What timing!

Must admit, I was thrilled to discover, just yesterday, that my little batch of autumn crocuses came up again. For a while, the patch of ground they usually inhabit looked sadly vacant. I was ready to blame the squirrels who've been known to dig up many of the bulbs I keep pushing into the soil every autumn. 

I'll admit, these little flowers were 'stolen'--or perhaps, more correctly 'rescued' from the yard of a house that was about to be torn down (and don't get me going on that, way too many perfectly good houses around here keep getting taken down).

This morning saw autumn become official, earlier than when I got up, to be sure, out here in the Pacific Time Zone. 

One thing I didn't get around to doing (but maybe there's still time) was change the filter on our Brita dispenser, something I usually do every equinox or solstice. I rely on the sun to give me these occasional reminders, and generally keep to the schedule. 

I'm looking forward to having those delicate little pink flowers open up, yet another marker of the season. 

So much for clean energy

It's over a week since I've been home from a trip to Victoria. My reason for being there was the launch of a new anthology that contains a bit of my work. 

While a friend and I were leaving, taking the bus out to Swartz Bay to get the ferry home, we passed a group of people outside a building where the government was holding a meeting. Many of them carried signs, some of them even had 'Site C' on their banners. 

Their goal appeared to be reminding those inside of their public commitments to care for the environment. Yet sadly, we know that pretty much ALL the power generated by the mega-dam will go to Northeastern BC to power fracking operations. 

Frack. A word that I still believe will, in the future, replace our current F-word as an ugly expletive, as it won't be long until people understand how dangerous fracking is, and how it has the potential to despoil our precious groundwater, a resource (unlike petroleum) we cannot survive without. 

S L O W leak

The street in front of our house has had a slow but steady stream of water trickling down to the nearby sewer for months. The photo above is from March when the problem was reported to the city and they drilled a hole (before that, it had been seeping out of a crack in the asphalt) so they could test the water as they tried to determine the source. 

After a few reports were registered, a man from the water department came out, assured us that it was NOT the beginning of a sinkhole (which some of us in the neighbourhood had feared), but then, aside from placing an orange cone on the curb, pretty much nothing happened. 

Last week they came out again and finally deemed it worthy of further inspection. This had a lot to do with the fact it hasn't rained in over a month, but the water on the road hadn't abated. In other words, it wasn't some kind of drainage problem which they'd been offering previously as an explanation.

In truth, what they discovered today gave us all a few exciting moments -- it looked a lot like water I'd seen at Yellowstone, though fortunately, this water wasn't hot and steamy. 

The excavation took a while, but when they got down far enough below the roadway, they discovered that one of the city pipes was leaking and they replaced the corroded 'saddle' that was allowing water to constantly seep out. 

Five months of wasted water, and this in the midst of drought conditions. Less than remarkable, but at least it's now repaired. And not too surprisingly, we've discovered the water pressure here in our house has improved. So, better than any sinkhole would have been -- a story with a nicely happy ending. 

Days that will likely be cause for regret

And now, beyond disappointment. 

This has been a terrible week -- globally and even locally. 

On the world stage we are all aware of Putin's invasion of the Ukraine -- ironically, bare hours after Pink Shirt Day, the date we observe towards stopping bullies. If there's ever been a bully, the president of Russia has certainly shown the world how a bully behaves. 

I'm not a person who's big into any kind of formal praying, but I'm digging deep and doing my best to focus energies towards this horrid conflict ending, and without further losses. Dreaming, I suppose, but that's my small prayer of sorts. 

Yet Putin isn't the only bully who's asserted himself this week. We who live in the southern reaches of Surrey have had one of our most fragile environmental regions put on the chopping block with approval for commercial development being granted by the Metro Vancouver Board. 

Their decision was somewhat astonishing in light of their self-determined plans for the region (currently the vision for 2040, with a revised version for 2050 coming soon). If you click on either of those 'vision' links, especially the jazzed-up video with 2050 'plans' you'll see that nearly every goal they highlight there has been violated by passing the 'South Campbell Heights' (Surrey's gentrified name that hides the old 'Hazelmere Valley' name) proposal. 

