreamed the observance would still be going in 2023. I also wonder whether they imagined that this far in the future (53 years later), we'd be no closer to protecting the health of our planet than then. 

Trees keep coming down -- here where I live, it seems faster than ever, with more of them than I can keep count of. And as we learned this week, the promise made by Justin Trudeau in 2021 to plant 2 billion trees by 2030, well, it seems to be just another of those unrealistic pronouncements he's turning out to be so good at making. 

The theme of this year's Earth Day suggests that we 'Invest in Our Planet' and sounds very good, until one stops to think who it is that currently IS investing in the planet, and who needs to START investing more in our Earth. 

I admit it, I'm still driving a gasoline-fueled car, and I've even taken a jet within the past year, so I can't claim to be innocent when it comes to contributing to climate change. I suppose all I can continue to do is bear witness to what I see and hope that those 'ethical investments' in my small investment portfolio are indeed going to some cause or start-up that might be helping to make a difference. 

Although wait -- one more suggestion that I've come across -- an idea that makes great sense and is even labour-saving: get rid of your lawn!

Urban clearcut

Surrey, the city where I live, used to be known as the 'City of Parks' but somehow that must have not fit the 'vision' of our planners. The tagline is now 'The Future Lives Here.' Whatever that's supposed to mean, I'm not sure. 

Not only does the 'Parks' designation no longer exist, it appears that our forests must also disappear. 

It's taken me a while to write any words that might address the sight that greeted me two weeks ago when I had the misfortune of needing to drive along 24th Avenue. Seeing this devastation, I'll admit, I nearly threw up. 

I suppose I should take consolation in the fact that it appears the felled trees will perhaps be taken to a mill to be turned into lumber, rather than the practice I usually see, with trees chopped into rounds, which are all but useless for much of anything. 

And yes, I keep worrying about the forested areas currently awaiting action on development of the 'South Campbell Heights' development. What exactly will it take for us to protect those trees from the fate above. Perhaps it's time again for people to show that they give a damn. 

What's up?

Or, I guess I should say -- what's still up -- at least for now?

It's great to see these trees marked off as protected (I assume that's what they meant by 'procected'), though it's been my experience that even the protective 'orange gates' aren't always enough to keep a tree from being cut down. 

Last year a tree on our street which appeared to have been granted 'orange gate' status, was taken down. One day, the gate was magically gone and a crew of guys were taking the tree (mature and healthy-looking) down, no permit visible. All that remains of it now is a poem I wrote about it. Small comfort. 

You can bet that I'll be paying close attention to the presence of the orange gates in the picture above, and hoping that for once, they'll actually do the job of protecting or even 'procecting' the grove of mature trees still standing behind the barrier. 

Up in the air

That's where we were the other, walking through the tree canopy at UBC's Greenheart TreeWalk. Even though we were high up (several storeys at many points along the route), it mostly felt a bit 'swingy' though the rope handles on either side were reassuring enough for even a chicken like me. 

Something I thought about while I was making the walk was the Wallenda family, who made tightrope walking a multi-generational career. I kept trying to keep my feet walking a line that followed the centre of the walkway. This only convinced me I could never have learned to walk on a rope, especially not one that didn't have a catch-net below. Yikes!

The other thing the walkway reminded me of was Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "The Swing" with its rocking rhythms, so evocative of actually being on a swing. I tried finding a video of a film based on this poem, but none of the ones on YouTube were the one I'd been looking for. A former student of mine made it some years ago. While I was lucky enough to see it once, as she visited and shared it, but sadly, I can't find it anymore. 

Nonetheless, I still like the poem, and I hope maybe you will too. Here's a link to the print version of it. Imagine yourself on a swing as you read it; you might even feel like 'pumping' your legs! And if you feel like taking a vicarious walk on the one out at UBC, click here for a video experience. 

It's hard to imagine...

 

..just how the City of Surrey managed to wangle its recently-announced designation as a "Tree City" as when I look around I see small forests and big trees coming down, down, down.  