Countdown...

...to decision time for the future of the Hazelmere Valley, an area the City of Surrey has casually renamed South Campbell Heights. 

Here I'd thought renaming was exclusively the domain of settlers who determined that English names were better than the names given to places by the Indigenous peoples who'd lived here for centuries. 

The current renaming practice is more a matter of hiding what's actually at stake -- in this case, a small forest, some farmland, a river, and an aquifer. 

If you haven't already seen it, here's a video that offers a few reasons for protecting the area, reasons that are only becoming more critical by the day as we move inexorably toward climate disaster.

Cheery thoughts for a Monday, eh. Friday morning will be the time of reckoning, when Metro Vancouver Regional Board determines whether they will move the Urban Containment Boundary, a protective element that is part of their Metro 2040 vision for the region. 

Here's hoping that sanity (and thoughts for the future) prevail. 

Happy 50th!

 
What an amazing anniversary! I suspect when Gaylord Nelson 'invented' Earth Day, he had very little notion of just how long the idea would endure.

I'll admit, I didn't do a lot to celebrate today, as Nature looked after watering the garden. And with physical distancing, there wasn't much point in really going anywhere...

One thing I did do was attend a virtual book launch -- for an anthology that, if the poems I heard today were any indication, is bound to be amazing. It's the second in a trilogy of books edited by Yvonne Blomer, past Poet Laureate of Victoria and a fine poet herself.

The first volume, Refugium, put its focus on the Pacific. This one Sweet Water, contains poems for the watersheds. The third will celebrate the Atlantic Ocean.

And of course, while I watched the video presentation, what did I have by my side but my lovely heron-decorated bottle of -- what else -- pure, refreshing water.

Cheers to Earth Day and to poetry!

Water, precious water

Somehow I don't think that it was planned, but it feels right to have World Rivers Day in the midst of this week of Climate Change Action.

Today's photo isn't, I suppose, actually a river, but a tributary to one, so I hope it counts. It's called Early Winters Creek, a name I quite love -- not named after any person, but after the climate of the region. And it feeds into the Methow River, a site that features in my previous post.

I like to think of rivers and streams as the arteries and capillaries of the Earth. The life force flowing onward, always to the sea.

Later tonight will be the Autumn Equinox. Here in the Pacific Zone, it arrives just after midnight. Maybe it will reveal itself in some special dream.

In case you like the thought of listening to a river today, here's a little video featuring the sound of rushing water. The camera work is pretty erratic, but in this case, it's the sound that matters. Enjoy.

Practising for Life on Mars

That's pretty much what it's looked like. Smoke from all the wildfires, to the South and North and West have managed to fill the skies with a fog-like blanket. Only it's not the benign mist fog usually carries. This is smelly -- I guess, the smell of carbon.

The photo looks a lot like a harvest moon. Only it isn't the moon. It's the afternoon sun. The light it cast was eerie enough that even the birds went into hiding. The last time I saw that happen was almost exactly a year ago, during last August's solar eclipse.

Maybe the reason I'm thinking this orangey light seems like Mars is that it was only a couple of weeks ago I again saw the Matt Damon movie, The Martian.

Rain -- or at least the possibility of precipitation -- has been hinted at for this coming weekend. Considering we've barely had a drop since June, it would be a welcome relief.

And when there's enough of it, it will (we all hope) clear the air and douse the fires that are burning up our province and so much of the coast.

Rain. Even on Mars, they're thinking they've found water. It's time we get some here again.

Forest fire skies

Today's skies were smoky, giving the day a feeling I heard called everything from eerie to surreal. I thought about getting out the glasses I used for watching the eclipse, as I thought I might be able to look at the sun. Even the light was similar to the partial darkness we had during the eclipse. Hidden behind so much haze, the sun seemed more like the glow you might see in an old-fashioned light bulb getting ready to burn out, glowing a tired-out-looking orange.