One of the most reliable spokespersons for the trees -- for years now -- is a woman named Deb Jack. When she speaks, our know-it-all mayor offers his usual lip service and then votes in a way that shows he's yet again ignoring the things she says.  

The photo above shows one of a batch of trees that bordered the edge of a property where a little old house was torn down, no doubt to be replaced by a giganto, absurdly big one. 

I'd have thought that trees that close to the property line would not have had to be chopped, as there are some limits (too small, but they're officially there) as to how much clearance there needs to be between the building and the line. Besides, the next door 'neighbour' is an elementary school, so the 'natural fence' provided by trees would have meant shade, privacy, and a cushion from the noisy play outside of a school.

The "Tree City" designation requires a city to show a plan for evaluating specific trees, for having a policy that requires replacement of trees that have been removed -- and yes, Surrey has these, but they're plans as thin as the paper they're written on. They're often ignored, and as for replacements -- huh? How does a 3-foot cedar shrubbery replace a tree that's over 50 years old. 

I'm not the only one who feels our Council's approval of trees falling everywhere is unacceptable, but with the current 'representatives' sitting, neither we nor the trees seem to stand a chance. 

Surrey: good for making promises as hollow as a tree gone rotten with disease.

Not quite right

The number that is. 

It's been announced that the TransMountain Pipeline extension will require the removal of 1308 trees from several spots in the city of Burnaby. 

Although I tried finding a local address that matched that number, 1310 was the closest I could find. Considering that the 1308 applies only to the biggest trees in this cull, the slightly higher number seems close enough. 

The citizens of Burnaby elected people they believed would protect the environment to serve on their City Council. Those councillors in turn enacted bylaws that were meant to protect their city's trees. 

So I'm a bit dumbfounded at the fact that the courts -- established, I'd always thought, to protect laws (and even bylaws) decreed that Burnaby's bylaws could be so blatantly put aside. 

If you, like me, find this outcome to be more than 'not quite right' please write to Justin Trudeau -- quick, while the trees are still standing. There's a form on the 1308 Trees website which makes it very easy to do exactly that. 

Lazy days of turning pages into new worlds

Summer days can be an excuse to be lazy (though I'll admit, I can probably find an excuse to be lazy during any season). 

One of my happiest ways to be lazy is to hide myself away in the pages of a book. And this summer has brought me some fine hiding spots. 

I suppose the string of great reads started some weeks back, with Marion Toews' powerful novel, Women Talking. It's not a happy book, but the facts behind it were important to reveal. From there, quite by accident, another library book came my way and, oddly enough, it seemed to link up to the Toews' book, even echoing small details. That one, The Grace Year, though classified as YA didn't really seem to be very YA -- just a terrific and memorable book. 

Without really meaning to, I moved into books about trees. The atmosphere for reading was probably enhanced by the fact that our house is surrounded by a miniature forest. I keep meaning to post something on Goodreads about these (more of that laziness keeps winning out), but they are The Overstory and Greenwood. 

The Overstory by Richard Powers won the Pulitzer Prize, so I'm not the only person who wants to sing its praises. It's broken into two main parts -- the first introduces readers to the cast of characters, the rest unfolds all that happens to (and with) all of them. It's very much related to The Hidden Life of Trees, but the humans and their complicated interactions make the science so much more real. 

Likewise, Michael Christie expresses a similar deep understanding of the nature of trees in his novel, Greenwood. It's a sprawling book, spanning the breadth of our continent, time-travelling to the past and into the future. There were times I wasn't quite sure who was who, but it gradually unfolded, like leaves on the page. 

And now, I'm doing another kind of time-travel, as I've just started David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue, a trip into the Sixties and its music. No comments on that one yet, as I've only just started it, though I suspect I'll enjoy it, as I've read and liked all of his other ones. 

I've got a nifty outdoor living space, with a comfy old couch, a great place to curl up with a book. 