The fiery-looking picture above isn't what you might expect at first glance. It was just one of those lucky shots, a phenomenon I spotted the other morning. Yes, morning.

The sun was streaming through a window and cutting through the petal of a nasturtium in a tiny vase. Thankfully, no fire here. Just the power of the sun, compromised today by smoke blowing northward from the blazes raging through Oregon and Washington.

For a part of the world reputed to be rainy, the past few months have seen drought conditions, with watering restrictions in effect.

And no, Mr Trump, there's no such thing as climate change, is there... I hope you've been able to tell that to the people in Texas.

Yet another pipeline

Only I'm not about to protest this particular pipeline, as its purpose is innocent. It's not for transporting oil or the dreaded bitumen. Instead it's to transport water.

The city has determined that some of the pipes in our neighbourhood are aging and in need of being replaced. So that's what they're doing -- digging a ditch and taking out the old ones, replacing them with new ones. The project goes all the way up our street and around the corner for now.

Water. Without it, we wouldn't be here at all.

Canada Dry

And I don't mean the ginger ale.

When people learn where I live (not far from Vancouver), they often remark on the weather, and ask how I can bear all the rainfall.

But this year has been different. It seems as though it's hardly rained since April.

We've been visiting a friend on nearby Salt Spring Island where water supply in the summertime is often precarious.

As with the Lower Mainland, it's dry, dry, dry here. I can only hope this poor parched azalea (or is it a rhododendron?) will recover once the drought comes to end.

They keep predicting rain, but it hasn't been panning out. The skies will darken, and then the clouds will pass.

Hmm. Can you say 'climate change'?

Melting points

In Fahrenheit, the melting point of ice is apparently 33 degrees (or, for those who are pickier, 32.1, and even that depends on your elevation above sea level). To make it simple, you can think about ice's melting point as just above the freezing point of water.

Apparently, the melting point for me is just about the same number -- 33, but in Celsius. This weekend, that's what it got up to, and not just on our thermometer. And no, I didn't melt, but taking a walk down the sun-filled streets, I felt as if I might!

This is hotter than it usually gets around here, but at least our house, tucked in behind our big trees, stays a few degrees cooler. 

If it's hot where you are, it might help to gaze at my artist-friend Marilyn's fountain in the photo above. Take a break and as they say, Chill...

A somewhat raggedy year end

So, what kind of year was 2012 for you? Google’s doodle for today provides a starting point for clicking on all kinds of events from the year. Without Google, who would have known that June 6^th was the 79^th anniversary of the first drive-in movie? They’ve even given us a review of theyear, complete with a spot for adding your resolution for 2013.

For us here at the home of the big limb, it was the Year of the Houseguest. We had people staying with us nearly every month this year. From Alberta, Ontario, even Australia. Luckily, our little house is good at expanding to meet whatever needs we might have.

Work-wise, almost enough progress was made. Guest spots at the Inaugural Cascadia Poetry Festival and at City Council in Surrey were some of the highlights.

Travel was focused on our part of the world, with ventures into Washington State and our own Gulf Islands. A personal highlight (and the most hopeful story of the year) was getting to see the progress made at the Elwha Dam site in Washington State. Imagine, un-building a dam to reinstate habitat for salmon!

So, why the photo of the raggedy Canadian flag?

On too many fronts it seems our country is in trouble – mainly as a result of actions taken by the increasingly frightening Harper regime, er, government.

What used to be known as the Navigable Waters Protection Act serves as just one example. Where waterways used to be protected, as of this fall, most no longer are. Even as the need grows more urgent, standards for safeguarding the environmental keep getting weaker. 

And while we get less protection for environment, we get more prisons, more prisoners, more offenses requiring minimum sentences.

And though there is apparently money for prisons, cultural and heritage institutions get cutbacks. The National Library and Archives, the CBC.