I hope your summer reading has been as pleasurable as mine. And remember, I love hearing recommendations. 

Magic in the forest

Even though Solstice has come and been, it hasn't been easy to convince myself that it's summer. It might be officially so, but the weather hasn't agreed. It's been cool temps, with the occasional light rain spitting just enough to dampen spirits.

Although I've put in some hours on a contract project, made a few jars of jam, and kept up with the usual domestic chores, with the weather so cool, I've mostly just wanted to curl up with a comforter, quietly turning pages, reading. And while I've managed plenty of that, yesterday brought a different kind of interlude.

A friend had done some repair work on an old violin we've had poking around here, and when he brought it over, he also brought his own. Not only did he bring it, he played an entire concert for us --

outdoors, of course, complete with the requisite social distancing.

It was pretty magical looking into the trees of our mini-forest while the music drifted over us. And maybe doubly magical for me, as the book I've been immersed in, Greenwood by Michael Christie is permeated with such a deep understanding of the forest and the interrelatedness of the trees that abide in it. It feels as though I've been living and breathing trees all week. Not a bad feeling at all, especially when accompanied by a private concert.

And now, I am hearing that there are violin concerts across the US, commemorating yet another man beaten to death by police. Devastating.

First day of winter

Last night was the evening the Earth reached that point in the sky where the season officially changed. Winter Solstice, the day the light starts coming back. Even though it's only about four minutes more every day, I'm sure that early in the new year we'll be noticing the change. 

To observe the change of season, and to honour our brother Tom, we hosted a gathering of close friends. Everyone brought delicious treats, along with plenty of great stories for sharing. A highlight was the sharing of music -- so many talented friends in our midst. Chris Birkett's song, "Turning Round the Sun" may have been the most appropriate for the occasion.

But beyond seeing the change of season, our view out the window has also changed. The big broken tree out back came down, thanks to the skill of our neighbour, Paul.

Change everywhere around us, and doing our best to go along with it all.

As my motto through life seems to be, Onward.

This is tree protection?

Once again this morning, I was assaulted by the angry whine of chainsaws. More trees going down in the neighbourhood. Primarily to make way for bigger and pricier houses, certainly not doing anything towards sustaining our urban forest, as our city's pretty much feeble tree bylaws claim to do.

The rule suggests that only those trees that are growing on the spot where actual building is to occur may be removed. So, I wonder, are they really going to build the new homes on the lot above right down to the curb of the road?

The chainsaws are a miserable sound to have to listen to, more so because I know what they are doing.

Even worse though is the dreadfully woebegone mess they leave behind. So much for supposedly growing new trees as part of our efforts against climate disaster, especially now that the US has given official notice that it is dropping out of the Paris Accord, the agreement which was supposed to make a difference for humanity. But then, maybe the coming asteroid will look after everything for all of us. Cheery thought, eh.

Ar-beauty by the sea

We have a very comfortable home, nestled in the midst of a mini-forest it seems. So I wonder sometimes, why is it we go away to take a holiday.

A water view is probably the only element we don't have at home, so maybe getting to see (and smell!) the ocean is part of why we travel.

The arbutus above (okay, madrona if you live in the US), leaning out over the sea, was a bit of a bonus we encountered on our way home.

The trip back was lengthy (eleven hours to go not a lot more than 100 km as the crow flies), as it involves taking ferries, and not all of them offer the luxury of making reservations in advance.

By the time we got to the last ferry (where we did have a reservation, but for a boat leaving in two hours), we took a break and found a walking trail that led us along the shore.

Tired though we were, the walk (and the trees) helped revive us for the last leg of the journey. In fact, this tree in particular, leaning out and reaching, seemed to offer a kind of comfort -- encouragement that we were getting nearer to our destination.

And today, though I don't have ocean or arbutus just outside, I'm happy to be home. Almost September, when surely it'll be time to go on to bigger things.

I is for...

...irreplaceable. The tree that's now a stump will not be replaced while I'm on this earth. We counted 92 rings, so I'm guessing it was a century tree. And, judging from the clear surface of the stump, the tree wasn't diseased or infested with anything nasty. It appears the only blight it experienced was  the all too prevalent blight of greed, as the site where it stood (on the front of the property where it's unlikely it would have impeded construction of any new structures) is slated for development.

I is also for ironic, as the property long served as the home of the Birthplace of BC Gallery, an institution whose owner was instrumental in preserving the heritage of the town of Fort Langley.

There was further irony involved, as the group of us who discovered this (in Fort Langley to participate in a poetry reading at the Fort Gallery) had all been participants in the Han Shan Poetry Project, an arts celebration that managed to bring about the preservation of a nearby forest grove.

It would be easy to go on with the list of "I" words the tree-cutting represents: insensitive, idiotic, insane, intolerable... But I think I'll go outside instead to glory in the presence of the trees that remain around me.

Shifting gears

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days ever. The sky was blue, the temp was warm enough for shorts and T-shirts, the breeze was gentle and sweet. Only the long shadows served to remind that the days are getting shorter.

Good thing I got out and into it, as today's skies have taken on a change.

Cloudy and grey, with occasional gusts of wind, it seems as if the weather is telling us it's time for a new month, one that's well and truly autumn.

The dry bits of keys from the cedar trees have even started to fall, the equivalent here, I suppose, of leaves to be raked. For now, they can stay a while, golden in the yard.

Getting set for this year's equinox

Seeing the moon half full (I'd never think of it as half-empty) the other night reminded me it's just about time for this autumn's equinox, the date when both sides of our twenty-four hours are equal.

I'd somehow thought it would be September 21st, but no -- it's the 22nd, and apparently nearly always is. Readers of this blog will know that I nearly always observe the solstices and equinoxes, with small, personal rituals. Mine aren't necessarily the usual ones people follow; most of mine have to do with various sorts of maintenance.

One that goes along with the autumn one is the pruning of the hibiscus trees which have grown too big to come back into the house, where they'll be safe from the weather over the winter. That pile of greenery above is from just one of them, and now that it's inside I can see that I still need to do some more trimming.

We also had the arborist come in to prune some of our big trees -- the spruce and the cedars out front, the ones that help us pretend we live in a little forest.

Weirdly, I suppose, the equinoxes (and solstices) are also when I change the filters on our water dispenser. Reminders from the sun seem less disciplinarian than other kinds might feel.

And maybe the strangest one of all is the fact that even I had a 'pruning' of sorts with a comfy new haircut that feels fresh and ready for a season of new beginnings.

So, maybe a little bit early, but happy autumn. May it bring a harvest of happy things.

Hard to balance

It's a balancing act. Life, that is. Still, it bothers me that so many aspects of life can feel so out of balance.

While it shouldn't have come as a surprise, last week's tree-cutting in White Rock, came as a shock to many. Apparently, it had been part of the ever-shifting Official Community Plan, a document that too often has seemed to have been amended behind closed doors. This time, there was some sense to the act, as it was meant primarily to address the unsafe interlock-block sidewalk that had been shifting and rising over the years. Nonetheless, seeing stumps the breadth of these takes my breath away. I know, silly tree-hugger me. And if it weren't that the city has already cleared so many other tracts of trees, it might not seem as harsh as it does. Somehow, replacing a tree with a high-rise isn't an equation that seems very balanced to me.

But trees aren't the only out-of-balance item of late. Sunday's Academy Awards were certainly another indication of that. Among comments made by Frances McDormand (brave soul that she is) was the observation that, of Oscars presented, 33 went to men while only 6 went to women. That stat becomes even grimmer when you remove the two that could only be awarded to women (Best Actress and Supporting Role) and the two given only to men (Best Actor and Supporting Role). Then the imbalance becomes even clearer: 4 to 31.