No more Gun Registry, despite recent events in the US which suggest that having such safeguards in place might be a very good idea. After all, the registry came about after our own mass shooting, the one at L’EcolePolytechnique on December 6, 1989. 

And the scariest part in all these scenarios is the fact that so much of it is being done without a shred of public debate. 

Luckily we have grassroots organizations such as Lead Now and Change.Org , Avaaz and Idle No More. Maybe through using tools such as these (and perhaps even donating to them), we can continue having some positive effects.  

So, not exactly a resolution, more of a wish. What I’d like most for 2013 would be finding some way to convince this government to remember who they are supposed to be here for – us. Because I can't imagine what shreds of sane governance might be left if we really have to wait for the next election in 2015. 

Clearly, a bright idea

No, that isn't a brain in a bottle. Just the result of some fooling around with the distortions a bottle of clean water can create.

For the most part, I’m not too keen on bottled water. The more I learn about it, the bigger a scam it seems to be. It sounds like an awful lot of it is just overpriced tap water. I think there used to be a joke about selling ice cubes to Inuit (though the joke is old enough they were probably called Eskimos). Anyway, I’ve pretty much put bottled water into that category – something most of us really don’t need.

But a news article brought my attention to an idea that's made me at least rethink some of my disdain for the bottles the water comes in – it’s an idea for using them to make a kind of skylight/solar-powered light bulb.

The idea is simple. A one-litre bottle gets filled with water, then a few teaspoons of bleach go in with it. A hole gets cut into the roof and the bottle is fitted into the hole in the roof, along with some bracing and sealant. Then, when the sun shines, the light gets diffused into and around the room. No power bill and, thanks to the bleach, there’s no accumulation of algae. So the water remains clear. The fixture is apparently good for about five years.

This is the sort of invention that excites me and makes me believe there is promise for our crazy human race. I want more of these good ideas – simple, inexpensive, non-polluting. General Electric used to have the slogan, Progress is our only product. Ha. The recycled plastic bottle as solar light fixture – that’s something I can really call progress.




 

Not a boathouse...

...but a house with a boat.

Although you can see a truck parked out back, that vehicle wasn't going anywhere. This was one of several houses near Glasgow, Montana that had been turned into islands by the cresting Milk River.

Since this shot, we've moved north into Saskatchewan. The photos may not be as dramatic, as we haven't seen houses so affected as this. Still, there appear to be many, many fields that won't be able to be planted this year. Bread at seven dollars a loaf? Could be coming, sooner than we'd like.

At least we're able to move on down the road, and don't have to think about tying a boat up to our house (or even to our RV).

To your health!

Today is World Water Day. Designated by the U.N., this is a day to consider and celebrate the miracle of something most of us take for granted, fresh drinking water.

I'm lucky enough to live in a region that boasts maybe the best tap water anywhere. It's for this reason that Vancouver encourages visitors to use tap water. Some hotels are distributing reusable water bottles so it's easy for patrons to simply refill. If you scroll down on the previous link, you'll find a number of facts about bottled water -- for example, that it takes three litres of water to produce one litre of bottled water. Like really, where's the sense in that? If you want to know more about the debate between bottled and tap water, click here.

People who live in the Surrey area have a chance to see Irina Salina's documentary on water, Flow. It'll be shown at Kwantlen's Grassroots Caf on Saturday, March 27th at 1:30 in the afternoon. This film is just part of an ongoing series of documentary films shown in White Rock's Social Justice Film Series.

Water's not for wasting

It's good to see that more people are paying attention to the way they're using water. Happily, our neighbourhood is full of more brown lawns than green ones. This time of year it's sure easy to see where the property ends.

By not watering, we all save on energy too -- because we don't have to mow anywhere near as often. Depending what kind of mower you have, that's a saving of electricity or gas or maybe just old-fashioned push power. Whatever, this seems such an easy way to conserve -- by doing nothing.

Maybe by next summer there'll be more people understanding just how beautiful brown is.