And no, I'm not going to go into detail about the ongoing matter of wage inequity or lack of representation in board rooms (the glaring exception here is the status of volunteer-based organizations -- if there's no pay, women are given the jobs).

Today, International Women's Day, is a day for awareness, yes. But I wonder, just how many years is it going to take for equality to be a fact, and not a dream.

Breaking the silence, breaking the cold

These past two weeks have been silent, I know.

Silent, blog-wise, but not silent here. The sounds in our home have been anything but pleasant: sneezing, nose-blowing, cough cough cough coughing. But today, that is finally changing, thanks to what I will have to call My Healing Tree.

Long ago, at a point when I was filled with a grief so harsh I felt completely lost, I took comfort in the arms of one of the cedars in our yard. Weaving my way through the fronds, almost to the centre -- the trunk -- of the tree, I pretty much collapsed into the branches. Without complaint, those branches cradled me, supporting me firmly enough that they kept me from falling to the ground. They held me and kept me safe while I wept myself dry, a turning point in healing from the sadness I'd been overfilled with.

And last night, this same tree offered help again.

Blustery. A Winnie-the-Pooh word for the sort of night it was. But when I woke in the night, I felt that I was being called. Opening the front door, the branches of the cedar seemed to be reaching out to me. This time the branches were whipping in frenetic bursts of wind, but it was a wind that was filling me with sharply scented air, offering what felt like a cleansing for my lungs.

I can only trust that the neighbours weren't watching as I stood outside on the deck, taking in huge gulps of air that seemed to be pulling phlegm and spew from me. I cast it out in spasms of coughing, projectile sputum hurtled into darkness. How long this went on, I'm not even sure.

But finally, once back inside, I managed to sleep. A deep sleep, one that was filled with dreams of summertime, swimming and light. And somehow buried in those dreams, I was handed a vial containing a precious essence. It was small, and in a container that reminded me of the slim darkened glass ampoules of royal jelly I used to buy from the Chinese store.

But this one, singular, held what I was told I needed: cedar oil.

So today I selected tips from the tree, the greenest and freshest ones. Snipped them into a pot and brewed a tea. Tenting myself over the pot, I breathed in the foresty steam, held it deep and long. Then took the smallest cup of it, sipping and taking in its vapours until it was gone.

Almost immediately, I could feel the clearing in my chest. What I had pictured as white fungus (like the white mould that might grow on the soil of a fouled houseplant) inside of me was now gone.

While this sounds as though I must still be well in the grip of fever dreams, I can only say that an Internet search for cedar oil has only suggested caution -- not to drink very much of it, so I am paying attention and doing that. But I also see that indeed cedar oil has, among a number of its other uses, the clearing of fungus.

So maybe the crossover between dream world and reality isn't as great as we may sometimes think, especially when there's a healing tree that serves as a messenger between those two worlds.

La la la FairyLand

With guests visiting on the weekend, I took a turn at playing tour guide. One of the places we visited was nearby Redwood Park. Not only is it filled with many magnificent trees, it contains some important elements of Surrey's history.

A more recent addition to the park is one visitors often come upon by surprise. I knew the fairies often paid their respects, but I was surprised at how their little village has grown.

Considering how much nasty business has gone down during the past week (and especially on the weekend), it felt safe and idyllic in the forest with its fairy town.

Now, if only the rest of the world could be this calm and peaceful.

Disappearing tall trees

It's not just me who thinks this is the case. Even the Vancouver Sun has noticed. Their article about Surrey's disappearing canopy actually made the front page.

It's just about impossible to drive anywhere in the city without seeing clear-cutting in action.

Although there's a bylaw intended to protect trees, it doesn't seem to be doing much to protect many of the remaining forested tracts. Saddest of all, when these big trees fall, most of the time they aren't even culled as possible timber to be processed.

The city likes to say 'the future lives here'... If all this destruction if an indication of what the future is going to look like, I don't think it bodes very well.